Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask for unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 156, H.R. 4553; I ask that the substitute amendment, No. 4353, be considered and agreed to; the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, this is the DHS bill that would fund all the things that are in the DHS bill that the Democrats negotiated until they pulled the rug out from underneath that negotiation to politically grandstand on the Senate floor now for nearly a month.

The truth of the matter is that--I want to make the point for those who care about the way the Senate operates. First of all, we didn't have any appropriations bills the first 2 years. The majority party has now put appropriations bills on. There have been 11 out of 12.

I was told that policy debates are not to enter the discussion on appropriations bills because things like this can happen.

To my Democrat colleagues: If you have a bill that you want to defund ICE with, put it on the floor. I guarantee it will get voted down because it is an extremely unpopular position.

We are not going to let you get to that result by way of holding everyone else hostage.

If you want to support all the Agencies in this negotiated bill, you have a way to do it. But I think we really know what this is about. What this is really about is the Democrats lost an election where the issue of border enforcement and deportations were on the table, front and center in front of the voters, and the voters supported it. Recent polling still shows that.

But to satisfy their radicalized base--which are the same people, these leftist NGOs that conjure and foment discontent, blow whistles, try to create confrontations with ICE agents--won't let them do it, and they are kind of stuck.

So the only thing they have left now is the same playbook they ran a couple of months ago by shutting down the government, but this time they are shutting down DHS.

And to make that clear, Joe Biden and the Democrats let 15 million people in here illegally, tens of thousands of murderers, hundreds of thousands of violent criminals, and now that same party wants to defund the Agency that is charged with deporting these monsters.

So we have a choice. I choose to support law enforcement. I am not going to go along with the idea that we are going to give the Democrats the ability to kneecap ICE so they can get amnesty by lack of enforcement.

And with that, Mr. President, I renew my motion.

If he has already objected, the objection has been heard.

Mr. President, I object.

My colleague from Connecticut just talked about this minutes ago. Minutes ago, the very same Senator objected to Coast Guard funding. So here we are again with political gamesmanship and grandstanding for some clip to show that you actually want to fund the Coast Guard. Meanwhile, you just voted against the Coast Guard.

The Democrats do not want to fund the Coast Guard because they are so hell-bent on defunding ICE.

And the term ``out of control'' was used. Do you know what is out of control? The language being used on this floor to describe Federal law enforcement--Nazis, the Gestapo. This is very dangerous. This is very dangerous.

And I will tell you that I have great appreciation for the men and women who go into very dangerous situations to deport criminals who want to rape and murder our fellow citizens. I appreciate them.

So five reasons why I cannot go along with this scam: Laken Riley, Jocelyn Nungaray, Kayla Hamilton, Dacara Thompson, and Hallie Helgeson--all Americans--all murdered by illegal aliens released by Democrats, instead of being deported.

So what else is out of control other than the Democrats' language? These leftist activist organizations that are creating the chaos in the streets.

There are nine sanctuary jurisdictions in this country that, actually, probably are significant. In those nine sanctuary jurisdictions, there is a 590-percent increase for anti-ICE attacks.

They are creating conditions with the hope that they get some viral moment. This is dangerous. This is out of control.

One more thing that is out of control: sanctuary jurisdictions at large.

And for the friends watching at home, what is a sanctuary jurisdiction that the Democrats are so proud of? They are local jurisdictions that will not tell Federal law enforcement when an illegal alien rapist or murderer is being released from prison.

It happened--by the way, the new Virginia Governor just pledged that she won't do it.

The monster Abdul Jalloh, from Sierra Leone, with 30 priors, who stabbed to death a fellow citizen of ours--she has pledged to not let ICE know when that monster is released from prison.

That is who they are. That is what we are fighting against, and we are not going to allow them to kneecap our Federal law enforcement from getting these monsters out of our country.

They just voted against this. They just voted against the Coast Guard. They just voted against the Secret Service. They just voted against TSA.

They want to undermine law enforcement and give blanket amnesty to 15 million people here illegally. That is the truth.

And with that, Mr. President, I object.

Mr. President.

May I inquire?

I just want to point out that we heard from the Appropriations chairman that nobody has come out here and acknowledged anything that happened. Let me point out something that the Democrats have failed to acknowledge in all this. This toxic empathy that they have--that really what it means is they don't want our immigration laws enforced.

And let me be clear: We are going to do nothing--nothing--that kneecaps ICE's ability to enforce our immigration laws, because there were no Democrats out here that wept or pointed out that Jocelyn Nungaray, the 12-year-old girl, was kidnapped, raped, and murdered by two illegal aliens in 2024. There were no Democrats that expressed any compassion out here on the floor about Rachel Morin, an American mother who was ambushed, raped, and murdered by an illegal alien while she was on a hiking trial in Maryland. There was nobody out here talking about Laken Riley.

Now, what we have heard from the new Democrat Governor in Virginia is that they are going to be a sanctuary jurisdiction, and they are not going to work with ICE. They are not going to--actually, on the guy who stabbed a woman to death at a bus stop, they are not going to let ICE know when that person is released from prison or jail.

That is what this debate is about. So let me just sort of pull the veil back about what this really is. Joe Biden let 15 million people in here illegally. This question about deporting illegal immigrants was on the ballot. President Trump was not bashful about it. It was on the ballot, and the American people supported the idea that we were going to deport people--we were going to use our Federal law enforcement to deport people.

They don't like that, and so the way that they get at mass amnesty now is not passing a law, because they can't do that. It is by not enforcing our immigration laws.

So their proposals are not about reform. Their proposals are making it impossible for ICE to do their jobs, and we are not doing that. So let me just dispel you of any notion that our side is going to allow you to continue the chaos that has happened inside our country because you all let 15 million people in here illegally. It is not going to happen.

So the question I have for you, as we have this inquiry, is: It is unprecedented, the idea that we are having policy debates--policy debates--in appropriations bills.

You have done an incredible job, Leader, of saying: We are going to get back to regular order. We have done 11 out of 12 appropriations bills.

And now because the Democrats found their ``controversy of the week,'' they have moved on to other things. So I am a little surprised they are still on this. But now they want to start pulling things out of appropriation bills--pulling things out. And it is just untenable. It is untenable because--let me promise that you would never do this. If you were in charge right now, you would never allow us to isolate anything.

You didn't even have appropriations bills on the floor. Chuck Schumer never let a single appropriations bill on the floor my first 2 years here.

So now, we are actually working through the process.

So the proposals that we have heard from the Democrats, whether it is on judicial warrants or the other issues--they know exactly what that means. It means they want to limit ICE's ability to do their jobs. We are not doing that.

So you can cry about it. You can whine about it. You lost an election over it. The White House has dealt with you in good faith. You want to prolong this until you get another incident, while your activists are on the streets confronting ICE agents in sanctuary jurisdictions, hoping they get some viral moment.

We are done with that, OK? We are done with it. Your NGO networks, I know they are still active. They are still doing their thing. But the truth is, all of the incidents that you can really count on, that you can point to that any confrontation happened with ICE agents are in sanctuary jurisdictions where they don't respond to 911 calls for ICE agents, and they don't cooperate with ICE agents.

It is very easy for an ICE agent to show up at a penitentiary or a jail or prison and get somebody and deport them. What is harder to do is when they show up in a community and they have to go get somebody out of a house with more people, and they know that is exactly the dynamic.

So I guess the question is, Have you ever seen anything like this-- the lack of good faith? This is really about--and I just want to be clear. This isn't about some reform. This is their final stand in opposition to the will of the American people who voted for deportations.

So I just think that this is ridiculous--and, by the way, especially ridiculous coming from the Appropriations chairwoman, when we finally have regular order on this floor, and we finally are doing actual appropriations bills, and they want to hold it up.

So just beware that when the shoe is on the other foot, we know the tactics. We know the tactics.

Mr. President, I want to set the stage for where we are at this moment, what just happened. Republicans voted to move forward on a bipartisan appropriations bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security, which includes, among other things, ICE funding, TSA funding, FEMA funding, and the Democrats voted no.

Now, that is not all. Right about now, there is a bus leaving. There is a bus leaving the Capitol grounds and headed for an airport. Democrats are on that bus who just voted to defund the paycheck of the TSA agent making $40,000 a year, to hop on a plane, funded by your tax dollars, to go to Munich, to go to Europe, and badmouth American foreign policy. They will be sipping wine with the global elites, telling them: Don't listen to President Trump. That is not who we are.

I have got news for you: The American people have weighed in, and they did in November of 2024, and this new direction of foreign policy is the ascendant view.

But outside of the foreign policy debate, just how offensive is it that they voted to defund DHS and are going to fly transatlantic on the taxpayer dime and trash talk America.

That won't get reported probably many places. The corrupt media covers for the Democrats day in and day out around here. That is one of the things I have learned in my 3 years in the Senate. The hypocrisy is insane. That is where they are headed.

In a broader sense, where are we? For my Republican colleagues, I hope you appreciate what this is, this moment, because this isn't some isolated incident. This is a 10-year struggle for commonsense Americans who have pushed back against a radical open borders policy that has been pushed by the Democrats.

President Trump won in 2016 on a few issues, but the electrical cord that began when he came down the escalator, that continues to this day, is taking on illegal immigration and the forgotten men and women of this country whose jobs were initially displaced when the failed policies of the politicians of this town sent their jobs overseas--the towns that I grew up in--and then when they were looking for new jobs, their wages were suppressed, and their jobs went to illegal immigrants. The Democrats have never understood that. They have never understood that Americans were upset about that.

Then for the 4 years previous to this, Joe Biden's term, Joe Biden let in 15 million--million--people. One million is a lot of people. Five million is a lot of people. Fifteen million people came into this country illegally. We don't know who most of them are. We don't even know where they are. What we do know is that literally tens of thousands of them are murderers; hundreds of thousands of them are violent criminals.

The left has tried to destroy this country through this open borders policy because we are all citizens of the world. Borders are just arbitrary lines on a map. That is where the modern Democrat Party is. They don't actually believe that America, as a sovereign country, should be able to tell people who can come and who has to leave.

So that is what this whole thing is about. It isn't about Minnesota or some recent event; this is about the Democrats failing to accept the verdict from the American people--that they sent President Trump back into the Oval Office to fix mass migration, to take on mass migration with mass deportations.

Regardless of the antics that happened here today on their ``no'' vote and flying with the globalists in Europe, it will not change that agenda. It is happening whether you like it or not.

Thank God we front-loaded in the Working Families Tax Cut money for deportations and tens of billions for detention centers. Two hundred thousand Americans have applied to be ICE agents because they love this great country, and they don't want it destroyed.

This is another hissy fit along the way by the Democrats who refuse to accept the political reality that they lost on this issue. So as far as I am concerned, we can spend the next year debating this on this floor. This is a home game for Republicans. But what you are doing to the American people, what you are doing to FEMA, what you are doing to the people who rely on their communities to be rebuilt, the TSA agents that go to work every day, the Coast Guard, is shameful.

Joe Biden opened up our border. It is literally unprecedented in American history that a President would say: We are not going to enforce our immigration laws. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama deported millions of people.

This is an effort by the Democrats--this debate--to kneecap immigration enforcement, to kneecap ICE. They lost the issue on the front end of the election. Now they want to make it so hard for ICE to do their jobs that deportations come to a halt. That is the truth, and anybody in this town who tells you otherwise is just spinning.

They don't want people deported because they are importing a voter base that they think will give them power. They are not even hiding behind this anymore. They have lost the argument with American citizens, and they think that if they flood this country with illegal immigrants--and by the way, you shouldn't have to prove you are an American citizen to vote. That is their position. You shouldn't have to show photo ID, which is broadly supported even among Democrat voters. Why? Why would they do that? Even though their voters don't want that, even though their voters want photo ID to be established when you vote, why would they be opposed to that? Because they want people who shouldn't be able to vote--illegal immigrants or fraudsters--to vote for them. That is the truth.

So we have now the most secure border in the history of our country, and we are trying to execute on the immigration laws that we have on the books that have been voted for by Republicans and Democrats alike, and Presidents of both parties have enforced those laws.

This is about the 21-point plan. If you think it is such a good idea, put that 21-point plan on the floor, and let's

vote on it. They won't do it because they will lose. They know what it does. It ties up ICE's ability--which, by the way, they already have to abide by due process. There are already warrants. They know all this. They want to confuse the issue--mostly because they believe in open borders but also because this Trump derangement syndrome is really a hard thing to kick, a really difficult thing for them to kick.

We heard people being talked about here on the Senate floor. I want to mention a few names that no Democrat will ever utter: Laken Riley, Rachel Morin, Jocelyn Nungaray, Kayla Hamilton. These are American daughters, American sisters who were murdered by illegal aliens.

By the way, Laken Riley's murderer wasn't a previously convicted violent criminal. So if that is your test of who should be deported, it didn't help Laken Riley's family.

My priority--and the reason why I have been on this floor so many times about this issue--my priority is for Americans. Our immigration laws are put in place for one reason: to benefit America and Americans.

The rhetoric that has come from the left on this and my Democrat colleagues--we talk about, why was Minnesota a flashpoint? It is the sanctuary city status, the nine sanctuary jurisdictions in this country. In them, ICE agents are 590 times more likely to be assaulted. Since January of last year, there has been a 1,347-percent increase in assaults against ICE officers, a 3,200-percent increase in vehicular attacks. And don't tell me Tim Walz doesn't have something to do with that, and don't tell me that Mayor Frey doesn't have something to do with that, with the rhetoric. Even Senators on this floor, you know, called it Trump's secret police and the gestapo and Nazis. Knock it off. I hope you know better, but some people are actually listening to you. You have created conditions where confrontations are more likely.

There are deportations happening all over this country, in red States and blue States alike. You don't see what you see in sanctuary jurisdictions because they are cooperating.

Let's be clear what sanctuary status really means to the American people, OK? Local authorities will not tell ICE agents when illegal alien rapists are being let out of prison. That is what it means practically. They hate Donald Trump so much and they believe in open borders so much or they want new voters in this country for them so much, they crave for power so much that they are willing to let an illegal immigrant rapist back out on the streets.

A murderer. A burglar. Nope, we are not telling you. And oh, by the way, we are not going to send 9-1-1 to help you if you have a problem.

This is insane.

So to my Republican colleagues, let's put all of those issues in front of the American people. I am not afraid of this debate at all. Bring it on.

What is sad is that the Democrats continue to play the Ole game here. They negotiate a deal, and then they hold it up. We saw this with the longest government shutdown in American history just a couple months ago, and now here we are again with DHS funding. Meanwhile, they are sipping wine and eating caviar in Europe. I went to Munich last year.

It is also worth pointing out, by the way, that 2 years ago almost to the day, we were here. Those of us who thought that ``bipartisan immigration plan'' was terrible--and it was, which is why it fell apart; it made illegal immigration easier--we had to hold the floor all weekend long--in a bipartisan affair, by the way--to get Ukraine funding done in time for Chuck Schumer to deliver $60 billion to Ukraine at the Munich Security Conference.

What I have learned in 3 years here is that the Munich Security Conference for Democrats is like the Super Bowl. This draw to commiserate with fellow Wilsonians is a powerful drug. I don't know why in the world Democrats get to vote no on this and fly to Munich.

If the American people had any idea what went on in this town, they would be way more upset than they are right now. They expect us to come up here and to work on their behalf, for Americans, for the American people, for Laken Riley's family, for Kayla Hamilton, who was autistic, who was raped and murdered in her apartment for the $3 that she had on her so an illegal immigrant could go to Target with his buddy and spend the 3 bucks.

Why don't we hear about those stories? Because it is not convenient to the narrative.

That is what we are fighting against and who we are fighting for-- that is who I am fighting for--and if it were up to me, we would be on this floor every single day fighting for Kayla Hamilton, fighting for Laken Riley, and for the countless other daughters of this country who have been raped and murdered by illegal immigrants.

Todd Lyons, earlier today, testified--OK, just to tell you how sick this is--that in Colorado, ICE wanted to perform an operation in Colorado to deport illegal alien Tren de Aragua gang members from an apartment complex. So they tried to work with the local authorities in that sanctuary State. Guess what happened. Protesters were there, but the illegal immigrant gang members were all gone. They had been tipped off.

I actually can't believe this is happening in my country. I can't believe somebody's instinct with this crazy, suicidal empathy would be to protect an illegal immigrant gang member who could very easily and has--there are some dangerous people--murdered a family member and terrorized a community. They would rather tip them off than to have them deported. These are the facts.

So what should we do?

Here is what I think: I think it is actually an opportunity for us to strengthen our immigration laws. The Democrats want to kneecap ICE. I have submitted the Protect America Act for debate. It would do four things:

One, it would end sanctuary city status for good.

Two, it would increase penalties for illegal entry and illegal reentry. A lot of these crimes are being committed by people who have been deported and they come back. That has happened.

By the way, if you come here illegally, I think you ought to have jail time. As a former prosecutor as the attorney general of Missouri, I can tell you that people responded to incentives. They knew when we had a partnership with Federal prosecutors in St. Louis that, if they were being busted for a Federal crime, they were going to jail. If it were a State crime and if Kim Gardner--the Soros-funded prosecutor in St. Louis at the time--were handling the case, they literally would laugh in the back seat of the cop car because they knew they would be out later that day.

No more catch and release. If we are serious about it, no more catch- and-release. It is over.

Three, if you assault an ICE officer, we are increasing those penalties too. Protest all you want--for God's sake, this is America, and we have different points of view--but you don't get to interfere in the operations of Federal law enforcement. Even if you really believe you are wearing the white hat, you don't get to do that.

Fourth, as for this NGO network that has been created and that is fomenting this vitriol and the operations that are putting ICE officers and citizens at risk, they need to lose their nonprofit status.

So, if we are serious about the problem, that is what we will do. But I will tell you what we are not going to do: We are not succumbing no matter how long it takes--if it is one day. Let's just say my Democrat friends come back from Munich and they feel really good about themselves because a bunch of European elites has told them all the things they want to hear and vice versa. We are not coming back here and going to make it harder for ICE to do their jobs. We are not doing it. I will do everything in my power--and I know a lot of other folks on my side of the aisle will do it too--to prevent that from ever happening because the American people saw what a disaster it was to have Democrats in charge of this country. We had a secure border. Joe Biden literally unsecured that border on day one, and we had 15 million people come here illegally.

We are not going back. The American people saw that. They voted for President Trump. He was very clear about it. This wasn't a footnote in his campaign. This was a central theme. You may not like it, but that is what our Republic is about.

For all the talk of saving democracy and sticking up for democracy I hear from the other side, it is all nonsense.

If they actually believed that, they would respect the fact that the American people voted for this, that they voted for deportations. I know that in the ``woke'' left world, that is a dirty word. It is not where I come from, not in Missouri. People believe in common sense. They don't think you should get to break the law like that and get away with it.

So I don't know when--you know, I guess we will be back here in a week or something, but the reality is not going to change no matter how much Chuck Schumer tries to villainize ICE agents. No matter how many times I hear my colleagues from the other side try to stir up people, it will not change this very basic reality: We have front-loaded money for deportations, and those deportations will continue, and there is nothing you can do about it.

Now, if you want to make a proposal to stop that, put it on the floor. You will lose, but I want them to know and also my colleagues that I am 100-percent committed to this. It is central to the idea of being a sovereign country. No sane country in the history of the world would do this. By the way, in speaking of heading over to Europe, ask them how mass migration is working out for them. They have done it, and it isn't working.

So, if you have got any advice coming back from that side of the Atlantic, I am not really interested on this topic or on censorship. Maybe you can deliver the message that they ought to step up for their own defense of their own continent in a more meaningful way. Now, that might not make you popular over there, but that is the message that I delivered when I went over last year.

But as it relates to illegal immigration, the deportations will continue, and I hope the American people understand that the people who just voted to defund ICE are sipping champagne in Europe, bad-mouthing the United States of America's foreign policy. That is who they are. That is the reality.

This debate will continue. But as far as I am concerned, Republicans, we should be playing offense here. Let's strengthen our immigration laws. Let's treat this as seriously of a problem for our country as it really is.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations: Calendar No. 656; that the nominations be confirmed; that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order to any of the nominations; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action; and that the Senate then resume legislative session.

Mr. President, as if in executive session, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding the referral of the nomination of Kevin Lilly, of Texas, to be Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife, received in the Senate on February 11, 2026, to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, the nomination be considered jointly referred to that committee and the Committee on Environment and Public Works.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all Members of the Republican conference be authorized to sign duly enrolled bills or joint resolutions from February 12 through February 23.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the en bloc consideration of the following resolutions, which are at the desk: S. Res. 609, S. Res. 610, and S. Res. 611.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolutions be agreed to, the preambles be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, all en bloc.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H. Con. Res. 74, which was received from the House.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that with respect to H.J. Res. 142, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding the upcoming adjournment of the Senate, the President of the Senate, the President pro tempore, and the majority and minority leaders be authorized to make appointments to commissions, committees, boards, conferences, or interparliamentary conferences authorized by law, by concurrent action of the two Houses, or by order of the Senate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn to then convene for pro forma session only, with no business being conducted, on the following dates and times: Friday, February 13, at 9 a.m.; Tuesday, February 17, at 6:30 p.m.; Thursday, February 19, at 2 p.m.; further, that when the Senate adjourns on Thursday, February 19, it stand adjourned until 3 p.m. on Monday, February 23; that following the prayer and pledge, Senator Kaine be recognized to deliver Washington's Farewell Address, as provided under the previous order, and following his remarks, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each; further, notwithstanding rule XXII, that the cloture motion filed during today's session of the Senate ripen at 5:30 p.m.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. President, there is a phrase that gets tossed around a lot these days: ``suicidal empathy.'' It is a term I have used myself on more than one occasion. It means, more or less, exactly what it sounds like: Tolerance, taken to its most extreme and destructive end.

This is not the classic Republican tolerance you find in the Federalist Papers or the writings of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. It is a tolerance of anything and everything which overpowers all reason and undermines all distinctions between right and wrong, good and evil, order and anarchy.

It is an attitude summed up by the famous slogan of the French student radicals in 1968: ``It is forbidden to forbid.''

That is what the phrase ``suicidal empathy'' is meant to describe. We open our borders and import millions of unvetted refugees because we can't bear to turn a single asylum seeker away. We empty out our prisons because we just can't stomach the thought of keeping anyone behind bars.

We let violent criminals off with a slap on the wrist because we see them as victims of socioeconomic conditions beyond their control. We turn a blind eye to rioters who loot, steal, and burn their way through our city streets because a riot is just the language of the unheard.

But as I watch what is happening in the cities like Minneapolis and I listen to the pundits and politicians on the left openly cheer on the agents of chaos, I am increasingly convinced that suicidal empathy is not the right description of the disease that inflicts our body politic today. I think that phrase is actually far too generous.

These radicals on the streets of Minneapolis and their comrades in cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, and Portland are not driven by ``empathy'' in any meaningful sense of the term. These are not bleeding-heart humanitarians paralyzed by an overwhelming concern for the welfare of mankind--quite the opposite. Their sphere of moral concern is vanishingly small, and it is reserved exclusively for those who can be used as instruments for their political goals.

They don't care about what is just; they just care about what is useful. They wield the language of decency and compassion as a political weapon. If this was about empathy, they would have wept with the parents of Jocelyn Nungaray, the 12-year-old girl who was kidnapped, raped, and murdered by two illegal aliens in 2024.

If this was about compassion, they would have mourned for the five young children of Rachel Morin, an American mother who was ambushed, raped, and murdered by an illegal alien on a hiking trail in Maryland in 2023.

If this was about justice, their hearts would have broken for the family of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student in Georgia who was brutally murdered while out for a jog nearly 2 years ago this day, beaten and strangled to death by a Venezuelan illegal because she fought back when he tried to rape her.

The two illegal aliens who murdered Jocelyn had been stopped at the border, processed, and then simply released into the interior just weeks before. The illegal alien who murdered Rachel was a fugitive with a warrant out for his arrest for the murder of a different woman back home in El Salvador. He had been deported three times in that year alone, only to waltz back in across our open border.

The monster who murdered Laken had been illegally released into our country under the Biden administration's humanitarian parole program.

He had been arrested in New York for endangering a child and released; arrested again for shoplifting and released again without citation.

Time and time again, the people in power in this country were given the chance to stop them as if God Himself was begging them to do something. Time and time again, they refused. And now, another American family will have to live the rest of their lives with the pain most of us cannot even begin to comprehend.

These are stories that most of the people on my side of the aisle know; American mothers and daughters whose memories we have the duty to keep alive. But most of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle won't even say their names.

We never read their stories in glossy front page cover essays or saw their names plastered across wall-to-wall coverage by the national press. When their families were honored by President Trump in his address to Congress last year, many Democrats refused to even applaud.

If the left does acknowledge their existence at all, it is only to accuse us of weaponizing their deaths, but their deaths are not a weapon; they are a fact, a bitter and unshakable reality, a stubborn reminder of the gruesome trail of American victims that mass immigration has left in its wake, and they are not alone.

For every Laken Riley, there are thousands of Americans whose names have never been spoken, whose stories have never been told, whose loved ones have suffered in silence.

There was the 14-year-old girl in Louisiana who was brutally raped at knifepoint by an illegal alien from Honduras and the man he stabbed in the face during an armed robbery just months after being released into the country by the Biden administration in 2023.

There was the 16-year-old cheerleader in a small town in Texas who was found dead in a bathtub by her own mother that same year, stabbed to death by an illegal alien from Mexico.

There was Travis Wolf, a 12-year-old boy from my home State of Missouri who was killed in 2024 by an illegal alien from Honduras who slammed into his family's car while driving drunk.

There was Kayla Hamilton, a 20-year-old autistic woman who was tied up, raped, and murdered in her own home in Maryland in July of 2022. Her murderer, a 16-year-old known MS-13 gang member, had been processed and released into the country despite his criminal record and gang ties. After he murdered Kayla, he left her on the floor, and he went to Target with his half-brother to spend the $6 he stole from her. Then because he was a minor, the Biden HHS proceeded to place him in a group home with other children and enrolled him in a local public high school without telling the high school that he was the prime suspect in that murder case.

Where were the angry protests on the streets for American daughters like Kayla? Where were the general strikes and school walkouts and tearful TV monologues for American sons like Travis? Where were CNN and MSNBC? Where were the New York Times and the Washington Post? Where were the armies of journalists and camera crews to tell their stories, to interview their grieving parents, to regale us all with stories about their kindness and their decency and their innocence?

Where were Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries? Where were Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton? Where were the morally righteous speeches on the floors of Congress, the indignant press releases, the red carpet celebrity cameos? Where was the campaign to shut down the entire Federal Government on their behalf?

These questions answer themselves, so, you know what, spare me.

To the media, the pundits, and the talking heads, to the protesters on the streets and their political friends here in the halls of power, we know who you are. We know what you care about. It is not humanity or empathy or compassion; it is raw power. And we know what you do with that power, and we have seen what you do with that power. The empty chair at the Riley family dinner table is the cost of what we paid for your power, and it is our patriotic duty to ensure you never get close to power again.

Let me say this also to my friends and colleagues in my party: Don't give these people an inch. Don't fall for their moral blackmail. Don't let them negotiate or squirm their way into killing the President's mass deportation agenda. The American people support it. Don't let them talk you into believing that this is about justice. That is not what they care about.

Do you know what I care about? I care about Americans. I care about the people who are risking their lives in the freezing cold to enforce our laws, rather than the ones who are hell-bent on breaking it.

I care about the people who are trying to get these kinds of monsters who rape and murder our daughters out of our country, rather than the ones who want to put their bodies on the line to keep them here.

I care about the thousands of Federal agents who have been targets of malicious, coordinated, doxing campaigns that explicitly and intentionally are designed to put them and their loved ones in danger.

The ICE officer in Minnesota who opened his voicemail to hear a caller tell him:

I hope your wife dies. . . . I hope you get hit by a bus

and you're paralyzed and your wife leaves you.

The FBI agent in Minneapolis who received a voicemail promising to kill him, his wife, and his daughter, stating ``I am coming for you. . . . [Y]ou, your wife, and your dead damn effing daughter are dead,'' after his personal information was stolen from a government vehicle last month.

The numerous ICE officers whose wives have received calls telling them that their families will be killed.

The ICE agent in Los Angeles who was followed home and doxed by stalkers who live-streamed his address and urged their followers to come to his house.

The DHS families in Portland whose names, addresses, and pictures of their children have been plastered on posters all around their neighborhood by antifa activists with ``NO PEACE FOR ICE'' in all capital letters.

I care about the Federal agents in Maine, Florida, Los Angeles, Portland, and countless other places who have been surrounded, boxed in, and run over by American protesters and illegal aliens alike seeking to use their cars as deadly weapons.

The ICE officer in Chicago who was severely injured after an illegal immigrant struck and dragged him behind his car in an attempt to escape arrest last year.

The agents who were fired upon by an antifa sniper at the ICE facility in Dallas, killing multiple people in the process.

The officers who were ambushed by an antifa terror cell armed to the teeth with semiautomatic rifles, Molotov cocktails, body armor, and encrypted radios in North Texas.

The cop who was struck in the neck and critically wounded while racing to respond.

I care about the pastor and his flock in St. Paul whose church was invaded by a screaming mob during Sunday service last month because they believed one of the pastors was a field director for ICE. The mob cursed, threatened, and terrorized not just the pastor but the young children in the congregation, screaming in the faces of crying children that their parents were Nazis who were going to burn in Hell. They blocked the stairs to the childcare area so that the parents couldn't reach their kids, and as parishioners tried to flee the chaos, they followed them into the parking lot, surrounded their cars, and attempted to trap families inside.

One child told his father:

Daddy, I thought you were going to die.

When the ringleader of this invasion was arrested, Mayor Jacob Frey called for her ``to be released immediately'' and said that it was a ``gross abuse of power'' that she had ever been arrested in the first place.

These are the kinds of people who want to lecture us about morality.

There is a war on immigration enforcement right now in our country. There is a war on the rule of law itself. It is the ``mobocratic spirit'' that Lincoln spoke of in 1838.

Some of the Democratic Party politicians in this city might want to pretend that is not what is going on here, but their friends on the streets out there are very clear about what is going on here.

This war is organized. It is coordinated and actively aided and abetted by local and State authorities across this country.

Since January 2025, there has been a 1,347-percent increase in assaults on ICE officers, a 3,200-percent increase in vehicular attacks, and an 8,000-percent increase in death threats against them and their families.

This is not the time to play defense or seek some kind of negotiated surrender; it is time to go on offense.

We have two goals: Deliver mass deportations and crush the violent, lawless campaign of leftwing sabotage that stands in our way.

That is why I am introducing the Protect America Act. This bill does four things:

First, it doubles the criminal penalty for assaulting Federal law enforcement, and for the first time, it makes it a Federal crime to ``inhibit, stymie, hamper, or interfere with'' Federal law enforcement operations. That means the people blowing whistles and erecting roadblocks on streets in Minneapolis, not just the ones who physically attack ICE and Border Patrol.

Second, it dismantles the corrupt NGOs that are funding and coordinating these attacks, enabling us to revoke the nonprofit status of organizations which incite or fund domestic violence against law enforcement.

Third, it turns illegal entry into a felony with mandatory detention--no more catch-and-release--and it establishes a 10-year mandatory minimum prison sentence for those who try to illegally reenter this country after they have been deported.

Finally, it ends sanctuary cities. Under this legislation, all Federal funds are conditioned upon full cooperation with ICE. If a city refuses to enforce America's laws, it has no right to another dime of American money.

It goes further too. It mandates full information sharing about illegal aliens in our prisons so we can deport them immediately upon release.

There are some States right now that refuse to provide this information--criminals being released in our streets as a political statement so they can't be deported.

It creates a private right of action so that Americans who are harmed by a removable alien in a sanctuary city can sue for damages.

It bans student visas in sanctuary jurisdictions. You do not get to continue profiting off of importing foreign students if you won't even deport the dangerous illegal aliens on your streets.

We are at a crossroads. We can surrender our country to mass migration or we can steel our spines, plant our feet, and fight to defend our home. I have made my choice. I urge my colleagues to make theirs.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 596, which is at the desk.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to; that the preamble be agreed to; and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 10 a.m. on Thursday, February 5; that following the prayer and the pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, morning business be closed, and the Senate proceed to executive session to resume consideration of Executive Calendar No. 612, Brian Lea, postcloture.