Floor Statements

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, 12,080, it is not just a random number; it is the highest number of crossings ever in a single day across our southwest border. That is the record, 12,080. We have never had a day more than 12,080 crossing our southwest border.

You might ask: What day did we set the record for the most number of crossings across our southern border? And my answer would be yesterday. Yesterday was the highest number of illegal crossings in the history of the country. September was the highest September ever in the history of the country for illegal crossings.

October was the highest October ever in the United States in the history of illegal crossings. November was the highest November ever in the country in the history of our Nation for illegal crossings. And there is the highest number ever in the history of the country-- yesterday.

What is really happening? The numbers continue to be able to skyrocket. If we look at what is actually occurring with the number of illegal crossings, they continue to accelerate day after day, month after month, unchecked.

We face very real threats in our Nation, and it is not just me saying that. People may recognize the FBI Director, Christopher Wray, who just this week in a hearing was asked about the threats that we are facing in the United States after October 7. He was asking what he saw with that, and his answer was, ``I see blinking red lights everywhere.''

``The threat level has gone to a whole other level since October 7,'' in the United States.

Yesterday, of those 12,080 people who illegally crossed the border, the vast majority of them were released into the country today. They had no criminal background check. They didn't have to prove their ID of what country they were from because right now the soft-sided facilities that are housing migrants all along our southern border are currently running at 400 percent occupancy.

So the goal is, get them through and into the country, hand them a piece of paper, and--literally--ask them to promise to turn themselves in, in the future at some point, just go because we need your space because there are more people coming.

At the same time the FBI Director is saying, ``I see blinking red lights everywhere,'' we are literally releasing thousands of people, day after day, no criminal background check, no evaluation of their history--many of them we don't even know what country they are from-- and releasing them into the country.

In the last 2 years, this White House has designated on our southwest border

70,000 people they designated as what they call ``special interest aliens.'' These are individuals who are coming from areas known for terrorism, but we had no background information on these individuals.

What happened to those 70,000 individuals? They were released into our country with a piece of paper saying: Please turn yourself in, in the days ahead, because we have no room to be able to house you here. That is what is happening.

Am I the only one who noticed this? Well, let's see, the mayor of El Paso has said that ``the city of El Paso only has so many resources and we have come to . . . a breaking point right now.''

The mayor of New York City is talking about this, and he said that ``this issue will destroy New York City,'' as they are over capacity in every spot that they have got.

The mayor of Chicago has called this an ``international crisis'' that he is actually experiencing in Chicago to try to be able to manage this.

As the stories come out on this over and over again, this is a New York Times story that came out:

Migrant-smuggling is now a $13 billion business. Mangled

limbs. Raped women. Congressional inaction is a boon to bad

actors.

From the New York Times.

So my question is, What are we going to do about this? Currently, it has been nothing.

So what are we going to do about this? About 6 weeks ago, the White House sent over a request for supplemental funding. They labeled it a national security supplemental. They asked for funding for Israel, for Ukraine, for the Indo-Pacific, and for border security. In fact, what is interesting is the second highest request they put in the entire piece was actually for border security. And then literally within days, the administration put out an op-ed that said the funding request for border security is a tourniquet. What we really need is a change in policy.

That same day, Ali Mayorkas from Homeland Security, President Biden's Homeland Security Director, was in front of a hearing that I was in. I asked him some very specific questions during that:

What are the things that need to be able to change [in our

system]?

He said:

Senator, we need . . . the ability to remove individuals

who do not qualify [for asylum] with efficiency and [with]

speed.

Secretary Mayorkas went on to say:

The asylum system needs to be reformed from top to bottom.

I asked him again:

[Are] policy changes needed?

Secretary Mayorkas said:

Yes, policy changes are needed.

The issue is not is the need there. The issue is not is there a problem in our immigration system. The issue is not is this a crisis at our border. Everyone knows that it is a crisis that literally the people working on our border have no tools in their hands to be able to stop this issue.

This needs a solution from Congress, and it requires all of us having the determination to say: 12,080 people that crossed our border yesterday is not sustainable.

So what is the request? It is pretty straightforward. It is what anyone would look at and, quite frankly, what DHS has talked about for years--not just this DHS; the Trump DHS, the Obama DHS have all asked for these issues.

They are looking for some very basic things. They want to know how to be able to manage the asylum requests. That accelerated and took off during the late half of the Obama administration.

If I can take us back in history to ancient history, in 2010, there were 21,000 people who asked for asylum a year on our southern border-- 21,000 people a year in 2010. That is now every 2 days of what we are facing now.

What the request was, at the end of the second term of the Obama administration, was that we have got to reform our asylum system. We have got to be able to process people at the border. We have got to be able to not change the rules of what asylum means but change when we actually do the screening--do it right there, to be able to manage those issues, so that people who qualify for asylum under our law are able to come into our country lawfully and people who do not qualify for asylum cannot come into our country unlawfully.

We all know it is happening. Every administration has identified it. So far, this body has been unwilling to be able to act on it.

We also know that, every day, the cartels actually run our southern border. They are a ruthless criminal organization that we have experienced firsthand in my State. There is drug smuggling. There is human trafficking and what they have done to literally millions of people whom they have trafficked from around the world. We need to take control of our border, not give control to the cartels.

I would challenge anyone in this body to be able to go to our southwest border and ask any Border Patrol agent: Do we have control of our border?

Most every one of them will respond the same way, because I have heard it over and over. There is situational control of our border. It is just on the south side, not on the north side, because the cartels are managing who is actually coming in, in what order, and how it is actually done. And they are paid, as the New York Times article detailed, billions of dollars to be able to traffic people into our country. They are the ones who are managing it.

So the simple, straightforward issue is, As the United States of America, are we going to manage our border or are the cartels going to manage our border? Are we going to be able to have a system where we allow people who qualify for asylum to actually get a hearing on a timely basis or are we going to take people and push them into the country? And then real, legitimate asylum seekers don't get a hearing for years, and people who don't qualify for asylum--and we all know it--disappear into the country and live underground.

This is the decision that we have got to come to. President Biden asked for a national security supplemental and included into that border funding and then a request for policy changes. It is time to be able to address this issue.

And I will tell you what I will vote later on today. Republicans are going to speak clearly to say: We will not move to a national security bill that does security for other nations and ignores our own. We will not do it.

And we believe the American people, regardless of party--I don't find many people who want chaos on our southern border. They want an orderly process. I also don't find people who are opposed to immigration. They are just opposed to illegal activity on our border, unchecked activity on our border.

So let's get back to an orderly process. Let's have a system that actually works for everybody in the process, and let's not put the national security for other nations ahead of the national security of Americans. Let's do it together.

With that, I yield the floor.

Madam President, there has been a lot of conversation about this body--quite frankly, around the Nation--about border security. Rightfully so. It has been top of mind for a lot of cities, States, for a lot of families, school districts, businesses, especially along the border States as they have had a disproportionately large number of people who have come, many of them from all over the world, many of them non-Spanish speakers, not from Central America and South America but literally from everywhere.

The Wall Street Journal had a piece just this weekend where it detailed how hundreds of thousands of migrants from all over the world are making their way to the southwest border which is causing a surge in apprehensions, but it is especially people from Asia and Africa.

Human smuggling networks, it says, are widening their reach around the globe.

Arrests at the Southwest border of migrants from China,

India and other distant countries, including Mauritania and

Senegal, tripled to 214,000 during the fiscal year that ended

in September.

That was up from 70,000 just the year before. That is tripling that number.

What is happening is on our southern border, the cartels are finding it more profitable to be able to move people in from farther. So they are organizing flights for people to go through seven or eight countries to be able to then arrive in Mexico, and they are moving them through in what they affectionately call ``donkey flights'' to be able to reach farther for the cartels to be able to make more and to exploit our laws.

America has always been open to people and immigration. We are a nation of legal immigrants, but we are also a nation of laws. And what we are finding at this stage is those laws are being exploited and being exploited dramatically. Let me give you just an example. There has been no change in the asylum law since 2010, but, in 2010, we had 21,000 people request asylum on our southern border for the year-- 21,000 the entire year of 2010. That wasn't an anomaly. That was about a normal amount of people requesting asylum on our southwest border. Now, we have that many requests of asylum on our southwest border every 3 days. So it has gone from 21,000 in a year to now every 3 days.

Everyone knows this is an issue. Last week, Secretary Mayorkas was in front of the Homeland Security Committee, and I asked him about this in a public hearing. I asked him whether there were policy changes that were needed.

His answer was very direct. He said:

Yes, policy changes are needed.

I asked him specifically on reforming the asylum system, knowing that it has been exploited. His exact answer was:

The asylum system needs to be reformed from top to bottom.

I asked him about the issue of withholding of removal, which now about 55 percent of the people who were released into the country were actually released under something called withholding of removal. I asked him about that. His response was:

[Withholding of removal and] the companion element is the

convention against torture our system needs to be able to

work efficiently and expeditiously while not compromising due

process.

I asked him about repatriating individuals in difficult countries that are called recalcitrants. He said:

Our ability to repatriate individuals to the countries of

origin when they do not qualify for relief under our laws is

of vital importance.

Why am I bringing this up? Because it is not just me saying we need to reform the asylum process. The head of Homeland Security is saying we need to reform this process. And it is just not the head of Homeland Security saying we need to reform the asylum process. It is the administration.

Two weeks ago, the administration requested additional dollars for the border to be able to put in the supplemental. They asked for funding for Israel, for Ukraine, for Taiwan, and for border security. But then, after they put that request out, Homeland Security released an op-ed in the Washington Post, which said this:

To be clear, this supplemental funding is like a

tourniquet--urgently needed and critical in the short-term,

but not a long-term solution to a deep-seated problem. Our

national immigration laws, having gone through major

revisions by Congress in 1996, are severely out-of-date, and

our system is completely broken. On this, everyone agrees.

The administration itself, just this past March, put out a release dealing with what they call ``circumvention of lawful pathways.'' In it, they did a Q&A back and forth to ask people questions on how it would function. This is one of the answers from the administration talking about what is happening currently at our border. They said:

[Such a high rate of migration] risks overwhelming the

Department's ability to effectively process, detain, and

remove, as appropriate, the migrants encountered. This would

put an enormous strain on already strained resources, risk

overcrowding in already crowded [U.S. Border Patrol] stations

and border [ports of entry] in ways that pose significant

health and safety concerns, and create a situation in which

large numbers of migrants--only a small portion of whom are

likely to be granted asylum--are subject to extreme

exploitation . . . by the networks that support their

movements north.

I would be glad to have written that myself.

The administration sees the same thing that everyone else who looks at the border sees. If you take an honest assessment of what is happening, our system is being exploited by cartels, and people from around the world are answering ads that are on TikTok and messaging services saying: I can get you into the United States if you pay me enough money.

That is why 45,000 people from India came last year requesting asylum in the United States--because it is easier to get in and to pay the cartels than it is to go through the legal process. We are incentivizing illegal activity, and this body knows it.

We are a nation of laws. We should prioritize the law. We should be open to legal immigration, but we should be opposed to illegal immigration and what is happening to enrich deadly, dangerous criminal cartels in northern Mexico.

Again, the administration in their public statement made this statement just a few months ago:

The current asylum system--in which most migrants who are

initially deemed eligible to pursue their claims ultimately

are not granted asylum in the subsequent [immigration court]

proceedings--has contributed to a growing backlog of

cases awaiting review by asylum officers and immigration

judges.

What are they saying? The system is broken because it is packed with people who do not actually qualify for asylum coming in to flood the system and request asylum.

We all see the challenge. Now the question is, Are we going to do something about it?

Republicans in the Senate, this past weekend, released a very simple proposal to deal with what we all know are the problems--closing the loopholes in the law that have been exploited. And, yes, it deals with asylum, and, yes, it deals with withholding because those are the areas that are being exploited. We see it. The administration sees it. The question is, Do Democrat Senators see it? That is really the issue now. Everyone else seems to see it and admit to it.

So what did we propose? We proposed some pretty straightforward things. One is what is called ``safe third country'' transit. These are individuals like the 45,000 people who came from India last year. They fly through four or five countries--including dangerous countries like France--to be able to land here and to be able to cross the border and say: I need to find asylum.

Almost everyone sees that as an exploitation, and it is not just us. There is almost no other country that does what we do. This whole issue about picking and choosing where I want to request asylum is not how asylum really works. You see, asylum under international law--and most people in this body know it--``asylum'' and ``refugee'' have the same definition under international law. A refugee doesn't pick nine different countries and then pick the one that they want. They flee to the next safe place. That is the same international rule for asylum.

If you were to request asylum right now in Canada--cross the border into Canada and request asylum--do you know what is the first question they would ask you? The first question they would ask you is: Did you just cross from the United States?

If you answered yes, they would then say: Did you request asylum there, and were you denied?

If they say, ``I didn't request asylum,'' Canada will turn you right back around.

And that is not just Canada. That is most of the EU. If you went to Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Slovenia, the UK--if you went to any of them, they would ask: What country did you transit through before you got here, and did you request and were you denied asylum before you came in? If you said, ``I didn't request asylum in the places I transited from,'' they would turn you around because that is not an unreasonable thing.

When you go through five other countries and then request asylum in the last one, you are actually trying to emigrate to that country, not requesting asylum under international law. You are trying to pick the place.

And, by the way, I don't blame them for picking America. It is the greatest country in the world. But that is economic opportunity, that is not asylum.

So the question is, Can we incentivize those individuals to not try to run a loophole through our system but to actually go through the legal process and request to come here as a legal immigrant?

We love to see people from all over the world, as we always have, come into the United States legally, just not exploiting a loophole in the asylum law. That is the wrong way to be able to do it.

The bill that Republicans have proposed also deals with streamlining the process. Right now, it can take up to 10 years just to get a hearing with an immigration judge under a standard that most people know, and the administration has admitted, people won't qualify for asylum at the end.

Why is that? Because, when you come across the border, you encounter Border Patrol or CBP or an asylum officer. They do an initial screening, and the screening is far lower than the actual standard. So you may qualify under the screening standard, but everyone knows you are not going to actually qualify for the actual standard for asylum.

So there are two simple things that can be done here. One is to make the screening standard equal to the actual standard--to say: We all know this is what you have got to achieve. So screen for that. Is it reasonable? Is it even a 51-percent chance that you are going to get to that standard? If it is, then you come in. If you are not, then you are screened out.

The second is that we actually have three different screenings. Many people don't know this. We screen for asylum, and then we separately screen for what is called withholding, and we separately screen for Convention against Torture. Those three different screenings are made at three different times--sometimes across a decade of time. Everyone knows, if you don't qualify for the first one, you are likely not going to qualify for the other two, either. But you can request it, and you can run that loophole, and then you are in the United States. And the cartels literally teach people exactly what to say in their last step so that they can exploit that loophole.

So let's actually have a screening standard that is the same standard you have to get to, and let's screen for all three of those things at the same time. That actually sounds like government efficiency. I know we are not good at that as a nation, but, if we screen all three of those things at the same time, it allows somebody to have due process. We don't want someone not to have due process. If someone is a victim of torture, we want to make sure they have an opportunity to go through that process. But why wouldn't we go through all three of those at the same time, rather than across 10 years, waiting for multiple different hearings?

Republicans also proposed something pretty simple. Right now, the law says that if you committed a felony, then you are not eligible for asylum. But the problem with that is, there are some crimes that are not considered a felony at the earliest days, and we are still allowing them in.

Let me give you a for instance. What if you had three DUIs? What if you are dealing meth? What if you are a member of a gang and you show it? What if you have a domestic violence conviction?

If you have a domestic violence conviction, you can't own a firearm in America, but you could get asylum in America. We literally invite people to be able to come in whom we already know have domestic violence convictions.

So we are making it pretty simple. We are saying: Hey, listen, let's keep the standard where it is for a felony, but let's actually prevent the loopholes.

Why would we invite someone into the country whom we know has had multiple DUI convictions? Why would we do that? It is not safe for our streets.

Do any one of you want to sit down with a dad and say: Your daughter was killed in a DUI because we were loose on our asylum rules? I would assume not.

We are not asking for something extreme. Again, it is typical for many places around the world that this is how it would be done. All we are trying to do is to be able to fix the loopholes and to be able to secure our Nation.

This proposal we put forward keeps families together. I know there is going to be an immediate thing that this is about separating families at the border. Actually, no, it is very explicit that if families travel together, families stay together for their hearing, to be able to make sure that we are protecting that family. But we are also raising a simple question. We all know and we have all seen the stories, and for those of us who have gone to the border, we have seen it with our own eyes: children traveling with adults that--we are all parents, and we can see clear enough that is not really your child-- where children are literally used as a free pass to be able to get into the country and to be able to expedite.

We would like to be able to protect those children and make sure children are actually not used to be a free pass into the country. There is a way to be able to prevent that and to be able to protect those families that are actually real families at the same time.

We do a couple other things. We also raise just a very simple statement about the Border Patrol. Many people here may or may not know, but the Border Patrol can't actually get overtime if you are at a certain level. If

you are other Federal law enforcement, you do get overtime. But if you are Border Patrol, you do not.

So these guys may work 100 hours for 2 weeks, but for the additional hours they are working, they don't actually get overtime pay. That is not right.

So what happens is, Border Patrol has a hard time with retention, not just because the job is incredibly difficult but, once they get to a certain level, their families encourage them and say: Why don't we do another Federal law enforcement somewhere else--still stay in Federal law enforcement, but we can actually earn overtime pay at that point rather than actually being punished for staying in the Border Patrol and trying to be able to serve?

Why don't we fix that?

Why don't we fix some of the training issues that have come up?

Why don't we actually try to respond to those things?

Why don't we provide the opportunity for the Biden administration to be able to lay out a strategy for how to secure the border? We are not writing it. Just give them the opportunity to be able to do it.

And here is one thing that has been interesting that I have already heard pushback from. We have a section where we talk about the border wall. What is interesting is, what we have actually proposed is we actually fulfill the border wall portion that President Biden has already said he is going to do. We actually just want to put it in writing so the President can't just say orally, ``I want to do this.'' We have to actually put it in writing to be able to do it. That is a reasonable thing to be able to do.

Listen, we are not asking for crazy stuff. We are asking for what Americans are asking for: Just secure the border. We want to be a nation that welcomes immigrants, but we also want to be a nation that honors the law. We can do both. That is what we are setting in front of this body--to say: When we are talking about the supplemental, let's actually talk about not just securing Israel and securing Ukraine and securing Taiwan; let's also secure the United States of America.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, last week the Senate confirmed Mike Whitaker to be the FAA Administrator. I supported this nomination. He is very qualified. He has very valuable experience.

Obviously, this body has had a churn being able to look at previous FAA Administrators who came here and then were turned down in the process, and the administration has put forward someone who, I think, is very, very qualified. So I am pleased to be able to see that.

But many people may not know Oklahoma has a very special relationship with FAA, and we have for 70 years. For 70 years, the Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center, which headquarters offices for so many different areas in the aeronautical center, has been in Oklahoma City. That spot has been there, and it establishes things like how to do testing, how to do research, the medical evaluation, occupational health wing, medical certification, a lot of education that happens there for aerospace. Air mobility is being tested there.

It is 1,100 acres and 133 buildings, across the airport site there in Oklahoma City, and it is just one of those hidden jewels of the United States that is actually there in Oklahoma City. As each of our States have different aspects and different tasks there, Oklahoma City is very, very proud to be a leader in aviation for the country.

There is also a vital component there at the FAA Academy. Now, again, most folks don't think about the air traffic controllers who are in the tower, but when you fly into any airport in the country, the folks who are in that tower were trained in Oklahoma City.

It is the academy. It is the first 60 days of training, and it is done consistently the same it is done everywhere in the country because, no matter where an air traffic controller goes, you want them to have the same consistent training in every location that they go to. So whomever they work next to in the tower, they have all been trained the same way in the basics.

Now, that academy is important to set the standard for all the basics in air

traffic control, and then they advance to the next level. They actually get out on the job and to be trained by folks who are in the towers. It is incredibly important as a task.

Now, for years, that academy has trained literally every single person that the FAA could send them. They haven't had a time where they were like: I am sorry. You have to stop. We can't take any more people.

They have got gaps and openings. In fact, right now we need more air traffic controllers, but, thankfully, the Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center is ready to go. They are ready to take on more students to be able to expand. In fact, they have got room to double in size. If we wanted to double the number of air traffic controllers across the country, let's do it. Our challenge has been getting enough students to actually do it, to get the training, not actually training space or trainers.

So I would tell you Oklahoma City is proud of that heritage.

We are grateful for Mike Whitaker and the position that he is now in. We look forward to him being back in Oklahoma City. He has been in Oklahoma City multiple times in previous tasks that he has had. He knows full well the value of that facility, and I look forward to training a lot more folks to be air traffic controllers in Oklahoma City, in the days ahead, because our trainers and our folks who are there are ready to put more folks in more towers.

Madam President, we have the opportunity to take a really big step today that the entire country would pause and go: Finally. We have the opportunity to end government shutdowns forever. We will say: That is off the table. We, as a nation, don't do government shutdowns.

Government shutdowns haven't always been in our system as a nation. They really started in the 1980s, and we have had this repetitive cycle of government shutdowns over and over and over again.

The American people and folks in my State in Oklahoma say: How do we make this stop?

Well, this is how we make it stop. Senator Hassan and I sat down 5 years ago and just said: Everyone wants to stop it, but we have never figured out a way that is a totally nonpartisan way. Let's figure this out. What is a nonpartisan way to end government shutdowns?

So we sat down and worked on some language to try to figure out how to be able to do this. We took input from Members all over this conference on both sides of the aisle. We actually sat down years ago with the Trump administration and worked with their Office of Management and Budget and then have since sat down with the Biden administration, with their Office of Management and Budget, to make sure the process would actually work; that it would actually be effective because we weren't interested in having a messaging bill; we were interested in actually ending government shutdowns--that it would work.

The idea is really very simple. If Congress gets to the end of the fiscal year and the appropriations work is not done by the end of the year, we stay in session 7 days a week. We can't move to any bill other than appropriations until we actually finish appropriations.

If I can just make it just this simple: If we don't finish our classwork, we have to stay after class. That is all it is. In the meantime, the government continues to run at the previous year's levels. That way, Federal workers are held harmless. The American people are held harmless. The pressure is on the people it should be on: us.

Now, I have heard from some folks that this won't work because the House is crazy, and they won't care about staying here 7 days a week because they are crazy. Well, I would respectfully say that House Members, though definitely crazy at times, still love their families, still have responsibilities back in their home district. They also want to be able to get back home. They are not going to stay here 7 days a week forever.

We do have other bills to be able to pass--the National Defense Authorization and thousands of other things that we still have to do. So the thought that we would be in continual CRs, both here, House and Senate, 7 days a week and never leave and that we would never do other bills is just not realistic.

I have also heard that if we take away the threat of a government shutdown, we would lose the pressure point to be able to do appropriations. Well, again, respectfully, I disagree. I don't think Federal law enforcement and Border Patrol agents, air traffic controllers, HUD staff, and millions of other Federal workers and their families are leverage. They are not leverage to be able to get appropriations work done. They are families. They are families who just want to serve their neighbors and be able to get a paycheck for it.

Right now--right now--there are thousands of marines, sailors, and airmen who are currently in the Mediterranean on high alert.

They should not have to make contingency plans for their family not to get a paycheck at the end of this month. Right now, in Fort Sill, OK, there are soldiers who are packing equipment to leave and head to the Middle East right now. They should not have to look at their loved ones before they leave and say: In case checks don't get deposited at the end of next month, here is what to do. They should be able to go serve.

So as simple as I can say it, we shouldn't say to them: Maybe we won't have a shutdown or probably we won't have a shutdown. We should say: Definitely, we are not going to have a shutdown. Thank you for serving our country.

That is what we should do. The hardest thing in this body to change is status quo. It is the hardest thing to change. Today, we have an opportunity to change the status quo and to begin the process of ending government shutdowns forever.

I encourage my colleagues to join Senator Hassan and I and so many other folks from both sides of the aisle to say: Let's take a step forward, and let's actually do our business.

Amendment No. 1232 to Amendment No. 1092

(Purpose: To provide for a period of continuing appropriations in the event of a lapse in appropriations under the normal appropriations process, and establish procedures and consequences in the event of a failure to enact appropriations.)

Madam President, I would like to call up my amendment, amendment No. 1232, and ask that it be reported by number.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Madam President, earlier this year, I was with a bipartisan delegation. I traveled around the Abraham Accords countries. We were in Morocco, we were in Bahrain, we were in the UAE, and we were in Israel, talking about future advancement for peace. There was great optimism and engagement. There was economic activity, tourist activity. There was a lot of interaction with development on healthcare, on cyber protections, and cooperation together for energy and water.

Literally, there were families meeting each other, some of them for the first time in generations, to be able to have a conversation about a future in the Middle East based around peace. It was based off of an agreement that started on September 15, 2020, with the signing of the Abraham Accords, and it has continued to advance.

In fact, just as recently as a month ago, there was outspoken public support from Saudi Arabia and from Israel about advancing a normalization agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel--what people thought would be unheard of just a few years ago.

There was an advance of conversation about how we could increase peace. And then, on the 7th of October, 1 day after the 50th anniversary of the start of the Yom Kippur War, a group of terrorists from Gaza penetrated the wall separating Gaza and Israel, and

they slaughtered 1,400 Israelis, brutally, many in their bed--children, elderly, disabled--it didn't matter. Whether they were college students at a concert, whether they were people traveling down a highway, or whether it was children, literally, on their playgrounds, they murdered them where they stood. And then they took hostages and retreated back into Gaza, for some reason assuming that Israel and the world would just not notice their barbarism.

Well, the world certainly noticed, and, as Americans, we obviously all lived in the shock and horror of the event with the Israelis and the rest of the world. Thirty-one Americans died in that attack, and 13 are missing, presumed to be hostages inside Gaza. Many of those individuals were killed simply because they were Jewish--period.

The pain of that has struck all of us over the course of the past several weeks now, and we have watched Israel rightly respond to the acts of terrorism, as we have as a nation, as well, when we were attacked on 9/11. We mobilized our forces. We identified al-Qaida, and we identified those who were harboring al-Qaida in Afghanistan and the Taliban and determined that type of attack would not happen again. And we, as a nation, determined we were not only going to stop the capabilities of al-Qaida to be able to attack us, but we were going to preemptively respond if we were attacked again. Our first goal, though, was to be able to prevent that kind of attack from coming at us again.

Israel is entirely right when they have been attacked by a terrorist organization to be able to say: That organization cannot do that to our Nation again and to our people again.

The United States has responded by sending two carrier strike groups to the Mediterranean, to literally park off the coast of Israel, to give a clear signal to Lebanon, to Iran: Do not engage in this.

We understand fully, as most of the world does, that Hamas is funded by Iran. And while many in the Muslim world, in the Arab countries continue to be able to speak out on behalf of Palestinians, they also understand that 70 percent of the funding for Hamas comes from Iran.

The weapons systems that Hamas has right now were fully funded by Iran, and the weapons systems in Lebanon, by Hezbollah, where they have been attacking Israel from the north, were fully funded and created and, many times, shipped directly from Iran.

Iran is the destabilizing force in this entire region, and we, as Americans, have made very, very clear that we understand that Iran is the one who funded this, who supplied the weapons systems, who supplied the training and the munitions. Iran is the one who continues to destabilize that region.

As Americans, we clearly speak out for the protection of all civilians in every nation around the world and in every conflict in the world, but we were also very clear that Israel did not initiate this battle in the last 2 weeks. Hamas did, and they pulled their hostages back into Gaza, as they continue to be able to hide them among the civilian population. It is a painful peace for us to be able to see internationally. For us in Oklahoma, we are like many others that are in this Chamber as well. It personally affects many families in Oklahoma. Israel is a nation so small that there is no one that has not experienced the pain of a friend or relative, someone whom they work with, they know people who have been directly attacked. But in my State of Oklahoma, we are in the same condition. Many people that I interact with talk frequently about family, friends that live in Israel or that travel back and forth.

Quite frankly, last weekend, I worshipped with a Jewish congregation on Shabbat and heard the dialogue from many people about their travels back and forth and family and friends and what they personally experienced as a family based on this terrorist attack. Quite frankly, my State of Oklahoma has a very close bond with Israel, as the United States has a very close bond, close enough that we had many Oklahomans that were currently in Israel during that time of the attacks, and our office actively worked to be able to get many of those out, since many flights have been canceled out of Tel Aviv.

So we have actively worked to be able to get many of those individuals back home to Oklahoma, and they have quite a story to tell, as you would assume.

Madam President, the pain of this, though, is also something that we should pay attention to. We, as a nation, not only remember 9/11 and our response, but we also remember 9/11 was instituted by 20 people that were illegally present in the United States. We should not fail to remember that fact as well.

Recent statistics coming across our southern border identified in the last 2 years--just the last 2 years--we have had 70,000 individuals that have been identified as what they call special interest aliens. These are individuals that came between the ports of entry, that were running through to try to evade being captured. They are identified as special interest aliens because they have this designation: They potentially possess a national security risk to the United States or its interests. So they are identified as a special interest alien.

As I mentioned, we have had more than 70,000 of those that have crossed between our ports of entry just in the last 2 years. These are individuals from Syria, from Iran, from Iraq, from Pakistan, from west Africa, from locations where terrorism is known to exist, and we don't have any criminal history of those individuals.

If you are thinking, I am glad we picked them up between ports of entry, well, let me finish the story for you. Most of those 70,000 special interest aliens were identified between the ports of entry and then were released into the country under Biden's policy on how he handles immigration currently. Those 70,000 individuals that were identified as potentially possessing a national security risk to the United States or its interests are in the United States right now.

Just in the past week, four individuals from Iran were picked up, multiple Syrians were picked up between our ports of entry and then released, awaiting a hearing in the future. And in current status right now, that hearing will be 8 to 10 years in the future. They are unmonitored. They are wandering around within our borders awaiting a hearing 8 to 10 years from now in the future, after being identified as a special interest alien.

We grieve for Israel, but for some reason, there are some in this body and in the White House that will not pay attention to our own national security issues and the obvious exposure that literally everyone in the country can see.

I can raise this issue with 100 people on the street outside this building, and all 100 would say, Oh, yeah, that is a risk. But for some reason, we can't get serious in this body to be able to take on the same thing, just to identify what are we going to do with individuals that are considered special interest aliens. Are we really going to just process them at the border and release them into the country? Or are we going to enforce our own sovereignty as just about every other nation does in the world? What are we planning to do on this?

I would just say, for the basic function of our national security, we should enforce our borders, and we should not just release special interest aliens out into the country, as has been done for now the last 2 years by the numbers of 70,000-plus.

So I would hope this body would get serious about dealing with issues like asylum, parole, and all the different features that have been used to release these individuals into the country, that we could fix that before we have the next 9/11 in our country.

Madam President, one last comment just based on news that is continuing to flow out.

All of us are absolutely heartbroken--absolutely heartbroken--at a hospital that had a major explosion from a rocket in Gaza. The initial reports came out just immediately: This must have been the Israelis that attacked a hospital. And many countries around the world immediately made

statements that the Israelis bombed a hospital.

Meetings were canceled with President Biden while he was in the region because the Israelis had bombed a hospital--until the facts and information actually came out. Now, less than 24 hours later, we have overhead that can identify the movement of different rockets that we are able to see. We have information that is now out in the public, and the President has confirmed that was not an Israeli strike on that hospital; that was a rocket that was launched from inside Gaza that went errant and then landed in Gaza directly on the hospital, killing almost 500 people.

It was literally a terrorist attack on Israel that, instead of hitting innocent civilians in Israel, it hit innocent civilians in Gaza.

It is still just as tragic for all of those families, but I would call on all the nations that immediately condemned Israel for attacking a hospital to immediately turn that to condemn Hamas for attacking civilians and for launching rockets to kill civilians in Israel that actually killed Palestinian civilians in Gaza, that for every nation that falsely accused Israel of this horrible attack, that they would see the evidence and they would instead turn and try to speak to Hamas to stop their terrorist attacks.

That is something every nation can do, to stand up for the life and the value of people and of civilians. I would call on them to be able to do that even today.

With that, I yield the floor.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, I have come to this floor several times over the past many years and several times even recently to talk about a bill that Senator Hassan and I have together that we have worked on very hard to end government shutdown threats forever.

This whole conversation that is happening right now in Washington, DC, about a government shutdown is not something that has always happened in our Republic. This conversation of a government shutdown has only really been since the mid-1980s to the present. Before that, there were no government shutdowns. Even when appropriations lapsed-- and we had multiple times when appropriations lapsed in the past--we didn't have government shutdowns at that time. It wasn't until there was actually an executive opinion back in the seventies that there was created this moment to say, no, we are going to end up having a government shutdown if appropriations lapse.

We are in this moment again. This is a distinctly modern issue in American history that we need to bring to a close, this chapter. There is a way to do it.

In conversations that we have had for years of how do we actually stop government shutdowns, there have been very partisan bills on both sides, and Senator Hassan and I sat down 5 years ago and said: Let's just have a dialogue. How can we stop government shutdowns without having a partisan bill at the end of it? It would be a way to be able to fix this that both sides of the aisle can say: That is a good way to be able to end it.

We have a very simple goal: End government shutdowns. Do appropriations bills.

That shouldn't be a radical concept. That should be a head nod from everybody, quite frankly, in this room to

say: Sure, we can agree to end government shutdowns and to do appropriations bills on time.

Our simple idea was this: If you don't finish your work during class, you have to stay after class to finish your work. It is just not that hard. It is something all of us experienced growing up in school.

If I can make it even simpler, when my older brother and I would get into an argument, my mom would put the two of us in a room and would say: You two guys have got to go in this room. Once you solve everything, then you can come out.

That is the genesis of this simple bill. It says: If we don't have our appropriations work done and we are still arguing about appropriations, the government continues to function as it has in the past year--exact same budget line. Everything continues as normal. The American people are held harmless. Federal workers, Federal contractors--all of them--still continue as they have.

But we experience the shutdown here in Washington, DC, not the rest of the country. We would be in session 7 days a week. We could not move the bills other than the appropriations bills. So we are locked in a box to say: If you haven't finished your appropriations bills, you have to stay overtime to finish those appropriations bills, and you can't move to something different than appropriations bills. You have got to be able to do those.

But, again, the American people wouldn't feel it. The Federal workers wouldn't feel it. The Federal contractors wouldn't feel it. We would.

If we didn't get our work done, why are the Border Patrol agents along the border--why are they being punished for us not getting our work done, because the Border Patrol agents, if we don't get this done, next week, they don't get a paycheck, when they have been working overtime hours managing 11,000 people a day coming across the border in chaos that is currently on our border. Those folks have been working as hard as they can, but because we haven't gotten our work done on the budgeting, now they don't get paid. Oh, but we are still asking them to go on the line and to risk their life for their country anyway. That doesn't make sense to me.

So our simple bill is: If the problem is up here, then the problem should remain up here, and we should get this resolved but not actually put the consequences on those folks who are serving us all around the Nation.

As I came through TSA, flying back to DC, as probably most of my colleagues did coming back this week, TSA agents whom I pass by every week--and we have great conversation as I pass by them in the airport every week. As my bag is being checked and as I am going through the scanner, like everyone else, the TSA agents were smiling at me saying: Am I going to get a paycheck next week?

It is not an unreasonable question from them. All they want to know is: I am here defending the Nation. Am I still going to get paid?

Listen, right now on the border--right now--they are being absolutely overrun with people coming across the border in big numbers--huge, overwhelming numbers. It used to be a thousand people a day. That was an overwhelming number. Yesterday, there were 11,000 people who crossed our southern border. They were literally just checked in, as much as could be done to be able to manage them and to be able to put them through.

If we have a shutdown, they are going to lose some of their support help, and we are going to have even more people come just across the border.

Here is what is happening. Anytime that the Border Patrol actually comes in and checks in, they are trying to manage the number of people coming between the borders. With the numbers that are coming across right now, those Border Patrol agents who should be in the field--who should actually be monitoring what is happening with the movement of illegal drugs across our border, illegal weapons across our border, and all the dynamics that are there from criminal elements moving across our border between ports of entry--they are not getting the opportunity to be able to chase those down because they are processing individuals.

The vast majority of our Border Patrol agents, by the end of their time each day, are in the station, not on the line. That only gets worse when we have a shutdown, and they lose part of their help.

By the way, during a shutdown, ``nonessential'' is also declared for the recruiting folks, which means we are not out there actually recruiting more agents to be able to join them to be able to get more help. There are more and more administrative duties being done by Border Patrol that we desperately need on the line. And we are grateful for them on the line.

Last week, I got a notification that rail traffic had stopped in Eagle Pass, TX. Most folks don't even know about the truck and train traffic that happens around the country. They just know they go to the grocery store, and they buy groceries. They go to the store and buy clothes and furniture. They just know it is there. But that is being moved by a truckdriver. That is being moved by rail very often.

Last week, in Eagle Pass, TX, DHS shut down all rail traffic there because a thousand migrants were riding the Mexican rail coming up through Mexico. They had climbed on the freight trains, and they were riding it all the way to the north--a thousand. But the response from DHS was just to shut the station down entirely. Then they took the CBP folks who are at that station and normally handle legal traffic coming north and south in and out of Mexico into the United States and out of the United States to Mexico. They took those CBP agents, and they moved them over to driving migrants to different stations for their processing.

So it started out that there were a lot of folks riding the rails to be able to come to the United States, and it ended up being that we have so many people here that they literally shut it down.

What was the effect of that? We had American train traffic going south into Mexico that was backed up from Eagle Pass all the way to Nebraska, before it was said and done.

I was on the phone with Secretary Mayorkas saying: We have to get that station back open again. Do we have people illegally crossing the border riding the rails?

And his answer was: No. But those agents were needed to be able to move migrants who were illegally crossing in other areas.

The migration that is happening right now is not only affecting our national security because of the 11,000 people a day who are crossing our border. Those individuals, by and large, are not being checked. They are not being vetted. We are checking to see if they are on the terror watch list. For many of them, we don't have a name or an ID or a reliable country of origin other than the one they just tell us is their name or tell us is their country of origin. We have no idea.

They are being quickly paroled into the country, awaiting a hearing that is often 8 to 10 years in the future--8 to 10 years before they even get the hearing to determine if they are even eligible to be able to ask for asylum. This is insanity.

But it doesn't get better if Border Patrol loses all of its help during the government shutdown. It gets worse.

So we have got to be able to do a couple of things at once. We have to deal with the real fiscal problems that we have. We have over $2 trillion in overspending this year. That is a real issue we should have grownup conversations about on this floor.

We have to deal with the immigration crisis and call it what it is. When 11,000 people a day illegally enter your country and Members of this body just look the other way, that is a problem. And when there is a national security crisis based on it, and we have Governors and mayors across the Nation crying out to this body and saying, ``Make it stop''--they are not Republican and Democrat Governors and mayors; they are just Governors and mayors who are trying to manage their towns and their States. They are saying: Why isn't the Federal Government doing its job? The Federal Government has a responsibility for managing the border. Do it.

We have got to deal with the issue of government shutdowns. They hurt us more than help us. It spends more money than it saves, and it dramatically affects a lot of Federal workers

around the country who just want to be able to serve their neighbors or to be able to do law enforcement and actually get paid for it.

And I hear some of my colleagues and others say: They will eventually get paid.

Do you know what? That might be simple for some Members in this body, that they are not worried about living paycheck to paycheck. But there are an awful lot of folks who live paycheck to paycheck, that just missing a couple of paychecks is a really big deal. And all of those Federal contractors, they don't get backpay. They just don't get paid at all.

So we can't just say: They will all get paid later. They won't. Federal workers will eventually get backpay, but Federal contractors never do, and it really hurts for them. This shutdown is not their fault; it is ours.

So Maggie Hassan and I just have a simple idea: Let's keep working on the problems, but let's not have a shutdown at the same time. Let's actually work out our problems in here and not hurt people all over the country who have no way of affecting what our debate is here. They are just trying to serve their neighbors. That is what I am looking for.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to honor Navy Petty Officer First Class Duane B. Pearson. HM1 Duane Pearson originally hailed from the Bronx, NY, and as an Army family, he moved throughout the Nation; in Lawton, OK, he decided to enlist in the U.S. Navy and follow his family history of military service.

His initial oath was in November 2001 in Oklahoma City, OK; he completed Navy boot camp and Hospital Corps School in Great Lakes, IL, and went on to Expeditionary Medical Facility Training, Cherry Point, NC, and Physical Therapy Technician School, San Antonio, TX, where he was also promoted to third class petty officer.

His enlisted assignments include Naval Hospital Cherry Point, NC; National Naval Medical Center Bethesda, MD, where he was deployed to Camp Lemonnier to Djibouti, Africa; Naval Hospital Yokosuka, Japan; and the Office of Attending Physician, Washington, DC.

While at the Office of Attending Physician, he continued providing expert physical therapy services, but also managed an emergency response medical call center, and provided advanced cardiac life support response to multiple Nation special security events, including three Presidential inaugurations, nine State of the Union Addresses, seven Peace Officers Memorials, and scores of gold medal ceremonies and summer concerts. Additionally, he was instrumental in administering over 30,000 Covid vaccines in direct support of both the Supreme Court of the United States, and U.S. Congress.

His military decorations include the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal, Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal, Joint Meritorious Unit Award, Navy Unit Commendation, Navy Meritorious Unit Commendation, Armed Forces Service Medal, Humanitarian Service Medal, and various other personal and unit awards.

His military career has been successful because of the support and confidence of Jasmine, his wife and best friend of 18 years. He also has two supportive children, who are both talented athletes--Micah and Imani.

In May 2019, he received his bachelor of arts Degree, with honors, from Southern Illinois University in healthcare management and will complete his master's in healthcare administration from the University of Baltimore this December.

Mr. President, I do appreciate the leadership on the Intelligence Committee and for the leadership that has been there.

I would concur. You have a spot to be able to lead and a task to be able to be done. You have studied this, so that must mean you know it. We look forward to your leadership in the days ahead. I appreciate that very much.

National Debt

Mr. President, I do want to speak on a very different subject as well, and it is a subject that we are all going to face in the days ahead. It is this wonderful issue of a government shutdown.

We seem to forget, at times in this body, the issues that press around us, but the one that seems to get slipped under the rug most of the time is that of national debt: where we are and how we are going to try to address this in the days ahead. The conversation comes up--it seems to be on a regular basis now--about are we going to have a government shutdown; and the conversation of a government shutdown ends up being a very small portion of the very large debt that we face.

The challenge is, how do we actually address that based on its size? Well, let me just give you a little bit of context as to what I am talking about.

We are, right now, preparing, within days, to cross into $33 trillion in total Federal debt--$33 trillion. To give some context of that acceleration of Federal debt and what is happening during this time period, from the time of Andrew Jackson--who was the last President who was President when we had no debt at all. From the time of Andrew Jackson until Ronald Reagan, our Nation accumulated $1 trillion in total debt. From Andrew Jackson to Reagan, there was $1 trillion in total debt. From Reagan to the present, now we are $33 trillion in total debt. We are in a rapid acceleration of debt that has not slowed.

To give you again the picture of where things have gone just in the last several years, if you go back 20 years ago to 2003, our total spending was just over $2 trillion. If you go back to 2013, which was 10 years ago, our total spending was less than $3.5 trillion. Our spending this year will be right at $6.5 trillion. So in the past 20 years, our spending has increased from just over $2 trillion to $6.5 trillion.

To give you the acceleration in spending just in the last few years, if I were to go back to 2018--before COVID, the 2018 time period--our total spending was just over $4 trillion. This year's estimated spending is just under $6.5 trillion. That is $2.5 trillion of accelerated spending just from 2018 until now. Again, to set this in context, the revenue that is coming into the Federal Treasury this year is estimated at $4.8 trillion--$4.8 trillion. We are spending an estimated $6.4 trillion.

Now, I know these are a lot of numbers, but let me give you one just as a takeaway. We have almost $1.5 trillion of deficit--that is, overspending--just this year. By some estimates, depending on what happens in the next few weeks, it could be almost $2 trillion in total overspending just this year.

To put this in context, with the record revenue that is coming in this year at about $4.8 trillion, if we were spending the same this year as we did in 2018, which is a short 5 years ago--if we were spending the same this year as we were in 2018, prior to COVID, we would have a $700 billion surplus this year rather than an almost $2 trillion deficit this year. Because of the record amount of revenue coming in this year compared to what our spending was 5

years ago, we would have been in surplus this year; but we are not, and it is $1.5 trillion over that.

We have a very serious issue. We should have very hard conversations about our revenue, about our spending, about the direction in which we are actually heading, and about how we get out of a $33 trillion debt. This is not going to take 1 year or 2 years.

There are folks I have talked to recently even who have talked about the time in the early nineties--when we were at a balance of around $100 billion--of the work that was done by the Bush administration and the Clinton administration--two administrations in a row--to be able to get us back to a balance. Two administrations in a row had to work on that. But here is the frightening thing: Our overspending this year is more than the total spending during the Clinton administration--just our overspending this year. This is not going to be a simple process to be able to come out of. This is not even going to be two administrations in a row making agreements to be able to get back to balance. This is going to take decades. My concern is that many here are not willing to start the first year of decades of work to be able to get us out. So we have work to do on this.

Myself and Senator Maggie Hassan, a Democrat from New Hampshire, sat down several years ago and started having a conversation about how do we end government shutdowns and actually get into a real dialogue about how do we actually deal with debt and deficit issues. From those productive conversations, she and I created a piece of legislation that is designed just to prevent government shutdowns. All of the conversation right now among the media seems to be about if a government shutdown is coming at the end of this year. We should not have one at the end of this month, at the end of the fiscal year. We should continue to be able to keep going, but we should also have a debate of what direction we are going to go.

So Senator Hassan and I came up with a very simple proposal. It is not a partisan proposal. It is a completely nonpartisan proposal. It is a simple proposal, quite frankly, that is equivalent to two things I had growing up. One was, if you don't finish your homework at school, you have to actually stay after class to be able to finish it. If you don't finish all of your work that you had to get done there, stay after class; keep finishing it; and when you are done, you can leave. The second one was, when my older brother and I would get into an argument--which, of course, as brothers, we never did get into an argument--but in that rare moment we got into an argument, my mom would put the two of us in a room and say: You guys settle this, and when you are done, you can come out.

We slammed those two ideas together into one simple proposal on how to end government shutdowns. If we get to the end of the fiscal year and the appropriations work is not done, like it is this year, we stay in session 7 days a week, and the only bills that can actually come up, that actually can be called up during that time period, are appropriations bills. The second part of it is, there is no travel for anyone, so we couldn't fly home and fly back. No official or campaign funds could be used to be able to travel.

So we are in session 7 days a week. The only bills that are allowed to be brought up are appropriations bills. There is no travel.

The next part of it is simple. There is what is called a continuing resolution to maintain the government to be open so that the American people and Federal workers are held harmless. It puts the pressure on this room, not on Federal workers who are working for FAA, not on people who are working for the Housing Administration, not on our Border Patrol. Those individuals don't get a vote on this. They should not feel the pressure of a government shutdown.

We can keep the system moving while we still have our arguments to be able to resolve those things.

Why is this so important? A couple of reasons. One is, we are the United States of America. We should actually have an organized system because the rest of the world watches us to try to figure out how to do government. When we look dysfunctional, the rest of the world says: How are we going to figure this out if even the Americans can't figure this out? We, as Americans, lose track of that at times, but the rest of the world is watching us.

We should have our arguments. We are a representative republic. Every single voice counts, and we don't all agree. Great. Bring it. That demonstrates us at our best. But let's actually resolve those issues rather than having government shutdowns and chaos ensuing, because we need to set a better example for the world.

The second issue is much closer to home. We need to stop having government shutdowns because the American people are calling Federal Agencies and expecting someone to answer the phone, expecting to get help with passports or permits or whatever process it may be that they have to interact with the Federal Government. They need to be able to get somebody to answer the phone to be able to resolve that. This puts the American people struggling to be able to just get basic answers.

The third is the Federal workforce. We have millions of people who work in the Federal family. They work all over the country. When there is a government shutdown, there are two sets of things that actually occur. If you are a contractor, you are just out. Those contractors may be doing janitorial services in one of our buildings or they may be supplying food services to someone. They are just out. They don't get repaid; they just lose money, period.

Those who are actually on the Federal payroll--they don't get their check during that time period. They have this crazy, weird, essential, nonessential, some people laid off, some people not, but everyone is in chaos in that process.

For those folks who are in the Federal family, even though they may be declared essential or nonessential, do you know what--their car payments still come in, their mortgage still comes in, they still have to put food on the table, but they are not getting a check during the time of a government shutdown. So those individuals who live paycheck to paycheck, like many Americans do, suddenly have a gap--not by fault of their own but because this body couldn't resolve what we were going to do on the budgeting issues.

The fourth issue I have already partially mentioned, and that is the contractors. Let me just give you an example of what this means. Our southern border right now has the worst border crisis that we have ever faced as a nation. To give you a perspective on it, in the last few days, we have had up to 9,000 people illegally crossing our border a day--a day in the last few days. We have one border crossing area just in Tucson where they had 2,000 people who crossed in a day. Those folks are being cut loose and released into the country. It is chaos along our border.

Our Border Patrol and CBP and all those folks who are in law enforcement are doing their best to be able to help watch for safety and security of Americans while literally thousands of people are being cut loose into the country. They depend on some folks who are contractors in that area to help sometimes with transportation, with processing, with food, with medical care--all those things. Those contractors are very important to be able to help our Border Patrol in the chaos of what is actually happening. When there is a government shutdown, those contractors aren't going to be there, and the chaotic border we have now will be even more chaotic at that moment. That should not happen because we can't resolve our differences here. We need the national security on that.

I would yield to Senator Cornyn.

That is possible.

That is possible.

If the current rate sustains, yes.

Yielding back my time for Senator Cornyn and for others as well, 2 weeks ago, our Nation crossed a threshold that most people just missed. We have just over 6 million people who have illegally crossed our southern border in

less than 3 years under the Biden administration--just over 6 million people. That 6 million number is the same as both terms of the Obama administration and the Trump administration combined. The Biden administration has allowed more people to illegally cross our border in less than 3 years than the previous 12 years along our border.

Border Patrol needs help right now. They don't need a government shutdown; they need help coming alongside them.

So what Senator Hassan and I have done is proposed a very simple proposal. Let's stop government shutdowns. Let's end those. Let's not have the drama and the countdown clocks on 24-hour cable news TV. Let's have the arguments we need to have. Let's talk through the appropriations that need to be done. That is work we are required to do. But let's hold the Federal workers harmless in the process, and let's hold Federal contractors harmless in the process so we can settle the issues and do real planning.

This ending-government-shutdowns bill is very straightforward. We just want to prevent government shutdowns. We just want to be able to stop the chaos and actually show the American people that this body can have the arguments, resolve our differences, and move forward.

This is something we should be bringing to a vote. This is something that has wide bipartisan support. Let's resolve this piece while we still have more to be done.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, many Americans may not know and many in this Senate Chamber may not know that this week we actually passed a milestone on immigration in the United States. This week, less than 3 years into President Biden's term, we have now had more people illegally cross the border in the less than 3 years under the Biden administration than we had under the 8 years of the Obama administration and the 4 years of the Trump administration.

If you count both terms of the Obama administration and the Trump administration, that was 6 million people who illegally crossed the border. Under this President, in less than 3 years--not 12, in less than 3--we have now had more than 6 million people illegally cross the border.

We had a hearing this week with DHS folks to be able to talk about what in the world is going on. We met not with the policymakers because the policymakers won't meet with us; we met with the folks who are on the line to say: What is the process; how are things actually working; what steps are actually taken; and then what happens from here.

I also had the opportunity to be able to look at some of the budget issues and other things that are coming up, which I will explain later, but I wanted to be able to walk through where we really are right now and what is really happening at the border because since the expiration of title 42, in the days that followed that in May, the administration announced: Look, the numbers are dramatically down. And for a month, the numbers were down some, but then they popped right back up, so much so that the Washington Post last week had a headline that read the highest number of illegal family crossings in the history of the country was in August of this year.

Most folks turned away. They heard the administration say: Look, the numbers went down, and so they looked away from what is happening at the border, but our numbers are at the highest ever. And the complication of how they are actually being treated is the highest ever.

So let me walk you through some of the things that came up in the hearing that I want to be able to walk through on this because when you cross the board illegally at this point, there are lots of options there, and the options are designed by the Department of Homeland Security and by the White House not to deter people from crossing the border but to facilitate a more rapid crossing. So there are multiple processes that have been set up that are entirely new.

Let me give you one. If you come to a port of entry, you can now, before you get to a port of entry on the southern border, actually check in ahead of time to make your process of checking in faster. It is an app that you can get on your phone called the CBP One app. If you download that app, you fill out the form where you are from, then when you get to the border, you will be expedited through the process at the port of entry and released into the country. If you are one of those folks who have filled out the app and have gone through, you will be quickly screened. According to the testimony that we heard yesterday, 90 percent of those folks are released almost immediately into the country, and within 30 days they have a work permit.

Now, these are not folks who have applied for a visa. These are not the folks who have gone through the H-1B or H-2B or any of those processes. These are not folks who have actually gone through the formal process of getting a work permit. These are folks who have come from all over the world, have filled out an app right before they came across the border, and then they were facilitated right into the country.

If you think these are folks who are coming in from Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico, more than 150 countries have crossed the border this year. And I will walk through some of those numbers in just a moment.

One option that you have to be quickly expedited into the country without seeking prior approval is just to fill out the app ahead of time and then your paperwork is done and you are across the border even faster when you get here.

The second option is you actually don't fill out the form. You just show up at the port of entry and say: I didn't fill it out ahead of time. The response at that point is: It will take you a little bit longer to process--several hours more time to be able to go through and fill the things out. You will still be released. You will still be given what is called parole into the country. You will still be given a work permit within 30 days to be in the country, not because you applied for a work permit early or went through the legal process, not because you are any of the tens of thousands of people all over the world who want to work in the United States so they legally approach the issue; these are folks who just crossed at a port of entry, either filling it out ahead of time or just filling it out when you get there, quickly expedited, unlimited numbers.

Third group. The third group are the folks who actually come between the ports of entry. These are the folks who didn't cross. These are folks who came through the open desert or swam across the river in the Rio Grande. These are the folks who crossed, got into the country. Some of them bolted and ran from Border Patrol. Some of them turned themselves in. It just kind of depends on where they are. These individuals--not between the ports of entry, haven't done anything ahead of time--they are treated much more different. These individuals are actually picked up between the ports of entry, taken to a Border Patrol station where they process their paperwork. They fill out all the information, and then they release them into the country.

But the consequence is because they didn't come in a port of entry, it is going to take them 2 months to get a work permit--2 months--not 1 month.

So let me review. If you come in at a port of entry, no matter who you are and no matter where you are from, they will check and see if you are on a terror watch list, and if you are not on the terror watch list, then they are just going to allow you in.

They will set up a court hearing. Whether you cross between the ports of entry or whether you cross at the port of entry, they will set up a court hearing for you to be able to plead for asylum or to be able to ask for your parole extension or whatever that may be or what they call a change of status.

Let's review some of the court hearing dates here to be able to walk through where we are. If you come between the port of entry and you ask for asylum as soon as you cross the border and you are caught somewhere in the desert and you say: I want to plead asylum. I have fear and had to leave my country, they will line up a hearing after you are released into the country. Let's say you want to go to New York City. You can go anywhere you want to. You say: I want to go New York City, and that is where I want to land. Over 100,000 people recently have asked to go to New York City. So they transfer you to go to New York City.

Right now, they will set up the next hearing date for you. Let me look at the list here. The next hearing date for you to get a hearing on your asylum claim and your notice to appear is in October of 2032-- October of 2032. That is the next open hearing date that they have available.

So let me run this past you. Right now, on our southern border as of this exact instant, some people are checking in, and they are getting parole. Within 30 days, they are released to be able to get into the country with a work permit. They are traveling anywhere they want to in the country. We have no background for these individuals, and they are told to check into a hearing 9 years from now.

Anybody want to guess how many folks are going to show up at that hearing 9 years from now?

I mentioned before, many of these individuals are not from Central America. In fact, just this year--just this year--we have had 15,000 people who have illegally crossed the border, many in the open desert area, from China.

When I talk to the folks from the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics at home, they tell me most of the criminal organizations that are growing illegal marijuana and facilitating drug trafficking in my State are Chinese nationals who have illegally crossed the border. They are partnering with Mexican cartels and Chinese criminal organizations to be able to do business and drug trafficking in my State. Those folks crossed between ports of entry,

were checked in at a Border Patrol station, were waved into my country, and are now running criminal operations in my State--15,000 Chinese nationals just this year.

We are right at 10,000 citizens of Mauritania who have illegally crossed our border this year, whom we know of. Bonus points for anyone in this room who can point out Mauritania without looking it up on a map right now. There are 10,000 who have come in. By the way, Mauritania is a fast-growing area in West Africa, and al-Qaida is quickly accelerating in that area. We had 10,000 individuals who are from Mauritania come into our country just this year across the southern border. We have exactly no criminal information exchanged with Mauritania. We have no idea of these individuals--if they have committed crimes in their own country or why they left. We have no information about them.

With this area that is, literally, a hotbed for al-Qaida, we have facilitated, through this process set up by the White House, 10,000 individuals into our country. Media reported this week that an ISIS affiliate has been working with cartels in Mexico to facilitate citizens of Uzbekistan into our country across the border from Mexico. Those individuals have crossed into our country and, under this process, were released, and we currently don't know where they are.

Now, can someone explain to me why an ISIS affiliate is working with Uzbekistan citizens to be able to traffic them across our southern border into the United States, and under the current policies of this administration, they are being released into the country unsupervised?

Yesterday, at the hearing, I asked several simple questions, because I have heard over and over again of some individuals who are being released into the country who are given what is an alternative to detention. That is a phone--it is not really a phone. It is a device--a GPS device--that is able to track their whereabouts. That sounds great to say we have got some sort of tracking device on these individuals who are released into the country except, when I do a follow-up question to say, ``How long are they awaiting their hearings?'' and the answer is ``somewhere between 5 and 10 years'' awaiting the hearing. How long do they have the tracking device? The answer is ``130 days.'' They are tracked for the first 130 days. Then they turn that in. And after that, we have no idea where they are, and we have no idea what they are doing. But we gave them work permits, and we released them into the country, and they are anywhere they want to go at this point.

Interestingly enough, if you are an individual right now anywhere in the world and you want to work in the greatest country in the world-- that is the United States--and you have got a family member here--or whatever it may be--who can line up a job for you here and you are going to apply for one of our work visas, if you want to go through the process to apply for one of our work visas, it will take you months to years to get it or you could just cross the border in the desert, cross the river, enter at a port of entry, or maybe even fill out a form ahead of time, and you will have unlimited work permits immediately. Within 30 to 60 days, you will be given that, and you can land anywhere you want to in the United States--unchecked, unfettered, no background check, no criminal history for any individual.

Listen, I am a huge proponent of legal immigration. Our Nation was built on legal immigration. It is one of the moments that I love as a U.S. Senator, and that is to go to naturalization ceremonies and be a part of watching individuals literally raise their right hands, denounce the countries they were born in, and become citizens of the United States. It is an absolutely beautiful experience to be able to watch literally new Americans be born right in front of you.

As I traveled around my State in August, not a single person said to me--not one--that they were opposed to legal immigration, but I had person after person of all political perspectives--right, left, center--who said to me, this makes them nervous. Six million people in less than 3 years of which we know almost nothing about are currently in our country, going anywhere they want to, and doing whatever they want to because this administration is not focused on deterring people from coming into the country illegally; it is focused on speeding up the process of people coming into the country illegally.

This needs to stop. This body has to have a serious conversation about defining ``asylum'' because this administration is abusing the word ``asylum.'' They are making it mean something no one has ever made it mean. We need to clarify what the word ``asylum'' means so this administration can't abuse that ``asylum'' definition, and no future administration can do that.

We need to increase the number of legal visas that we have as a nation so that people who want to come work can come work in this great country and can be a part of our economy, but we will know who they are, and we will know that they have been vetted. It is very different than this process.

May I remind you--and people in this room know--that many of the folks who cross the border show up with no paperwork at all--at all. In fact, it is very common for a Chinese citizen, when they show up, to show up with a photocopy of a passport, not the actual passport. They show up with a photocopy of the passport and say: This is me. And we have no idea if that is actually their passport photo, their details, or how that photocopy has been doctored.

Other folks show up with no birth certificates, no passports, no ID of any type. They just say a name, and they say a country. And they have been told by the Department of Homeland Security to just write down the new name, to write down the country they tell you, to process them into the country, and hand them this new ID, and they can travel anywhere in the country they want to go.

We have lost our mind. That is not what it is supposed to be like to do immigration in the United States.

So what do we need to do about it?

We need to fix the definition of ``asylum.'' I need colleagues on both sides of the aisle to actually talk to this administration and say: Why is the Democratic Party becoming the party of illegal activity? This needs to be fixed so that we are back to being a party about legal activity, not celebrating what is illegal.

The third thing is we have got to fix a budget request. In the next few weeks, we are going to be dealing with a continuing resolution that will extend the budget to make sure the government stays open. I don't like government shutdowns. In fact, I have a nonpartisan bill that many Members of this body are on right now that ends government shutdowns. Government shutdowns do not help us as a nation. So I want to see an end to government shutdowns even if that is a threat hanging out there. There is a practical, nonpartisan way to do that; and Democrats, Republicans, and Independents are all on that bill right now. I will talk about that sometime next week.

But there has been a request from the White House in the meantime to say: Extend this. Also, add this little piece giving us flexibility on border funding. I want to just read this to you. It is the request that the White House has made for the border.

They made this request. They want flexibility for operations and support in this and any other act so that they can use funds at community-based residential facilities--which they don't define--to provide services and support to refugees, asylum seekers, or other migrants, including the provision of medical care, treatment, legal orientation, programming, access to counsel, educational services, repatriation planning, counseling, referrals for social services, and other ``related'' programs.

What does this mean?

What they are asking is to be able to take DHS funds currently used right now and, for the first time ever, be able to give legal counsel to every person who crosses the border.

They also want to give housing to every person who crosses the border--that is, community-based residential facilities. They want to be able to provide housing and to provide medical care for every person who crosses the border. Now, we already provide emergency medical care--we are a humanitarian nation--but this is open-ended to whatever it may be. It is open-ended

for housing. It is open-ended for medical care. It is open-ended for educational care, and it is open-ended for legal counsel.

This is a huge shift this administration is looking for. They are not only looking for a way to facilitate more people to come in; they are looking for flexibility to take DHS dollars, which were allocated to prevent people from illegally crossing the border--to actually use those, instead, to help those who have illegally crossed the border have housing, long-term medical care, long-term educational issues, additional legal expenses--on and on and on. This is entirely new. This is not one just to slip into a bill. This is a huge change.

I am not opposed to immigration. I am opposed to illegal crossings, and I am opposed to whatever it takes to move people fast across the border to get into the interior of the country. It is not what we are supposed to do. For national security reasons, for the state of our economy, let's do immigration right. Let's honor what we have been as a nation and continue to welcome people from all over the world, but let's do it the legal way.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.