Floor Statements

Mr. President, EB-5 investments are a major economic driver in Texas. EB-5 projects use merit-based immigration to create thousands of American jobs and bring billions of dollars in investment to major urban areas, like Dallas and Houston, as well as our rural communities across the State. These projects include investments in infrastructure for a wide variety of sectors, including energy, hospitality, residential, and commercial.

I am a supporter of the EB-5 Program and its resources for the community, but there is no question, as Senator Grassley has said, that it could stand some reforms. As with any debate in Congress, there are a lot of different opinions on what those reforms should look like, but we can all agree that we need to strengthen this program and reauthorize it.

I am glad to join Senator Grassley today in offering this legislation to improve the integrity and security of the EB-5 Program, while ensuring law-abiding Texas job creators aren't negatively impacted.

This bill would have reauthorized the EB-5 Program until 2023, with significant oversight and integrity measures. It will require regional centers to have policies and procedures in place to protect against fraud. It will give the Department of Homeland Security greater authority to terminate applications based on fraud, criminal misuse, or threats to public safety or national security. It would subject EB-5 projects to greater oversight. All of these changes come without skewing the framework of the program to benefit certain areas to the detriment of others.

This happens to be very similar to legislation that I introduced in 2015 with Senator Schumer and Senator Flake, which included recommendations from both the Department of Homeland Security and the Government Accountability Office.

I appreciate Chairman Grassley's leadership on this legislation, and I hope at some point we can reauthorize the EB-5 Program and safeguard critical investments in communities across the country.

Madam President, dating back to his time as a Member of the Senate, President Biden--then-Senator Biden--frequently shared a piece of advice from his dad:

Don't tell me what you value. Show me your budget, and I'll

tell you what you value.

He is not wrong. We have heard countless iterations of the same message from President Biden. Actions speak louder than words. Talk is cheap. Or, as we say in Texas, sometimes someone is all hat and no cattle.

So I want to take President Biden up on his advice. We have spent plenty of time hearing what his values are. He has talked about the importance of rebuilding our economy following the pandemic. We all agree with that--restoring public trust in government, check; protecting low- and middle-income families from tax hikes, check; and standing up to Russia and China, the two greatest threats to the world order. These are priorities shared by Americans with diverse political views, and they are critical goals that any President--Republican or Democrat--should have.

But we don't have to take the President at his word when he talks about the importance of each of these things because we have his budget. We have a written plan from the President of the United States, outlining how his administration wants to turn his spoken intentions into concrete action.

So based upon President Biden's budget, what does he value? It just takes a quick glance to see that responsible spending is not one of the things that he values. The overall pricetag of the President's budget is a whopping $6.4 trillion. Even with the President's massive tax hikes, the United States would still be running more than a trillion dollar deficit each year.

It would only take 2 years for our debt burden to reach the highest level in American history, surpassing even World War II-era debt.

As a reminder, the government has spent a massive amount of money over the last 15 months, as we know. Much of it was a necessary investment in our fight against COVID-19.

On top of that funding, though, our Democratic colleagues circumvented the bipartisan legislative process and added an additional $2 trillion on a host of partisan pet projects, only about 10 percent of which related to COVID-19, even though that was the caption on the bill--a COVID-19 relief bill that was only 10 percent COVID-19.

Now, perhaps nobody expected the President to dramatically cut spending and solve our national debt problems in one go, but this is not a time, after trillions of dollars of necessary COVID-19 spending, to go on another unrelated spending spree, especially once you see where all the money is going. Once again, this is his budget; these are his values.

One of the most critical lines in any President's budget is discretionary spending. For a decade, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have pined for parity between defense and nondefense spending. But as soon as they get unified government--majority in the House, majority in Senate, and the White House--what do they do? Well, they abandon that parity argument and provide a measly 2-percent increase to defense spending while providing a 16-percent increase in the President's budget to domestic spending--hardly parity.

The Federal Government simply cannot provide for the common defense without the resources to do so. In the face of growing threats, which we all have acknowledged--China, Russia, Iran, North Korea--you would think that the President would propose a substantial increase in defense spending, but he proposed a whopping 2 percent.

Now, compare that to the Department of Education, where the President's budget calls for a 41-percent increase, a 28-percent increase for the Department of Commerce, and a 22-percent increase for the Environmental Protection Agency. Well, when you adjust for inflation, the small increase for defense spending actually represents a decrease.

The Department of Defense isn't the only national security Agency that the Biden budget expects to do with less. Even with a humanitarian crisis on our border, the budget for the Department of Homeland Security remains flat. Once again, after inflation, that will represent a decrease in spending over the current year.

Customs and Border Protection personnel are working overtime to take care of unaccompanied children, to stop dangerous drugs from crossing our border, and to enforce the laws that we in Congress have passed. They need more support to handle the situation in a fair and humane way. Cutting already thin resources for the entire Department will only make the circumstances at the border more dangerous--for law enforcement, for local communities that are being overrun by the huge numbers of people coming across the border--and a danger to the migrants themselves.

If this $6.4 trillion budget doesn't support our most urgent priorities, what does it support? What priorities are so critical that they supersede the need to support our national security and protect our borders?

Well, for one, the administration would double the size of the Internal Revenue Service. I am sure that is good news to every taxpaying American. The President has called for increasing the number of IRS agents by 15 percent a year for the next decade.

We have previously seen the damage that a politically motivated IRS can do. We saw the apparent leaking of taxpayer information recently, which is supposed to be confidential by law. And we can remember the IRS targeting controversy under the Obama administration.

Bureaucrats at the IRS subjected conservative groups that they disagreed with politically or ideologically to a different level of scrutiny than left-leaning groups. And, unfortunately, with this sort of huge investment in the IRS, it looks like the Biden administration simply wants to weaponize the IRS once again.

But that is just the start of it. A massive portion of the President's budget stems from two of the programs he has already told us about--one being the $2.6 trillion American Jobs Plan, which relies on a very generous interpretation of the word ``infrastructure,'' and it reads like the Green New Deal 2.0: more than $200 billion to build or retrofit more than 2 million affordable and sustainable places to live; a civilian climate corps; and an unrealistic 100-percent renewable-generated electricity by 2035.

His budget includes a range of other spending to address climate change, including over $1 billion to help other countries--not Americans, not the United States, but other countries--to lower their emissions.

I am sure China will be glad to take our money while continuing to build coal-fired powerplants to meet the demands of their growing economy.

Then there is a broad range of spending from President Biden's $1.8 trillion so-called American Families Plan--you have got to love the names of these pieces of legislation--which includes everything from universal preschool and free community college to mandatory paid leave policies and using the Tax Code to disguise more Washington spending.

If you read through the President's budget, which, as he said, reflects his values, you see the incredible way that President Biden is simply caving in to the radical left. Mothers are no longer called mothers. They are now called ``birthing people''--unbelievably.

Well, it is one thing for far-left activists to use these kinds of terms on Twitter, but it is entirely different to diminish the role of women in an official government document. Women are more than ``birthing people,'' and I think it is insulting to women to characterize them or define them by that.

The President doubled down on the woke ideology by proposing taxpayer funding for abortion. We know abortion is enormously controversial in our society, but this is a jarring break from a decades-long bipartisan, consensual ban provided by the Hyde amendment. It is also stands in stark contrast in the views of most Americans. The majority of Americans say they oppose using taxpayer dollars to support abortions because they are morally or religiously opposed to the practice.

Adding to the list of absurdities is a massive expansion of welfare. We already know that under the COVID-19 relief bills, the administration has argued in favor of paying people more not to work than they would earn if they did work.

A number of Governors--more than 20 of them now--have refused the $300 weekly supplement because of their concern that this was actually discouraging people from returning to work.

We are hearing from employers all across the country that it is hard, if not impossible, for them to find the workforce they need to get the economy growing again. Business owners in my State--and I would bet across the Country--are already struggling to find a reliable workforce following the overly generous pandemic-related unemployment benefits that our Democratic colleagues insisted upon.

We can't continue to discourage Americans from going back to work, because our economy will never recover if we stay on that path.

Overall, the President's budget would dramatically increase the size of government and the role it plays in our everyday lives, especially with education--as my friend Senator Tim Scott has said, putting Washington even more in the middle of Americans' lives, from the cradle to college. Is that really what the American dream is all about--more and bigger government intervening in our lives, denying us the freedom to make our own choices and to seek our own way?

It is no wonder that the White House rolled out the President's budget so quietly. Frequently, a lot of this happens on Friday afternoons after the press has left and nobody is paying much attention.

While President Biden has told us what he values over and over again, his budget actually speaks to much more. This is not the plan of someone who is fighting for a strong national defense and a swift economic recovery. This budget prioritizes climate justice over American military servicemembers. It further hampers our economic recovery at the expense of hard-working taxpayers, and it prioritizes the restriction of wealth over the prospect of economic growth, which would lift all boats. It digs the United States deeper and deeper into debt, creating a massive financial pit that our children and grandchildren will have to dig their way out of. We are writing the checks, but they will pay the bills, and that, I believe, is immoral.

It is all well and good to tell the American people that you value the same things they value--freedom, security, prosperity--but this, which in President Biden's own words reflects his values, this is not a blueprint to rebuild America. This is, indeed, strong evidence that President Biden has bowed down to the woke political left in his own base and is ready to bury the United States and future generations with unprecedented debt.

When he released his budget, President Biden said, ``Where we choose to invest speaks to what we value as a Nation.'' The President of the United States has made clear what he values. The Nation? Its future? Its prosperity? Its security? Not much.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, after months of unnecessary handwringing, Vice President Harris has finally announced that she intends to visit the U.S.-Mexico border.

She was, as you will recall, tapped by the President to lead the efforts to stem the current humanitarian crisis back in March. But 3 months in, she has spent more time trying to figure out how to support Central American countries than how to help American law enforcement and community leaders in Texas.

In the absence of any action from the administration--in fact, any acknowledgement of the crisis, at all--the humanitarian crisis has gotten nothing but worse. In March, the first month of her heading up the administration's response, there were 173,000 migrants that crossed our southern border. Then, in April, the number went up to 178,000 and, in May, 180,000 migrants. We are now on track to see the highest number of total yearly border crossings in two decades, according to the Secretary of Homeland Security, Mr. Mayorkas.

At the center of this crisis are unaccompanied children, who are brought to this country by cartels and human smugglers. We know that the migrant children endure a long and dangerous journey to our border, often arriving malnourished, abused, and in critical health. Some of the young girls even arrive pregnant, and we know that many of them have been sexually assaulted en route by these human smugglers who care nothing for their welfare. All they care about is the cold, hard dollar. I have talked to a number of these children and heard them retell their horrific stories about their journey from their home to our border.

Since January, since the time that President Biden and Vice President Harris were inaugurated, more than 65,000 unaccompanied children have entered our country with no parent and no adult guardian, an absolutely devastating figure. These children are then placed with sponsors in the interior of the United States--sometimes a family member, sometimes a complete stranger. Thirty days after these children are placed with their American-based sponsor, not necessarily even an American citizen, a full 20 percent of them don't respond to a phone call or a wellness check when a person associated with the U.S. Government knocks on the door. And we have no idea what happens to these children once they are lost to the system.

The Border Patrol's Rio Grande Valley Sector is the epicenter of this human crisis. Between October and April, that is where nearly half of all unaccompanied children were encountered. In the 3 months since the Vice President has been in charge of this crisis, I have visited the Rio Grande Valley Sector twice. I have spoken with law enforcement, elected officials, and nongovernmental organizations that try to be of assistance to the migrants while they are in the country, and a long list of other people who are trying to do everything in their power to manage this overwhelming number of humanity coming across our border.

On Friday, Vice President Harris won't get to speak with these men and women. Why is that? Well, she will be more than 1,000 miles away, down the border from the Border Patrol sector experiencing the worst of this crisis.

I know there are probably folks who are not from Texas who think that the whole border is exactly the same, but that is not true. I had the chance to travel to Tucson with Senator Sinema, the Senator from Arizona, and I got a chance to observe how different the border is in the Tucson Sector from the Rio Grande Valley, which she traveled with me to see after we left Tucson. But since October, the Rio Grande Valley Sector has encountered nearly three times as many unaccompanied children as the El Paso Sector and more than seven times more family units.

The situation along the entirety of the U.S. border is challenging, to be sure, and El Paso has suffered during the crisis too, no doubt. Law enforcement, nongovernmental organizations, and community leaders in every border sector are struggling to manage the massive surge of migrants.

When asked why she hadn't visited the border yet, the Vice President said she wasn't interested in grand gestures. Yet here she is planning a trip in a way that reflects, again, that she doesn't really fully comprehend the magnitude of the crisis and where it really exists on steroids, which is in the Rio Grande Valley. It is not even fair to say that she is a day late and a dollar short. She is nearly 100 days late and 1,000 miles short.

By ignoring the Rio Grande Valley, the busiest Border Patrol sector along

the U.S.-Texas-Mexico border, the Vice President is shifting the focus away from the most serious problems of the crisis that she has failed to solve or even contribute any constructive ideas to. It won't surprise you to know that during my time in the Senate, because my State does have a 1,200-mile common border with Mexico, I have spent a lot of time listening to and learning from folks who live and work along our border. Our border is a beautiful part of our State, rich in a unique culture and a rich sense of community that you can't find in many parts of the country.

Through no fault of their own, these border communities are being overwhelmed by the sheer number of migrants crossing the border, and the local leaders are beyond frustrated with the failures of the Federal Government to live up to its obligation to provide security along an international border.

The President and Vice President have, I have to acknowledge, verbally encouraged migrants not to come to the United States. But those words mean nothing. They are hollow rhetoric indeed when somebody can simply pick up the phone and call a family member in the United States or watch the evening news and see how easy it is to make your way across the border, not to mention the fact that the human smugglers, the cartels who charge thousands of dollars per head, are whispering in their ear saying: We can get you across the border if you just pay us our fee.

The reality of the situation is we are nearing a breaking point, and the Vice President and President could see that if they were only willing to join me and others who would be more than happy to host them by visiting the Rio Grande Valley. The administration has wasted valuable time that could have been spent addressing the crisis.

This is a crisis in policy. This is not where building an additional physical barrier would stop many of these migrants. Some of that would, and the Border Patrol said it has a part to play, but the truth is many of these migrants are turning themselves over to law enforcement authorities. They are not running away because they have figured out the gaps in our law better than we have.

The administration has wasted valuable time that could have been spent addressing this crisis, and instead, it has just gotten worse. Now the question is, What are they going to do about it? If they are looking for ideas, I am happy to offer a suggestion.

There is already a grassroots plan out there that was built from the bottom up by Senators and Congressmen most familiar with this crisis. Last month, Senator Sinema, the Senator from Arizona, and I introduced the Bipartisan Border Solutions Act, a straightforward, commonsense way to address this crisis. We have been proud to work with two House Members. The Presiding Officer knows Congressman Cuellar from Laredo, TX, along with Tony Gonzales, who represents one of the biggest congressional districts contiguous to the U.S.-Mexico border, and they are our cosponsors in the House.

So a bipartisan, bicameral bill to address the very crisis that Vice President Harris and President Biden have been trying to avoid learning more about, at least until now--this legislation has the support, as I said, of Members of both parties and in both Chambers, as well as a diverse range of well-respected organizations. The U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the National Border Patrol Council, the National Immigration Forum, and more than a dozen other organizations support this legislation.

I would be more than happy to sit down with the President and the Vice President to discuss our bill, which includes the input of leaders who are dealing with the brunt of the crisis along the border. If the administration truly wants to address this crisis, they need to get serious about how to do so, and a photo op simply will not get the job done.

The Vice President, I think, would be well served and would be serving the people of this country well if she would visit the Rio Grande Valley and listen to the law enforcement, elected officials, NGOs, and other men and women who are doing their best to try to deal with this crisis without much help from the administration.

The administration has wasted too much time already. Now is not the time for another empty gesture.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, last week, Congress notched another bipartisan win for the American people.

A bill I reintroduced earlier this year, along with Senator Markey from Massachusetts, was signed into law finally establishing Juneteenth as a national holiday. This bill was unanimously supported in the Senate and got an overwhelming vote in the House of Representatives.

I was honored to be with President Biden at the White House when he signed it into law late last week. It was even more special to celebrate with my fellow Texans over the weekend. On Saturday, I was honored to spend the very first Juneteenth National Independence Day in Galveston, where Major General Gordon Granger and his troops declared that all slaves were ``forever free.''

This happened 2\1/2\ years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed and just a couple of months after hostilities between the North and the South had ended, but communication being what it is across the huge country, particularly at that time, it took 2\1/2\ years for the message to get to the former slaves in Galveston, TX, where Juneteenth has been celebrated for many, many years.

In my State alone, we celebrated Juneteenth for 40 years as a State holiday. I could not have been more happy to take a piece of history with me, a copy of the bipartisan bill that helped preserve the legacy of Juneteenth for generations to come.

This is just one item in a significant list of bipartisan accomplishments we have made in an equally divided Senate, which we all know is no small thing. We passed legislation to confront the growing threats of China; to ensure more businesses can grab onto the lifeline of the Paycheck Protection Program, one of the most significant items of economic assistance that we were able to provide during the COVID-19 virus; we provided States with additional resources to upgrade their drinking water and wastewater infrastructure; and we passed legislation to combat hate crimes against Asian Americans.

So the truth is, notwithstanding what it may look like in the news or on cable TV or on social media, every day, our colleagues here in the Senate continue to work across the aisle to find consensus and to craft legislation with bipartisan support where we can. I tell people that legislation is hard to pass by design, and our current rules require us to do the hard work of actually building consensus on a bipartisan basis before we can pass legislation, particularly in the Senate.

We continue to do our work in other important areas like infrastructure, which has been the subject of so much attention and debate; to do police reform; to deal with the high price of prescription drugs. Republicans and Democrats continue to work together to address some of our most urgent problems.

This week, unfortunately, the majority leader, the Senator from New York, has decided to take another tack. He has chosen to spend the Senate's time on partisan legislation that simply has no chance of becoming law. That is his choice. He gets to set the agenda, and our only role is to show up, debate the bill, and cast our ballot.

Our Democratic colleagues have given the marquee treatment, a bill known as S. 1, with the symbolic numbering of the bill as the first, meaning the most important bill in their agenda. But rather than a bipartisan bill that will be good for the entire country, not just one political party or the other, the majority leader has chosen to tee up this massive Federal election takeover bill.

This legislation first popped in 2019, when the newly elected Democratic majority in the House went on a messaging bill spree. A messaging bill is one that you really know will never become law, but it sends a message. Over the last 2 years, they tried out a range of different marketing strategies. That is really all it is. It is not about passing legislation. It is about sending a message, trying to gain partisan political advantage.

They tried a range of marketing strategies to convince the American people that this overhaul to our election system is necessary. At one point, it was a matter of election security, then of voter confidence, then a way to remove obstacles that prevented people of color from voting.

Well, I have some news for them. In 2020, we saw a record election turnout. Two-thirds of all eligible voters cast a ballot. That was the highest turnout in 120 years. It wasn't confined to any single racial or ethnic group; it was across the board. We saw African-American voter participation at virtually an alltime high--the same with Hispanics and every other ethnic and racial group.

Notwithstanding the facts that people are turning out to vote in historic numbers, they had to come up with a new sales pitch. They had to attack the efforts in the States to pass their own election laws, which handle the time and manner in which State elections are run. And, to me, the consistent theme was making it easier to vote and harder to cheat. To me, that is the simple message I think we ought to be sending when it comes to our election laws. That is what our colleagues latched onto.

But over the last few months, they twisted and turned and manipulated the facts beyond any recognition. They tried to frame new State voting laws as the impetus or the reason justifying this massive Federal takeover--unconstitutional, in my view--takeover of State voting laws. They painted an alarming picture of the assault on voter access.

But if you actually take time to look at these so-called restrictions in voting, you will find they are more generous than the current law in many Democratic-controlled States. There is no better example than the Georgia law, which came under national scrutiny for enacting reforms that would give Georgia voters more time to vote than voters in a number of blue States.

Here are the facts. In Georgia, the law that people claimed was racist and designed to prevent people of color from casting their ballot during the early voting season before in-day--election-day voting--the new Georgia law provides 17 days for in-person early voting. How about Massachusetts, which is currently represented by two Democratic Senators? Well, Massachusetts provides 11 days. Delaware, represented by two Democrats and the home State of our President, provides 10 days of early voting. New Jersey, also represented by two Democratic Senators, provides 9 days, almost half of what Georgia has provided for in its new election laws.

But what you heard across the news media, cable TVs, social media, and the like was that somehow, some way, Georgia had conspired to restrict the rights of African Americans and other minority voters from casting their ballots.

But the facts prove otherwise. This is the type of hypocrisy that we are seeing in this debate. As I said, New Jersey recently passed a law--just recently passed a law that expanded in-person voting to 9 days. Did anyone claim that this was somehow a Jim Crow relic or a racist act or violating the rights of African Americans and other minority voters? Of course not. Was New Jersey treated the same as Georgia was in the popular media, where it was suggested that somehow this was a racist effort to restrict minority access to voting? Of course not.

But the New Jersey Governor took it a step further. He actually criticized

Georgia for what he called ``restricting the rights of Georgians to vote,'' but his own State provides half the opportunity that the new Georgia law does to cast your ballot. Obviously, this is a bunch of political talk and an attempt to try to intimidate Congress and the American people into this Federal takeover of the State election laws.

We heard similar attack lines from a number of our Democratic colleagues who will falsely try to brand this law as a form of voter suppression, even though it is more generous than current laws in a number of blue States.

Here are some more facts. You heard a lot of talk about mail-in ballots. The Georgia law sets a deadline of 11 days before the election to request a mail-in ballot, but in the State of the majority leader, Senator Schumer--New York--voters only receive a week. So you have 7 days prior to the election to request a mail-in ballot in New York and 11 days in Georgia. And for some reason, our Democratic colleagues focus on Georgia and claim this is some sort of conspiracy to diminish and restrict minority voting, which is clearly false. In New York, you also have to have a reason for voting absentee, but in Georgia no excuse needs to be given. You can do so as a matter of right, even if you are going to be in town, even if you are otherwise able to vote. If you find it more convenient to cast your ballot by mail in Georgia, you can do so--but not in New York.

If any State tries to enact policies that suppress the votes of minority voters, there is a law in place currently, section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, that gives the U.S. Government the right to sue that State or jurisdiction and make sure that minority voters have equal access to the ballot. As a matter of fact, the Voting Rights Act has been one of the most successful laws ever passed by a Federal Congress. And the historic turnout I referred to a few moments ago, I think, is the best evidence of that Minority voters across the country are voting in historically high numbers, which, to me, is the best evidence that the Voting Rights Act is doing exactly what we had hoped it would do when we passed it and when we reauthorized it just a few short years ago.

So, if this isn't a solution to efforts to restrict minority voting, what exactly is this bill that we will be voting on tomorrow, S. 1? The truth is it is a partisan solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

This law, if passed, S. 1, which we will vote on tomorrow, prevents States from requiring identification from voters to vote. In other words, you won't have to show a driver's license or some other means of identification in order to cast your ballot. Yet, on the Jimmy Carter, James Baker, III commission--I think it was in 2005--it recommended voter ID as one of the important ways to maintain the integrity of the ballot so that the voting officials would know you are who you say you are, and, indeed, you could check your name against the voter rolls to make sure you were legally authorized to cast a ballot.

In Senator Schumer's effort to pass S. 1, which we will vote on tomorrow, it prevents the States from asking for voter identification even when virtually every State provides that identification card for free. If you don't drive, they will provide you with a free card, and you can use an alternative means of identification, but not if Senator Schumer's S. 1 bill were to pass.

This bill, S. 1, would also tie the States' hands when it comes to maintaining accurate voter rolls. So, if people have moved out of State or if voters have passed away, this law would tie the hands of the States to make sure those names would be removed from the voter rolls, which would make it more likely that fraudulent efforts to cast those ballots on behalf of voters who either didn't exist or had moved out of State would be possible.

S. 1 would tie the hands of the States from periodically purging dead voters from the voter rolls. This would also encourage something called ballot harvesting. Now, some States provide for ballot harvesting, but many, thankfully, do not. Ballot harvesting simply makes it possible for a partisan in a political campaign to go around and collect ballots--maybe at nursing homes, maybe at shopping malls, maybe at other places--and then deliver those ballots to the voting clerk at the designated place and time. Yet you can imagine if the chain of custody of those ballots is not traced and tracked and monitored. Just think of the opportunities that could provide for fraud.

This bill would also alter the makeup of the bipartisan Federal Election Commission, so as to give the Democratic Party an advantage. Right now, there are equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats on the Federal Election Commission, and that is the way it should be. Yet this bill, S. 1, would give the Democrats a partisan advantage--a big mistake.

Here is, maybe, the biggest insult to the taxpayer: Whether or not you support a particular political candidate or the platform that candidate runs on, you can be forced to contribute your tax dollars to that political candidate to help him run and win the election. This is the government funding--really, the taxpayer funding--of political campaigns. I believe it is a 2-to-6 ratio, if I am not mistaken. For every $2 that candidate raises, he gets $6 in taxpayer funding to run his campaign. That is your hard-earned money that you have paid in taxes that is being used to promote ideas and candidates whom you don't support.

I could go on and on, as the list of absurdities is a long one, but our friend the senior Senator from California summed it up pretty well earlier this month.

She said:

If democracy were in jeopardy, I would want to protect it.

But I don't see it being in jeopardy right now.

Madam President, there is no voter suppression crisis--certainly not a systemic one. If there is a problem with suppressing minority votes, there is authority available under the Voting Rights Act for the Attorney General, appointed by Joe Biden and confirmed by this Senate, to be able to go after them. There is no widespread effort to stop voters from casting ballots, and there is no desire to hand the States' constitutional authorities over to the Federal Government.

Our Democratic colleagues are struggling to accept this reality. They have spent the last several days working behind the scenes to negotiate a compromise among themselves. There was never a question of whether or not this would be a bipartisan bill because of the overreach that I have just talked about. The question was whether or not the bipartisan opposition seen in the House would continue in the Senate.

Even if the Democrats were to accept all of the changes that have been proposed by Senator Manchin of West Virginia and that have been endorsed by Stacey Abrams, the rotten core of this bill would remain the same. This is a politically motivated, Federal takeover of our elections, and it will not stand. The Constitution doesn't give the Democratic Party or the Republican Party the power to govern how States run their elections. That is reserved to the States by the Constitution of the United States of America. I will firmly oppose any effort to hand Texas's constitutional rights to regulate and conduct its elections over to the Federal Government.

The one-size-fits-all Federal mandate won't improve public confidence in our elections. It will be seen for what it is in a transparent way, that being a partisan, political takeover--a coup d'etat, really--of the way our elections are run. Elections should be run by the folks who are elected and who are accountable to the States--and to my State of Texas--and certainly not by partisan, political actors with an agenda here in Washington, DC

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, yesterday, the Senate moved a historic bill one step closer to President Biden's desk. The Senate unanimously passed legislation to finally make Juneteenth a Federal holiday and to preserve the legacy of that momentous day for generations to come.

For more than a century, Texans have celebrated Juneteenth and commemorated the anniversary of the day slaves in Texas were first informed of the news that they were, indeed, free. President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, but the news didn't reach Texas for 2\1/2\ years, until June 19, 1865.

We were the first State to make Juneteenth a holiday and, of course, it commemorates an event that occurred in Galveston, TX. But over the last four decades, many other States have joined us.

It is finally time to recognize Juneteenth as a national holiday. I reintroduced this bipartisan bill with the Senator from Massachusetts, Senator Markey, this year, and I have been proud to work alongside my fellow Texan Congresswoman, Sheila Jackson Lee, in the House to get the bill passed and signed into law. The bill now heads to the House and according to Congressman Steny Hoyer, the House will actually pass it today.

I will have more to say about the history and significance of Juneteenth tomorrow, but for now, I want to thank the dozens of Senators on both sides of the aisle who have supported this effort. I think, particularly now at this point in our Nation's history, a little reconciliation can go a long way.

It is also an opportunity to learn from our past. America is the greatest Nation in the world, but we are not perfect and, indeed, the original sin of slavery when this country was created has caused this country a lot of angst, death, and injustice over the years. We fought a civil war, and 600,000 Americans died. If you extrapolated that to current population, that would be like 3 million Americans dying.

Of course, we went through the civil rights movement in the sixties, and, of course, the latest manifestation of racial strife is the unfortunate killing of people like George Floyd and the lack of trust that exists between some law enforcement and the communities that they serve.

While America is not perfect, we continue to do the work to strive to be ``a more perfect Union,'' in the words of the Constitution

Madam President, the American people are counting on Congress to act on some of the biggest issues facing our country.

For starters, there is a border crisis. Since January, more than 630,000 migrants have come to our southern border, including more than 65,000 unaccompanied children. In May, Customs and Border Protection had their busiest month in 21 years, with more than 180,000 encounters in May alone, and we are on track to see some of the highest numbers in yearly border crossings in decades.

Well, the alarm bells are sounding, but amid this crisis, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing this morning on a partisan bill that has nothing to do with the extant border crisis.

Make no mistake, I believe Congress should absolutely take action to allow current DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, recipients to remain in the United States, but a partisan bill that would provide a pathway to citizenship for 4.4 million adults and other unrelated issues has simply no chance of passing in the Senate.

Now, Senator Durbin, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, who has long been an advocate for the Dreamers, if he really were serious about that issue, he now has the authority, as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, to put a bill before the committee to allow Senators to offer and vote on amendments and to mark up a bill. And if he were able to get a majority of the committee to vote for a bill, he could then ask majority Leader Schumer to put the bill on the floor. But, so far, most of our discussions on immigration have been just that, all talk and no action.

At the same time, Madam President, America's roads and bridges are in dire need of attention by Congress. Every year, the American Society of Civil Engineers evaluates the state of our infrastructure and issues a report card to let us know how we are doing. Well, America is barely passing with a ``C-minus.'' Texas is faring slightly better than the rest of the class, with just a ``C.''

I believe Republicans and Democrats alike think that rebuilding our roads and bridges is important. We even share the same goal of expanding the definition of ``infrastructure'' to include broadband because we saw during the current pandemic that broadband is no longer a luxury. It is an absolute necessity, whether it is for telehealth or whether it is for our children learning remotely or for people working remotely from home.

Even as bipartisan negotiations continue, though, the majority leader is eyeing the prospects of a partisan bill that would circumvent the normal legislative process and would be entirely a partisan product. But we know that in a 50-50 Senate, bipartisan work on shared priorities is not impossible. In fact, we did it just last week.

Last week, we saw a great example of what can be accomplished if we will work together to achieve an outcome.

Madam President, in recent years, China has emerged as one of the greatest competitors to America. Both Republicans and Democrats recognize the need to take action now to confront the growing threats posed by China, and so that is what we did last week.

Last week, the Senate passed a sweeping bipartisan bill to invest in strategic competition with China, in large part by funding the CHIPS for America Program to shore up this vulnerable supply chain of advanced semiconductors coming primarily from Asia, primarily from Taiwan

Now, Madam President, there is a lot of work that we can and should do on a bipartisan basis because, of course, not every issue should be or is a partisan issue. But I will have to tell you that old habits die hard around here.

Despite the clear need for cooperation to move critical legislation through a 50-50 Senate, the majority leader is resisting any progress on issues that we can and should be addressing. Instead, he is trying to drum up a scenario where somehow we decide to eliminate the 60-vote requirement, otherwise known as the filibuster. But it is that 60-vote requirement that requires both parties to roll up their sleeves and do the hard work and build consensus.

In a country of 330 million people, we need to have the continuity and the planning and the stability of bipartisan work products, not just a partisan bill that can be undone after the next election for Congress or after the next Presidential election.

Well, over several months, our Democratic colleagues have been asked about the fate of the filibuster, whether they would be willing to eliminate the filibuster in pursuit of partisan goals. Senator Schumer, for one, has repeatedly said that ``all options are on the table''-- whatever that means--and a number of our Democratic colleagues have parroted the same line.

Now, they have looked for examples of Republicans filibustering bills, just like they have done over the last 6 years. They assumed this would be the golden ticket to rid themselves of the bipartisan filibuster requirement and escape blame, only things haven't quite worked out that way. The roadblock to bipartisanship isn't on the Republican side but, rather, on the Democrat side.

Madam President, after passing five bipartisan COVID-19 relief bills last year to support the American people through the pandemic, our Democratic colleagues kicked off this year with a different approach. They made no attempt to try to negotiate another consensus package, as we had done five times before last year, and insisted on skirting the normal legislative process so they could pass a purely partisan $1.9 trillion spending bill.

Well, the problem with that is it was really mislabeled. One, it vastly overshot the target, and it spent less than 10 percent of the money--which, purportedly, was for COVID-19 relief--on COVID-19, and less than 1 percent of that was related to vaccines, which was clearly the most urgent need.

But the money that we had appropriated last December hadn't even been spent yet, but, apparently, the Biden administration wanted to demonstrate that it could get things through but, in the meantime, appropriated $1.9 trillion, threatening us with something we haven't seen rear its head in a long time, which is inflation.

But the bill, as I said, included a lot of unrelated and unnecessary partisan priorities, ranging from blank checks for mismanaged union pension funds, funding for climate justice, backdoor money for Planned Parenthood, and an exclusive paid leave program for Federal bureaucrats.

Madam President, where did that land us? Well, as I said, last week, the Department of Labor announced that inflation had climbed to the highest rate since 2008. Core inflation surged to the highest level in nearly three decades. Families are feeling the pinch of higher prices as they pay higher prices for everything from housing to cars to gasoline to groceries.

This is really sort of a silent and hidden tax on their income, when the dollar that they earn is worth less and less as prices go higher and higher. But, unfortunately, this is the exact scenario economists expected when our Democratic colleagues rolled out this $2 trillion spending bill at the beginning of the year. And they are currently proposing to spend trillions of dollars more.

Even Larry Summers, who once served as Treasury Secretary under Bill Clinton and Director of the National Economic Council under President Obama, warned about inflation. He penned an op-ed in the Washington Post in February, cautioning the administration about the risks of inflation, making himself persona non grata among our Democratic colleagues. But he wrote another one last month saying that ``the inflation risk is real.''

You might think that would serve as a cautionary tale to our Democratic colleagues, that partisan legislation does not give way to sound and stable policies. But that is not the case.

When the majority leader said all options are on the table for eliminating the filibuster, he didn't mention the fact that he would be setting the table and setting the agenda trying to make that case.

Absent Republican obstruction that he and other members of the media forecasted, the majority leader is now teeing up a series of designed- to-fail votes so he could explain or justify--try to justify--why the filibuster should be eliminated

Madam President, we kicked things off last week with a vote on a bill that would exploit the cause of pay fairness, when that is already clearly the existing law, but, in this case, to line the pockets of trial lawyers.

Senator Schumer said this month, the Senate will vote on S. 1, the partisan Federal election takeover bill. So just as our Democratic colleagues went on a spending spree in the name of

COVID-19, this bill hijacks the constitutional authority of the States in the purported name of increasing voting access. But this bill, too, is chock full of unnecessary, unpopular, and unconstitutional election proposals.

It makes it much easier for partisans to affect our elections through fraud, in part, by removing requirements for the most basic safeguard, which is voter identification.

That was one of the main recommendations in 2005 of the Commission on Federal Election Reform, a bipartisan commission cochaired by former President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, and former Secretary of State, James Baker, a Republican. That Commission, back in 2005, recommended that voters be required to present a photo ID card and the State should provide free cards to voters who, for some reason, didn't have a driver's license or other identification.

In order to vote in person, most States require voters to present some valid form of identification. Matching the name of an eligible voter with the name on a valid form of ID is a commonsense safeguard against fraud, but one our Democratic colleagues apparently want to eliminate.

In fact, their legislation would stop the States--actually it would prohibit the States--from requiring proof of identification in order to vote. Just sign a piece of paper saying you are who you say you are and no further questions can be asked.

On top of that, this bill would require the States to automatically register anyone in their databases for everything from the department of motor vehicles to public assistance. We know these programs aren't limited to eligible voters and could include noncitizens and others who aren't eligible to cast a ballot, not to mention the fact that those who are already registered to vote would be registered again, potentially.

And even if there are duplicate registrations or if someone passes away or moves, States would not be allowed, by this law, to clean up their voter rolls within 6 months of an election.

But just when you think things can't get any crazier, they do. Our Democratic colleagues want to provide taxpayer funding for political campaigns and elections. That is right. They want you to pay for a political candidate's campaign, whether you want to or not, whether you support the policies of that candidate or not.

A lot of companies have matching programs for charitable giving. If an employee donates to the charity of their choice, the company often will match the donation dollar for dollar. Well, that same principle applies here, in part, except instead of the charity getting money, it is now a political candidate. Instead of the company footing the bill, it is--you got it--it is you, the taxpayer.

I could go on and on. This proposal, S. 1, which we will be voting on in the near future, changes the basic structure of the Federal Election Commission, which is currently a bipartisan Commission, which is forced to obtain a bipartisan majority before they can act. It split 3 to 3. But this bill would eliminate that bipartisan requirement and simply allow a partisan Federal election committee to work its will.

This bill also legalizes something called ballot harvesting, which is susceptible to widespread fraud. In other words, it lets a campaign worker go around to nursing homes, neighborhoods, union halls, wherever, and collect your ballot and then to take them down to the clerk's office and cast that ballot. Well, the opportunities for fraud are pretty obvious.

This bill would also implement a new financial disclosure policy that even the American Civil Liberties Union says ``could interfere directly with the ability of many to engage in political speech about causes that they care about.''

But above all this, this bill undermines the trust and accountability that is so important to elections. The Judiciary Committee recently had a hearing where the secretary of state, who happens to be a Democrat, from New Hampshire said the single most important thing in providing a big turnout for elections is public confidence that their ballot will be counted. It is not how many days before election day you can vote, who can vote by mail; it is the public's confidence that their ballot will be counted, no matter how and when cast.

So S. 1 is not a serious attempt at bipartisanship. It is the opposite. It is not an honest effort to pass legislation. Right now, we know that Democrats don't even have 50 votes on their side of the aisle. But the majority leader is trying to prove that partisanship apparently has a death grip on the Senate, but, unfortunately for him, it is not the party he thinks.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print my bill for introduction in the Congressional Record. The bill's purpose is to improve the safety and security of members of the Armed Forces, and for other purposes.

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

Madam President, last month, more than 180,000 migrants crossed our southern border. That is the highest monthly total since the Clinton administration.

Unaccompanied children continue to arrive at our border by the tens of thousands. In the first 5 months of this year, more than 65,000 migrant children crossed our southern border--nearly double the amount we saw in fiscal year 2020. As bad as things are, things can, and I predict will, get worse.

The administration is weighing whether this is an appropriate time to lift title 42, which is a public health order designed to protect from the spread of the COVID-19 virus, but they have yet to tell us what transition plans they may have, if any, in transitioning from the current exclusion of many adult migrants to welcoming those who are currently excluded or processing them through our immigration courts.

Depending on what the administration decides, the humanitarian crisis at the border will likely swell even larger this summer. Despite the clear need for action from Congress, most of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle have put on blinders. Instead of a bipartisan effort to eliminate or, I should say, alleviate or mitigate the humanitarian and security crisis at our border, we have one side pushing for action and the other side largely staying silent.

The Judiciary Committee of the Senate should be leading the charge to address this crisis in a fair and humane way. Back in April, Senator Grassley, the ranking Republican, and I sent a letter to Chairman Durbin and Subcommittee Chairman Padilla requesting a hearing of either the full committee or the Immigration Subcommittee on this current crisis at the border.

Two months and hundreds of thousands of migrants later, they have simply refused to even hold a hearing.

Last month, the Subcommittee on Border Security and Immigration held its first hearing, but the topic wasn't on the border crisis. Instead, the topic was increased numbers of visas for undocumented immigrant workers. That is a topic we can and should discuss but certainly not with the looming crisis on the border.

Tomorrow morning, the Senate Judiciary Committee will continue to ignore this backlog of migrants and this blinking red light that should warn all of us that this crisis will get nothing but worse.

What is the topic of tomorrow's hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee? We are set to hold a hearing on the unserious, House-passed immigration bill. This legislation stands zero chance of being passed by the Senate--zero. It combines some of the most radical proposals from the far left in one massive bill that fails to address the needs of our country. Rather than discuss the humanitarian crisis at the border, our Democratic colleagues have chosen to hold a hearing on a dead-on-arrival bill, and they know it. It is a remarkable show of priorities.

Tomorrow, I expect we will hear a lot about discussing the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrival recipients--one of the categories of undocumented immigrants that would receive a path to citizenship under this legislation.

I should say that Texas is home to about 100,000 DACA recipients who are vital parts of our communities. They have grown up with our kids, attended the same churches, shopped in the same grocery stores, and defended our freedoms in the U.S. military. They are also a huge driver of our economy. Ninety-six percent of DACA recipients are either working or in school, and, on the whole, these young people contribute more than $400 million a year in State and local taxes in Texas alone.

Despite all the ways these young men and women strengthen our country and our communities, they have been living in a constant state of uncertainty about their future. That is because when President Obama announced this program 9 years ago, he did so through a shortsighted Executive memorandum rather than engage Congress. That is right. Rather than rolling up his sleeves and working with Congress to pass long- lasting immigration policy, he chose a path of least resistance that didn't involve any input from Congress but merely created this with a stroke of a pen. To say the least, this made things easier for President Obama in the short run, but it caused a lot of fear--has caused a lot of fear and uncertainty for these young people in the long run, and that continues today. They were set unfairly on a yearslong, tumultuous journey, waiting nervously to see how the courts would weigh in on the various court challenges that we knew were going to occur. President Obama knew it as well. So these young DACA recipients have been left wondering whether they might be deported to a country they have no memory of and being forced to leave behind the families, the jobs, and the opportunities they have worked so hard to build here in the United States.

Many of these young people are in their twenties and thirties now with careers, families, and plans of their own. The possibility of being forced to leave the United States is no less terrifying for them than it would be for anyone who was born here. After years of being yanked around from court ruling to court ruling, these young men and women deserve certainty. They deserve to know whether they can apply to college, grow their families, live their lives, and do all the things other young Americans can do without this dark cloud hanging over their plans. After all, they haven't done anything wrong. They were brought here as children, as minors. And in America, we do not hold children responsible for the mistakes of adults--in other words, their parents.

That is why I believe we should take action that gives these DACA recipients the certainty they deserve, and the only way to do that is through more legislation, not further Executive actions. And I strongly support that legislative effort. However, massive partisan bills, like the legislation the House passed this year, is not the answer. I support DACA recipients because they were brought here at a young age through no fault of their own, but the American Dream and Promise Act has completely abandoned this justification in favor of rewarding recent illegal entries with green cards, even adults who violated our immigration laws.

If the goal is to provide legal certainty for our DACA recipients as opposed to making a grand political statement, we need to be realistic about how we get there. We need to learn from our mistakes of the past, where we have tried to build big, comprehensive immigration reform bills only to see them collapse of their own weight, which means we need to begin working on smaller packages that can gain broad support and hopefully build trust in the process. I am not suggesting we quit there, but that is the place we need to start if we have learned from the lessons of the last 20 years

The American people overwhelmingly support allowing DACA recipients to remain in the United States, and I believe it is true of a majority of Members of the Senate. We have to set aside policies we cannot agree on so we can make progress on the ones we do agree on, and we need to keep our efforts focused on DACA recipients. If this is a priority for folks on both sides of the aisle, I hope we will finally be able to get a bill to the President's desk to help these young people.

More broadly, though, there is no denying our immigration system is sorely in need of reform. It is outdated; it is inefficient; and it simply does not meet the needs of our country today. But there is very little room for those types of conversations until we solve the current crisis at the border. Once that is under control and our bipartisan Border Solutions Act, which is the only bicameral, bipartisan bill that has been introduced--once we solve that problem, I hope we will have a bipartisan debate about the changes that should be made to our immigration system, and the DACA recipients are at the top of that list.

As I said, these young men and women deserve certainty, and Congress cannot pass legislation to provide that certainty if our Democratic colleagues and the White House insist on attaching controversial policies or ignoring the current crisis at the border, as the Biden administration is appearing to do.

I yield the floor.