Floor Statements

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

I announce that the Senator from California (Ms. Butler), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez), and the Senator from Arizona (Ms. Sinema) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from California (Ms. Butler), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez), and the Senator from Arizona (Ms. Sinema) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Brown), the Senator from California (Ms. Butler), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez), and the Senator from Arizona (Ms. Sinema) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Brown), the Senator from California (Ms. Butler), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and the Senator from Arizona (Ms. Sinema) are necessarily absent.

Madam President, I rise today in the Senate to pass the DEFIANCE Act, a bipartisan bill that provides a remedy for victims of nonconsensual sexual exploitation deepfakes.

I want to thank the Senate cosponsors of this legislation. They include my ranking Republican Member, Senator Lindsey Graham, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, as well as Senators Klobuchar, Hawley, King, and Lee. This bill is truly bipartisan.

I have been proud to partner with New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who introduced this legislation in the House of Representatives with four Republican and four Democratic cosponsors. As you can see, in both the Senate and the House, this is a bipartisan measure. When I describe it, you will understand.

Sadly, Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez, herself, is a victim of what is known as explicit deepfakes. I commend her for her work and courage to create tools for victims in the fight against this despicable conduct.

The spread of these deplorable deepfakes is like a fire burning out of control. What used to take extraordinary technological expertise and a lot of time can now be done with the push of a button. Countless apps can swap someone's face onto another person's body or can digitally remove someone's clothing. These apps are often advertised as harmless entertainment. But when explicit images are produced and shared without the consent of the person depicted, the harm is very real. The exploitation of young children, the exploitation of women is really the price that is being paid for this.

Imagine losing control over your own likeness and identity. Imagine how powerless victims feel when they cannot remove the illicit content, cannot prevent it from being reproduced, cannot prevent new images from being created. The negative consequences to the victims can be profound. Victims may draw into silence themselves by withdrawing from online spaces and public

discourse as a protective measure. They may endure threats to their employment, education, or reputation; or suffer additional criminal activity, such as extortion and stalking. Some experience depression, anxiety, and fear of being in public. And in the worst-case scenario, victims are driven to suicide.

Representative Ocasio-Cortez recently described her own reaction to being depicted in sexual deepfakes without her consent. She said: ``There's a shock to seeing images of yourself that someone could think are real.'' She described how it resurfaced trauma and haunts her thoughts. Once deepfakes are seen, they cannot be unseen. As she put it, ``deepfakes are . . . a way of digitizing violent humiliation against other people.''

Prominent women are often the target of nonconsensual sexually explicit deepfakes--singers, actors, politicians alike. You cannot escape the conclusion that these images are intended to diminish and shame women.

But, sadly, the victims can be anyone. There are many distressing reports this year of middle schools and high schools struggling to respond to the spread of sexually explicit deepfakes of students.

In March of this year, at least 22 students at the Richmond-Burton High School, in McHenry County, in my home State of Illinois, learned they were depicted in deepfakes circulating online. One of the images was a doctored version of a photo of two female students taken at the school prom. The perpetrator digitally removed their clothes to make it appear they were unclothed. The prom is supposed to be a joyous rite of passage for teenagers, a happy memory they keep for the rest of their lives. Now that memory has been stolen from these two young women.

Sadly, we are seeing an explosion of images like these. One researcher found that the number of nonconsensual pornographic deepfake videos available online has increased ninefold in the last 5 years. Such videos have been viewed almost 4 billion times--4 billion times.

Monthly traffic to the top 20 deepfake sites increased by 285 percent from July 2020 to July 2023, and search engines directed 25.2 million visits to the top five most popular deepfake sites in July 2023 alone.

Tragically, under the law now, the victims have no legal remedy. Time and again, victims are told nothing can be done to help them because existing laws simply do not apply to deepfakes. This is not just a gap in the law. It is an omission that shows a blatant disregard for the trauma to children, women, and girls who are victimized by this crime.

But this DEFIANCE Act will change that. It will give the victims a day in court. Once this bill is signed into law, victims finally will have the ability to hold civilly liable those who produce, disclose, solicit, or possess sexually explicit deepfakes while knowingly or recklessly disregarding that the person depicted did not consent to the conduct.

I am proud to have collaborated with survivor advocates on this bill. Their lived experience and leadership have shaped this bill. This bill was carefully crafted to comply with the First Amendment.

As the Center for Democracy and Technology wrote in their letter endorsing the bill, it is constitutional because it addresses ``a uniquely compelling problem with a narrowly-tailored solution.''

In addition to the CDT, the DEFIANCE Act is supported by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, the Sexual Violence Prevention Association, the National Women's Law Center, My Image My Choice, PACT, Rights4Girls, and many others.

Congress has waited too long to act. Can you imagine, in your own family, if it was your wife, your daughter, your niece, or some young woman that you love who was exploited this way, who had to see these images and try to erase them from their minds, who realize that they have no power now under the law, no power to protect themselves? They are helplessly exploited and their lives have been changed for the worse.

We waited far too long to act. This is a bipartisan measure in both the House and the Senate. It is past time to give victims of nonconsensual sexual exploitation and explicit deepfakes the tools they need to fight back.

Madam President, notwithstanding rule XXII, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of S. 3696, the Disrupt Explicit Forged Images And Non-Consensual Edits Act of 2024, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. I further ask consent that the Durbin-Grassley substitute amendment at the desk be agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Madam President, I am disappointed, seriously disappointed. When we talk about these young women and young children being exploited and have bipartisan legislation before both the House and Senate to deal with it, it is important that it be characterized properly.

First, there is no liability under this proposed law for tech platforms, despite what the Senator from Wyoming said.

And, secondly, the idea that the people would suffer with civil liability here, when they didn't know what was going on--listen to the language of this bill: The victims have the ability to hold civilly liable those who produce, disclose, solicit, possess sexually explicit deepfakes while knowingly--while knowingly--or recklessly disregarding that the person depicted did not consent to the conduct.

The two major issues raised by the Senator from Wyoming are both addressed in this bipartisan measure.

There are people who will shake their heads and say: Can't the Senate even address this issue of the sexual exploitation of children and young girls and attempts to ruin their lives? Can't they even agree on a bipartisan basis to come up with an answer?

We did. We have a bill that does it, and it has been stopped.

We are not going to stop our efforts, Madam President. This is a cause worth fighting for, and we are going to really appeal to those across America who believe as we do.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, for more than a year, the Supreme Court has been embroiled in an ethical crisis of its own design. Story after story about ethical misconduct by sitting Supreme Court Justices has led the news for months.

For decades, however, Justice Clarence Thomas has accepted lavish gifts and luxury trips from a gaggle of fawning billionaires. The total dollar value of these gifts is in the millions--one

Supreme Court Justice, millions of dollars' worth of gifts.

Justice Alito, as well, went on a luxury fishing trip that should have cost him over $100,000, but it didn't cost him a dime because the trip was funded by a billionaire and organized by rightwing kingpin Leonard Leo.

Well, Justice Thomas and Justice Alito failed to disclose gifts they accepted in clear violation of financial disclosure requirements under Federal law.

But it isn't only the shameless conduct that cast a dark shadow over the Court. Time and again, these Justices' actions have cast doubt on their impartiality on cases before the Court.

Last summer, Justice Alito sat for an interview conducted in part by an attorney with a case before the Court. In that interview, Justice Alito went so far as to publicly state that Congress has no authority to regulate the Supreme Court. By doing so, he made it clear that he had already reached a conclusion about the constitutionality of legislation that Congress was considering on the issue--legislation that is before this body today and that could someday come before the Court.

More recently, we learned that flags that were associated with the January 6 insurrection and the far right were displayed outside Justice Alito's home. This happened even as the Court considered cases related to the 2020 Presidential election and the insurrectionist attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Justice Thomas also continues to hear cases related to the January 6 attacks despite his wife's involvement with efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

For years, Justice Thomas served as a fundraising draw at the Koch political network's annual summits. This is the same network that bankrolled another case currently before the Court.

Federal law requires the disqualification of a Supreme Court Justice in any proceeding in which the Justice's impartiality might reasonably be questioned, and the Supreme Court's own code of conduct reiterates that Justices should disqualify themselves in cases where there is reasonable doubt about their impartiality. But despite serious questions about the impartiality of Justice Alito and Justice Thomas in numerous cases, they have refused to recuse themselves from these cases.

The ethics crisis at the Supreme Court, the highest Court in the land, is unacceptable, it is unsustainable, and it is unworthy of the highest Court in the land.

Our faith in the character and impartiality of our judges is essential to the functioning of our legal system and our constitutional form of government, but that faith requires judges--especially Supreme Court Justices--to conduct themselves in a way that inspires public confidence. The Justices should serve as models for every other judge in America. Instead, they are serving as prime examples for why a binding code of conduct is desperately needed for the Supreme Court.

The ethics crisis at the Court stems in large part from the fact that the nine Justices on the Court are the only Federal officials not bound by an enforceable code of conduct--the only Federal officials not bound by an enforceable code of conduct.

More than 12 years ago, I first asked Chief Justice Roberts to adopt a binding code of conduct for all Supreme Court Justices. In November of last year, for the first time in its 235-year history, the Supreme Court adopted an ineffective code of conduct for its Justices. The new code does not reform the Court's ethics rules in any meaningful way, and it does not include an enforcement mechanism to address violations of the code.

As the Court conceded in a statement accompanying the code of conduct's release, the code ``largely represents a codification of principles that we have long regarded as governing our conduct.'' In other words, this so-called new code did not raise the ethical standards to which the Justices would be held; it simply tried to paper over the failed practices of the past.

The Court can address these issues itself. The Court could have issued a stronger code of conduct in the first place. It could revise its own code of conduct today. But Chief Justice Roberts repeatedly refuses to use his authority and power to implement a binding code of conduct for the Supreme Court, and until he does, Congress will continue our legislative efforts.

Last year, the Judiciary Committee, which I chair, reported to the Senate floor the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act. The bill, which was led by Senator Whitehouse, who is on the floor, and which I am cosponsoring, would require the Supreme Court to adopt an enforceable code of conduct and add new recusal and transparency requirements that would be binding on the Justices. It would be a real code of conduct. Importantly, this legislation's ethical and recusal requirements would apply equally to every Justice on the Supreme Court regardless of the party of the President who appointed them.

This should not be a partisan issue. An enforceable code of conduct would be a good thing for the Court and for our country. It is essential to ensuring that the American people have confidence in the ethical conduct of the Supreme Court, and it is essential to restoring the Court's reputation.

The highest Court in the land should not and cannot have the lowest ethical standards. That is why I support this legislation and why I urge my colleagues to join me.

Madam President, notwithstanding rule XXII and as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 199, S. 359, the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act of 2023. I further ask that the committee-reported substitute amendment be agreed to; the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Madam President, before yielding to the Senator from Rhode Island, one of the critics of this proposal said it was a solution in search of a problem. The Republican side of the aisle believes, obviously, that for one Supreme Court Justice to accept lavish gifts and luxury trips from billionaires to the tune of millions of dollars and for another Supreme Court Justice to take an undisclosed fishing trip at the cost of

$100,000 is business as usual in the Supreme Court. The American people, I am sure, would disagree.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to discuss an issue that I have been working on for quite some time.

It was over 20 years ago that I introduced the DREAM Act. I introduced it with Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, who was then chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. In fact, there was a little competition, at the start, as to who would be the first named on the bill. Senator Hatch insisted that he had the idea before me. I deferred to him, as being in the majority and as chairman of the committee.

This bipartisan legislation would provide a pathway to citizenship for young immigrants brought to the United States as children and allow them to remain in this country--in fact, the only country they have ever called home.

These young people grew up alongside our own children, with the same hopes of getting their first job, applying to college, getting a driver's license, having a bright future. And many have gone on to serve as doctors, nurses, teachers, engineers, and first responders.

Yet, without congressional action for more than two decades, every day is spent in fear of their lives being uprooted, facing fear of deportation.

I am amazed when I think about the issue of immigration. When you really come to understand America and its place in the history of the world, you realize that we are first and foremost a nation of immigrants--people who have come from every corner of the world to be part of the American dream, who, despite the odds, have overcome hardship and really built a future for themselves and made this great Nation what it is today. And yet every successive generation seems to go through the debate as to whether or not immigration is a good thing.

I think we all agree that we need an orderly process at our borders and otherwise when it comes to immigration. I think we all agree that we cannot absorb every person in the world who wants to be part of the United States today.

We have a priority to first look at those who live in this country and to measure our needs economically with the reality of immigration. We also have an obligation to only allow those to come to this country who are going to be safe and not cause any danger to those of us who live here. These are the basics.

But having said that, we are in desperate need of immigrants coming to this country for so many reasons.

Just yesterday, I was in Chicago taking a look at a new, innovative research project that is going on with our Department of Defense. The gentleman who was showing me the project is named Ben Hernandez. It is called Numat, N-U-M-A-T. It is a new material that will keep our troops safe from biological and chemical warfare.

It is amazing. His partner in this effort is Dr. Farha. Dr. Farha is Palestinian. He came to this country and used his skill to engage in this effort to keep our men and women in uniform safer--another immigrant, another immigrant story, another success story for America.

This week marks the 12th anniversary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, known as DACA. President Obama created DACA in response to a request that I made with Senator Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana. When we couldn't pass the DREAM Act, I appealed to the President to use his Executive authority to create a program that would protect these young people as long as possible. He came up with DACA.

Under this program, 830,000 individuals were able to be protected. Now, they had to go through a background check, every 2 years they had to renew their application, and they had to pay

a fee. That was understood. But it seemed like a reasonable thing to allow these talented people to stay in America and be part of our future.

DACA has protected more than 830,000 young people from deportation, all of whom were brought to this country as children, some as young as just a few months old.

Last month, I held a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee on the importance of protecting Dreamers and DACA. We heard from some amazing witnesses who showed why it is so important that we do this.

One of the witnesses was Officer Mitchell Soto Rodriguez from my State of Illinois. She is the first-ever DACA recipient to serve as a police officer with the Blue Island, IL, Police Department. She was very clear: Without DACA, that would not have been possible. Now she is realizing her dream as a part of the police force of this community.

Let me share another story of a talented DACA recipient contributing to our country. I have come to the floor of the Senate 143 times, as of today, to tell these stories. I believe each one tells a better story than any speech I could give on the subject.

This young man's name is Wilmer Palacios. He comes from a small village in Guatemala. He came to Los Angeles when he was 14 years old. His dream: He wanted to be a registered nurse. But he didn't think it was possible because he was undocumented.

The day Wilmer heard about DACA in 2012, he immediately switched his degree to pre-nursing because, for the first time, he finally felt that he could fulfill his dream.

Mr. Palacios has held DACA status almost since the program's inception 12 years ago. He now has a master's of science degree in nursing and is a registered nurse and family nurse practitioner in a medical cardiac intensive care unit in Fresno, CA. His ultimate goal is to open a medical clinic in a low-income community, and he would like to serve in the U.S. Army as a nurse.

Do we need nurses in America? Let me tell you--go to your local hospital and ask the first person in management that question, and they will tell you we are desperate; we need more nurses. We need more people like Wilmer.

He recently said: DACA offered me the freedom and opportunities I never thought possible growing up, but I cannot deny that I live in constant fear--constant fear--of a court decision and a Presidential election that can take it all away.

DACA has allowed Wilmer to pursue his dreams for now, but it was always intended to be temporary, until Congress acted. The fact is, with precious few exceptions, for 30 years, Congress has failed to act and upgrade our immigration laws.

Everybody knows the immigration system in this country is broken. And to fix it, we need a determined Senate, House of Representatives, and a President who is looking for a constructive solution. It has been hard to find.

Since President Obama established the DACA Program, Republicans have waged a relentless campaign to overturn DACA and deport these Dreamers back to countries they barely knew. Now, this program is hanging by a thread in the courts due to legal challenges from Republican State attorneys general, and DACA recipients like Wilmer Palacios are being forced to live with uncertainty every single day.

Last September, a Federal judge in Texas declared DACA illegal. Though the decision left in place protections for the current recipients, these Dreamers live in constant fear that the next court decision will upend their lives.

The litigation has also prevented at least 100,000 additional Dreamers from registering for the program. Keep in mind, those who register for the program go through a background check. When I hear people describe our immigrant population in America as murderers, rapists, terrorists, and the insane, I think to myself: Who are they talking about?

These DACA recipients--over 800,000 of them--go through background checks to make certain they are no danger to the United States; and like Mr. Palacios, they turn out to be absolutely essential to our future.

One study estimated that if DACA were to end, 1,000 U.S. workers would be out of work every business day for the next 2 years. Losing 1,000 workers like Wilmer--1,000 every day. Business owners in my State tell me they need more skilled workers.

There isn't a hospital in the State of Illinois that doesn't want a nurse like Mr. Palacios, who has a master's degree in nursing. They are desperate for them.

Some would say: Send them away. Deport them. They are not Americans. Some use harsh terms like they poison the blood of America. I couldn't disagree more. These people are part of our future. They are good, solid people who will be good citizens of the United States.

The threat just doesn't come from the courts. When he was President, President Donald Trump tried to end the DACA Program and deport people like Wilmer Palacios. And it is clear that, given the chance, he would try it again.

If my Republican colleagues will join us, Congress can protect the Dreamers and DACA recipients. I urge my colleagues: Meet the Dreamers personally. You will realize they are not a threat to this country; they are the future of our country. They can bring to us things that we need desperately.

They have earned the right to live in this country without fear. They should be able to put down roots, start families, further their education, and contribute to our society without the fear of deportation hanging over them.

It is time for Congress to get to work on a bipartisan basis and pass the DREAM Act. It is the right thing, and it is long overdue. I thought we had a chance to do that a few weeks ago. There was a bipartisan bill that moved forward. I look back at it and say that James Lankford, a Republican conservative from Oklahoma, and two other Senators--Chris Murphy and Kyrsten Sinema--all came together with a bill which would have really moved us forward in bringing order to the border, ending the crisis that we found there; put more resources into stopping the illegal flow of drugs into the United States; hire more people to do the jobs at the borders.

A leading union for Border Patrol agents endorsed this bipartisan bill. Well, what happened to it? Why wasn't it passed? Why didn't the Senate pass this bill?

There is one reason, and it is very public. The former President of the United States, Donald Trump, said: I don't want this bill to move forward. I want this issue to remain in the campaign until November.

So our opportunity for a bipartisan solution to this problem was lost.

We have got to move back to the point where we are working on a bipartisan basis to solve this program. We can do it. Virtually all of us who believe that immigration is an integral part of the history and future of the United States have an obligation to the American people to meet that responsibility.

I yield the floor.

I announce that the Senator from California (Ms. Butler), the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fetterman), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez), and the Senator from Arizona (Ms. Sinema) are necessarily absent.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the following detailees to the Senate Judiciary Committee be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the 118th Congress: Allison Kent, Andrew Parker, and Stacie Harris.

I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker) and the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez) are necessarily absent.