Floor Statements

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to print the following letter in the Record.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 5 minutes before the rollcall begins.

Madam President, I am glad that I am on the floor today to hear the previous speakers. I think Senator Collins of Maine gave a thoughtful presentation about the substance of this bill and addressed many of the worries and criticisms that were raised on the floor earlier.

I think one thing stuck with me: If there is a protection under Obergefell, it is the same protection under this bill. It is not an expansion of rights.

But I also want to thank the Senator from Wyoming. That was an outstanding statement. It really was, and I join Senator Collins in commending her for saying it. I am sure her position has not been an easy one at home, but it reflects some thoughtful consideration on her part. Most importantly, it reflects her appeal to us in this Chamber and to the Nation to really seize this opportunity for tolerance. If there was ever a time when we needed more of that in this Nation, I can't imagine when it was. We need it now more than ever.

It wasn't but just a few days ago that there was a mass shooting involving those who were at a gay nightclub, and innocent people were killed. Now, more than ever, we need to stand up and say there needs to be tolerance in America, and her statement really touched my heart. I thank her so much for coming to the floor and delivering it.

I take a look at this and say many times I have been critical of Supreme Court Justices, particularly Supreme Court Justice Thomas. We disagree more than we agree. But I, in a way, have to be grateful to him for bringing us to this moment because it was his statement in the Hobbs decision about the possibility of raising questions on other Supreme Court decisions that led us to the introduction of this Respect for Marriage Act.

I thank the Senators who led in that effort. I want to make sure that the Record reflects Senator Baldwin, Senator Collins, Senator Portman, who spoke on the floor earlier, and Senator Sinema and Senator Tillis, the original cosponsors--bipartisan cosponsors--of the Respect for Marriage Act.

What we are considering here is very fundamental. I went back to read Obergefell, and what Justice Kennedy wrote in that majority opinion was the acknowledgement that there is a constitutional protection based on due process and equal protection under the laws for same-sex marriage-- fundamental. He said we don't have to wait on the legislature to spell this out; it already exists. And that, to me, says how powerful this issue is.

My wife and I are blessed to have so many friends who are in same-sex marriages and are wonderful people in so many respects. It has really opened our eyes to the reality of life for so many good Americans who simply want to have the opportunity under the law to marry the people they love.

The vast majority of Americans believe in that. I do, and I think what we are trying to do today is to protect that right as best we can. Maybe what we are doing is not as expansive as Obergefell, but it is a genuine good-faith effort.

Senator Lee, in his amendment, claims that it is necessary for his amendment to protect religious liberty. But he ignores the robust protections for religious liberty already in the Respect for Marriage Act.

The bipartisan substitute has been quoted over and over, but it bears repeating:

Nothing in this Act, or any amendment made by this Act,

shall be construed to diminish or abrogate a religious

liberty or conscience protection otherwise available to an

individual or organization under the Constitution of the

United States or Federal law.

Of course, the free exercise of religion must be protected. No one disputes that, and that is why the bipartisan substitute amendment makes clear that this bill does not override existing religious freedom protections.

I commend those religious organizations that have stepped forward, read this bill carefully, and supported it publicly. It is across the political spectrum and religious spectrum of America. I think they understand the lengths that we went--those of us who supported it, as well as those who wrote it--in putting in provisions to protect the free exercise of religion.

But we must remember that this critical First Amendment right is a shield, not a sword. It cannot and must not be wielded to discriminate against individuals solely based on whom they love. We have seen too many who have tried to turn this crusade the wrong way. I hope today's vote on the U.S. Senate floor makes it clear that we are here to protect civil rights and not enable civil rights violations. We need to protect LGBTQ families and ensure that same-sex marriages are offered the same stability and dignity that all marriages are entitled to.

For these reasons, I oppose Senator Lee's amendment and encourage my colleagues to do the same.

I yield the floor.

Vote on Amendment No. 6482

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to yield back all time.

Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

I announce that the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Warnock), is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Warnock) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Warnock) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Warnock) is necessarily absent.

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

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

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

Madam President, I hope my colleagues had a good time with their families over Thanksgiving. I sure did. The flu intervened in some of our visitations, but we were able to join by Zoom and by telephone and had a great time in that holiday. I am looking forward to even better times for the Christmas holiday that is coming up.

Before we can leave for Christmas, we have some work to do. There is a priority for this Congress as it ends this calendar year and fiscal year. We have many challenges ahead of us.

The leader came to the floor and talked to us about the Omnibus appropriations bill, which we know has to be done. We don't want the government shutting down.

We have the National Defense Authorization Act, which is critically important for the defense of our Nation and for our continued presence in places like Ukraine, to provide assistance to the people there who are fighting for their freedom and literally fighting Vladimir Putin for their lives.

We also have issues before us such as the Respect for Marriage Act, which confirms, I hope, on a bipartisan basis in the Senate, that we stand behind the Obergefell decision, that we believe people should be able to make their own decisions about the people they love and marry on a civil basis. And I believe that should pass--and I hope it does pass--before we leave for Christmas.

DREAM Act

Madam President, there is another issue that is of urgent priority that is personal to me. It deals with the legal limbo that has been created for hundreds of thousands of Dreamers and DACA recipients who are now uncertain of their future.

These recipients are immigrants who were brought to the United States as children. Some were toddlers and infants; others, kids in their teens, brought here by their families. They didn't make the decision to come, but they made a life when they came. They attended school. They grew up in America. They stood up in the classroom every morning, as all kids do across this country, pledging allegiance to that flag, believing it was their flag and their country. But that is not how the law sees it.

Some of those, just babies when they arrived, grew up here and were educated in school. They went to school with our kids and our grandkids. Their parents attended church with our families.

Responding to the need to take care of these young people and give them a path to citizenship--a chance to become a permanent part of America, legally in this country--20 years ago, I introduced the DREAM Act. We came up with the term ``DREAM Act'' between myself and Senator Orrin Hatch, a Republican conservative from Utah, who was my original cosponsor of the bill.

It was a bipartisan bill. Here was Durbin from the State of Illinois and Hatch from Utah, agreeing on a bill that was so important that we argued between ourselves who would be the lead sponsor. I deferred to Senator Hatch the first time we introduced it because the Republicans were in the majority and I thought it gave us a better chance to pass it.

As time passed, Senator Hatch lost his interest in the issue and withdrew as a sponsor. But over the years we have had the sponsorship of many Republicans who believe, as I do, that these young Dreamers deserve a chance to prove themselves and to earn their way to citizenship in the United States.

We have had a few conservative Republican cosponsors, but we needed many more. We needed 60 votes to pass

the bill on the floor of the U.S. Senate. We had several attempts at it--I think almost five--where we brought the measure of the DREAM Act to the floor. And we made it clear: You had to have come to the United States as a child; you must have lived here without any substantial legal or criminal record; and you must be given a chance to have a citizenship opportunity in your life. That was basically the bill.

We brought it to the floor five different times. We had a majority each time. But in the Senate, a majority is not enough. As you know, it takes 60 votes. We fell short each of those times.

I remember one Saturday--it was a lameduck session at the end of the year--and we decided to make a try for the DREAM Act. Harry Reid was the Democratic leader in the Senate. He said: I will give you a chance for a vote. So we had that vote on a Saturday morning. The whole Gallery was filled with young Dreamers. They decided to come in their caps and gowns from their graduation ceremonies. So they brought those caps and gowns out of storage and wore them on the floor to prove that they were a valuable addition to the future of the United States. They were so excited to think that this will be their chance.

Well, sadly, we had a majority but not the supermajority that the Senate requires. I met with them afterward, and there were a lot of tears that were shed by them--and by me--as they thought about what it meant. They were so uncertain about where they were going to go and what their future was going to be.

I decided to try a different approach. If we couldn't pass the DREAM Act in the Senate, maybe, just maybe, my cosponsor in the DREAM Act, the former Illinois Senator Barack Obama, could find a way as President of the United States to help. And thank the Lord, he did. He came up with DACA. This was the approach that said to these young people: Here is what I can give you. If you will stand up and apply each year to be protected in the United States, we will give you a chance. If we check your background and everything is fine, we will give you 2 years at a time to stay here and live in the United States as Dreamers, be able to work legally, and no fear of deportation. He issued that Executive order. I remember it well. The day was August 15, 2012, 10 years ago-- more than 10 years ago. Congressman Luis Gutierrez of Chicago and I decided that we would have a signup occasion at Navy Pier, a well-known landmark in the city of Chicago. We didn't know how many young people were going to show up to sign up for DACA. We brought together a few immigration attorneys who volunteered their time to help them fill out the forms.

And we waited.

We started hearing this rumbling of people who were interested. I remember speaking to Congressman Gutierrez and wondering: Are we going to have 100, 200? The estimate started going up just wildly as people started saying there will be many more than you could imagine. It turned out there were thousands. Ten thousand applicants showed up at Navy Pier on that day. They overwhelmed all the volunteer attorneys that we had. Some of them had been waiting outside through the night to make sure they had their chance to sign up for DACA. In the end, some 780,000--maybe even more--across the United States answered President Obama's call and were protected by DACA. What they have done with their lives is nothing short of remarkable.

Let me tell you about one who I think is just so amazing. This is a young lady who was in the line set up in 2012, August of 2012. She was one of the first Dreamers to receive the protection of DACA--a young woman from Chicago. Her name is Karen Villagomez. Karen's parents brought her to America from Mexico when she was just 2 years old--same age my mother was when her family came to the United States. I know the Presiding Officer is an immigrant herself and proud of her family story, the courage your mother showed especially bringing you and your family to the United States. Karen was 2 years old when she was brought into the United States from Mexico. She didn't really discover that she was undocumented until she applied for college. She was accepted. She grew up in Chicago and had been accepted to college at the University of Rochester in New York. But because she was undocumented and DACA, she, unfortunately, didn't qualify for any Federal assistance to help her through school. That meant working jobs, her parents helping her, putting together all the money they could so that she could go to college. She wasn't eligible for 10 cents in Federal financial aid, but she wasn't going to be stopped.

Karen was a freshman at the University of Rochester of New York when I first heard of her. It was spring break of her freshman year in college. She was hoping to fly home to Chicago to surprise her family. Instead, she was arrested and detained by ICE. One lawyer told her she probably had about 4 months before she was going to be deported back to Mexico. Karen and her family called my office. There was a lot of emotion in that phone conversation. My staff and I reached out to the Federal Agencies and said: Don't deport her. Give her a chance. You won't regret it. She has no background that suggests she is any danger to this country, but she has so much promise and determination. Give her a chance.

Well, they decided to give us a reprieve, a short-term suspension of the deportation. Karen went on with one reprieve after another, never knowing whether she was going to be deported before she could even finish college. But she finally did. Then she came back to Chicago. She was accepted at Northwestern University Law School--law school. With DACA, she was able to work as a paralegal, then as a counsel for the city of Chicago. Graduating law school, she became a clerk for a Federal judge in Chicago. She got married.

Three weeks ago, on election day, at long last, she was sworn in, naturalized as an American citizen. I was there to see her take the oath of citizenship. You know what she was going to do as soon as the ceremony ended? Walk across the street, register to vote, and vote as an American citizen for the first time on the day that she was naturalized. There wasn't a dry eye in that court chamber as we all celebrated this wonderful journey of this amazing young woman. And, incidentally, there is a baby on the way. She and her husband are so proud they are both part of this country and its future.

More than 830,000 young people just like her have been able to live safely and work in America because of DACA. But there is an uncertainty as to what is going to happen in the future. Last month, the Fifth Circuit Federal Court remanded a case to the lower court to determine whether DACA would remain the law of the land. It is still under attack.

Here is what it gets down to: Unless Congress acts in the next 3 weeks to protect DACA recipients, DACA could end as soon as next year. An average of 1,000 DACA recipients would lose their jobs and their legal right to work every single week in healthcare and in education, sectors of our economy that are so essential to our growth. DACA recipients are doing the work. They turn out to be the nurses, sometimes the doctors, as well as teachers, engineers, policemen, firefighters. And they are going to be deported if we don't come to their rescue and finally make DACA legal once and for all.

Does anyone think for one minute America would be better off if we started deporting doctors and nurses and teachers who are now protected by DACA or men and women who are risking their lives in the military or our police and firefighters? The answer is clearly no.

You know, right before Thanksgiving, a few hundred Dreamers flew to Washington. I think the Presiding Officer said you met with them. They met with me and were telling me what is at stake here.

One young man, in particular--what an amazing story. Because of DACA, he was able to graduate from college with an engineering degree. He decided he would start his own company since he had that opportunity. Now he has started several companies and is paying--he said last year, he paid $180,000 in Federal taxes. And I said to the group he assembled there, there are many large corporations in America that don't pay as much in taxes as this young man, this DACA protectee, was able to pay. It is an indication of the creativity, determination, and the quality of these young people. We have

to give them a chance to be part of our future.

Some Republicans have cosponsored the Dream Act. Senator Lindsey Graham, my friend, former chairman of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, is currently a lead sponsor with me. I have also worked with Senator Graham and other Republican Senators over the years to deal with comprehensive immigration reform.

I have had conversations with a number of Republican and Democratic Senators who understand the urgency of dealing with this issue. I am not going to name names here or in the hallway, but I will tell you, conversations are taking place, and I am encouraged by them. I will join them and provide whatever resources I can or, if I can help by standing to the side, I will do that too. The goal is to make sure these DACA recipients have a future. We need 10 Republican Senators to join all the Democrats to get that done--just 10. We can break the filibuster, get the supermajority we need under the Senate rules.

I have heard many Republican colleagues say they won't help DACA recipients or even talk about immigration until we stop this so-called flood of immigrants and asylum seekers at the southern border. Look, every Democrat in the Senate agrees we need an orderly process at our border, but simply closing the border to families fleeing violence is not a simple or practical or worthwhile situation. That is why Biden, as President, is adding capacity and building better systems at the border. We need to do more, and we should do it together on a bipartisan basis.

Today, there are over 23,000 Customs and Border Protection agents working at the southwest border, and ICE has surged over 1,300 personnel to stop human smuggling networks. The administration is also building new migrant processing facilities, working on a system that allows meritorious asylum claims to be processed sooner.

But we can't fix these problems alone. We can't do it all in 3 weeks. Many of my Republican colleagues have tried to blame the families who are coming across the border for fentanyl. The overwhelming majority of fentanyl that enters this country isn't being smuggled in by undocumented immigrants. It is coming in through legal ports of entry by people who are authorized to enter the United States. Many of these people are U.S. citizens. I am not making excuses for them, but for goodness' sake, let's be honest about the source of the problem.

Let me give you a few numbers that tell the story. This fiscal year, Customs and Border Patrol seized six times more illegal drugs from authorized travelers at land ports of entry than they did from migrants crossing the border--six times--and nearly seven times more fentanyl was seized at land ports of entry than at the border.

I want to stop the deadly flow of fentanyl. It hits my State and all across America. You won't do it by turning away asylum seekers and separating parents and children. You do it scanning every passenger and commercial vehicle and all freight traffic crossing the border. We have the technology to do it. Let's get it done on a bipartisan basis.

President Biden has signed the omnibus funding legislation and infrastructure bill, which we talked about before. It included resources to meet the screening goal, which ought to be our basic starting point of this conversation. Sadly, a majority of Republican Senators voted against both of these bills, but I beg them to come back and join us again and see if there is some common ground. We can fix America's immigration system in a way that honors our values and does make us safer.

We need to focus on reality. We need less political posturing and more compromise and we need to start in that lameduck session to protect the Dreamers for their future and our own.

I yield the floor.

I announce that the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Warnock) is necessarily absent.

Mr. President, I listened to the statement of my colleague and friend from Texas Senator Cornyn on the issue of immigration. It would seem that we are miles apart, Democrats and Republicans, on this issue.

Let me state from my own personal point of view, speaking just for myself, what I think we are facing and what we should do to address it. Here are the basics as far as I am concerned: We need an orderly process for immigration in America, both at the border and off the border. That means laws and rules, numbers that work for both the immigrants as well as the economy of America.

No. 2, we should never knowingly allow anyone dangerous to come into this country; or, if they are here in immigrant status and pose a danger to our country, they have no right to stay, as far as I am concerned.

No. 3, it is a great compliment that so many people all over the world are desperate to come to our country. If the opposite were true and people were flowing out of the United States, it would be a sad commentary. But America has always been a magnet of opportunity, and so the fact that so many people want to come here is a compliment, in a way.

But the reality is this: We cannot absorb everyone who wants to come into America from all over the world in a limited period of time. It can only be considered, in an orderly fashion, over a longer period of time.

No. 4, we haven't touched this immigration set of laws in 30 years. So to blame Joe Biden for this is to ignore the obvious. There wasn't much, if anything, done under the Trump administration that was helpful and, going back years and years before, very little, if anything, to show for it.

The only time we finally did a bipartisan bill and brought it to the floor of the U.S. Senate, I was part of the Gang of 8, and we brought it to the floor. We debated it at length in the committee and on the floor, and it passed with a vote, I believe, of 65 here in the U.S. Senate, a bipartisan vote.

We sent it over to the House of Representatives, which was under Republican control with Speaker Ryan. They never raised the issue. They never brought it to the floor. They never discussed it in committee. So that was the end of the effort.

So to argue that we haven't tried--we have. On various individual bills, like the DREAM Act, which I introduced 21 years ago--I brought it to the floor of the Senate five times and got a majority vote all five times. But that is not enough in the Senate. It didn't get 60 votes. So we lost the bill to a filibuster each and every time.

So to argue that the effort has not been undertaken is not quite accurate.

The question is: Where do we go from here? Title 42 was basically a public health announcement that we could deny access to the United States to people based on public health considerations. This week, a DC judge, Federal judge, concluded that whatever our initial rationale was for title 42, it no longer applied. If it was for COVID-19 or public health, he found reason to question whether or not, in today's circumstances, it still applied.

Why is this important? Because 40 to 50 percent of those who come to the border are turned away under title 42; so the Border Patrol is saying to us: What is going to happen when this expires? We will have even more people seeking entry into the United States and no basis for turning them away.

So it is a situation which is a real and challenging situation, and I think it argues more than ever that we have to do something and do it soon so that the situation at the border does not get worse.

Why is it so bad? Well, there are a variety of circumstances that have given rise to this situation, not the least of which is the countries that are sending the most people to the United States include Venezuela--where millions have fled Venezuela and the dictator that is running that country to neighboring countries--and they are now coming to the United States.

Venezuela does not have a government that we are in regular communication with, and so it is not a matter of working out our differences to slow down this flow of immigration. Our State Department notifies American citizens not to travel to Venezuela because it is too dangerous. So when Venezuelans come to our border and say: We are fleeing persecution and danger in our country, we have recognized that as a fact through the State Department directives. It is a dangerous country. I have been to it. I have a general feeling about how dangerous it is.

So the situation is not easily resolved. Let me say to the Senator from Texas--he said he is ready to sit down. I am too. We need to sit down--he, a Republican; myself as a Democrat--and find some common ground.

There are some things which we can come to an agreement on. First, when it comes to fentanyl and drugs, overwhelmingly, by a margin of 6 to 1, drugs are flowing into the United States under regular ports of entry. It isn't a matter of some young person with a backpack full of heroin or fentanyl coming across the border in the middle of the night so much as it is truckloads coming through that escape detection.

That is inexcusable. Do you want to vote for more security, more technology, stopping the drugs coming in from the border? Count me in. It is not just a Republican platform. It is a Democratic platform as well. We are suffering from a drug crisis in my State of Illinois just as much as in the State of Texas--maybe more, in some circumstances. So count me in for more security.

Do you believe it is too long between a person arriving in the United States and being given a court date before they finally do appear? I am for changing that too. We need more immigration courts. We need more judges in those courts. I will vote for the money to see that happen.

What are we going to do in terms of people who come into this country? Are they needed? Well, they are desperately needed. Just recently, the Governors of Texas, Arizona, and Florida decided to pull a political stunt--I call it a stunt--of sending people who had just crossed the border on buses to communities around the United States. These people got on the buses believing that, at the end of the path, at the end of their trip, they would be taken care of: jobs, houses, and all sorts of things were promised to them. None of it was true. They were misled into getting on those buses.

How do I know that? Because I sat down with them in Chicago--4,000 or more have already arrived--and I heard their stories. And when you listen to their stories, you understand the fundamentals of this decision.

Carlos came with his wife and his 5-year-old daughter and his little baby infant. His wife was nursing. He left Venezuela on May 5. It took him 5 months to finally make it to our border. And when he got there, he was in a circumstance where everything had happened to him. He had been robbed, beaten, had his cell phone taken away, and he thought he was going to die under the circumstances. He was so desperate to come to the United States and escape Venezuela, he trucked on, carrying both babies at one point because his wife had hurt her leg.

That kind of determination belies the argument that these people are trying

to swindle our system. They are as desperate as many of our parents and grandparents to come and find freedom and opportunity. It is a natural human instinct.

It says to me that they are being exploited, I am sure, by smugglers and others and coyotes who try to bring them to our border, who charge them exorbitant amounts of money, often abandoning them in flight. The fact of the matter is, the push factor is dramatic, and we have to deal with it.

Now, what the administration has said is that they are going to allow a certain number of Venezuelans to illegally enter the United States as long as they have sponsors in our country. Twenty-four thousand is the number that they gave. I think that is beginning of talking about the legitimate needs of America for workers.

Many of these people coming off the buses in Chicago are offered jobs right on the spot; we have so many vacancies in employment right now. But we have to do this in an orderly fashion. That is one of the points that I made earlier.

I would like to say a word about the Dream Act. I see my other colleagues on the floor who are seeking recognition.

Yesterday, we had a rally for people who are protected by DACA. I introduced the DREAM Act 21 years ago. We couldn't pass it because of the filibuster on the floor of the Senate. I appealed to President Obama, who created DACA, which allowed young people brought here as children and infants to apply for 2 years of protection so they could work--and not be deported--in the United States, called DACA.

Well, there are 600,000 to 800,000 who have qualified for that. They have frozen their numbers over the last several years. But those are the ones who were in place at the time. They showed up, a lot of them, yesterday. One woman said to me: I am DACA, and I am also 40 years old. Senator, is this ever going to be resolved?

It is a legitimate question. So many of them are teachers and nurses and doctors and members of our military who are doing their best at essential work occupations. They deserve an opportunity to be in this country. And there is a feeling that some court could pull the rug out from under them in a matter of hours or days. So we need to act on that quickly.

I am going to submit for the Record the statement that I was going to make on the Ukraine situation. But I rose to respond to my friend from Texas. I accept his challenge. Let's sit down on a bipartisan basis, on a timely bipartisan basis, the Monday we return from Thanksgiving and start the conversation.

I am willing to talk honestly about border security, and I am sure he is willing to talk honestly about DACA and Dreamers and the critical needs of people who are coming into the United States.

Ukraine

Mr. President, nearly 9 months ago, I was sitting in an airport departure lounge in Lithuania with Senator Coons when the news broke of Russia's reprehensible effort to seize Ukraine by military force. Many may have forgotten, but Russian dictator Vladimir Putin actually thought Ukrainians would welcome the Russian military with open arms.

Based on that delusion, he gambled the reputation of his nation and the lives of more than 100,000 Russians troops who have died--all for one man's selfish pursuit and warped nostalgia for a Soviet dystopia. Vladimir Putin's illegal war on Ukraine also has unleashed untold horrors on millions of innocent Ukrainians, so many of them children.

CNN and PBS recently aired a heartbreaking segment by Christiane Amanpour about the countless Ukrainian children who are suffering terrible emotional turmoil living through the unspeakable terror and fear from Putin's war.

Some of the children are unable to speak, emotionally paralyzed after witnessing unimaginable violence against their parents or others. Putin and his cowardly enablers must face justice for these war crimes. And the United States is committed to seeing that justice done.

Despite the horrific violence unleashed by Putin, the Ukrainian people have prevailed and thrived. Their courage and sacrifices for freedom are truly inspiring. Ukraine's defenders not only repelled the initial military invasion, they have continued to recapture land illegally occupied by Russia in eastern and southern Ukraine.

A key victory came last week when Ukrainian forces liberated the provincial capital of Kherson. Kherson has suffered months of cruel Russian occupation. Innocent civilians experienced arbitrary arrest, torture, and forced disappearances. Many residents were forced at gunpoint to vote in a sham referendum--Russia's attempt to whitewash its illegal occupation.

Even in retreat, Russian forces continued to brutalize Kherson by destroying important infrastructure and sabotaging key services.

And yet Kherson is liberated. And despite all of the destruction and the tremendous rebuilding and healing that lies ahead for its people, the tears of joy have been palpable.

Just look at these photos--President Zelenskyy's recent visit to a freed Kherson--watching the Ukrainian flag being raised over the city once again, citizens hugging and kissing Ukrainian soldiers in an outpouring of relief and gratitude.

There is no doubt where the momentum in this war rests: with the Ukrainian people. Ukraine's military has reclaimed hundreds of villages and more than a thousand square miles of territory. The world has rallied to Ukraine's side, leaving Russia isolated in retreat of Putin's folly.

The nations of the free world understand that Ukraine is the frontline in the battle for freedom over autocracy. It is the frontline in the struggle for the rule of law over the rule of chaos and brute force. And now is not time for the United States and the rest of the free world to let up in our support for Ukraine. The unified support and military assistance of NATO has been invaluable to the brave Ukrainians fighting to protect their nation. And this Congress has been largely unified in providing this aid--and the results are both stunning and clear.

Russia is losing the war in Ukraine. Its leaders are now trying to break the will of the Ukrainian people with random terror bombings of civilian targets and critical infrastructure.

Make no mistake: Putin and his cronies are watching what we do in this Chamber. They are hoping that we and our allies will grow weary in our support for Ukraine. That is why it is essential we include in the supplemental spending bill that we must pass before the end of this year the critical military assistance that will allow Ukraine to continue to defend its people and reclaim its territory.

Let me end with a quote from the retired curator of the Kherson Art Museum, Iryna Rodavanova. Russian soldiers had beaten her husband. After Kherson was liberated, she said of President Zelenskyy, ``I agree with our president . . . better without electricity, without water, and without heat if also without the Russians.''

To Iryna, her husband, and all Ukrainians: You are not without friends; the American people and our Congress will be with you until Ukraine is again free and at peace.

I yield the floor.

I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Carper), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez), and the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Warnock) are necessarily absent.

Madam President, my office recently received a message from a woman named Amanda. She lives in Illinois and the Chicagoland area. She tells me that she and her wife Cally will be celebrating their fifth anniversary as a married couple. The two of them have actually been together for 8 years, but after the Supreme Court's 2015 decision in Obergefell, they decided it was time to tie the knot.

That ruling affirmed their love and, just as important, their constitutional right. The Court declared that their right to marry is a fundamental liberty under the Constitution--for every American, regardless of sexual orientation. So in 2017, Amanda and her wife Cally exercised that right, and today they are the proud parents of two beautiful young children: a daughter, Austin, and a son, Wren.

Really, that should be the end of the story. With Obergefell, Amanda and her wife were guaranteed the same rights as me and my wife, and it should be the beginning of a new story: a loving couple who can now focus on their family and taking care of their day-to-day responsibilities: paying the bills, feeding the kids, navigating life as working parents.

But, sadly, Amanda and many others are now living in fear. Like millions of Americans, she is facing the very real prospect that this Supreme Court could soon rule that her right to marry the person she loves is not protected by the Constitution. She saw what this radical, far-right Supreme Court did with the Dobbs decision just a few months ago, the decision that erased the constitutional right for the women of America to make their own reproductive health choices; and now she and Cally are wondering: Will they come for our rights to marry next?

Amanda wrote to my office:

Justice Clarence Thomas, in his concurring opinion in

[Dobbs] . . . wrote that the court ``should reconsider all of

this Court's substantive due process precedents, including

Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell.''

She said:

For the first time in our history, Americans are facing the

loss of civil rights--

by this Supreme Court.

Our two young children are growing up in a world where they

may, [and] in some cases [do], have less rights--

fewer rights--

than their parents and grandparents.

Amanda tells me she and her wife are taking every legal step they can to ``ensure that our recognition as parents to our own children cannot be challenged. This is emotionally and financially taxing,'' she said, ``and yet, something that we feel we must do.''

There are more than 700,000 married same-sex couples in America, couples like Amanda and Cally, whose love and legal status were recognized under the law and protected by a Supreme Court decision in Obergefell; couples who, along with their friends and families, are demanding the Senate do what we should have done years ago: codify marriage equality.

We can put their minds at ease before Justice Thomas and the far- right majority even have a chance to rip away yet another fundamental freedom. And this is not an abstract exercise. Early next month, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case called 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis. It is a case that, apparently, is concerned with free speech, involving a website designer in Colorado who wants to build wedding websites but with the disclaimer that proudly announces she will not build websites for same-sex couples.

She sued the State of Colorado, demanding the right to boast about her plans to discriminate against LGBTQ Americans. Such a disclaimer would violate a State's civil rights law, which prohibits business from discriminating or intending to discriminate against someone on the basis of their sexual orientation.

If the Supreme Court's last term and the Dobbs decision are any indication, this radical far-right majority on the Court could very well use this case to start the erosion of protections of LGBTQ Americans. It is exactly the kind of judicial activism that we have come to expect from this current Court's conservative majority.

Remember when they boasted about the fact that Donald Trump was going to put on three Justices who would rule his way in future cases? It was pretty clear from that day forward that the Supreme Court had a political bent. The Federalist Society had to give its stamp of approval.

The Federalist Society is a multimillion-dollar political arm of the Republican Party. And before any judicial nominee had a chance in my Senate Judiciary Committee under the Republican days, they had to get the approval of the Federalist Society.

The Federalist Society, from the start, was setting out to eliminate a woman's right to choose. They had their victory in the Dobbs decision.

But the American people spoke on November 8. Overwhelmingly, they said across America: You can't get away with eliminating rights already established under the Constitution for any American.

I hope that that sentiment grows and, eventually, we reverse the Dobbs decision.

What we have seen is exactly the kind of judicial activism we can come to expect from the Court's conservative majority. They twist the law and set aside longstanding precedent to establish the policies they prefer.

It is not the Supreme Court's role to make the laws. How many times have we heard that speech from Republicans? We don't want judicial activists, they say. That job of making the laws belongs in Congress.

And today we can defend families like Amanda's by voting for the Respect for Marriage Act, which passed just a few moments ago here on the floor of the Senate with a strong bipartisan vote.

It will protect marriage equality under the Federal law, not just for LGBTQ couples but also interracial couples, whose rights could also be in peril by the Court's far right majority.

The issue of marriage equality is too important to get bogged down in partisanship, which is why this bill is a bipartisan compromise. I hope that getting 60 votes for the Respect for Marriage Act is going to be an indication of more cooperation to guarantee that Amanda and Cally do not have to lose sleep over the future that they have as loving individuals married to one another and parents.

In last week's election, the American people sent a clear message to Washington and to the Senate: Get it together. Work together. No more toxic culture wars. No more divisive rhetoric. No more Big Lie. Enough.

If you want to stand for family values, let's start by enacting protections for every family in America. We can do it, certainly, with the Respect for Marriage Act, and even more.

To Amanda and Cally, I would like to say, happy fifth anniversary. I hope that by the time your sixth anniversary comes around, you won't even have to think twice about whether your rights are secure.

Madam President, as we head into the holiday season, parents and doctors nationwide are concerned about a dramatic surge in an illness called RSV, a respiratory virus. It can be especially serious for children and older Americans.

As a parent, there is no more terrifying or helpless feeling than knowing that your baby is sick. I know. I lived it.

Caitlyn Berg experienced that fear recently, too, when her 6-month- old daughter became ill with RSV and was struggling to breathe. The Bergs live in Mount Zion, IL, a small town downstate, near Springfield. Caitlyn Berg scoured the area looking for a hospital that would cure her sick daughter. After many frantic calls, she finally decided Springfield was the closest town with a hospital. She took her baby there and waited 8 hours in the emergency room before a bed finally opened up for her daughter.

Caitlyn Berg, incidentally, is a pediatrician. If a pediatrician has to struggle to find hospital care for her own sick infant, imagine the panic and fear other parents feel when their babies are struggling to breathe because of RSV. And it isn't just a problem in small towns or rural America.

Chicago is the third largest city in our country, with some of the best hospitals in the world, including some of the very best children's hospitals. The rate of emergency room visits for young children with RSV is now 10 times higher than in 2019--10 times higher than a normal season 3 years ago.

This chart demonstrates that. Look at this spike. As you can see, the number of children admitted for RSV has skyrocketed. In Chicago alone, there are hundreds of new cases each week, and nearly a dozen kids each day are being hospitalized.

Earlier this month, Comer Children's Hospital at the University of Chicago was full, with no beds for 53 straight days. And Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago is also running at full capacity. Ninety-five percent of pediatric ICU beds across Illinois are full during this time.

This crush on pediatric hospitals isn't limited to Illinois. Over the border in Franklin, IN, little Ophelia--you can see her here in the bed--struggled to breathe after contracting RSV at preschool. She went to the local hospital, and they transferred her to the

large children's hospital in Indianapolis, where she was intubated for 5 days. Thankfully, she is home safely now and recovered.

Across the country, children's hospitals are being pushed to the limit, caring for infants, toddlers, and young kids sickened by RSV. In extreme cases, kids and babies may require ventilators to breathe.

The timing of this surge in RSV is especially concerning, coming from the worst flu season in a decade and while new COVID variants are circulating. Those three viral variants together pose what many health professionals argue could be a ``triple-demic'' of viral illness. So let's look for solutions.

The Children's Hospital Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics has asked this President to issue an emergency declaration to free up more resources. I support them.

At the top of the list, America desperately needs more nurses, more doctors, more staff. Hospitals plagued with worker shortage even before COVID now have a pandemic that made the crisis even worse. If our children's hospitals had more staff, they could immediately open more beds to treat the kids.

Congress made some headway in the American Rescue Plan, which passed on the floor of the Senate without the support of a single Republican Senator. It included my provision to invest $1 billion in the National Health Service Corps for scholarships and loan repayments for new nurses and doctors who serve in urban and rural areas in need.

But we need to do more to end the healthcare worker shortage. Senators Menendez, Boozman, and Schumer have a bipartisan plan, which I support. It increases funding for medical residency slots to train the next generation of doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals. I support putting that plan in the end-of-the-year package we will consider in the next few weeks.

It is also critical that we fund our public health system adequately and provide for data collection so we can track RSV. The HELP Committee has been working on this priority, and I certainly support their efforts.

We are all in this together. The hospitals are doing their best. Doctors and nurses are working extra-long shifts to keep kids safe. We all need to do our part, too. For all of us, that means staying home when we are sick, still washing our hands, getting COVID booster and flu shots. For those of us in Congress, it also means providing the resources to get safely through this current surge of RSV and building the strong public health infrastructure that American families require.

I yield the floor.

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

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

Mr. President, today the Senate is poised to confirm another

outstanding judicial nominee, Maria Antongiorgi-Jordan, nominated to the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico.

Ms. Antongiorgi-Jordan is a dedicated public servant and accomplished litigator who will be a tremendous asset to the District of Puerto Rico.

After earning her B.A. from Seton Hill University, her J.D. from the Interamerican University School of Law, and her L.L.M. from Georgetown University Law Center, Ms. Antongiorgi-Jordan began her legal career at McConnell Valdes, a law firm based in San Juan, PR.

For nearly 20 years, Ms. Antongiorgi-Jordan had a wide-ranging litigation practice within the firm. While she focused on complex civil matters, she also was active in criminal defense work through the local Criminal Justice Act--CJA--panel, representing indigent criminal defendants in Federal court.

In total, Ms. Antongiorgi-Jordan participated in 42 trials, serving as chief or cochief counsel in 36 of the 42.

Today, Ms. Antongiorgi-Jordan serves as clerk of the court for the District of Puerto Rico. In that role, she has helped the court navigate the COVID-19 pandemic and kept it functioning on a day-to-day basis.

Ms. Antongiorgi-Jordan boasts widespread support from the Puerto Rico legal community and civic leaders, including Governor Pedro Pierluisi and Stephen Muldrow, the Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney in Puerto Rico.

I will support Ms. Antongiorgi-Jordan's confirmation, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

I announce that the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Warnock) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Warnock) is necessarily absent.

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