Floor Statements

I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Kim) and the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Lujan) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Kim), and the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Lujan) are necessarily absent.

Mr. President, today, the Senate will vote to confirm Nicholas Jon Ganjei to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

I will vote in opposition to Mr. Ganjei's confirmation to a lifetime appointment on the Federal bench.

As the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas, Mr. Ganjei has not been shy about his support for the Trump administration's aggressive immigration enforcement agenda. In a speech to the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association earlier this year, Mr. Ganjei rebuffed those who view these policies as ``rooted in a lack of compassion.'' But look at what happened in Chicago last year and more recently in Minnesota just this last month. American citizens, legal residents of the United States, and immigrants who have built their lives and raised their families here and pose no threat to public safety have been targeted.

Rafael Veraza and his 1-year-old daughter Arianna, both citizens of the United States, were enjoying a shopping day at Sam's Club. What was supposed to be a normal father-daughter outing ended in a trip to the hospital after they were pepper sprayed by Federal agents. Masked, armed agents have aggressively arrested U.S. citizens; pushed them into unmarked vehicles; tazed, punched, and fired pepper balls at them; and, in some cases, wrongly detained them in immigration detention facilities for weeks. This was not an isolated incident. In the last month, two American citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were both needlessly and unjustifiably killed in immigration officer-involved shootings.

There is no doubt that this administration's immigration policies are rooted in a lack of compassion. Mr. Ganjei cheering them on is disqualifying. Earlier this year, he reposted a DHS tweet comparing the strategy of capturing undocumented immigrants to the Pokemon slogan ``gotta catch `em all''--as if all of this were a game.

Mr. Ganjei's record makes clear where he stands on immigration enforcement, and I have serious doubts about his ability to fairly and impartially render decisions in the immigration cases that make up a substantial part of the docket in the Southern District of Texas.

For these reasons, I will be opposing Mr. Ganjei's nomination.

I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Kim) and the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Lujan) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Connecticut (Mr. Blumenthal), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Kim), the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Klobuchar), and the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Lujan) are necessarily absent.

Mr. President, last month, America watched in horror as Federal immigration officers shot and killed, in two separate incidents, U.S. citizens as part of the Trump administration's immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis. Renee Good and Alex Pretti should still be with us today.

Remember why we went there? The stated purpose, according to the Trump administration, was very clear and understandable. We were going after the rapists, murderers, terrorists, child predators, and criminally insane who had come across the border illegally during the Biden administration. They were to be found and removed and held accountable for their conduct.

No matter where you are on the political spectrum, that mission sounded sensible. Why would we ever allow those dangerous people in the country either by accident or intention, and why wouldn't we do everything we could to remove them?

The President promised he was going after ``the worst of the worst''--``the worst of the worst.'' So two people in Minneapolis lost their lives. Were they ``the worst of the worst''?

Renee Good, mother of three, and Alex Pretti, a nurse at the VA hospital in Minneapolis, an extraordinary person, as we have come to know--American citizens, both--neither one of them fit the categories that the President railed against during his rallies and campaign. Instead, these two innocent people were taken from their families and their communities, far too soon, in instances of senseless violence at the hands of the U.S. Government.

Donald Trump's immigration enforcement operations have not restored the so-called law and order that he promised and have not targeted ``the worst of the worst.'' They have done exactly the opposite. In every place the Department of Homeland Security's roving squads have descended--whether Chicago, Minneapolis, or any other city--they have brought chaos, disorder, and fear. These operations have created a public safety crisis, with families terrified to leave their homes.

I have seen it firsthand in Chicago. I go into the Hispanic areas of that great city, and the people are living in fear. They are afraid to leave their homes. Parents and school administrators are struggling to explain ICE attacks to children, and Americans are desperately trying to protect their neighbors.

The American people support orderly immigration enforcement that removes violent criminals from our streets, but how we do it matters. Indiscriminate violent roundup of American citizens, legal residents, and people with no criminal record erodes civil liberties and threatens the rule of law.

The American people have seen this play out with their own eyes, and they have had enough. This is the time to rein in this lawlessness now. Congress has 2 weeks to act. With the support of the American people, Senate Democrats stood firm and made clear we would not provide the votes to increase funding for the administration's illegal terror campaign.

I am pleased to say that last Friday night, the Senate passed five remaining bipartisan appropriations bills, and all the bills together that we have passed fund 96 percent of the Federal Government. Over the course of the next 2 weeks, we will continue to negotiate with the White House and Republicans to deliver much needed reforms to the DHS appropriations bill and to rein in the illegal excesses of ICE.

As part of those negotiations, Democrats stand strong for the following commonsense measures. First, Federal immigration agents need to remove their masks, turn on their body cameras, and wear visible, clear identification. I have met with law enforcement officials--people who have given their lives to it, career people--and asked them: Why do you need to be masked? Why do you need to have secret police in the United States of America?

They said: You don't.

Unfortunately, it undermines public confidence in law enforcement across the board. To allow these masks and to not require carrying video cameras is to invite the problems which we have already witnessed.

ICE is not a secret police force. It wasn't meant to be, despite what President Trump may wish.

Second, we need to end the roving patrols. ICE does not have free will to do as they please. This is a nation of laws, guided by the Constitution that everyone, including ICE, must abide by. This means Federal immigration officials must stop racial profiling and random arrests.

You have seen the videotapes, and I have as well. In a Home Depot parking lot, a Latina--Hispanic woman--gets out of the car and starts to walk into the store and is stopped by ICE agents who want her to show proof of her citizenship. That kind of thing is not what we expect in America but, rather, in authoritarian regimes, which have no respect for individuals.

They cannot detain Americans for hours or use excessive force against them just because they peacefully protested in support of neighbors and friends.

ICE squads descending on homes, bursting through doors to conduct arrests, isn't just violent and frightening, but it is unconstitutional. Agents must obtain a judicial warrant signed by a neutral judge, not an administrative warrant in-house, to enter private property.

You have seen the videos--we have all seen them--where they are trying to crash down doors by hitting them with axes. Those individuals don't have the authority to do that.

What I am quoting--the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution--is black-letter constitutional law.

Third, we need accountability. ICE and Border Patrol squads can't indiscriminately smash in car windows, use tear gas on protesters, and shoot at people without accountability. This is America. This is unacceptable.

A uniformed code of conduct will rein in aggressive and excessive immigration enforcement to bring about accountability and, hopefully, begin the long process of restoring trust. When the immigration agents fail to follow the code of conduct, the Department of Homeland Security must coordinate with State and local officials to conduct a fair and independent investigation.

In conclusion, as these negotiations continue to play out, I will continue to do my part to hold the administration accountable. After I asked Secretary Noem of the Department of Homeland Security to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee all of last year, she refused. Now she says she just might be available in 4 weeks and find some time in her schedule to finally appear before a congressional committee in a public hearing and answer questions, under oath, about her mismanagement--tragic mismanagement--of this Agency. She has a lot of explaining to do. We should hold her to account, both Democrats and Republicans.

My office will continue to document and report any and all instances of excessive force and abuse at the hands of immigration agents in Chicago and elsewhere.

As Federal District Court Judge Biery said in his order, this weekend, requiring the release of Liam Ramos from ICE detention, ``Observing human behavior confirms that for some among us, the perfidious lust for unbridled power and the imposition of cruelty in its quest know no bounds and are bereft of human decency. And the rule of law be damned.''

What a condemnation of what is going on in Minneapolis and Chicago and other States.

It might be hard to imagine, but, one day, the Trump Presidency will end. The statute of limitations for these crimes, however, will extend beyond that date. When the day comes that Donald Trump leaves the White House and his successor moves in to finally bring some order to this chaos, there will be accountability. The Department of Justice, free from its weaponized quest of retribution against Trump's perceived enemies, will have all the information it needs--video proof--to pursue criminal charges against government officials who actually are violating people's rights.

In the meantime, my colleagues and I will continue to shine a light on these abuses, uphold the tenets of basic human decency, and defend the rule of law.

I urge my Republican colleagues to swiftly agree to these Democratic reforms in DHS funding so that we may actually put a check on the excesses of this administration and this national terror campaign.

I yield the floor.

I announce that the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fetterman) and the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Lujan) are necessarily absent.

First, I want to thank my colleague from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Senator Warren.

That was a powerful, moving, absolutely necessary speech, and I am glad I was here to hear you deliver it. Thank you.

Mr. President, earlier this month, the Nation watched in horror as social

media was flooded with images and videos of a Federal immigration officer shooting and killing an American citizen, Renee Good, as part of the Trump administration's military enforcement operation in Minneapolis.

Now, fresh on the heels of that tragedy, another one has struck. This weekend, Federal agents gunned down yet another American in Minneapolis, Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse in a VA hospital in Minneapolis.

I am going to show a photo of that scene, which is graphic, but I am afraid it is necessary to appreciate the horror of the moment.

This photo shows the last second when the ICE agent killed Alex Pretti on the streets of Minneapolis. In his right hand is his camera, and his left hand is holding the ground--no gun obvious, no effort to resist obvious. This was a moment when this man lost his life. He was characterized afterward as an assassin, as a domestic terrorist. The photo tells the story.

The killing of Alex Pretti has further intensified tensions in a city already reeling from the President's aggressive campaign of terror. What was the Trump administration's immediate response when they heard of this second killing in Minneapolis? It was not to bring down the temperature but, instead, to rush to the American people with one message: Don't believe your eyes. Don't believe what you are seeing. It is the same playbook they used after the killing of Renee Good and after other Federal immigration officer-involved shootings and incidents.

Following the fatal shooting of Ms. Good, President of the United States Donald Trump falsely claimed she ``violently, willfully and viciously ran over [an] ICE Officer.''

In response to the killings of both Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem labeled their actions as ``domestic terrorism.''

Attorney General Pam Bondi, in a letter sent to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, effectively tried to blackmail the State, demanding that the Governor of Minnesota turn over the voter rolls of that State in exchange for Bondi's efforts to pull back Federal immigration enforcement officers. In a court hearing earlier this week, an attorney representing the State described Bondi's request as a ``ransom note.''

Why has this President targeted this city and other democratically led cities?

Trump claims he is targeting these cities because local elected officials have released ``violent criminal illegal aliens'' from State custody. The claim does not hold up. Governor Walz eloquently refuted it in a recent column in the Wall Street Journal.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Wall Street Journal editorial ``Tim Walz: The Un-American Assault on Minnesota'' be printed in the Record.

Governor Walz noted that, in Minnesota, the State's department of corrections honors all Federal and local detainers by notifying ICE when a person in custody is not a citizen.

Governor Walz wrote:

There is not a single documented case of the department's

releasing someone from state prison without offering to

ensure a smooth transfer of custody.

If the President wants to work together in reducing crime, count me and Governor Walz in, but these lawless immigration operations are establishing a reign of terror--first in Chicago, now in Minneapolis- St. Paul--eroding constitutionally protected civil liberties while indiscriminately rounding up people for the crime of just happening to be Black or Brown. Even the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal--no liberal publication--agrees. In an editorial yesterday, they noted that, since October, 73 percent of the individuals taken into ICE custody had no criminal conviction. Only 5 percent had a violent criminal conviction.

Do you remember the rants at all the rallies? We are talking about rapists and murderers and terrorists, the criminally insane and child predators coming into the United States, and now we are going to expel them. That was the promise--the ``worst of the worst'' over and over again. But when you listen to the statistics that show how few of the people who have been detained or tortured are actually in that category, you realize that it is not the worst of the worst. They are innocent people who are being victimized by ICE and this administration. Donald Trump is hell-bent on punishing his political opponents in the blue States of America and those who didn't vote for him in the last election. We see the cost.

I have come to the floor before to share the stories of U.S. citizens who were arrested in Chicago by immigration agents during Operation Midway Blitz.

Take Elianne Bahena and Jax Lopez--two U.S. citizens who worked for a local alderman in the city of Chicago, my friend Michael Rodriguez of the 22nd Ward. They were arrested by Border Patrol agents in Chicago and were held for hours without any explanation after they exercised their constitutional rights to monitor immigration enforcement in the area.

According to a recent report from the Chicago Sun-Times, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Chicago has brought 32 nonimmigration criminal cases to court that are related to ICE Operation Midway Blitz. Do you know how many convictions there have been in those 32 cases? None, not one. This represents precious time and resources that have been wasted on baseless efforts by this Agency to punish peaceful protesters that could and should be focused instead on keeping the streets safe, on child exploitation, on human trafficking, and on public corruption.

The time for accountability is now. I have been calling for DHS Secretary Noem to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee for almost 1 year. She couldn't find the time. She is just way too busy. In the last calendar year, she didn't show up at all. Now she tells us that it is possible her schedule may loosen up and that she might be able to come before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 5 weeks, on March 3, if she happens to still be the DHS Secretary then. With all the violence and death surrounding DHS, the Secretary is in no hurry to account for her mismanagement of this national crisis. She expects us, in the meantime, in the days ahead, to rubberstamp her recordbreaking budget.

Over the weekend, I announced my opposition to DHS funding. I will not vote to fund the illegal DHS and ICE operations that terrorize the city of Chicago, Minneapolis, and so many other communities. The deaths of innocent Americans and the detaining of thousands of innocent people are a national disgrace. We need to work on a bipartisan basis to pass the five appropriations bills that have been sent to us by the House and then work to rewrite the DHS bill to address well-documented abuses witnessed by the American people. Anything less than this approach is a nonstarter with me.

If the government shuts down yet again, it will be because congressional Republicans have refused to place guardrails on this reckless President and the ICE Agency. In the meantime, I urge my colleagues to join us in the endeavor before Kristi Noem and her squad take another innocent life.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that The Wall Street Journal editorial ``Mass Deportation by the Numbers'' be printed in the Record.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, if you were to follow I-94W for just an hour and a half north of the city of Chicago, you would find yourself rolling into the city of Milwaukee. Every day, tens of thousands of drivers make this commute, and every day, they are greeted

by two colors: blue and gold--more specifically ``denim'' and ``wheat,'' the two colors used to paint every highway circling Milwaukee. Why these colors? Well, for one, because they are the colors of Milwaukee's own Marquette University. And for two, because of the hard work of a woman named Rana Altenburg.

With more than 30 years serving as Marquette University associate vice president for public affairs, Rana Altenburg's legacy reaches far beyond choosing those two colors while she chaired the Marquette Interchange Color Committee. Her impact on the city of Milwaukee, the State of Wisconsin, and Washington, DC, was profound. While Rana retired at the end of 2025, her legacy will be felt for years to come.

In fact, it is difficult to walk more than a few blocks in Milwaukee, or even Wisconsin, without encountering Rana's handiwork. Crossing Wisconsin Avenue on Marquette's campus? Rana worked alongside city officials to install the medians bisecting the busy street. Enjoying a ``blue moon'' popsicle from Pete's Pops on a summer day in Milwaukee? The local business was the inaugural winner of Rev-Up MKE, a small business pitch competition put on by the nonprofit that Rana helped found in 2015. Going to a dental check up in Eau Claire, WI? Your teeth are probably being cleaned by someone from Marquette's esteemed dental school, which Rana championed.

A few blocks down from Marquette's campus sits Milwaukee's ``Near West Side,'' a group of seven neighborhoods that, in the 2010s, were in dire need of reinvestment. Rana brought together five anchor institutions in Milwaukee--Marquette, Advocate Aurora Health, Harley- Davidson, Molson Coors, and Potawatomi Ventures--to establish a nonprofit dedicated to revitalizing the city's Near West Side as a business and residential corridor. Ten years later, Near West Side Partners--NWSP--with Rana at the helm as the nonprofit's board president, is thriving. Thanks to the hard work of NWSP, more than 50 new small businesses have opened in the area, crime has decreased by double-digits, home ownership rates are up, and the opening of the mixed-use space, Concordia 27, has given Milwaukeeans a new community hub.

Beyond Wisconsin, Rana is one of the strongest advocates for Marquette's Les Aspin Center for Government in Washington, DC. The program, which brings students out to the Nation's Capital to study American political systems and to intern across the city, has expanded its reach during Rana's tenure. She leveraged the university's tightly knit alumni network to place students at internships ranging from congressional offices to healthcare advocacy. As a direct result of Rana's support for the program, Marquette alumni populate Capitol Hill in extraordinary numbers.

Rana is a familiar face to folks on Capitol Hill, even to those who didn't attend the Les Aspin Center. She worked alongside congressional staff to bring millions in funding to Marquette to support the university's dental school, the only one in the State of Wisconsin; to bolster Marquette's nursing program by securing funding for the school's clinical simulation lab; and to boost the redevelopment of Milwaukee's Near West Side.

But she lent her talents to many other worthy causes, including to the James Wright Foley Foundation, a nonprofit named for the Marquette alumnus and journalist who was tragically captured and killed by ISIS while reporting in Syria. Through her efforts and the work of my colleague Senator Shaheen, the foundation will receive a $350,000 earmark this year to support their work promoting journalists' safety abroad and to preserve the James Wright Foley Archives at Marquette.

In recognition of her outstanding work, the Milwaukee Business Journal has honored Rana, first as a ``Forty Under 40'' awardee and subsequently, as a ``Woman of Influence''. But what the well-deserved profiles in the Milwaukee Business Journal often forget to mention are the hours she invested in mentoring Marquette students. Affectionately referring to them as her ``superstar interns,'' Rana mentored hundreds of students through the Marquette Office of Public Affairs, carving out time in her intense schedule to foster her interns' interest in public policy. She welcomed her students into the legislative process and even brought them along to meetings and events, allowing her interns to take an active role in advancing the university's priorities. Years later, those same ``superstar interns'' are now serving as legislative aides, communications professionals, and legal counsel across Capitol Hill, including on my own staff and on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

But Rana takes no job more seriously than her role as a Marquette basketball superfan. A long-time season ticket holder, Rana is a fixture at the Fiserv Forum in the sea of university students. If you keep your eye out during the Big East tournament, it is not uncommon to spot Rana, decked out in blue and gold, in the crowd during an away game. And as perhaps the greatest contribution a superfan can make, Rana worked tirelessly to ensure the Marquette Golden Eagles could play at the new Fiserv Forum, keeping Marquette in the very small club of college teams that play in an NBA arena.

In everything she did, Rana imbued one of Marquette's guiding principles, cura personalis, which translates to ``care for the whole person.'' Because of her guidance, Milwaukee has grown thoughtfully and deliberately, Capitol Hill has been made more compassionate and decent, and even that dentist in Eau Claire provides more wholesome care.

While Rana dedicated the last 30 years to improving both Milwaukee and Wisconsin, she will always be a daughter of Northbrook, IL. My staff, especially the Marquette graduates she mentored; my son, a Marquette alumnus; and I congratulate Rana on a long and storied career. We wish Rana, her husband Jeff, her two daughters Hannah and Sophia, her son-in-law Jack, and her new granddaughter Nora, all the best in the years to come.

I announce that the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fetterman) and the Senator from

Georgia (Mr. Warnock) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Michigan (Mr. Peters) is necessarily absent.

Mr. President, I am trying to remember what year it was. It could have been 15 years ago in the Senate when I walked into a hearing chaired by Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. It was the Senate Judiciary Committee. I didn't know what the topic of the hearing was, but as a member of the committee, I was curious, so I sat down and listened, and I learned about something I really wasn't aware of.

Testifying were retailers across the United States, talking about something called a swipe fee, interchange fee. I didn't know what that was. Turns out it is the fee that is paid to the banks that issue credit cards when you engage in a transaction. It is not identified to the ordinary consumer, but the retailer who is using the credit card certainly knows quite a bit about it. It is the fee that he is charged, he the retailer is charged, for the use of banks' credit cards.

They were complaining--the retailers were--that the terms in the agreement, the interchange fee between Visa and MasterCard, which, of course, dominate the credit card world, were so opaque that they couldn't even get a copy of the actual contract between Visa, MasterCard, and this retailer sitting at the table.

They had a stack of papers in front of them which was part of the contract and agreement for the interchange fee but not the complete agreement. They were frustrated because they had no control whatsoever in terms of what Visa and MasterCard were going to charge.

I took an interest in it and asked Chairman Specter at the time: Is the Senate Judiciary Committee going to do something?

He said: Of course.

The honest answer was no. We had a hearing, and that was the end of it.

But I took an interest in the issue and decided to author a study to see what the impact was on small businesses and retailers of these interchange fees and swipe fees charged by

the banks that issue Visa and MasterCard.

The industry had no interest in any study on any aspect of it. They made it clear to me they were going to oppose every effort I had to try to get to understand this issue better by a credible study.

I was frustrated by this and decided to make an offer of a change in the law when it came to debit cards. Debit cards are different than credit cards because they are virtually a checking account. You can only charge as much as you have on balance to pay. And the question of credit is not as paramount as it is with the credit cards.

So I came to the floor and offered with Dodd-Frank, the banking reform, an amendment on debit card swipe fees and interchange fees.

Just to show you what a different time it was in the U.S. Senate, this was a bill that was being offered by Senator Dodd in the Senate and a Republican Senator as well on a bipartisan basis.

I offered this amendment on the floor and got into the queue. I was about the 25th amendment that was considered. And it wasn't approved by the Banking Committee; I was just offering this on the floor. What I was trying to establish was the actual fee that was being charged for debit cards.

As I said, I was about the 25th amendment to be offered. It turned out that there were so many controversial amendments in Dodd-Frank that I didn't rise to the top as the most controversial.

And so the issue was called and, at the last minute, the chairman of the committee, Senator Dodd said: Of course, that would require 60 votes. His belief was, if he required 60 votes, the Durbin amendment would go away, would be defeated.

It turned out he was wrong. The retailers of America came together in a way they had never come together before to raise questions about debit cards and the fees that are being charged to them.

The amendment passed with more than 60 votes, to the surprise of this sponsor, as well as the other Members of the Senate.

As luck would have it, the House of Representatives decided--Barney Frank, in particular--that this issue showed enough support in the Senate not to be part of any meaningful negotiations in conference, and the so-called Durbin amendment went through.

Since then, there have been several efforts on the floor of the Senate, over the years, to remove the Durbin amendment on debit cards, where the fee was established with the cooperation of the Federal Reserve, and they have failed. So we have debit card world semiregulated or somewhat regulated, not so much on the credit card side.

Roger Marshall is a colleague of mine--a Republican colleague--in the Senate today, from Kansas. He and I and Peter Welch of Vermont have cosponsored legislation to extend the coverage of this issue to credit cards. Senator Marshall and I agreed, whichever of us had the majority party at the time would be the lead sponsor. So it is the Marshall- Durbin-Welch bill, today, that is considered when we discuss credit cards.

I give this lengthy introduction to show you there is a deep history on this issue, and it continues to this day, and it has particular relevance at this moment for several reasons. Let me explain.

Data released this week by the Bureau of Labor Statistics confirms what many in the Chamber already know from our daily lives: Americans feel, every day, prices are just too high. Consumer prices--from rent to groceries, to utilities and more--are up nearly 3 percent compared to last year.

Affordability is real. It is a concern that supercedes virtually every other political concern with basic American families. While costs continue to go up and everyday Americans are struggling, big banks are rolling in cash, with profit margins around 30 percent. That is right. Big banks have profit margins in this economy of over 30 percent.

Why are banks making so much money? It is because they profit off of something called a swipe fee, or an interchange fee. Every time you use your credit card, Visa or Mastercard charge the merchant what is essentially a service fee. The merchant pays a fee of 2 percent to 3 percent on each transaction, meaning, if you spend $100, the merchant gets $97 or $98. While Visa and Mastercard keep some of the $2 or $3 themselves, most is pocketed by the big banks that issue the cards. A few bucks here, a few bucks there, and you have yourself a pretty good haul if you are a big bank.

How good? In 2024, the year before last, Visa and Mastercard and their big bank partners raked in $111 billion in credit card swipe fees. These swipe fees are crushing small businesses and their customers through higher prices.

If you don't believe me, listen to what a constituent of mine in Chicago wrote. Rick is his name. He owns a gas station. He pays $50,000 to $60,000 a year in swipe fees. He says:

These fees have [an] impact on pricing in the store.

Small business owners like Rick have little recourse. Visa and Mastercard have a near-virtual grasp on the credit card network market, controlling 85 percent of it. That is right. Visa and Mastercard control 85 percent of the credit card market.

I will give you an example of some other businesses that wrote to me in relation to this issue. Credit processing fees are crushing businesses, taking up to 4 percent for credit card sales. ``Currently,'' this individual wrote to me and said, ``88% of my sales are credit card.''

It has become, literally, the coin of the realm.

This individual, Laura, says she owns a coffee shop:

My per ticket amounts are low, roughly $5, yet each

transaction can take up to 25 cents in swipe a fee [to the

credit cards].

We need competition in the credit card marketplace and

options to choose from.

Just like small businesses have to compete for customers,

credit card companies should have to compete for our

business.

Laura has a coffee business in Elmhurst, IL.

Why are banks making so much money? The swipe fees are virtually unregulated. We would like to change that.

Another source of information is from Sesser, IL, which is in Downstate Southern Illinois. Greg Kelly writes me:

When combined with basic merchant processing fees and set

monthly access fees, credit card fees can add up to nearly 5

percent of total transactions.

Greg writes:

This is insane. This prevents hiring and hinders business

growth, as well as being able to compete. Credit card reform

is needed now.

Small business owners like Rick have no recourse. Visa and Mastercard have a near-virtual death grasp on the credit card network market, controlling 85 percent of it. Because of this, Visa and Mastercard are free to set fee rates on credit cards wherever they like. For their retailers, take it or leave it.

This allows them to tell small business owners like Rick that they are going to set the standard. He has no negotiating power. There is no competition unless the Marshall-Durbin-Welch bill passes. This is not how our system and our economy are supposed to work. It is time we bring back real competition to the credit card industry, the kind that encourages growth and brings about lower prices.

This bipartisan bill that I described to you, the Credit Card Competition Act, was endorsed by President Trump this week. It was kind of a pleasant surprise. I didn't know it was coming. He was unequivocal in supporting it. It would address the outrageous swipe fees being charged to retailers.

Talk about a hidden cost of business. Every time you use your credit card, if it is for a transaction, for a meal at a restaurant, for a contribution to a charity, the swipe fee is being taken out of it, 5 percent or more. My bill would require the largest 30 or so banks--only the largest banks--to enable at least two credit card networks to be used on the credit cards they issue, with at least one being outside the Visa-Mastercard duopoly. That would create real competition.

The banking industry hates the Marshall-Durbin-Welch amendment like the devil hates holy water. To them, any kind of regulation is unacceptable. By injecting competition into the credit card market, this bill would help bring down swipe fees that small businesses pay and that ultimately get passed on to working families in the form of higher prices.

Opponents of our bill have falsely claimed such provisions would squeeze Visa and Mastercard and the big banks, and force them to scale back reward programs.

I learned something recently in lobbying on this bill. The major airlines all oppose this bill that would limit the swipe fees and interchange fees. I was curious why the airlines would be so interested in it. It turns out, for most of the major airlines, they make more money off their credit cards that they issue than they do off air operations. That is right--more money off the little square plastic than they do on the actual airplane passengers.

So when I go into Reagan National Airport, I am not surprised that they have banners flashing: Stop the Durbin amendment. Stop anything that might affect your frequent flier plan.

I often wonder in an airplane--I pay attention to this; most people don't--when they give the announcements from the flight attendants about their credit cards, as soon as you reach a point where they completed all their safety announcements and told you to buckle up and shut up because we are about to take off, then they announce their credit card program and want you to sign up for it. That is the reality of it.

Watch next time you get on an airplane when they do this. These poor flight attendants have to bring applications up and down the aisles, trying to get people to sign up for credit cards.

Visa and Mastercard and card-issuing banks have plenty of room for reform. In 2024, banks netted about $378 billion in revenue from debit and credit cards, but they pay only $47 billion in rewards.

I value frequent flier miles like everyone else, but the program will not even be touched. I am no mathematician, but banks have plenty of revenue to continue offering rewards without hurting their bottom line.

Those worried about airline miles and cash back, an analysis by payments consulting firm CMSPI found rewards would be reduced by less than one-tenth of 1 percent, at most, because of the Credit Card Competition Act.

They are crying wolf. This bill has the support of a conservative Republican Senator from Kansas, Senator Marshall, and a liberal Democrat, Peter Welch from Vermont, and myself, of course. I urge my Senate colleagues: Let's come together and get this done on behalf of consumers and small businesses. You want to do something that really makes a difference to the bottom line and debt of families? Address the outrageous interest rates being charged on credit cards and address the swipe fees being charged to retailers that are fed into the inflationary aspects of this economy.

This is the time to do it, if we are going to meaningfully address the real expenses that families face. I urge my colleagues to take a look at this measure--this bipartisan measure, this commonsense measure--that will make a difference in the families that we represent.

I yield the floor.

I announce that the Senator from Michigan (Mr. Peters) is necessarily absent.

Mr. President, my friend and colleague from Wyoming mentioned many things about the Republican tax bill, but he failed to mention the most important part of it: It ended up giving tax breaks to the wealthiest people in America. It ended up cutting $1 trillion from the Medicaid Program. Wait until that cut works its way through the economy to your local hospital and clinic, and watch what happens.

They have already warned us: Unless something is done, there is going to be a lot of closures and a lot of reductions of services in these hospitals in rural areas, in small towns, and the inner city. That is a fact.

If you want to give tax breaks to the wealthiest people and you don't care about the impact on the regular families of America, that is exactly what happened with the Republican tax bill, and that is the reason why Democrats

did not support it. We believe that tax cuts should be geared toward working families who are struggling with affordability.

President Trump gave a speech yesterday in Michigan and choked on the word ``affordability.'' He hates it. It is a Democratic word. It is a hoax. It is a fake.

It is reality. It is reality.

I don't know how often the President of the United States--and I am sure he never has a chance--gets to go shopping at the local grocery store. I do so almost every weekend I am home. I see what has happened to prices. My wife reminds me; other families remind me. The cost of living has gone up, and you give tax breaks here and there and the other place and primarily to wealthy people. It is not going to provide the kind of relief that working families desperately need. That is one of the issues that will be decided by the voters in the next election.

Immigration

Mr. President, the year was 1939, and there was a ship that sailed from Germany destined for Cuba. It was bringing Jewish refugees from Europe, which was falling into Nazi control, to a free place to live in Cuba.

Unfortunately, as that ship, the St. Louis, approached Havana, Cuba, it was turned away. They wouldn't allow those Jewish passengers to find freedom in Cuba at the time. They then appealed to the United States, to President Roosevelt and his administration, and they too turned them away. The ship got so close, according to press reports, that they could actually hear the bands playing in the nightclubs in Miami. But they couldn't land the ship.

And so they took the St. Louis back to Europe with a thousand Jewish refugees. Many of them became victims of the Holocaust. It was a bitter lesson learned, particularly in time of war and strife, that there is a need for countries, where there is peaceful situation, to step up and do their part to try to help refugees, those seeking asylum.

After World War II, the United States decided that the St. Louis was a valuable lesson. We started leading the nations of the world in accepting refugees. It was an act of mercy, a humanitarian response to the reality that these people were facing. And we were proudly leading that effort for decades, until very recently.

Under this President, the whole situation and policy have changed. This administration, unfortunately, is highlighting a policy that turns away refugees. The Trump administration has diverted resources from law enforcement and national security efforts to focus on arresting immigrants who pose no threat to public safety. We have seen it in Chicago. We have seen it in Minneapolis and in other cities. This administration is targeting legal immigrants who followed every rule and regulation.

Over the past few months, the Trump administration has issued a flurry of new policies effectively ending lawful--lawful--immigration for individuals from 39 countries. It harkens back to the bitter experience of the St. Louis.

In November last year, President Trump used the tragic shooting of two National Guard members to justify a freeze on all new visas of Afghan nationals. Many of these visa applicants fought against the Taliban, alongside American forces, and now must flee Afghanistan to avoid punishment or death for the crime of working for us. President Trump has abandoned them--so much for loyalty.

These men and women in Afghanistan decided they would risk their lives to stand by our soldiers during that conflict. They survived, and now they are asking us to protect them from the Taliban's excesses. The President has decided: No, thanks.

He slammed the door on Afghan nationals who risked their lives to save the lives of American soldiers, and he didn't stop there. In addition to suspending these applications for Afghan nationals, the Trump administration paused all asylum refugee decisions.

The Trump administration has extended broad immigration bans to anyone from 39 different countries, including individuals from those countries who are already in the United States. Going through an asylee claim, a refugee claim, playing by the book, takes months and sometimes years in refugee camps. People go through extensive background checks before they are even considered to come to the United States.

In this situation, those who have successfully made that journey are once again in jeopardy with the new Trump policy.

The administration is reviewing again all legal immigration cases already approved for individuals from the banned nations. To be clear, this expansion is not limited to nationals of countries on the list. It also includes anyone who has been born in any one of those countries, even if they lived the majority of their life somewhere else.

My office has received reports that Canadians--Canadians--born in Iran have been impacted by this new Trump ban. There have even been reports of the ban to stop parents who have completed every step of the adoption process from bringing their new babies to the United States.

The administration has claimed this is about vetting immigrants to protect public safety. But tell me: Does it make sense to deny entry for a baby for vetting reasons?

What the President has done to bring down the hammer on those who are legally immigrating from what he calls ``s-hole countries''--remember that phrase, when the President, in his first term, referred to those from Africa and Haiti in profane and racist terms in the Oval Office? At the time, the White House denied having said that. But I was there, physically present, when the President made those statements, not once but twice. I was in that meeting, and I confirm that he used those vulgar terms referring to people from other countries.

Two Republican Senators publicly accused me of lying. Well, in a rally in Pennsylvania, last month, President Trump bragged that he had indeed used that slur that I referred to earlier.

And at a Cabinet meeting, last month, he publicly called Somali immigrants ``garbage.'' The President of the United States referred to people from Somalia as ``garbage.''

Just yesterday, the administration announced the termination of Somalis' designation for temporary protected status. TPS allows immigrants from a country that is unsafe to temporarily remain in the United States.

Does the President really think Somalia is a safe or stable place for these individuals to return? I think not. He just doesn't care.

These racist comments and policies have confirmed what we have known all along. The President has deep-seated animus for immigrants who are not White. Throughout this past year, he has harnessed tragedies to justify his anti-immigrant crusade, first with the National Guard shootings and now with many of his fraud allegations we heard here on the floor of the Senate day after day.

Last Friday, in the midst of Federal immigration agents' assault on Minneapolis, Department of Homeland Security began arresting recently arrived refugees in Minnesota. These refugees have already gone through intense vetting, sometimes for years, before they have been allowed to come to the United States. They followed our laws, came here in the ``right way.'' Now their lives will be turned upside down again to serve the President's political agenda.

The fraud in Minnesota is serious and warrants continued investigation, but punishing thousands of refugees because of crimes they had nothing to do with is just plain wrong and inhumane.

The Trump administration has tried to politicize this fraud investigation, but the first prosecutions for this fraud began in 2022 during the previous Biden administration.

The administration says their immigration policies are intended to protect America. I am calling their bluff. What they have done instead is to effectively halt legal immigration for a long list of countries, all of which have majority non-White populations. This was their real intention all along.

Already, the lives of people in our immigration system, particularly people of color, have been unfairly upended. Immigrants are seeing their long-scheduled green card interview canceled. Naturalization candidates have been pulled from their scheduled citizenship ceremonies.

I know this to be true because it happened to my constituents who reached out to our office. They are rightfully upset that the administration has

stopped them, these individuals, after already approving them for citizenship. They can't take the oath of allegiance to our country, and they don't know where this process is going to end.

My mother was a naturalized citizen to the United States. I keep her certificate framed in my office in the U.S. Capitol. Those who are willing to take the oath of allegiance to our country become some of our most loyal citizens. My mom was one of them. We cannot abandon them.

We must not allow America to turn its back on immigrants who followed every rule and make America stronger. It would be an affront to the Constitution and a retreat from our values and heritage as a nation of immigrants.

This is an awful situation where helpless people are being exploited for political reasons. It is time for both political parties to step aside from the campaign for a moment and speak to the values that make America a better country than most. I am proud to be part of this country, but we are a nation of immigrants and should never forget it.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I want to thank Senator Mark Kelly for bringing us together on the floor to talk about Citizens United.

Senator Kelly has the honor of representing the State of Arizona. When I was a Member of the House of Representatives, I served with a Congressman from Arizona named Morris Udall. He was a great guy. He ran for President. He was, I guess, the source of more jokes and comedy than any politician of his day. He used to say: If you have politics in your bloodstream, only embalming fluid will replace it.

I am living proof that he was right. In 1982, I decided to run for the U.S. House of Representatives for the first time. This was after I lost three straight elections. My wife said this is my last chance. So I took on an incumbent in 1982 for the U.S. House of Representatives. He had been in that seat for 22 years. But because of the quirky law in Illinois, the Democrats got to draw the map, so I got a map against the Republican incumbent which was 40 percent new territory. I had a chance. And 1982 was a big year for Democrats. I remember it. I still remember my fear: Would I raise enough money to be a viable candidate? Nobody knew for sure.

The average cost of a congressional campaign in 1982 was $215,000, for a campaign to run for the U.S. House. I raised and spent, as did my opponent, $800,000. We set records--$800,000.

If you say that today--``Would you start off and wage a campaign for the House with $800,000?''--they would say ``Well, that is just for the announcement, right? You are going to need a few more dollars if you are serious about a campaign.'' The number has grown dramatically and now is in the millions for candidates for the House and for the Senate.

You are looking at the last open, public sponsor of public financing of campaigns. Nobody else has tackled it since I stopped introducing it. At the time I introduced it, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, a Republican, was my cosponsor. We had a bipartisan bill. I still believe it is the right way to go, but it doesn't have a chance.

Under the current system that has been described by my colleagues here on the floor, there is so much entrenched money that they virtually control the agenda and scare the living hell out of average individuals who don't have a fortune to spend. That is the reality of what we face.

Senator Booker is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. It is an interesting world we live in. There is a group--I won't name their names on the floor, but it would be easy to figure out who I am talking about--that admonishes me regularly, as the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, that I am just not progressive enough; I am not doing enough.

This influence group here in Washington is a dark money operation. We don't know where their money is coming from. They are the reformers, this dark money operation.

We now have, currently, a debate going on on the floor about cryptocurrency. Remember what happened in the last campaign on cryptocurrency? The industry decided that they would pick out one or two Democrats and make a point that they were in the wrong position when it came to cryptocurrency. So they spent $40 million to defeat one of our colleagues here in the Senate, and they succeeded. That is the kind of thing that happens now: 40 million bucks. That is more than a good day raising money for most candidates, but that is the reality of what we face.

This decision that we face today--Citizens United--was mindless. To say that a business has the same rights as individuals under the Constitution is a mindless conclusion. And it is no surprise. If I am not mistaken--I will double-check--if I am not mistaken, not a single Supreme Court Justice who ruled in that case had ever stood for office, ever had a fundraiser, ever had to go through it and understand what it does to you.

I think ethical reform that is meaningful requires a scandal that is earth-shattering. I am not sure what is left by way of scandal. What is going on with corruption in this business has become almost routine. And I am sorry to say that because so many people on both sides of the aisle are good, honest people who are public servants trying to do their best. But this Citizens United decision and where we are in politics today have changed this business so much, I am not sure we can ever reclaim the kind of idealism that we all aspire to as public servants in this institution.

I thank the Senator for drawing us to the floor today. There is a lot of work to be done, and I may not be around for some of it. But I will still remember that $800,000 when I first ran was a record. Now it is rather routine.

Let's make sure that if you have politics in your bloodstream, it doesn't take embalming fluid to replace it. Let's replace it with the ideals that we all aspire to.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, it has been my good fortune and honor to serve in this Chamber for many years and to represent my home State of Illinois. I can reflect for a moment about the changes in the Senate Chamber in the time that I have been here. I am afraid it would take me too long to express my thoughts on that at the expense of the regular business of this Chamber. But we have reached a point where there are few and far between moments where we come together and agree on something the American people think is important.

A year ago, I was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee--for 4 years. We considered many judicial nominees and many pieces of legislation in that committee. We were evenly divided or closely divided during the entire period of time. I think we achieved quite a few things despite those divisions.

We approved more judicial nominees for Federal judgeships in that 4- year period of time than any 4-year period in the history of the U.S. Senate. It took 80 percent of the votes to be bipartisan for that to happen. So I tried as chairman to always find something we just might agree on, Democrats and Republicans would agree. The issue which I am going to address very briefly this morning is one of those issues.

There was a time when the Senate Judiciary Committee was so equally and evenly divided that people thought we would accomplish nothing, but

there came an issue where there was a consensus among Democrats and Republicans, and it is one that every parent and grandparent--I think every individual--will understand.

Have you seen your kids or grandkids lately? Have you noticed what they are doing? They are looking at this virtually all day long if you let them.

It is a concern for many conscientious parents that what is being broadcast on those cell phones could be life-altering and -changing for young people, and that is one of the issues I will address this morning.

You see, during the period of time when I chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee, we considered the negative impact that these cell phones and laptops have on children. It is frightening.

Parents came and testified before us that their kids--normal, happy, productive, good students--in a short period of time were captivated by laptops and cell phones into changes in attitude, changes in conduct. Sadly, some of the children took their own lives because of their exposure to what happened on these devices. It is heartbreaking.

I recall one in particular: a young, African-American, high school student--a track star at his school--who got swept into some sort of broadcast on social media and in the span of 19 hours became so despondent and excited and emotional, he harmed himself and took his own life. The parents couldn't understand it. They didn't see it coming. And when they reflected on what was being done, it was an outrage.

There is another thing going on which everyone should be aware of, and if you look closely on television, you might just spot warnings. It is this whole issue of deepfakes, AI, taking what looks to be real and broadcasting it as reality when, in fact, it is not.

Last Congress, we considered a measure which I introduced and would like to ask for passage today. There will be a unanimous consent request made at the end of my statement. If that unanimous consent request passes, and I hope it does with bipartisan support, it will go to the House of Representatives for their consideration. It will be miraculous. We just might pass a bill. We just might create a law. Stay tuned.

Let me tell you what it is all about. I rise today to ask the Senate to pass the DEFIANCE Act--bipartisan legislation that gives victims of nonconsensual, sexually explicit deepfakes the tools to fight back against those who would exploit them.

I want to thank the Senate sponsors of this legislation, including my Republican colleague Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina. I told you it was bipartisan; it is.

I have been proud to partner with a person I don't know well on a personal basis, but I certainly have seen her work. Her name is Representative Ocasio-Cortez. She represents the city of New York. She introduced legislation in the House with seven Republicans and six Democratic cosponsors. So her measure was bipartisan as it passed the House of Representatives.

Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez herself is a publicly confessed and admitted victim of explicit deepfakes. I commend her for working to create tools for victims in the fight against this despicable crime. She has been an innocent victim, and she has spoken out to spare others what she has been through.

In 2025, the TAKE IT DOWN Act was signed into law. This bipartisan legislation makes it a Federal crime to knowingly publish or threaten to publish nonconsensual intimate images on social media. The DEFIANCE Act, which provides victims with a civil remedy--a remedy in court-- builds on the progress of the TAKE IT DOWN Act.

The vast majority of American people support prohibiting nonconsensual, sexually explicit, deepfake images, with one survey finding that 85 percent of Republicans and Democrats support this measure. That is why I am hopeful it will pass today and be considered favorably by the House, and that is why, last Congress, the Senate unanimously passed this measure. We didn't get it done then, and we are returning to it now.

The Senate should pass this bill again, and the House should take it up quickly as the problem of nonconsensual, sexually explicit, deepfake images continues to spread. With the push of a button, generative AI can swap someone's face onto another person's body, remove that person's clothing so they appear nude, or undress someone to show them in lingerie or other exposed positions.

Recent reporting details how users of X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, can ask its AI chatbot Grok to undress women and underage girls in photos. Grok will comply with requests to show subjects in various states of undress with images which I won't repeat for the record, but they are horrible.

Even after these reports, X still has not prevented Grok from creating these exploitative images. Let me make sure you understand what I just said. Even after these terrible, deepfake, harming images are pointed out to Grok and to X, formerly Twitter, they do not respond. They don't take the images off the internet. They don't come to the rescue of people who are victims. That is why this legislation is critical, because this legislation says that if they are guilty of such reckless misconduct, they can be sued for it and held civilly liable for the damages.

Imagine losing control of your own likeness and identity. Imagine that happening to you when you are in high school. Imagine how powerless victims feel when they cannot remove illicit conduct, cannot prevent it from being reproduced repeatedly, and cannot prevent new images from being created. The consequences can be profound.

Victims may endure threats to their employment, education, or reputation or suffer additional criminal activity, such as extortion and stalking. Many experience depression, anxiety, and fear of being in public, and in the worst cases, victims have been driven to suicide.

Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez described her own reaction being depicted this way without her consent. She said:

There's a shock to seeing images of yourself that someone

could think are real.

While prominent women are often the target for nonconsensual, sexual deepfakes, sadly, the victims can be virtually anyone.

There are distressing reports of high school students struggling to respond to this crisis. In March 2024, at least 22 students at a high school in McHenry County, in my home State of Illinois, learned they were depicted in deepfakes circulating online. One was a doctored version of two female students taken at the school prom. I will not describe in detail what that deepfake did, but it had to be crushing for these young women and their families.

Sadly, we are seeing an explosion of these images. One researcher found that the number of nonconsensual pornographic deepfake videos available online has increased 900 percent--900 percent--since 2019. Such videos have been viewed almost 4 billion times--4 billion. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the number of AI-generated child sexual abuse images increased from 5,000 in 2023 to over 485,000 in the first 6 months of 2025.

Tragically, currently, victims have no civil legal remedy to pursue justice. The DEFIANCE Act changes that and gives victims their day in court. The bill would permit victims to bring civil cases against those who produce, disclose, solicit, or possess with intent to disclose sexually explicit deepfakes, while knowingly or recklessly disregarding that the person depicted did not consent to the content.

I am proud to have collaborated with survivor advocates on this bill. Their lived experience and leadership have shaped this legislation. Congress needs to act. It is past time to give victims of nonconsensual, sexually explicit deepfakes the tools they need to fight back.

I am going to make a unanimous consent request on this bipartisan legislation. Senator Graham could not join me on the floor today, but he is a cosponsor and supporter of this bipartisan bill.

I make the following unanimous consent: Notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of S. 1837 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, it feels good. It feels good to see the Senate actually passing legislation. It is rare. It doesn't happen a lot. With a measure of this importance, it is critically important that we come together, both political parties.

I want to thank Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez for her leadership on this issue and her bravery on this issue throughout this debate.

Now, let's pass this in the House and make it the law of the land. Give to the victims their day in court to hold those responsible and continue to publish these images at their expense.

The Senate voted to unanimously pass this important legislation. The victims of this horrible crime deserve their day in court and, today, we are one step closer to making that a reality.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, last week, against the direction and wishes of the Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, 17 House Republicans joined every Democrat in the House to vote for an extension of the Affordable Care Act enhanced premium tax credits.

Last year, 22 million Americans relied on these tax credits to be able to afford their health insurance, but on January 1, those credits expired because the Republican-controlled Congress refused to extend them. Because these tax credits have lapsed, millions--millions--of Americans are being forced to drop their health insurance or to pay double or triple for their healthcare plans. Families are already struggling with the expenses they face every single day--grocery prices, electric bills, mortgage payments. We shouldn't add health insurance to that list.

The House has done its part. The only barrier to putting a bill on the President's desk is this body, the U.S. Senate.

Last month, Senate Democrats voted to extend these tax credits. Four Republicans joined us, but we fell short of the 13 we needed to get the job done. Now we have another chance. There is no excuse for further delay. We can act this week, before we take a break, to avoid this healthcare catastrophe.

I have spoken to colleagues on both sides of the aisle who have said that they want to make healthcare more affordable. They have spoken to these families. They know the hardship they face with these premiums.

Extending the premium tax credits is the only way to do that immediately. Let's do it on a bipartisan basis and surprise everybody. We can help provide Americans with the peace of mind that their families need, give them coverage so that if there is a bad diagnosis, an accident, a tough hospitalization, they are covered.

Crypto

Mr. President, on a separate topic, later this week, the Senate Banking and Agriculture Committees plan to mark up and vote on landmark crypto market structure legislation.

While we await the release of the specific bill text, let me be clear. A strong crypto market structure bill must include the following provisions: ensure protection for investors, especially retail consumers; protect victims from fraud, like crypto ATM scams; strengthen our financial stability; provide strong guardrails against money laundering; and prevent the President and his family from further enriching themselves.

In the year 2008, the American people faced the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. This was spurred in large part by risky, subprime mortgages that went belly-up.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has stated that ``financial innovation and deregulation contributed to an environment in which the [United States] and global financial systems became far . . . less stable than in previous decades.''

In the wake of this, we did something to prevent a future crisis: We passed the Dodd-Frank bill, providing much needed reforms to the financial system that protected consumers and increased accountability on Wall Street.

But it has been 16 years since Dodd-Frank was signed into law, and the financial system in America has changed dramatically. Today, it is the rise of cryptocurrency--a risky, volatile, unpredictable investment that requires meaningful--meaningful--regulation.

The crypto industry has wide reach. It was valued in excess of $4 trillion in 2025, and estimates show that the industry has 40 to 70 million active users each month.

Naturally, the crypto industry is calling for rubberstamp regulation of this asset in the name of innovation. Sound familiar? It is the same reason the FDIC gave us as the cause for the great recession. What does this mean? The next crypto crash could wipe out not just the fat cats but a lot of working families--just like in 2008.

President Trump has failed to put in place commonsense guardrails to fend off another market collapse.

Since returning to office, financial regulators like the SEC have dropped lawsuits against some of the largest and most dubious crypto companies, creating an environment of unaccountability.

President Trump has pushed for deregulation of financial markets, including by taking his chain saw to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in the name of ``government efficiency.'' He has pardoned crypto executives that have allowed funds to flow to terrorists, drug cartels, and cybercriminals--the worst of the worst.

Trump has personally enriched himself--to the tune of nearly $1 billion in the first half of 2025--through crypto scams like meme coins.

The industry has proven repeatedly that it plays a key role in facilitating

fraud. Crypto ATM scams illustrate this perfectly. These scams swindle unsuspecting Americans--usually senior citizens--out of their life savings when they receive phony phone calls telling them that they owe taxes to the Internal Revenue Service or a penalty for missing jury duty. The scammer who calls tells the victim that they can pay what they owe at a crypto ATM machine. They are popping up all over the United States. Little does the victim know that the money they deposit into the crypto ATM is transferred to the criminal's digital wallet. The person putting it in the machine will never see it again.

The FBI estimates that in 2025, last year, victims lost more than $333 million to scams facilitated by crypto ATMs. Congress must meaningfully regulate this industry and address these scams. We cannot make the same mistakes we made leading up to 2008, and we cannot expect taxpayers to support a multibillion-dollar bailout for the crypto industry if there is a crypto crash.

Capitulating to the crypto industry and the self-imposed rush to mark up these forthcoming crypto market structure bills comes at the direction of a President who is trying to enrich himself and his family. I wish I didn't have to say that, but it is true.

As the Senate Banking and Agriculture Committees consider cryptocurrency legislation, I advise Chairmen Scott and Boozman to work across the aisle to explore proper protections and regulations in the crypto market. Rushing this process is unwise and poses a serious danger to the U.S. financial system.

We have been warned. We have been through this in recent memory. Let's not do it again to unsuspecting victims.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, on December 23, the Supreme Court issued an order in Trump v. Illinois that checks this President and his authoritarian tendencies.

The Court rejected the Trump administration's request to stay a temporary restraining order issued by U.S. District Judge April Perry, which had blocked Trump's unnecessary deployment of the National Guard in Chicago.

In that unsigned order, the majority of the Supreme Court wrote, ``The Government has failed to identify a source of authority that would allow the military to execute the laws in Illinois.''

This is good news, and we should recognize the significance of this moment: Even the Supreme Court's conservative supermajority refused to greenlight the President of the United States' blatantly unlawful overreach.

Our government is supposed to help Americans--not go to war with them. The administration's deployment of the National Guard was dangerous political theater intended to sow fear and escalate the President's mass deportation campaign, not to reduce crime.

The President's false rhetoric about Chicago being ``overrun'' with chaos was clearly a pretext to intimidate our city and normalize the deployment of soldiers on our streets.

To protect civil liberties and civilian rule--pillars of democracy-- our country has long upheld the norm that the military does not police our cities.

The Supreme Court recognized that, in this country, the circumstances where the military may be used to execute the laws are exceptional and thankfully acted as a check on this President, at least at this preliminary stage.

The cost of this National Guard operation has already been enormous. The operations, maintenance, and personnel costs for federalizing the 500 National Guard soldiers for deployment in Illinois reached an estimated $20 million in a 2-month span.

That comes out to more than $300,000 per day.

That bears repeating: $20 million and 500 Guard personnel away for weeks on end from their families, their jobs, their communities . . . not performing any missions, but simply used by the President to threaten a reign of terror in the city of Chicago. It is unconscionable.

As of today, these troops are finally, slowly demobilizing and getting ready to head home. But unfortunately, the presence of militarized immigration operations is likely to continue in Chicago and around the country, along with the egregious use of excessive force by these Federal immigration agents.

Just yesterday, an ICE agent shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis. The video of the shooting is horrific and contradicts the self-defense narrative that DHS has attempted to spin. Minnesota officials have rightfully promised a full, fair, and expeditious investigation. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has dodged testifying under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee for months. What happened in Minneapolis yesterday was an unacceptable tragedy. She must testify before the Judiciary Committee, immediately.

Meanwhile, across the country, camouflaged and masked Federal immigration agents continue to deploy Black Hawk helicopters, armored vehicles, and a variety of chemical agents, including near schools, playgrounds, apartment buildings, and churches.

And the Department of Homeland Security refuses to provide information about the costs of these dangerous operations in Illinois. The Chicago Tribune estimated that these militarized immigration operations cost at least $40 million over a 10-week period.

In the wake of these operations, families are afraid to leave their homes, parents are scared to walk their children to school, and workers and vendors fear being pulled from the streets and detained simply for the way they look or the language they speak.

The Trump administration has repeatedly justified these militarized raids as necessary to target the ``worst of the worst.'' But the facts tell a different story, one that I have laid out repeatedly on this floor.

In one instance, on a list of 614 detainees submitted to a Federal court, the administration identified criminal histories for just 16 of the detainees. That shakes out to less than 3 percent of arrestees.

And people with no prior criminal backgrounds, including legal residents and U.S. citizens, were swept up.

As the President flirts with future military deployments and continues his militarized immigration raids, we know his campaign of terror will not stop at Chicago.

And while he failed in his attempt to use Chicago as ``training grounds'' for military forces, the scale and tactics of Operation Midway Blitz have given him a blueprint for similar operations

across the country, including in Minneapolis this week.

So I ask my Republican colleagues, Will you denounce this President's use of troops in our communities before a city you represent becomes the administration's next ``training grounds''?

I will continue to speak out and conduct oversight of this President, and I hope my Republican colleagues will join me in that effort.