Floor Statements

Mr. President, my friend from Wyoming, my colleague on the Republican side, just gave a litany of accomplishments of the Trump administration. That is his view of the political world, and he is certainly entitled to it, but the vote results from last night show that America does not agree with what the Senator from Wyoming said. They are not happy with the MAGA movement and what it has brought to America. The results across the board were overwhelmingly in favor of Democrats last night. It doesn't square with the happy talk which we have heard on the floor about the achievements of the Trump administration.

In fact, in one candid moment, President Trump conceded that the shutdown cost him many votes in last night's election across the board, and he is right. The American people have come to understand what this government shutdown is all about. It is about their bottom line, their home budget, their healthcare, their insurance costs.

In my State--typical--people are seeing a doubling of their health insurance premiums as of January 1 and, in some parts of my State, tripling. In other parts of the country, it is even more. Why is this happening? Because of the big, beautiful, budget bill of the Trump administration. It eliminated the tax treatment that helped families pay for these health insurance premiums. As a consequence, their premiums are going through the roof.

What is that going to do to a family that has to make a choice--a choice that comes down to $200 or $300 a month more in health insurance premiums? Some will be able to afford it, I am sure, but others won't, and they will give up on their health insurance coverage. That is a terrible position for any family to be in.

It also creates problems when it comes to healthcare providers-- hospitals, clinics, doctors, and such. They are going to find themselves in a terrible situation when these same sick people, with no health insurance, come to the hospital. Sure, they will be treated--we do that in America--but they are going to end up incurring costs for that hospital that will not be reimbursed. What does that do for the rest of us with health insurance we can afford? We are going to end up paying more when it is all over.

You cannot ignore the health insurance problem in America, as the Republicans hope to do. That is what is driving this government shutdown, and it is time for it to come to an end.

I hope that President Trump, after last night's election results, will see clearly that he is being blamed, rightly, for this shutdown and that it has to come to an end and we have to move forward as a nation--the sooner the better.

The things that are happening across the board here are just indefensible. The President, yesterday, was weaving back and forth between saying he is going to pay all of the SNAP food benefits to hungry families in America and then saying he is going to cut them all off unless we ended the government shutdown--back and forth during the course of the day. It was hard to follow his position. I am still not sure where it ends.

But I worry that families desperate for assistance in paying for food, to put it on the table, are still not certain themselves. The food banks cannot take care of this problem. This program, the SNAP program, known as the Food Stamp Program, is critical to feeding America for over 40 million of our neighbors and friends. It is time to make it clear that the payments are going to be made--no ifs, ands, or buts about it. I hope the President makes that clear today.

Operation Midway Blitz

Mr. President, on an unrelated topic, this coming weekend will mark 2 months since President Trump launched his so-called Operation Midway Blitz in my home State of Illinois. The Presiding Officer will remember what it is all about. The President was sending in ICE agents dressed in combat uniforms--with masks on their face and no identification as to who they work for--to arrest what they considered to be would-be robbers, terrorists, murderers, rapists, and the criminally insane who had come across our border in past years.

They set out to do that, but what has happened is exactly the opposite. Instead of taking dangerous people off the street, they are harassing and intimidating people who have no crimes in their background whatsoever. The stories just come tumbling in every single day.

The head of the Department of Homeland Security calls this ICE force her ``dream team.'' Let me tell you, this ``dream team'' has done things that are just unthinkable when it comes to the laws and Constitution of this country.

In those 2 months since the President started sending these workers in, he has achieved what I believe to be his true objective here: not to bring down violent crime but to spread fear in the

hearts of our communities, especially our immigrant communities.

In these 2 months, we have seen people thrown to the ground and beaten. This is not speculation; it is videotaped. We have it.

We have seen children ripped from their beds in the middle of the night and zip-tied outside of an apartment complex on the South Shore Avenue of Chicago. And we have seen tear gas canisters deployed against pastors, journalists, and police.

Think about that. It has reached a point that the Federal court is entertaining depositions today from the leader of this effort, the so- called ``dream team'' ICE agents, trying to explain why their violence can be justified.

Innocent people have been caught up in this terror, not just the ``worst of the worst,'' as the President promised and his team has claimed, but American citizens, legal residents, and immigrants who have built their lives and raised their families here. They pose no threat to public safety, and yet they are the targets for these ICE agents.

I want to share a story of one of these people.

Three weeks ago, Omar Huerta Cisneros, a legal resident of the United States, a green card holder, was going for a walk in the South Side of Chicago when masked immigrant agents abruptly pulled him into a red car and drove away. Mr. Huerta Cisneros was detained and disappeared by the Trump administration simply for walking down the street as a Hispanic man.

What makes this case especially troubling, though, is what happened after they arrested him. Mr. Cisneros has a mental challenge. He is schizophrenic, and he lacks ``the mental capacity to reach out to anybody,'' according to his family.

His family only learned of his arrest after footage of the encounter was posted on social media. His family started searching desperately to find him in detention. Now, if this sounds like an extreme case, it is not. It is the usual custom. The ICE agents sweep people off the street, and they disappear sometimes for hours, sometimes for days, sometimes for even longer.

There is no way to check on their whereabouts. If you think that it sounds like something very unusual, if you have watched all the crime shows on TV on what a warrant for an arrest may be, what your arrest will be, what the Miranda warnings may be, this is totally unusual. The ICE agents are making it all up. They are ignoring the law and ignoring the Constitution.

In the behavior characteristics of the Trump administration, people find only silence when they asked what happened to that person just swept up off the street.

The family had to resort to pleading to the community and posting these missing person posters on social media to try to find Mr. Cisneros. This is the photograph that they were advertising, asking people: Have they seen this man? Can you help us find our member of our family?

They finally did find him, 2 weeks--2 weeks--after the masked Federal agents wrongfully arrested him. Where did they find him? On the streets of the suburbs of Chicago. Family members believed Federal agents just dropped him off, possibly a day after detaining him. But no one contacted the family, and they didn't know where he slept during this time away from home.

Unfortunately, Mr. Huerta Cisneros' case is not isolated. Donald Trump has turned Federal law enforcement officers into his own personal secret masked police force to engage in political theater at the expense of real lives. In that process, the rights and liberties guaranteed by the Constitution, including the right to due process and the rule of law, have been trampled.

ICE agents, this so-called ``dream team,'' believe they are above the law and not bound by the Constitution. We are on the slippery slope into authoritarianism. Don't believe me? Listen to the President's own words.

In a ``60 Minutes'' interview this week, he was asked about sending Active-Duty military into American cities. He responded: ``I can bring in the Army, the Marines, I could bring in whoever I want'' and that he could do so ``in a heartbeat'' and that ``no judge can even challenge me.''

He also said ICE raids ``haven't gone far enough.'' Tell that to Mr. Cisneros and his family and every other Illinoisan caught up in these cruel and chaotic raids.

To think that this man is a robber, a rapist, a terrorist, a murderer, criminally insane is just almost laughable if it wasn't such a sad situation exploiting this poor gentleman.

In the face of such ugliness, Chicago and the people who live there have shown up to stand up for one another. We saw it in Mr. Cisneros' case, neighbors helping neighbors trying to find this man who was disappeared by the ICE agents in Chicago.

Over the weekend, we had another example. On Halloween, I joined Governor Pritzker in asking the ICE agents to please lay off the families and kids who are out trick-or-treating. They are being terrorized already. There ought to be one night in the year when you give them a break. They refused. In fact, they mocked us that we would even ask for that.

And then came an incident in Evanston, IL, a suburb just north of Chicago. It was an incident which embarrassed a lot of people and worried them that we were moving to a police state, with the ICE agents going up and down the streets looking for people who were raking leaves, checking on each one of them, in terms of their background and their citizenship and their identity.

They swept up almost everybody who was out in the yard. At this time of year, everybody is out in the yard. That sort of thing really struck a chord in the city of Evanston. They responded, and I knew they would--a strong community.

Over the weekend, hundreds of donors lined the streets near Evanston Township High School to participate in a food drive for their neighbors. The turnout was so overwhelming that the police had to turn off the traffic light at an intersection to accommodate the line of cars waiting to drop off food.

While food was the main draw, Evanston organizers also handed out ``Know Your Rights'' cards and whistles along with the toiletries. Those whistles have been used by community members to warn others when ICE agents are in the area.

This is what an American community looks like: It is organizing to stand together to defend their neighbors. And while no community should have to resort to such extreme, Evanston and other communities across the country have been forced to do it, and they are willingly doing so.

For the first time in our Nation's history, the flow of Federal funds for the SNAP program was halted at the direction of President Donald Trump. To think, this President, in order to put political pressure on Congress, is going to cut off the food to disabled people, elderly people, and children is disgusting.

The Trump administration has the power to issue 100 percent of benefits to working families and kids who rely on this program, but the President and the Department of Agriculture are defying court orders and refusing to flip the switch on these emergency funds for circumstances just like this.

In one moment, the Department of Agriculture says they will send just 50 percent of the monthly benefits to SNAP. The next moment, the President says he will only send out SNAP benefits when the government reopens. When it comes to feeding 42 million Americans, our most vulnerable neighbors and friends, suddenly the Trump administration appears confused and, once again, in disarray.

Who in the world is in charge? But it has no problem remodeling the White House bathrooms with marble and gold, throwing a ``Great Gatsby'' Halloween party for the richest friends, and passing tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires or inviting Senate Republicans down for breakfast as Americans, many of them, struggle to pay for their own breakfast.

It is time for this administration to stop this chaos. Families across America deserve better. I hope that what happened in yesterday's election is a wake-up call that we need to sit down and end this government shutdown that was initiated by the Republican refusal to discuss the cost of health insurance.

We can do something to help Americans. If we can find $20 billion or $40 billion for Argentina, for God's sake, there has got to be money to help

Americans pay their hospitalization premiums. I hope we get down to business today.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, today, the Senate will vote to confirm Eric Tung to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Mr. Tung is yet another judicial nominee who has been selected by President Trump for his partisan ideology. Mr. Tung has not received blue slips from his home State Senators, and his record demonstrates why.

At his hearing, Mr. Tung stated that he subscribes to ``originalism.'' Earlier this year, he clarified that this means he does not recognize a constitutional right to abortion, marriage equality, or even private consensual sexual activity, writing: ``Whether there's a constitutional right to abortion, same sex marriage, sodomy, pornography, transgender procedures--the answer for the originalist is simple: No.''

Over the course of his legal career, Mr. Tung has demonstrated his hostility to workers and to voting rights. He has declared his belief in ``gender roles'' and claimed: ``When these radical feminists try to blur gender roles, they undermine institutions like marriage-- institutions which hold society together.'' When I gave him an opportunity to renounce his comments, he sought only to justify his extreme views.

Mr. Tung also has strong ties to rightwing organizations and figures. He has called the president of the far-right Article III Project Mike Davis a friend. At his hearing and in his responses to written questions, Mr. Tung refused to disavow overtly racist and sexist statements by Mr. Davis.

Mr. Tung's record suggests he will continue to place his personal views and President Trump ahead of his commitment to the Constitution.

I will oppose Mr. Tung's nomination. I urge my colleagues to join me.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

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

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

Mr. President, I want to thank my friends Senators Padilla and Blumenthal for putting together this floor block.

Yesterday was election day for many Americans. They stood at the ballot box and voted their consciences, but they weren't just voting for a candidate; they were voting for a vision of our Nation.

Will we continue to be that Nation that stands for those powerful words carved over the entrance to the Supreme Court--``Equal Justice Under Law''--or will we allow MAGA politics and President Trump's assault on the rule of law to damage the democratic process that we hold so dear?

Well, the American people certainly answered that question yesterday with resounding votes rejecting the Trump administration's disastrous policies.

We know the right to vote is under attack from those who seek to undermine and, in some cases, deny the very will of the American people--the heart of our democracy. There has been an effort for years to restrict access to the ballot under the false banner of ``election integrity.'' Under the Trump administration, this effort is being led by the very government entities that were created to protect the right to vote. This betrayal is deliberate, and it is eroding the foundation of our democracy.

Let me be clear: There is no longer a functioning Federal entity actively safeguarding each American's right to vote--our most fundamental, constitutional freedom. The Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division--once the defender of voting access for communities of color, those serving in the military, rural voters, and people with disabilities--has been devastated by President Trump.

Let me tell you a little anecdote.

Last night, I was in the grocery store on Capitol Hill, buying a few things to eat. A woman came up to me and said she knew who I was, and she wanted to let me know what her situation was. She works in the Civil Rights Division in the Department of Justice, and she is furloughed at the present time.

She said: Do you know how many people are left in the Civil Rights Division, which once had almost 200 employees? 63.

It has been devastated by Trump.

Under the Trump administration's reimagined mission, aligned with MAGA politics and driven by the lie of widespread voter fraud, the Civil Rights Division's Voting Section has abdicated its role in confronting the real and rising tide of disenfranchisement.

Attorney General Pam Bondi removed the Voting Section's leadership team and ordered the dismissal of the section's active cases.

The Voting Section is responsible for enforcing Federal laws that were enacted to protect the right to vote, including the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, the National Voter Registration Act, and the Help America Vote Act. The decision to gut this section by Attorney General Bondi and the White House will harm American voters and cause long- lasting damage. It is part of the Trump legacy.

The Trump administration also ordered the Justice Department to monitor polling sites in California and New Jersey before yesterday's election, at the request of Republican Party officials. While election monitoring is a crucial tool, deploying monitors on a partisan basis is outrageous. We know that voter fraud is extremely rare--extremely--but President Trump and Republicans continue to baselessly claim it is rampant in trying to suppress the vote.

We must fight these dangerous attempts to restrict the right to vote and restore confidence in our democracy by ensuring that every eligible American has access to the ballot. That is why, in honor of my late friend and voting rights pioneer Congressman John Lewis, I have been proud to introduce a bill that bears his name, the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would restore and strengthen the Voting Rights Act.

It has been an honor to work with Senator Warnock of Georgia--and Senator Leahy before him--to lead this legislation as the former chair and now ranking member of the Judiciary Committee. I remain committed to seeing this bill signed into law.

This legislation should be a no-brainer. The issue of access to the ballot used to enjoy overwhelming bipartisan support. Now it has been gamed and politicized by the MAGA bunch. But since the conservative majority in a divided 5-to-4 Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act of 2013 in its Shelby County decision, this has become an increasingly partisan issue.

Attacks on voting rights aren't happening in a vacuum. Across this country, Republican lawmakers and litigators are using every trick in the book to change the rules of the game in their favor and cling to power--purging voter rolls, closing polling places, making it more difficult by restricting mail-in voting, and undermining the Voting Rights Act--all for one purpose: to limit access to the ballot box.

The Republicans actually believe we are a better nation if fewer people vote. I believe every eligible person should vote if you want a true democracy working.

President Trump is hell-bent on continuing to undermine faith in our elections and attack the rule of law, whether by inciting a violent mob on January 6, which overran the Senate Chamber, to overturn the results of a free and fair election or by demanding that blue States turn over reams of voter data to his administration. President Trump has led a long, coordinated campaign to suppress the vote in America.

We now face a critical question: Will we sit idly by while Trump and MAGA Republicans steamroll the great American experiment, or will we cause some ``good'' and ``necessary'' trouble, as John Lewis once said, to save our democracy and our ``precious, almost sacred'' right to vote?

If yesterday's elections are any indication of how the American people feel about this administration, I would say they better get ready for more ``good'' trouble.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am fortunate to live in a State with some outstanding people in law enforcement. I stand behind the men and women of law enforcement, which includes, of course, our State police, our county officials, and local law enforcement as well.

Are they perfect? No, absolutely not, but neither are U.S. Senators. But I find them being held accountable under a system of government which says to the people: You have the last word.

These days, it is pretty clear that many circumstances can be proven by videotape. It is common now for legitimate law enforcement officers to wear a video camera and for the video camera product to become part of the story that ends up destroying lies and holding accountability to all law enforcement involved.

That is why what is going on in the State of Illinois now, in the city of Chicago, is so outrageous. It was several weeks ago when the President announced he was going to send in his own team for two purposes: First, he would send in the National Guard, federalized in Illinois, as well as the National Guard from Texas, to bring order to the streets of Chicago--ridiculous, ridiculous. And that hasn't happened because the courts have said there is no justification for it.

But then he was going to also send in the Department of Homeland Security to go after immigrants. Which immigrants had he targeted, the President of the United States? He said it over and over, at every single rally: Rapists, murderers, terrorists, criminally insane--those are the ones we are going after.

So in came the ICE forces, and they have changed the circumstances of law enforcement dramatically in the Chicagoland area. The administration calls these ICE agents their ``dream team''--``dream team.'' Well, I can tell you, their dream team is creating a nightmare. They are not seeking terrorists and rapists and murderers. They are going after people who are Hispanic. It is a ``racist'' policy, and I use that term advisedly. If you are Hispanic, look Hispanic; if you live in a Hispanic neighborhood; if you happen to be on the street when Hispanics are nearby, you are one of the targets of this ICE operation in Chicago.

My critics will say, ``you exaggerate,'' of course, but I commend to them the lead article in the Chicago Tribune this morning. Let me tell you the story. It is the story of a young woman named Dayanne Figueroa.

This is Dayanne. Dayanne is an American citizen. She is the mother of a 5-year-old boy. She works in a law firm in Chicago. In October, one morning, she was headed to work. She decided to go for a coffee, to bring it to work, and then got involved in a scene which is almost impossible to believe. But it was all captured on videotape, and you can be the judge.

I commend to those who are following this presentation: Look up the lead article in the Chicago Tribune. Look at the actual videotape of what happened to this young woman, this mother of a 5-year-old boy.

As she ``tried to drive through the 1600 block of West Hubbard Street on Friday, Oct. 10, an unmarked vehicle driven by Federal agents collided with'' her as she ``tried to speed away from a hostile crowd.'' ``[M]ultiple videos reviewed by the Tribune show'' this. That is a direct quote from the newspaper this morning.

I watched on that videotape as the ICE vehicle--the ``unmarked vehicle''--crashed into her car.

The Tribune goes on to write:

Seconds after the crash, agents abruptly stopped their

vehicle and exited with weapons in hand pointing at Figueroa.

And did I mention she is a United States citizen?

Agents then forcibly opened her door and pulled her out of

the vehicle by her legs without identifying themselves,

presenting a warrant or informing her that she was under

arrest. As bystanders yelled, ``You hit her! We have it on

video!'' agents ignored the crowd and forced Figueroa into a

red minivan and drove away.

What if this were not Dayanne Figueroa but your mother, your wife, or your daughter being manhandled by this so-called dream team of ICE agents. You would be outraged.

And I commend to you to see the video yourself. The video tells the story of what they did to this young woman.

The Department of Homeland Security later released a

statement . . . that [she] was at fault, saying ``she crashed

into an unmarked government vehicle and violently resisted

arrest, injuring two officers.''

Look at the video for yourself, and you will find out those were lies. That is not the truth in any way whatsoever.

So then what happened to her, as they took her away in the red minivan? Well, unfortunately, ``she was transported to multiple undisclosed locations, and repeatedly denied contact with family or legal counsel.''

ICE--the dream team--is making a mockery of the Constitution when it comes to due process, and it was clear in this case.

But what stunned [Dayanne's mother] the most was that

despite her daughter being a U.S. citizen, the family

couldn't locate her [during this period of time.]

She said no authorities, including the Chicago police, were

able to give them clarity on why her daughter was arrested.

Her mother ``said her daughter is a loving mother of a 5-year-old boy and'' dreams of one day working as a paralegal and has become ``an aspiring lawyer.''

Her record? Here is where we have to level and tell you all the facts. What about the criminal record of Dayanne Figueroa?

Her record shows nothing more than a few minor traffic

violations, the Tribune found. Her family started a

fundraiser to cover medical and legal expenses.

Dayanne went through kidney surgery in August of this year.

As you watch this videotape--as they drag her out of the car, kneel on her body, and hold her on the pavement--you are going to think: What in the world are they doing to her?

This situation led to a statement by the Assistant Secretary in the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin:

[She] alleged that Figueroa ``used her vehicle to block in

agents, honking her horn,'' and that she ``struck an unmarked

government vehicle'' as agents were departing.

But videotapes don't lie, and, unfortunately, you can't say the same for Assistant Secretary McLaughlin.

This is an example of what is happening on the streets of Chicago. To say that you are doing this to capture rapists, murderers, terrorists, and the criminally insane is an insult to this young lady, who was simply going to work that morning when the ICE vehicle ran into her. She was arrested and detained for hours. Luckily, she was finally released with no charges filed against her.

That is what is happening in the city of Chicago in the name of making it safer. It is not making it safer. It is making a mockery of the Constitution.

I have been returning every weekend to the Chicagoland area to go to these neighborhoods where this is occurring and meet with the people who live there. They are living in mortal fear--fear that if you happen to go to the grocery store, you are going to be stopped and asked to prove that you are American. If you can't prove you are American, you can disappear--literally disappear--and be taken into the system in a place called Broadview, a nearby suburb, and detained for periods of time that no one knows in advance what they may be.

This is not a situation where the normal law enforcement in Illinois is held to standards in terms of arrest warrants and the procedure that happens in arrests. This is literally taking people off the streets, dragging them out of cars--just like this young lady--and taking them into detention, for hours at a time, with no contact or legal counsel or family or location.

This is the type of thing that is outrageous in the name of making America safer. It makes a mockery of our Constitution.

I am sorry for what happened to this young lady, but I hope her story will convince others to carefully watch what the so-called dream team is doing in the State of Illinois.

I yield the floor.

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

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

Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague Senator Blumenthal for organizing this floor bloc. I thank the Senator very much, and it is an honor to be part of it.

Most people cannot remember what health insurance was like before the Affordable Care Act. Do you remember when you would go and buy a health insurance plan and they would say: Do you have any preexisting conditions? Have you ever had surgery? Have you ever had a broken bone? Any history of cancer? If so, we are going to exclude that coverage on your policy.

So you ended up with a health insurance policy that would cost a fortune and didn't cover many possibilities, and it also cost a fortune to be treated.

There were many other aspects of health insurance in those days too. Do you know how much mental illness was covered by health insurance? Virtually none. Health insurance did not cover that. Do you know how mental illness was added into the Affordable Care Act? Two Senators-- Paul Wellstone of Minnesota and Peter Domenici of New Mexico--insisted on a provision that said that all health insurance plans will cover mental illness and addiction. Thank goodness they included those things because addiction became a major problem across America with the opioid crisis.

In addition, there was the question: What am I going to do with my kids who are going to college? Are they still covered by my family's health insurance plan?

In most instances, the answer was no. Your child coming out of college, who was looking forward to this great future, had no health insurance coverage if they couldn't find a job. We changed that. I think it goes to age 26 now for families so that they are still covered by the family plan.

The things I have just described to you are considered common to health insurance plans. They were not before the Affordable Care Act.

Do you know how many Republicans votes there were for ObamaCare, the Affordable Care Act? None. None. Not one. We passed it because we happened to have 60 votes in the Senate. I was one of them. I was proud of it. It was one of the most important things I have ever voted on.

What have the Republicans been doing ever since? Trying to figure out a way to rescind the Affordable Care Act and all the protections I just mentioned. They want to go back to the good old days when you couldn't buy health insurance coverage, when you couldn't afford it, when a lot of the things families deal with on a regular basis just weren't covered by health insurance.

They tried it in Trump's first term. I remember--and I bet the Senator does too--when Senator John McCain of Arizona was the deciding vote. It was 2:30 in the morning. He walked into the well of the Senate and stood there. He couldn't raise his arm because it was broken when he was a POW, but he got it up a little bit, and he voted no. His vote saved the Affordable Care Act from Trump in his first term, trying to get rid of it.

Now they are back again, and this time, they are assaulting the cost of health insurance premiums for families. That is why this gathering on the floor is so important and so timely.

All across the United States, families in Illinois and Connecticut and other States are getting notices of the new premiums as of the first of the year, and it is stunning. I will talk about a few of them that I found in my State of Illinois. This issue of affordability is on the minds of my constituents. You talk about the cost of living. You talk about inflation. You talk about the budget. Hold on to your hats. The next time you go to the mailbox, there may be a notice--if you are one of the half a million people in Illinois under the Affordable Care Act--of the increases in premiums at the first of the year.

Last week, we learned from the Department of Insurance in Illinois that Illinois residents can expect to see a nearly 80-percent average cost increase for the Affordable Care Act health plans--80 percent-- which is virtually doubling it. That is in the northern part of the State. They are tripling it in the southern part of the State--tripling the current health insurance premiums. Why? Because Republicans in Congress refuse to sit down with any Democrat and negotiate an extension of a crucial policy that helps tens of millions of Americans afford their health insurance.

Since last week's announcement of the 2026 insurance premiums, I have gotten regular soundings from my constituents.

Karen lives in the suburbs of Chicago, and she wrote to me and said:

I am in absolute disbelief about the increase in my ACA

insurance plan.

As I mentioned, half a million people in my State are currently covered by these plans.

She writes:

I worked hard all my life and cannot believe that I will

not be able, at [age] 62 . . . to afford to go from $565 a

month to $1,600 . . . a month for health insurance.

It is triple the amount she is currently paying.

Karen concluded with this heartbreaking note:

Please fight for those of us who will lose access to health

insurance. . . . I have a young grandchild and another one on

the way. . . . I want to be able to see them grow.

She is not alone. Families in Illinois will pay an additional $2,500 on average for their health insurance next year. That is an extra $200 a month. But for some, especially in rural areas, it may triple instead of double.

Families in Jackson County--now, that is in deep southern Illinois. That is where you find Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Families in Jackson County will see their monthly premiums increase from $122 a month to $458 a month. That is $4,000 more per year for health insurance premiums. That isn't all. Families in Effingham County, which is a little bit north of Jackson County, will see their monthly premiums increase from $185 a month to a staggering $1,000-plus a month, which is an annual increase of $10,000 for families living in these small towns.

It is not just the families in my State who are going to struggle. I looked to Missouri. I grew up in East St. Louis, across the river from that State. They are asking the same question: Can I afford health insurance anymore?

In Missouri, 383,000 people rely on ACA's enhanced premium tax credits to afford their health insurance.

I don't know why the Republican Senators from Missouri aren't coming to the floor to join the Democrats to protest what is going to happen to health insurance in their State. If Congress does not extend the credits that were not renewed under the big, beautiful Trump budget plan, the people in Missouri will have to pay 70 percent more for their insurance next year.

A Missouri couple in their sixties with a household income of $85,000 has to pay an extra $23,000 a year for health insurance--from $7,225 a year now to $30,000 next year. Think of it--$30,000. It is just unimaginable--more than $2,000 a month in premiums.

A Missouri newspaper stated:

An individual with an income of $62,600 a year--

And that is not a wealthy person--

would have to pay the full premium if the enhanced credits

are not extended. That means paying $9,060 over a year for

the average . . . plan instead of $5,321, an increase of 70%.

How can families do this? They are struggling to get by with buying groceries. The utility bills are going through the roof. Now comes this added expense. Price increases of this magnitude will cause millions to lose their health insurance.

I asked the director of insurance in Illinois: Of the 500,000 who have affordable care plans in our State--a fourth of the farmers in our State, for example, have it and half of the shopkeepers in our State-- how many do you think will drop their insurance when they read about these new premiums in the next few days that are coming across in their mailboxes?

She said: Thirty to forty percent will give up their insurance.

What does that mean?

Well, for the family, it is a tragedy--it is a terrible tragedy--for fear they

are going to have some serious illness. For medical providers, it means that sick people will still show up at the emergency room and in the hospital; they just won't be insured, and they won't be able to pay these hospitals, some of which will fail as a result.

Our State has anticipated that anywhere from 160,000 to 275,000 Illinoisans will lose health insurance because their premiums are going through the roof.

This is what the government shutdown is all about.

We are saying to the Republicans: Join us in a bipartisan effort to provide relief for these families who are going to pay these high premiums in Illinois and in Missouri and all across the United States.

As it turns out, if you are just looking at the raw politics of the situation, there are more families from States that Trump carried while he was running for President than from States that he didn't carry who are affected by this; yet silence--silence--from the Republican side of the aisle.

Hundreds of thousands of Illinoisans go to bed each night knowing that they are one illness or one accident away from heartbreak and financial ruin for their families. I can't understand the indifference on the other side.

Listen to what Bruce of Quincy, IL, wrote to me. He said:

I can no longer pay for my health insurance. . . . It went

from $361 a month to $1,774 a month.

It went from $361 to $1,770.

He said:

I am a cancer survivor and a retired, disabled professional

firefighter. . . . I [just] don't know what I'm going to do.

How long are we going to have to wait to provide help for Bruce and others? There are millions of people like those who have written to me and those who I am sure will learn to their surprise that they are also victims of this.

This is something that we ought to agree on, for goodness' sake. Everybody needs the protection of health insurance and the peace of mind. To think that families will be forced to drop it because of our inaction on Capitol Hill is inexcusable.

Thanks again to the Senator from Connecticut for drawing us all together.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, last week, I came to the floor on Wednesday to tell the story of some high school kids in Chicago. They did a remarkable thing last Tuesday, 6 days ago. These kids live in a neighborhood known as Little Village, and they go to high school there--to some well-respected high schools--Little Village Lawndale High Schools.

They decided on Tuesday to stage a parade in Little Village to protest what ICE is doing to that community and to the city of Chicago. It was peaceful. It was constructive. They marched several blocks, carried copies of the Constitution with them, American flags, Mexican flags, signs that they had prepared. I remember one, and I may misstate exactly what it said, but it basically said: Our parents have done so much to protect us. Now we are going to do everything we can to protect them.

I went, on Friday, to meet with these students. It turned out they were all girls--all women Latina students. For some reason or another, the boys didn't get into the organization, though they did participate in the parade. These

young women--about 15 of them--sat with me in a room, and we talked for over an hour about their deepest personal emotional feelings about what was happening to their families and what they did to stage this parade.

I have been to a lot of meetings with a lot of so-called experts in this country about its future, but I learned more in that hour with those girls, those young women, than in many of those other meetings.

They knew exactly what they were doing was dangerous. Their parents had warned them not to stage a parade because the ICE agents had been in the neighborhood in the previous 2 weeks, but they were determined to do something and say something. Most of them were in tears as they talked to me about what they felt personally about this experience.

One of the leaders said: I am an American. I was born here. I love this country, and I want to be part of it. Look what it is doing to our families.

And another young woman broke down when she said that, right before the parade happened, her father had been detained. She said in tears, over and over again: My father is not a criminal.

Her father has been involved for 7 years to try to get his citizenship status cleared up. He has been back and forth in court. He was in the process of doing this when he was detained and has been spirited off somewhere we don't know.

I thought of that experience and what both those young girls had been through, and I thought about the courage they showed, their love of this country, their determination to be part of it. But their love of their family and their willingness to risk everything for their parents, that is the reality of life in Chicago and in many neighborhoods today. When President Trump announced publicly that he was going to send in the military, if necessary, but the ICE forces to go through Chicago, he said he was looking for rapists and murderers and terrorists and the criminally insane. He said it over and over again.

Well, guess who he is arresting. Guess who they are detaining. They have yet to report one rapist, murderer, or terrorist. They are taking people--they are taking the man who sells the tamales on the corner--I am not kidding--a 75-year-old man who sells what they call elote, which are corncobs that they steam and are very popular in the community.

Rapists, murderers, terrorists, criminally insane--no. Some of them are clearly out of status in their citizenship papers. Some are American citizens. Of all the people that they have arrested and detained, 70 percent of them have no criminal record--no criminal record--and yet they are being harassed.

So they picked the weekend to do that--this last weekend--which is so special to so many American families. I think, if I had to pin my wife down on her favorite holiday, it would be Halloween. She loves it. She gets these big bowls of candy, and the kids come from everywhere in our neighborhood in Springfield. And they did this last Friday. I am sure many of us had a similar experience. The kids are so excited to get free candy and show off their costumes, and she greets everyone like they are her grandkids. It is a personal thing.

We were worried about this last Halloween weekend in Chicago because of the ICE forces that were roaming the streets. Governor Pritzker asked for a special favor. He asked the ICE agents to take off Halloween night. Spare the kids. Don't make them worry about whether, when they go out for candy, somebody is going to be arrested. I joined him in that plea. I thought it was common sense.

You know what happened? Kristi Noem, who is the Secretary of DHS, said: By no means; we are going out, if necessary. And they did.

The ICE agents went to Evanston, which is a town just north of the city of Chicago. There was an incident that occurred there which was incredible. The ICE agents were roaming through the town looking for landscape workers.

Well, guess what is going on. Those landscape workers are raking leaves. They are doing the work that they do every year, that we count on them to do. And this year ICE was going to arrest them, and they did.

Terrible things happened too. There was a long story, and I ask unanimous consent that the story from the Chicago Tribune be printed in the Record at this point.

Mr. President, when you read this article, you realize what is happening here. These ICE agents, whom Kristi Noem calls her ``dream team,'' they have completely ignored the Constitution when it comes to due process. They are snatching up people right and left. Who are their targets? The Hispanic population, for sure, or anyone who looks Hispanic, or anyone who lives in a Hispanic neighborhood, or anyone who stands on the street corner with a whistle to try to warn off people that the ICE agents are coming, and certainly those who are in the occupations normally filled by immigrants like landscape workers.

Those are the targets. This is a ``racist'' effort. I use that word advisedly. It is a racist effort. It is not about terrorists and murderers and rapists. It is about people with an accent, people who look like they are Hispanic.

Well, that is what happened in the city of Evanston. And their vans-- unmarked vans--roamed through the neighborhoods. These masked secret police of the immigration Agencies were roaming through the neighborhoods looking for anyone who appeared to be Spanish. That is what they did.

I want to read a statement. They pulled over a man, certainly not Spanish. His name is Morgan Krupinski, part of the great Polish population of the city of Chicago. Listen to what he had to say after he watched the ICE agents go through his neighborhood in Skokie.

Skokie resident Morgan Krupinski said two workers from an

American company, The Scottish Plumber--

That is the name of the company--

were doing flood control work on his property in the 8300

block of Harding Avenue when federal agents' vehicles came

down the residential street. The agents stopped and demanded

documents from both workers, who were able to produce

evidence they were [in fact] U.S. citizens.

``I'm angry,'' said Krupinski, who identified himself as a

Republican and a conservative. ``As someone who believes in

the Constitution, for someone to be stopped by federal agents

because of the color of their skin and their appearance, and

to be asked for papers is completely unimaginable and

completely unconstitutional, because where is probable cause?

Where is reasonable search and seizure? They're working in a

residential neighborhood.''

And then he said:

``And as someone who voted for this president, I didn't

vote for this. I didn't vote for people to be harassed, I

didn't vote for people to be brought out at gunpoint with

machine guns, and to harass Americans.''

That is in the article that I put in the Record.

So I say to my Republican friends: If you think you are winning in the popular vote with this approach, think twice. This is not American. This is not necessary. This is intimidation--and intimidation felt by a high school in Little Village in Chicago and intimidation felt by a suburb north of Chicago which is not usually characterized

as Hispanic in nature, but they were going after the workers who were raking the leaves.

It is really an amazing historical experience, constitutional experience, that we are facing, and it is one that we won't soon forget.

And as I reflect on going back every weekend and seeing further evidence of this travesty, I think--bottom line--there are good stories coming out of this as well: neighbors who finally gather together with their neighbors in the neighborhood and stand up for those who are being harassed by ICE and its Agencies.

Recognizing Manny's Delicatessen

Mr. President, there is another thing that is going on, too, that seems to be totally unrelated, but I want to call it out.

If you are looking for a kosher delicatessen in Chicago, let me tell you my favorite: Manny's. It is right off Roosevelt Road in downtown Chicago. The Raskin family has owned this deli for many years--80, in fact. Danny Raskin, a grandson of the founder of the delicatessen, is running it today. He is a wonderful young businessman. He is struggling with the impact of the trade war and the impact of increasing costs for the basic products he sells. But you won't find a better pastrami sandwich, a corned beef, or a latke or kreplach soup anywhere. Manny's is one of the best.

Why do I break in with this advertisement for Danny Raskin? I want to tell you why. Manny's Deli, located right by the University of Illinois at Chicago, has been a legend in the community for eight decades. If you walk into Manny's, you will see a microcosm of the city of Chicago--people from everywhere, every kind of background--joined together over a fondness for his hearty portions and delicious sandwiches.

Manny's has been a staple in this community. Today, they announced they will provide free meals for those on SNAP--free meals. Why has Manny's found it necessary to feed those on SNAP? Because President Trump became the first President in history to deliberately disrupt the processing of November's SNAP benefits, jeopardizing 42 million Americans' food security.

Although the Department of Agriculture was told by two Federal courts that they had the authority to fully fund SNAP, today they announced they will only pay half of the November benefits. That is going to cause a real hardship for millions of Americans on what used to be known as the Food Stamp Program.

Thankfully, Manny's Delicatessen in Chicago is willing to do what the Trump administration is not--working to make sure that nobody in their city goes hungry. They are going to offer a sandwich, potato pancake, and some desert to the people who come in with SNAP cards. I am grateful to the great staff at Manny's and their owner Danny Raskin for their generosity as SNAP payments are cut under President Trump.

But Manny's isn't the only restaurant in the city of Chicago helping those on SNAP; it is one among many stepping up across Chicago to make sure Illinoisans don't go hungry. Tazza Italian Ristorante, Wooden Paddle, and one of the better pizza places, Lou Malnati's, and other restaurants as well are offering SNAP recipients free or discounted lunch during the month of November. I am grateful for their assistance as Chicagoans face the reality of President Trump's cruel SNAP cuts.

I hope that we here in Washington will learn from the kindness demonstrated by these restaurants and that we will work as hard as they do to feed and keep Americans safe.

Let me just add in closing that there is another man involved in this story, and I want to mention his name. It is Wayne Gordon. Wayne Gordon has been the minister at Lawndale Christian Church for over 40 years. He graduated from Wheaton College, went into the ministry after he coached basketball at Farragut High School, and started the church in the Lawndale section--a poor, largely Black section of Chicago. But he and his wife moved there 40 years ago and still live there to this day. They started Lawndale Christian.

He is an evangelical minister who prays for me every day, thank goodness, and I try to return the favor. But I am sure he is the mentor that Danny Raskin mentioned as his inspiration for providing this food.

Hats off to Coach Wayne Gordon and Danny Raskin for this amazing display of care at a time when it is needed more than ever.

Mr. President, let me close saying this: We can solve this problem in the Senate, and we can do it this week. There is no excuse. The President is back from his trip overseas. The House can be called into session and return--and they should be--sooner rather than later. We can sit down and work out the problem of what to do with skyrocketing health insurance premiums.

Let me tell you what I have been told by the Illinois Department of Insurance. They told me that health insurance premiums are going to double in the northern part of our State, near Chicago, and triple in the rural, smalltown sections downstate--triple the current level of health insurance premiums. How in the world will families struggling to get by paycheck to paycheck manage that?

That is a legitimate question. My Republican friends should join me in asking that question, and they should go beyond these vague references the President made last night on ``60 Minutes'' about ``We have some ideas.'' I have heard that for years now, and we don't know what those ideas are.

What we should do is sit down and work together to solve both problems. Open up the government, which we can do when we reach an agreement--and we can going forward--on health costs that are going to make 24 million Americans lose their health insurance.

We all should share feelings about the families that are struggling with this--both things--and we can do it if we work together. Drop the fanfare. Close the door. Find a table. Invite the President and the leaders, Republican and Democrat. Get it done this week. We can do it. I believe we can if we have the will to. I hope some of the people will step up on the other side of the aisle and join in this bipartisan effort. That is the only way to end this government shutdown.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I was just checking the Congressional Record. You see, we have a tradition here in the Senate. The tradition is that what we say on the floor is printed and available the next day right at our desk. It is kind of an amazing thing. It goes back to the Congressional Record being the record of the proceedings in this body, and the timely printing of it is part of the history.

I wanted to check and see, based on the statements made by my friend and colleague the Senator from Wyoming, whether the Congressional Record printed yesterday contained the efforts of Democratic Senator Ben Lujan of New Mexico to fund the SNAP program.

Here it is. The page number is S7808 for the beginning of the debate by Senator Lujan, who came to the floor and wanted to make sure that we wouldn't have any gaps in coverage when it came to the SNAP or food stamp plan across America. You see, the reason he did it was that 42 million people--1 out of 8 people in our population--need help putting food on the table.

The SNAP program doesn't sound extremely generous--$6 a day. Imagine if you had to feed yourself with that amount of money each day, the sacrifices you would make.

So Senator Lujan came to the floor. Why was he taking on this responsibility? It is because he is the chairman--or the ranking member now of the subcommittee that funds the SNAP program. He came to the floor to make sure that there would be no gaps in coverage and that people would still get their paychecks starting November 1. I call them paychecks, but they are basically SNAP checks that are a credit for purchases at the store.

Do you know what happened when he came to the floor? There was an objection. The objection came from the Republican leader of the Senate.

The Republican leader of the Senate yesterday, on the floor, page S7808 and 7809--you can find it in the Congressional Record--was asked if he would approve Senator Lujan's effort to protect all the SNAP recipients across the United States, and he said no. He objected. He wanted us to pass another bill. But he had a chance, with Senator Lujan's request, to make sure that there would be no suffering of anybody across America because of the SNAP program, and on page S7808, Senator Thune said no.

Now we have the argument that was made by the Senator from Wyoming that one of the reasons that it cannot be done is it is illegal. Now, that is a real hoot, to use a technical term, as far as I am concerned.

So the Senator from Wyoming said it would be illegal in a government shutdown to feed 16 million kids, 8 million seniors, and 4 million people on disability during the shutdown. Well, the last record shutdown under President Trump, in his first term, went for 35 days, and he kept the SNAP program going.

Was he doing it illegally, I ask the Senator from Wyoming?

I think not.

In fact, the Trump administration, on their own website, acknowledged that they were going to make this payment under the SNAP plan even with the government shut down. They put that on their website, and we have copies of it.

Guess what happened to that assertion on their website. It disappeared. Just a few days ago, it disappeared. So a program they used under Trump's first administration, a program that they said they could follow again under this second Trump administration and second Trump shutdown, disappeared magically from the website.

So, across America, some 42 million people, 12 percent of our population, will not be able to put food on the table because of a decision by the Trump administration not to feed Americans. Of all the priorities, wouldn't you think that keeping our population--the poorest among us, the neediest among us--with food on the table would be the highest priority? Don't you think they could come up with the money for it?

Well, it seems like the President can come up with money for Argentina, when he said Argentina is in a terrible economic situation and he was going to send $20 billion of American tax dollars to Argentina--that was a week or two ago--and then find $20 billion in the private sector to also go to Argentina. There was plenty of money for Argentina but not enough money to pay for the SNAP program.

How can that be? And yet it is the reality.

We have 2 million recipients of SNAP in my home State of Illinois, and we know we can take care of them. The Trump administration is making the choice. They have the resources. They have the authority. They just don't have the political will to take care of the problem.

I was on a radio call-in show in Bloomington, IL, this morning, and we talked about the SNAP program. A lot of people really depend on it. A third of the recipients are kids, another third are disabled, and a third are seniors. They are needy people.

Long before the government shutdown, Congress sent the U.S. Department of Agriculture funds for this purpose. The U.S. Department of Agriculture used these funds, as I mentioned, in Trump's first shutdown, his first decision to not fund the government. In fact, a month ago, as I mentioned, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's shutdown plan said this is exactly what they would do: They would pay the SNAP benefits. And then, when it became public that they made that claim, that vanished from the website--just a matter of a few days ago. Why?

During this shutdown, the Trump administration did have the money for Argentina. The President seems to be able to find money for things that are important to him. Obviously, SNAP and the benefits are not important to the President.

Well, I have news for the President. Because of his decision on the SNAP plan, millions of Americans are going to have to struggle to feed their families--Americans paying a price for this decision by the President.

I recently heard from one of them: Michelle, from Hodgkins, IL. She had a message that goes beyond her letter to me--her email to me--and really is a message for all Americans. Here is what she said:

You are forgetting about the seniors that are age 60 to 65. I already cut down my meals to two a day. I really don't want to try to live on one meal. I take medicine, and I need to eat. My size shows that I have not been eating. I know for a fact many eat cereal for dinner. It is filling and cheap.

That is the plight facing poor people if the SNAP program is, in fact, shut down by President Trump.

Here is another message, from Martin in Macomb:

I am on SNAP due to a disability--epilepsy as well as some

others. I rely on SNAP as well as [Social Security] and

[Disability payments] to survive.

Martin, of Macomb, IL, went on to say:

Most of the people in my building rely on SNAP to pay for

food. I am worried about how I will be able to afford food on

November 1.

And, sadly, there are millions of other individuals who will suffer in silence because they receive this assistance but basically are concerned about the stigma that might be attached to them if they say anything publicly.

Meanwhile, for the past 6 weeks, Republican Members of the House of Representatives have been gone. I am not sure what they are doing. I hope they are home at least tending to their constituents, but they should be in Washington. If we would have passed Ben Ray Lujan's--the Democratic Senator's--proposal yesterday to fund the SNAP program, we would have needed action by the House of Representatives, but it is not here. And it hasn't been here for 6 weeks--6 weeks.

We need them. We need the President, when he comes home from his trip overseas, to make this a high priority. The House has not held a vote since September 19. President Trump is tearing down part of the White House to build a new, lavish $300 million ballroom. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem found $200 million during the shutdown to buy two luxury Gulfstream jets for her and her top staff. The Trump administration sees those efforts as priorities, but it will not send our most vulnerable American citizens $6 a day to afford to eat.

I suppose nobody should be surprised that is where we are. Under the President's leadership this summer, the Republican-led Congress passed their so-called Big Beautiful Bill, which made the biggest SNAP cuts in history. So the program that they are now refusing to fund at all was reduced dramatically to make it more difficult to pay out those payments--food stamp-type payments--to SNAP recipients under the Big Beautiful Bill, which I will refer to again in a moment. They made the biggest cuts in the history of the SNAP and Food Stamp Program, cutting the program by 20 percent, and now they are lamenting on the floor that they

just can't pay anything at all; it is illegal for them to pay anything at all.

We know that is not true.

President Trump has decided we can't wait any longer. He wants to stop SNAP funding on Saturday and hurt 42 million Americans to teach the Democrats a lesson--another example of cruelty to people who are vulnerable by this administration.

I appreciate the leadership of Ben Ray Lujan, my Senate colleague from New Mexico. He really believes this in his heart of hearts. If the Congressional Record, which I referred to earlier in my statement, can be referenced, you can read the words of Senator Lujan, which were touching because he does care about not just in New Mexico but across America what this is going to do.

I hope my Republican colleagues will allow us the opportunity to vote on Senator Lujan's bill today before we leave. Let's make sure that there is no gap in the program, and let's put away this argument that was just heard on the floor that somehow it is illegal to feed people.

This week, the Secretary of Agriculture appeared on CBS News to defend her Agency's refusal to fund SNAP. Here is what she said:

Look at [the President's] record standing behind the ag

community, rural communities. No one has done more than

President Trump to date for those communities in [her]

lifetime.

Well, after abandoning vulnerable families receiving SNAP and helping South American farmers over U.S. farmers, President Trump and his U.S. Department of Agriculture has certainly had an unprecedented effect on American communities but not for the reasons she thinks.

The bottom line as well is bad news for people who may not be receiving SNAP but are struggling to make payments for hospitalization insurance. The cost of living continues to go up under the Trump administration. And the issue which we are trying to drive home to our friends on the other side of the aisle is it should be a bipartisan concern, what is happening to health insurance premiums across America.

Take a look. If you are on an Affordable Care Act plan, you are going to see a dramatic increase. In Illinois and the city of Chicago, people who are under that plan, thousands of them, are going to see their health insurance premiums double--double. At a time when they are struggling to make grocery payments and electric utility payments, they are going to double. Why? Because the Big Beautiful Bill, the budget bill of President Trump, passed by all Republican votes--no Democratic votes--unfortunately, has eliminated the tax credits that were available to people in middle-income categories.

Who are these people, these faceless people? We will put a face on them. One out of every four farmers--one out of every four farm families in our country use the Affordable Care Act. Half of the people who own small businesses use it. They are the ones who are facing these heightened premiums.

What we are doing is begging the Republicans to correct the mistake they made in the Big Beautiful Bill; come forward with sensitivity not just to those receiving SNAP and food stamps but to the families who are struggling to make health insurance premium payments. These families need help. The cost of living goes up for them every single day, and this is going to be a hardship many of them can't endure.

Millions--literally, millions--of Americans will lose their health insurance because of the Big Beautiful Bill. We have a chance to correct it, and we should do it as soon as possible. It is time to sit down at the table as soon as the President gets over his jetlag and comes home--to sit down at the table immediately.

The Republican leaders have got to come back to Washington, from the House, and the Republican leaders in the Senate as well as Democratic leaders--on both sides. They are the only ones who can solve this.

I have been in Congress for a number of years. I think I have seen every major shutdown, and I have seen how they all end. There will be some triggering device that does it. I hope that, whatever it takes, we get it done and done quickly.

I yield the floor.

I announce that the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Gallego) is necessarily absent:

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I would like to clarify several points raised by my friend and colleague from Wyoming Dr. John Barrasso, my Senate colleague--and he is my friend. I disagree with him, and I think several things that he said were incorrect and need to be clarified on the record.

First, the notion that we are providing health insurance for illegal immigrants is wrong. Let me tell you why it is wrong. You go back almost 20 years, I believe, to the Reagan Presidency when we had a phenomena in the United States that needed to be addressed. People were showing up at the emergency rooms of hospitals and being turned away. Some of them were bleeding out in the driveways of hospitals across America.

We changed the law under President Reagan, and we changed the law to say that you must admit people coming through the door who need emergency medical assistance--women who were in labor to deliver a child, people who were literally bleeding to death.

Do I hear the Senator from Wyoming say that we should be turning those people away? I hope not. I don't think that is what he really believes. He understands, as I do, that there are compelling human situations where you provide assistance. And I thank our hospitals for doing that.

But to say that we are trying to make sure that we manufacture some coverage for illegal aliens is to overlook the obvious. We don't want these hospitals turning away people who are literally in an extreme situation. I will defend that to the death.

I will just tell you, when President Reagan and others supported that, it was considered to be bipartisan, common sense, and still is today.

When it comes to the SNAP program, it is true that one out of eight Americans counts on SNAP to provide $6 a day for food. A third of those Americans are children. Another third are disabled. And the other third are senior citizens. It is a valuable program in my State, where almost 2 million people receive this kind of assistance.

Why are we stopping the decision to fund SNAP?

It is a decision by the White House and the President and the Republicans in Congress. They have decided that, even though they posted on the website for this program, just a few weeks ago, that they had the money to cover it in case of a shutdown, they removed that language and now say they won't provide food for hungry Americans.

That is not necessary. In fact, there is a way around it. It has been used before by this President and others, in a shutdown crisis situation, and should be used again. Let's not bargain this political decision we are making in Washington on the tables and health of Americans who receive the SNAP program.

Now, let me say a word about the core issue that is at stake here. We have a problem we face that we need to correct, and we need to correct it now because the decision was made in the ``Big Beautiful Trump Budget Bill'' not to provide tax credits to millions of Americans who qualify under the Affordable Care Act. Many of them are seeing increased health insurance premiums that they never anticipated.

Let me give you an example. In my State of Illinois, Cook County is the largest county and includes the city of Chicago. The average monthly premium on the Affordable Care Act now is $226--$226 a month. The projected increase, because of the Republicans' Big Beautiful Bill, goes from $226 a month to $441 a month--in other words, about $2,500 the individual would pay for health insurance, over and above what they paid this year. That is an increase of 95 percent.

How is this affecting other States? Let's take one for example, South Dakota, with a population of about a million people, and 53,000 of them are covered by the Affordable Care Act. They are facing this kind of increase to their premiums. I am sure the Senators from South Dakota, both of them, want to protect their families from health insurance premiums they can't afford. They don't want people to drop coverage.

In order to protect them, they have to change the law--the ``Big Beautiful Law,'' as they call it--and provide assistance for people to pay these health insurance premiums. That is at issue.

Across the United States, some 24 million people are facing this reality. It is a hardship for them and can be taken care of, and should be, on a bipartisan basis. The problem is that it isn't just tinkering at edges that is at stake here with many Republicans. They want to do away with the Affordable Care Act.

Under the first Trump term, I can still remember when Senator McCain came through those doors at 2 in the morning and voted no to save the Affordable Care Act. Trump, in his first Presidency, wanted to get rid of it, and many Republicans still do.

What is their alternative? They have none. They have no alternative. They just are angry over this notion of Obamacare and want to see some other approach to it but can't put it on paper because it won't do the basics that Obamacare has done, which provides health insurance across the board to more Americans than ever in our history.

So here is the bottom line. We can take care of the issues that face us--the government shutdown, as well as making sure that the Affordable Care Act premiums don't go through the roof--on a bipartisan basis-- that people of good will will agree to do that.

We have spent now a month or longer at this impasse, and it is time to break

it. Let's reach an agreement that provides for health insurance premiums that are affordable. Let's reopen this government, and let's do it sooner rather than later. As I have said repeatedly, there are plenty of tables in this building. Let's sit at that table as soon as the President returns, with the President. Let's have the House of Representatives--in their 6-week vacation--come back to Washington and do the business of the people in that Chamber, as well, and let's put our leaders at the table as well.

This can be done and should be done quickly, as soon as the President returns from his overseas trip and the House of Representatives can reconvene, which could be tomorrow. Let's get down to business to do that.

Immigration

Mr. President, it is hard to explain what is going on in the city of Chicago and the State of Illinois that I represent. We have a President who insisted on sending National Guard troops in from Texas--from Texas. The Governor of Illinois said they are not needed; we have our own National Guard if we need one.

And, instead, he is sending these troops and waiting for court approval to spread out across the city of Chicago. At the same time, ICE--the Department of Homeland Security--is creating a reign of terror on the city of Chicago. I do not exaggerate.

Why are they in force in Chicago? Because the President has said, over and over again, that the immigrants are the problem in America. You have heard the speeches, waving his arms at these rallies, saying: We have got to stop the rapists, the murderers, the terrorists, the criminally insane, and the criminal predators who come across our border from committing all these crimes. So we are going to crack down on them, in cities who just happened to vote against me in the last election.

What they have done--what President Trump has done--is send in these ICE agents who have created this reign of terror. It is hard to describe what is going on in this great city, when it comes down to these ICE agents. They have people afraid to leave their homes to go shopping, to go to church, to go to a restaurant, to meet with their family, to bring their kids to school. The stories come in, over and over, of what these ICE agents are doing.

Do you know what happened last Saturday? In their effort to get the worst of the worst--the criminal elements of the immigrants--these ICE agents raided a Halloween parade for kids in Old Irving Park. Well, that is where you are going to find a lot of terrorists, I am sure. I jest, of course.

We know what happened: Harassment, fear--and they left.

They gathered on the sidewalk outside of the Lutheran church in Albany Park in Chicago and dropped tier gas canisters. The neighbors came out, blowing their whistles, and finally they left.

These are men who are wearing masks so they can't be identified. Some of them are wearing uniforms that have no identification whatsoever. They travel about in vans with no markings on them, and they are harassing people in all sorts of ways.

This is not America, and this is not how we fight crime in this country. Unfortunately, it is the reality of what is happening. But sometimes, in the worst of times, things emerge which are nothing short of incredible. It happened yesterday in Chicago.

There is a section of the city of Chicago called Little Village in Lawndale. Yesterday, several hundred high school students from the local high school marched down 26th Street in Little Village, in the east section of Chicago. They were doing that to protest the treatment that they faced with these ICE agents.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this article from the Chicago Sun Times be printed in the Record.

It says:

Since the Trump administration's Operation Midway Blitz

began in September, whistles have been used as warnings that

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is nearby. But on

Tuesday, the whistle-blowing--

That was yesterday--

on Tuesday, the whistle-blowing coincided with students

carrying Mexican flags and signs during a staged walkout of

local schools.

Mr. President, this was a peaceful demonstration. I see the photograph of the parade of these high school students, several hundred of them. Two of them are carrying a large copy of the wording of the U.S. Constitution. Others are carrying American flags, some carrying Mexican flags.

In an over 2-mile walk, hundreds of students [yesterday]

made their way from Little Village Lawndale High School to

the . . . Little Village Arch, denouncing recent ICE action

and supporting immigrant communities.

Immigration enforcement descended on Little Village last

week, resulting in multiple people being taken into custody.

The sobering effect the arrival of federal officers had on

the community inspired the walkout [by these students] . . .

Social Justice High School senior Lia Sofia Lopez said.

And here I am quoting her:

``They hurt us like they've never hurt us before. They

attacked our community, they surrounded the parks, they

surrounded our school. I've never felt more unsafe in my life

than that day,'' Lopez said. ``We need to protect our

people's peace. We need to protect their freedom and dignity.

Because if we don't, no one else will.''

Lopez and other students organized the walkout, which

included her peers from the four schools on Little Village

Lawndale High School's campus.

These students walked peacefully through the community.

With less than a week of planning, Lopez said she was

pleased with the large turnout and made sure her fellow

students knew the risks of protesting, including the presence

of federal agents, telling them ``they will not stop''--

This is what she told fellow students.

``they will not stop because you are children'' and ``they

do not care,'' she said.

Still, fear did not stop these students yesterday. They were accompanied by Chicago police officers as they moved along the road.

Chants of ``say it loud, say it clear, immigrants are

welcome here,'' and ``the people united, will never be

divided'' drew honks from cars stopped along the marchers'

path.

The march through the village drew people to the sidewalks,

cheering and blowing whistles in solidarity with [these]

students . . . Others hung out of windows that overlooked the

streets or pressed themselves against storefront windows,

smiling and recording. The community engagement was not lost

on Lopez, who said her ``beautiful, vibrant home'' has gone

quiet amid the recent federal action.

And then she said:

I've seen so many people come out smiling and feeling safe,

which is something we haven't felt [in this area] in months.

And that's what I want. That is all I want,'' Lopez said.

``This protest was just for us to get peace, to be able to

walk down the street again without being scared, to be able

to live your life.''

For Lopez, protesting was worth whatever potential

consequences. When her peers and family expressed concerns,

she pushed back.

She said:

``I said to them, I don't care if I get expelled, I don't

care if I get detained . . . I will do this for my people,

for my community, because they deserve it,'' Lopez said.

``They deserve people to speak out for them. They deserve

people to show the love and appreciation that they give to us

and to our students, Social Justice and Little Village

Lawndale High School as a whole.''

That was an extraordinary amount of courage from a high school student in the city of Chicago. She knows her parents and many other families are afraid of what might happen because of the ICE agents that are roaming through, showing their strength to bust up Halloween parades, showing their strength to drop tear gas canisters in front of churches when people come out after services.

This extraordinary show of courage and commitment to our country is nothing new.

I, 20 years ago, introduced a bill called the DREAM Act. And as I described this act, it said, if you were brought to this country as a small child, you should have a chance for a path to citizenship.

I used to tell that story, and then I would wait afterward. And when I would go out to my car, outside of the hall, there would be young people waiting for me in the dark, looking in both directions, afraid that someone would see them, and say: Senator, I am a Dreamer. Thank you for this legislation.

Though I have never been able to make it law, I am happy to say that President Obama used his Executive power to create DACA to protect 800,000 of these young people around the country.

Now, this generation of young people is doing what happened next in the story of the Dream Act. After DACA was created, most of these young people--despite the advice and warnings of their parents--came out publicly and said: I am a Dreamer. I want to be part of America's future.

It was extraordinary courage on their part. Now this generation is doing the same, marching down 26th Street to say they want an end to this harassment by ICE officials.

This is not what America is all about. If you are engaged in stopping the worst of the worst--criminal elements among immigrants--count me in. But harassing innocent families that have not violated the law is not the way to do it.

So far, 70 percent or more of those who have been detained by ICE as part of this venture have no criminal record whatsoever. It is harassment and terror, plain and simple.

I salute these students in Little Village for the courage that they showed. I hope that the students across the Chicago area and beyond will stand in solidarity with them in peaceful protest of the intimidation that is taking place in Little Village.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today, the Senate will vote to confirm Edmund LaCour to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.

Mr. LaCour is another judicial nominee selected by President Trump for his extreme views. As the solicitor general of Alabama, Mr. LaCour has repeatedly put politics ahead of the rule of law.

He has resisted the orders of Federal courts--including the Supreme Court--after they ruled against him and the State of Alabama in voting rights cases. His role in that litigation was not confined to a courtroom. After the Supreme Court recognized that Alabama's voting maps likely violated section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, Mr. LaCour helped State legislators draw new voting maps. He pushed for the inclusion of so-called ``legislative findings'' and wrote talking points for lawmakers. Despite his best efforts, Federal judges again found that these maps violated the Voting Rights Act. Yet Mr. LaCour and the State continue to argue the case and challenge the rulings against them.

Mr. LaCour has argued for extreme restrictions on abortion rights and the rights of transgender people. He has also aggressively advocated for the death penalty. Last year, Mr. LaCour argued in support of nitrogen suffocation--an untested and inhumane death penalty method-- which allowed Alabama to carry out the first execution in the world by nitrogen gas.

And just last week, in another case that Mr. LaCour argued, Alabama executed Anthony Boyd by nitrogen suffocation. Mr. Boyd reportedly ``convulse[d] and heave[d] for about 15 minutes before being pronounced dead.'' In her dissent from the Supreme Court's denial of a stay of execution, Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson, concluded, ``Allowing the nitrogen hypoxia experiment to continue despite mounting and unbroken evidence that it violates the Constitution by inflicting unnecessary suffering fails to ` ``protec[t] [the] dignity'' ' of ` ``the Nation we have been, the Nation we are, and the Nation we aspire to be.'' ' ''

Based on Mr. LaCour's record, I am concerned that he will continue to display his clear ideological preferences if he is confirmed to the bench.

I oppose his nomination. I urge my colleagues to join me.