Floor Statements

I announce that the Senator from Massachussetts (Mr. Markey) and the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) are necessarily absent.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, if you put me on the spot and ask me how many times I have flown from O'Hare to Washington during the course of my congressional career, I couldn't guess. I am going to take a wild guess and say 2,000--2,000 flights in and out of O'Hare.

This morning, I had a press conference there, and it was important for those who count on that great airfield to know what I learned. I met with the air traffic controllers. Turns out that O'Hare, at this point, is the busiest airport in the world if you combine both passenger and cargo air traffic. It is also the case that, for more than 10 years, they have been understaffed when it comes to air traffic control. They don't have enough air traffic controllers. They have been working 6 days a week, 10-hour days, for at least 10 years and in the foreseeable future.

They are concerned about it. I am as well. They are doing their job and doing a great job in the process, but they are under pressure unlike anything most of us can imagine. They literally have the lives of ourselves and our families in their hands when they are directing air traffic around O'Hare.

Recently, when we had a government shutdown, there was a question raised as to whether or not we were going to reduce the number of air flights in America as a result of it. It was not an unreasonable suggestion because, when you consider that we need 14,000 air traffic controllers nationwide, and we have around 10,000, we already start off with a problem. Fortunately, the reduction in air service only lasted a brief period of time.

I met with those air traffic controllers today and told them that I voted to reopen the government, thinking of them and thinking of the recipients of the SNAP benefits and food stamp benefits across America.

But that isn't enough to be concerned about it. We need to do something on a bipartisan basis to solve this problem. We need more air traffic controllers. There are ways to do this, and I want to pursue those. We also need the very best in technology and equipment when it comes to the work that they do, and that can be improved. There seems to be a bipartisan feeling now that we should do something. Let's seize this moment and seize this opportunity and move forward in making sure that we have the safest and most modern air traffic control in the world.

I thank the men and women who continue to do their jobs so well at O'Hare and across the United States, but they have a burden that most of us don't even appreciate in their 6-day weeks and 10-hour days.

Operation Midway Blitz

Mr. President, on a separate topic now, for nearly 3 months, the city of Chicago has lived under the shadow of President Trump's Operation Midway Blitz, a cruel campaign that has swept up innocent American citizens, legal residents, and immigrants who pose no threat to public safety.

The Trump administration justifies this campaign by saying they are targeting ``the worst of the worst.'' Oh, you heard him give the speech over and over again. We are going after those illegal immigrants in this country who are rapists, terrorists, murderers, criminally insane--``the worst of the worst,'' as he says over and over again.

But the situation on the ground, the reality of the situation, paints a dramatically different picture. As part of these immigration raids, agents, ICE agents, and others have baselessly rounded up and disappeared people on the streets and in homes across the city, almost all of whom had no prior warrants or criminal history.

Terrorists? That is not the case at all.

I want to speak to you about one of the incidents that I ran across when I went back home last week. Two weeks ago, a viral video showed agents, Federal agents, storming through the doors of Rayito de Sol daycare and preschool center in the North Center neighborhood of Chicago. These ICE agents, in their camouflage uniforms and with masks on their faces, were dragging out a teacher while she screamed and cried: ``I have papers,'' in Spanish. That teacher's name is Diana Santillana, but her students--little girls and boys between the ages of 6 months and 6 years--know her as Miss Diana.

According to school officials, Diana had an authorization to work, and agents did not present a warrant when they entered the building.

This is the ``Meet the Teacher'' file for Miss Diana that is posted in the classroom of Rayito de Sol. This was the woman that the ICE agents went into the school and daycare center and arrested. The flyer describes Diana's love of early education and working with kids because ``it is one of the most rewarding experiences,'' in her words, and she likes to ``nurture and leave a mark on young ones.''

Does this look like one of the rapists, murderers, terrorists, criminally insane that President Trump has reminded us of over and over again? Of course not.

Thankfully, Miss Diana was released from detention after a judge ruled her mandatory detention was illegal.

They swooped her up out of this daycare center. She disappeared, and no one could find her, not family and friends--no one could find her. And then she turned up in a facility, I believe, in Indiana, and they released her from there.

What was this all about? Well, I will tell you what it was all about. It was about the reign of terror which Operation Midway Blitz is visiting on the city of Chicago.

Following her release, Diana said:

I love our community and the children I teach, and I can't

wait to see them again.

Does that sound like a terrorist rant?

I know they can't wait to see her. They love Miss Diana.

This incident has rattled this community in Chicago, especially the kids who attend Rayito de Sol who range in age from, as I mentioned, 6 months to 6 years.

This past week, I visited with the parents of some of these students, about 12 of them. They, of course, expressed concerns for her because they love her. Miss Diana is well-loved by all of these kids. They also worried about the impact of this incident on their kids--the questions and the nightmares that followed as these little ones were forced to see and hear the administration's brutality in full view.

In an interview later after the incident took place, one of the parents, Tara, said the families were ``traumatized.'' The ``children were crying.'' And the scene was one none ``of us have ever witnessed before and will ever forget.''

It is outrageous that children are exposed to this, but the Trump administration basically doesn't give a damn. There used to be a time when ICE didn't cross certain lines. DHS had policies against enforcement at schools and churches for this very reason--not anymore. They have got to go after ``terrorists'' like Miss Diane so they have to break all of the rules that have been established.

President Trump has touted Operation Midway Blitz as a resounding success. These raids aren't targeted. The administration is sweeping up people off streets while they are dropping off their kids at school or heading to work for simply looking Hispanic--good enough to be arrested and deported.

Don't take my word for it. Listen to what U.S. District Court judge Jeffrey Cummings said. In a lawsuit challenging warrantless immigration arrests in Illinois, Judge Cummings read from a summary he and his law clerks compiled of more than 150 pending immigration cases in which arrestees challenged their deportation. The judge said the circumstances of the arrests show that Operation Midway Blitz is not targeting hardened criminals, not targeting the worst of the worst. In that case, the Trump administration provided a list of more than 600 individuals detained during Midway Blitz. By their own data--their own data--just 16 of the 1,600 detainees have any criminal history that poses a high risk to public safety.

Do you know what percentage that is? Less than 3 percent. Terrorists, rapists, murderers, criminally insane--less than 3 percent have any criminal background.

All of this confirms what we have been saying for months. What is happening in Chicago with Midway Blitz is a political theater to spread fear, not reduce crime.

Oh, they struck fear in the hearts of the kids at this daycare center. They may never forget what they saw that day when the agents came in, in their camouflage and their masks, and whisked this poor woman out to deport her and started off by sending her to Indiana and then releasing her.

It made no sense whatsoever. This is political theater at its worst. Chicago deserves better. America deserves better.

Reports indicate Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino is leaving the city of Chicago. Let me tell you, he couldn't leave too soon from my conclusion. However, we expect immigration raids to continue in the city.

And Mr. Bovino has already taken his administration's brutal tactics that they have been practicing in Chicago to Charlotte, NC. In just one weekend, DHS agents raided a church and arrested at least one U.S. citizen simply because he looked Hispanic.

And in Mr. Bovino's own words, ``It wouldn't surprise me to see us in a city near you.''

So I ask my colleagues, especially my Republican friends who value liberty and freedom as much as I do: What is stopping this government from deploying tear gas in your home city? What is stopping them from pointing guns at your constituents? What does

arresting your fellow neighbors without cause mean to you in the future?

It is a legitimate question. Don't look the other way out of personal or political loyalty to this President. Look straight in the eyes of the people you represent and tell them you stand for the Constitution and the well-worn history of this country where we have tried to push back on tyrants. It is on all of us to call out these abuses of power and this trampling of civil liberties.

How can we say to Miss Diana, ``We are sorry''? We can say it by ending Midway Blitz as fast as possible and by reassuring the families there that we want to have a safe nation without the expense of our basic liberties.

I yield the floor.

I announce that the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fetterman) and the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) are necessarily absent.

[Rollcall Vote No. 619 Leg.]

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

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

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

Mr. President, after a record government shutdown of 41 days and 14 rollcalls failing to reopen it, the situation was clear. Donald Trump and the Senate Republican leadership were unwilling to do anything to reduce skyrocketing health insurance premiums, a terrible problem facing some 24 million American families.

The shutdown of the government stopped paychecks for thousands of Federal workers, causing real hardship for their families, including our overworked and understaffed air traffic controllers and many other critical members of the Federal workforce.

Food pantries in my State and across the Nation were overwhelmed when President Trump stopped SNAP food payments to 42 million Americans, one-third of whom were children. Food pantries were being overwhelmed as well by unemployed workers who had been laid off or furloughed because of the government shutdown.

So a group of Senators sat down to try to find a bipartisan resolution. After lengthy negotiations, an agreement was reached with the Republican Senate leader John Thune.

We will agree to reopen the government until January 30, 2026. During that time, we will pass three bipartisan appropriations bills that will fully fund SNAP, WIC, and all the veterans programs and finish our work on the remaining spending bills for this fiscal year.

The agreement would also reverse the Trump administration's mass firings during the shutdown and prevent future ones through January 30. We credit Senator Kaine of Virginia for this provision.

Leader Thune has also promised the Democrats an opportunity before mid-December to present a Democratic bill on the floor with proposals to change the law and protect American families from dramatic healthcare premium increases. It is my fervent hope that this ends up being a bipartisan effort. It would be such an achievement of the Senate to finally return to that status.

I have served in the Senate for 29 years, and I have never seen that kind of offer from a Senate majority. During the historic rollcall last night, I walked across the aisle and met with Senator John Thune, the Republican leader. I told him that I was counting on him to keep his word on this agreement. He assured me he would.

The fate of this effort depends on both the Senate and the House of Representatives. After a 7-week absence, Speaker Johnson needs to call his Members back and join us in the hard work that lies ahead.

Many of my friends are unhappy. They think we should have kept our government closed indefinitely to protest the policies of the Trump administration. I share their opinions of this administration but cannot accept a strategy which wages political battle at the expense of my neighbors' paychecks or the food for their children.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I have one word for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and on my side of the aisle--one word: enough.

It is time for us to get down to the business of agreeing on some basic things. I think we can.

The first thing we need to do is to agree to reopen the Government of the United States of America. I believe we should do it before the sun sets today at 5:02 p.m. and 39 seconds.

The second thing we should agree on is to protect the families who are facing outrageous increases in health insurance premiums across the United States. If we cannot address the Affordable Care Act and make dramatic changes, we need to legislate for that to happen. And that rarely ever happens around here, but it should. That should be part of our agreement.

The third thing is that we need to support a bipartisan appropriations process to fund our government. We are lucky; we have two leaders on the Appropriations Committee--one a Republican, Susan Collins, and another a Democrat, Patty Murray--who are competent and able to achieve that goal. It is time for us to get rid of the never- ending continuing resolutions and actually appropriate money for purposes that the public sent us here to honor.

The fourth thing is that we need to collectively apologize and pay in full all Federal employees and contractors as soon as possible. It is an embarrassment to come to work each day and realize that these wonderful people who are working with us--doing their job and doing it well and professionally--are not being paid.

Finally, we need to pass legislation to guarantee that this, the longest shutdown in U.S. history, is the last time Congress ever should be showing political resolve at the expense of food on the table for hungry children.

It is time for us to act. Enough.

I yield the floor.

I announce that the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fetterman) is necessarily absent.

Mr. President, election night, this past Tuesday, should have been a wake-up call for many of my colleagues in the Senate. Americans lined up at the ballot box to demand the Trump administration start addressing America's affordability crisis. These voters want to go to the grocery store or a doctor's office without breaking the bank.

But the President I am not sure is even listening. Despite President Trump's promise to bring prices down on day one of his administration, Americans have been paying more for their groceries, electricity, and rent throughout this first year of his second term. And in 2026, they will be paying far more when it comes to healthcare.

You see, President Trump said on the campaign trail that he had ``concepts of a plan''--``concepts of a plan''--to make healthcare affordable. His real plan--and the Republicans' plan that they have been following for the past year--unfortunately, is going to mean Americans pay dramatically more for their healthcare.

In July, congressional Republicans passed--you remember the name--the Big Beautiful Bill, President Trump's budget bill. It cut Medicaid by $1 trillion, and it is going to result in more than 10 million people losing their health insurance.

Those cuts were not enough. As they unilaterally wrote and passed the so-called Big Beautiful Bill, congressional Republicans also refused to extend the Affordable Care Act's enhanced premium tax credits. What is an enhanced tax credit? It means that you receive help from the government to pay your premiums for health insurance. These tax credits help more than 21 million people in America afford healthcare, and President Trump and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are choosing to let these credits expire at the end of this year.

Last week, people in my State of Illinois started receiving letters informing them of what is in store if we don't do something about this Republican action. They are going to find out through the mail what is going to happen to next year's health insurance premiums. They won't like it. And for those in my State who access healthcare through the ACA, these letters inform them their premiums will increase by an average of 80 percent, or an additional $2,500 per year--2,500 bucks, folks. How is that on the family budget? I know what it is; it is a killer for a lot of people.

For many others, those premium increases will be even higher, doubling and tripling what people are actually paying today. Folks don't realize this. They will soon, when they receive these letters. That is what they are in for.

What does it mean for many families in my State? Devastation.

I want to read some of the messages I have been receiving from constituents across Illinois, now that they see what happens to their hospitalization premiums because of this Republican action.

Todd is in Petersburg, IL, which is a small town in the middle of the State. He wrote to my office, and he said:

In 2025, I had a good plan, which was around $560 a month

[for health insurance]. Sadly, my option now [has] a monthly

premium of almost $1,400.

That is almost triple what he is paying now.

Scot, from Glen Ellyn, a suburb of Chicago, wrote:

My daughter just received her 2026 premium notice. Without

any . . . help, her [costs] will increase from $232 [a month]

to $788.

That is triple what she is currently paying.

Phyllis, from DuPage County, wrote:

I lost my job and have been on ACA [Marketplace] plans.

Last year my plan with dental and vision cost me $162 [a

month]. This year, without a subsidy, [prices are] going up

to $1,136.

From $162 to $1,136 a month.

[With] a higher deductible, more co-pays, and no vision,

nor dental [coverage].

She concluded:

This amount [they are asking for my health insurance] is

more than my [monthly] mortgage. It's not affordable living

in this country anymore.

If Republicans don't come to the negotiating table, Scot's daughter will see a $6,600 premium increase, Todd will face a premium increase of $10,000-plus, and Phyllis will pay $12,000 more for her healthcare. What family can handle that?

These are real stories from real families, real results of action that has been taken in the Senate. People are going to pay thousands of dollars more for their health insurance, and some will drop it. The director of insurance in Illinois estimates that 30 to 40 percent of the half a million people who are under the Affordable Care Act in Illinois will drop their coverage.

Will they get sick in the future? Sure, they will. Will they show up at the hospital even if they have no insurance? Of course, they will. Will the hospital treat them? Yes. Who will pay for that treatment? All the rest of us, because of this Republican action eliminating this tax credit.

So what has President Trump been doing as my constituents receive these awful notices? In the last month, he launched a $40 billion bailout for Argentina--$40 billion. We didn't vote for $40 billion; he just announced it.

He started construction on a grand new ballroom for his billionaire buddies at the White House, insisting it won't cost the taxpayers any money at all. And he bought two new private jets for Kristi Noem, the Secretary at DHS. And last week, he threw himself a lavish ``Great Gatsby''-themed Halloween party at Mar-a-Lago.

The voters are fed up, and they showed it last Tuesday. As the President lives like a King, Americans are rejecting Republicans who show more interest in fawning over the President than lowering the cost of living.

There will be more election Tuesdays like this one if President Trump and congressional Republicans continue to refuse to sit down with Democrats and find a way out of this shutdown. We should be meeting today to open this government. We need to address this health insurance problem. It affects every district. In fact, it affects red States, those who President Trump carried, more than blue States. It is a national problem created by the Republicans, and it needs to be fixed by them. They have got to join us in this effort.

There is no reason we can't find a deal to stop millions of Americans from paying double or triple in health insurance premiums because the American people deserve so much more than mere concepts of a plan when it comes to healthcare.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I want to thank Senator Kaine for S.J. Res. 90, and I ask unanimous consent to be added as a cosponsor.

Mr. President, we are here debating a central Constitution precept, and I am glad. Throughout my career in the House and Senate, I have tried to be consistent on this issue and respect the Constitution and its wisdom.

I am going to say six words I very rarely, if ever, have said in my entire career in Congress: I agree with Senator Rand Paul. I believe what he has said on the floor today is in fact the way I feel about what this section of the Constitution means.

In one of the previous debates with the War Powers Resolution, War Powers Act being debated on the floor, Senator Kaine reminded us of that historic moment when the Founding Fathers decided to write this Constitution, which we have all sworn to uphold and defend. And leading that Constitutional Convention, of course, was the greatest general then and still in the history of the United States: George Washington.

Despite the fact that he was in the room and leading the conversation about what Constitution would govern this country, article I, section 8 put in a provision that basically said, when it comes to a future war, even if you are President, General Washington, that Congress would have the power to decide whether we go to war. Senator Kaine made that point in an earlier debate, and I thought it was well worth repeating.

Let me say a word about Venezuela. In 2018, I had the opportunity to visit Venezuela--a once prosperous, albeit imperfect democracy, suffering terrible economic and political decline under the disgraceful and failed leadership of Nicolas Maduro.

I told then-President Maduro that if he rigged any upcoming elections, Venezuelans would be even more isolated and endure further unnecessary suffering. He went ahead with a sham election anyway, leading to even more cruelty and the exodus of literally millions of Venezuelans, some to the United States.

Last July, Venezuela held another Presidential election, during which the regime, the Maduro regime, arbitrarily blocked opposition candidates from the ballot and tried to undermine the preelectoral process. Nonetheless, more than 10 million Venezuelans showed up to vote, and results meticulously documented by credible election monitors showed a sweeping victory for opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez. Maduro and his criminal enablers again refused to respect the rules and shamelessly refused to swear in legitimately chosen President Gonzalez.

So let me make it clear: Nicolas Maduro is an illegitimate leader guilty of turning Venezuela into a failed state, one that has caused terrible suffering and misery for the people who live there. This is not the question at hand. As I have long said, it is long overdue that the result of last year's elections be respected in Venezuela.

But let me be clear on a position I have also held for a long time regardless of who has been in the White

House. Only Congress, under the Constitution, has the power to declare war. Article I, section 8 is clear on this issue--and for good reason. Only the people's elected representatives should have the awesome power to send our sons and daughters into armed conflict.

I remember thinking about this in personal terms during the era of the Vietnam war when I was a college student, thinking about the fact that there had not been any formal declaration of war in Vietnam, and yet over 40,000 of my brothers and sisters gave their lives in that conflict.

Our Founding Fathers were wise in this regard and well aware of human history in which Kings and unelected leaders sent their people into war for personal gain without any public consent.

Congress overwhelmingly reaffirmed this key constitutional provision when it passed the War Powers Act in 1973 over the veto of then- President Richard Nixon.

Under the law, the President has the authority to approve military attacks as a response to an imminent threat or with the expressed authorization of Congress. I do not believe these conditions have been met in this situation.

We in Congress have already ceded too much of our constitutional authority on appropriations and other key items to the President. This body must not do so regarding matters of war.

I think about the idea of a war breaking out between the United States and Venezuela. Certainly picking off unarmed boats in the ocean is an easy task for our great military. But let's keep in mind that we live in a world where there is asymmetric power. What am I talking about? Take a look at what the drones--many of them pretty cheap pieces of equipment--have wrought in countries like Ukraine in the midst of their war. What would turn out to be a mass of force by the United States sent down in the Caribbean--there is sure to be a show of force, maybe subject to attack even by Venezuela, poorly armed country that it is.

So I would say that if we are thinking clearly about this, we would think long and hard before we engaged in any conflict with Venezuela. That is what article I, section 8 is about. The American people, before being asked to give any sons and daughters and risk their lives in a war, have to have a voice in the process, and they do that through Members of Congress and through our Constitution. That is what Senator Kaine of Virginia reminds us of today. That is why I will support S.J. Res. 90.

I yield the floor.

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.