Floor Statements

I announce that the Senator from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth), is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons) and the Senator from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth) are necessarily absent.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. President, last week, I spent 4 days in Venezuela. I had never been there before. I was given an opportunity to get a visa to go to the country, and I jumped at the opportunity. Venezuela, of course, on the north end of the South American continent, is a constant source of concern in the United States and the region, and I wanted to see for myself what was happening. No doubt, many are aware that Venezuela has been suffering devastating economic and democratic backsliding, but what I found was a country that is on the edge of collapse, facing overlapping economic, humanitarian, and political crises.

On the economic side, Venezuela has so many positive things. It is rich in natural beauty, oil, minerals, and human talent, but it has seen its economy run into the ground by mindless price controls, multiple exchange rates, and gross mismanagement. Inflation is rampant and expected to reach 13,000 percent this year, leading to what some call ``a race for survival.''

Imagine walking down the main street of Caracas and seeing long lines at every ATM. Why are they there? Because each day, the residents of Venezuela must go to the ATM machine with their credit card or debit card and take out the maximum withdrawal allowed. It is hundreds of thousands of Bolivars, which sound like more money than you could possibly need, but it translates into 20 cents--waiting an hour at an ATM machine for 20 cents' worth of currency so that you can ride the bus back and forth to work. That is what life is like in the capital of Venezuela.

They have universally discredited and arbitrary price controls that are eerily reminiscent of the failed policies in Cuba and the Soviet Union. They have decimated local production and left basic goods unavailable or unaffordable.

I went down the main street in Caracas and saw many shops but no customers. Basic goods were available--shampoo or diapers, for example--but they cost the equivalent of 2 or 3 months of salary. We stopped and did a translation at one store that isn't under price controls, and we found that a pound of hamburger costs $4, which doesn't sound bad, except that that is the minimum monthly wage in Venezuela--for a pound of hamburger. People waited in long lines.

Rampant inflation--hyperinflation, really--has made actual cash scarce, and near worthless when it can actually be found. I have never visited a country where I never touched their currency. They warned me against it. They said: If you buy things here, as a tourist, you are going to pay 20 times what local people pay. They have exchange rates that are bizarre and change by the minute. These people live with this every single day.

The government of Maduro stages raids into formal grocery stores to impose arbitrary price controls, leaving the owners unable to stock their shelves or run a functioning business. If there is a rumor that there are eggs for sale somewhere in Caracas, there is a rush to that location, and people wait for hours in the hopes that they can buy eggs.

As a result, informal markets are springing up trying to meet the people's demands. Yet even while I walked through these markets, I saw long lines. From the second floor in the back, in the dark, there was a long line waiting. I went to the front to see what they were waiting for. They wanted to buy toilet paper.

Business leaders told me that they are being vilified by the government, forced to sell products below cost and out of markets so the government can be the exclusive seller of imported goods.

Listen to this. They also shared stories of workers fainting on the job from hunger. Of particular concern, one of the largest employers in Venezuela said they decided they had to start bringing fruit to the workplace in the morning so their workers could get something to eat. When they fainted, it was not only dangerous to them but to people around them, and they wanted to keep their workers awake. Only one out of three people in Venezuela eats three meals a day. There are children fainting at school.

The government has run the state oil industry into collapse, treating it as its cash cow and as a way to line their pockets. Currently, there is little or no investment in the oil industry, the national oil industry of Venezuela. There is little or no maintenance, and there is a mass exodus of skilled personnel and engineers. What would an engineer working for a Venezuelan national oil company earn in the course of a year? Dramatically more than most Venezuelans--$1,700 a year in annual income. What do they earn in other countries in Latin America with the same skills? They would earn an average income of $85,000 a year. Is it any surprise they are leaving?

It is also no surprise that the country is suffering a heartbreaking humanitarian crisis, one that is notable for malnutrition and a breakdown of basic public health. Brave and dedicated healthcare workers--and I have met some; NGO leaders told me of a shortage of vaccines with outbreaks of measles and diphtheria that haven't been seen for decades. Malaria is at record levels.

When the public health officials gave me a briefing on the public health crisis of Venezuela, they said that the maternal mortality rate--the death of mothers--is at the level it was 50 years ago, the early 1960s. The same thing is true for infant mortality--that high a level. You have to go to South Sudan, Yemen, or Syria to find comparable public health crises, and those three countries are all at war. Venezuela is at war with itself. In fact, one expert said that the outbreak of measles, diphtheria, and malaria was the worst he had seen, certainly the worst in all of South America.

With Venezuelans flooding into neighboring countries, many of them are spreading diseases that have been cured in so many countries around the world. Basic diabetes, asthma, and HIV treatments are simply not available. For 4 months now, HIV patients have not been given medication.

A staggering number of hospitals cannot perform basic services. Many do not have any capacity to perform a blood test. There are no x ray machines available on a 24/7 basis. Many of them don't have electricity. Some do not even have clean water.

Venezuelans are suffering malnutrition, and it is particularly acute for children, who suffer for a lifetime due to stunted brain development. One expert said that the rates of malnutrition have affected more than 8 percent of the population. In some areas, the percentage of people suffering from malnutrition is as high as 15 percent. You can see it on the streets of Caracas. When you look at the public parks, you see these children--thin limbs, spindly legs and arms, and you think to yourself: These kids are not getting enough to eat.

It is hard to know precisely about all of these statistics because the government has officially stopped collecting and releasing information. They leave it up to private organizations.

What I found particularly cruel is the government's supposed effort to help with hunger. A provision of a monthly food basket was linked to having the right political identification card. Sadly, these food boxes are imported. Someone is making a lot of money in that process, with corrupt middlemen taking a cut at multiple steps along the way, all to provide a politically manipulated lifeline that meets only 7 of the 12 basic food needs.

The regime has also linked these food rations to polling stations during elections, which brings me to the third overlapping crisis, a democratic crisis. Let me acknowledge that Hugo Chavez did, in fact, win his initial terms in democratic elections. He tapped into public disenchantment with the failure of traditional governing parties to address the deep chasms of poverty in Venezuela. He even said ``I am not the cause, I am the consequence,'' referring to his rise to power. But his election, like that of so many other autocrats at heart, also brought the steady dismantling of the country's democracy, a path followed by the current President.

You see, in Venezuela, political parties that look threatening are arbitrarily banned. Political opponents who appear to be popular are jailed or exiled or just plain disqualified from running for office. Government institutions, like the Venezuelan election commission, are simply political tools of the regime. The rule of law has collapsed.

In 2015, the opposition won a sweeping victory in legislative elections. What happened next? The President of Venezuela, Maduro, installed an illegitimate rubberstamp constituent assembly to usurp the legitimately elected National Assembly. It was his way of stopping his opponents. The supreme court and national election council are stacked with partisan cronies who do whatever the regime asks, regardless of the law.

Now, with the country on the edge of economic collapse, the President has called for a snap election on May 20--more than 6 months before it traditionally would be held. He wants to move quickly, for fear that he might lose. Maduro doesn't want to risk losing even under a rigged system, so he is rushing forward with this election that doesn't even come close to meeting established international standards.

What I found, and bears repeating, is that the critics of the Venezuelan Government regime and their actions are not confined to the United States or Canada. They include Central American countries like Panama and South American countries, which have expressed their displeasure with Maduro's actions, as well as the European Union's displeasure. The parties and candidates still remain arbitrarily banned. There is zero trust in discredited election commissions, and registration and voting processes have been dramatically manipulated.

I met with some of the opposition leaders, and they told me what happens when people try to vote. They have to go through an elaborate process with a machine to register to vote. It is controlled. It takes too much time. It limits the opposition from registering their voters. There is little time for a legitimate campaign, especially with government control of the media. Reputable, long-term election monitors are nowhere to be seen, and none seem to be planned for the actual election, either.

Under these conditions, how can any such election be credible? If President Maduro proceeds with this May 20 election under these circumstances, he is going to find Venezuela further isolated.

Amid these deeply troubling and ominous conditions, I nonetheless met many brave and dedicated Venezuelans who are trying to endure and reverse this horrible situation. Doctors, nurses, civic leaders, business people,

politicians, and so many others are sharing food and medicine, running for office and facing the threat of arrest or exile, documenting human rights abuses in the shrinking media state, trying to run businesses in a broken economy. It is an incredible act of courage each day.

I also met with former political prisoners, political opposition members, and their families who are under constant threat or already under some kind of arrest. I would name them here, but to do so would put them in danger in Venezuela. I was moved by their dedication and humanity.

I am haunted by the comments of one group of young idealists. Over dinner Friday night in Caracas, they talked about the future. They said: If we called the same group of five opposition leaders together a year from now, we would be lucky if three showed up. Two of us will be exiled or jailed between now and then. That is what they face by being political opponents of the current regime. I fear how many of Venezuela's most talented will be sacrificed under these conditions.

The regime is also tragically holding a U.S. citizen, Josh Holt of Utah, on criminal charges. The charges are nonsense. I visited with Josh Holt in his prison. The prison is known locally as hell on earth. Josh and his Venezuelan wife have served 21 months, with no end in sight, and they still haven't gone through the criminal process. He is suffering, and he should be. It is understandable. He is clearly being held as a political hostage. I appealed to the President and every member of the government to release this young man and his Venezuelan wife and her daughter so that they could come back to the United States. Keeping Josh Holt as a political hostage will just isolate the Maduro regime even more. I am one of a bipartisan group of Members in Congress who will continue to push for his immediate release.

Lastly, I want to note that every time I go on one of these trips overseas, including to some of the most far-flung corners of the globe, I am always moved by the group of talented Americans working for us and representing us; those are the men and women in our Embassies, without exception. Under the Charge d'Affaires, Todd Robinson, our Embassy team in Caracas is a point of great pride and outstanding public service. The conditions under which they are forced to operate are extraordinarily stressful.

There was some small hope that negotiations led by the Vatican and regional leaders or most recently hosted in the Dominican Republic could lead to some kind of path forward between the Venezuelan Government and the opposition before it is too late, but all of these have failed. Some hoped years ago that a group known as the Boston Group--American and Venezuelan elected officials--might be the beginning of a dialogue and might be continued to this day, but it is increasingly difficult to see that possibility. I met some of the Venezuelan Boston Group members. Several of them are deeply committed to this administration currently in power. Many of them talk about changes that need to be made in Venezuela. I haven't given up hope completely that there may be some voices that can move this country back to a civilized status.

Let me be clear in my concluding message to the Venezuelan Government, specifically, a message that they should proceed with an election that meets the following basic standards: All political prisoners must be released, and all candidates and parties must be allowed to compete. There must be at least 6 months for a legitimate campaign. The national election council should be restructured and led by a credible group of professionals on an evenly divided partisan basis so that it isn't loaded for one party or another. There must be no linking of food with voting or political party affiliation. The National Assembly must have its powers restored. Credible international and local election monitors must be allowed to observe preelection and actual election processes, with full accreditation and access. Going forward otherwise will only bring more suffering to the people of Venezuela and more isolation to their nation.

Republicans and Democrats don't agree on much these days, certainly not here in Washington on Capitol Hill, but we do agree that Venezuela and the consequences of President Maduro's regime continue to lead that nation down a negative path, a path of suffering.

I yield the floor.

I announce that the Senator from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth) is necessarily absent.

Mr. President, last Friday, America lost a good and gracious person, a statesman, and many of us in the Senate lost a personal friend.

Senator Daniel Akaka was as kind and decent a man as you would ever meet in life. For 3\1/2\ decades, Danny Akaka served the people of Hawaii in the U.S. Congress with dignity, humility, and deep caring.

The Hawaiian concept of ``aloha'' isn't a quality that many think of when they think of politicians. ``Aloha'' means mutual regard and affection. It means extending warmth and caring with no obligation in return, no strings attached. Danny Inouye, that giant of Hawaii and its history, once called Danny Akaka ``a true ambassador of aloha.''

When Danny Akaka announced in 2011 that he would not run for reelection to the Senate, then-Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie said:

The words aloha and Akaka are interchangeable. Daniel Akaka

is Hawaii.

Now, at age 93, Senator Akaka is gone. I first met him in 1983. I was a newly elected Member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Then we sat together on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, the two of us next to one another down at the far end of the table. Danny had 6 years' seniority on me. We served together, worked together, laughed together, traveled together, and came to be friends.

Here was a man, a great politician, who didn't have a personal ego. Politics was always about someone else, about helping other people. In fact, he went out of his way to avoid the spotlight. But don't think for a minute that he was weak. I have memories seared in my mind-- certainly October 11, 2002, when 22 Members of the Democratic caucus in the Senate voted against the resolution authorizing President Bush to invade Iraq--the Iraq war resolution Danny Akaka opposed. I can recall that it was nearly 1 in the morning when that rollcall ended and he left the floor after that historic vote. Soft-spoken, yes. Capable of making hard, meaningful, courageous decisions, certainly. That was a lonely road. I believe history has judged it to be the right vote.

Danny Akaka's vote, like so many, was deeply influenced by his own experience in the U.S. military. At 17 years of age, he witnessed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Two years later, after serving as a welder and diesel mechanic with the Army Corps of Engineers, he entered Active Duty with the Army and served in several areas across the Pacific.

After the war, he used his GI benefits to go to college, and only later did he realize he was still carrying a wound from that war--post- traumatic stress disorder. He said that earning a bachelor's and master's degree in education and working as a public school teacher and principal--his first profession--helped him to cope with PTSD.

In politics, his second career, he used his influence to help other members of the military, veterans and their families.

In 2008, as chairman of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, Senator Danny Akaka cosponsored the post-9/11 GI bill of rights. That new GI bill of rights included a provision that I asked Danny to include to improve care for veterans wounded by another of the often- invisible wounds of war--traumatic brain injury. Senator Akaka's leadership helped to pass that important new law.

Two years later, then chairman of the Veterans' Committee, I appealed to Danny Akaka again for another provision. It was an idea actually authored originally by Senator Hillary Clinton of New York. It was called the Caregivers Program. The idea was to allow family members of disabled veterans to care for them at home, to provide necessary medical care and support in a home setting that they all wanted to be in. It was the right thing for our veterans, the right thing for our budget, and the right thing for America. Danny Akaka embraced it and became a leader on the Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act of 2010, providing those family members with training and modest stipends. The stipends amount to only a fraction of what would have been spent on these veterans had they been in a different setting sponsored by the government.

Well, Danny Akaka is gone, but his legacy of service lives on in millions of veterans and military families whose lives are better because of his quiet but fierce commitment.

In 1996, Senator Akaka spearheaded an effort to require reevaluation of the service records of Asian Americans who had fought in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and the 100th Division during the war.

As a result of Danny Akaka's perseverance, almost two dozen Medals of Honor were bestowed posthumously on Asian-American veterans, many of them Japanese Americans. The most prominent recipient was his colleague, Senator Danny Inouye, who had lost an arm during World War II fighting for the United States in Italy. It was a long overdue justice for heroes whose courage had been largely ignored for decades because of racism, and Danny Akaka helped to make it happen.

In 1993, Danny Akaka helped to bend the arc of the moral universe another time when he and Senator Inouye successfully pushed through a resolution in which the Federal Government apologized for its role in overthrowing the Hawaiian monarchy a century earlier.

As a child, Danny Akaka listened to his parents speak their Native Hawaiian language in whispers. They didn't want Danny and his seven brothers and sisters to hear them because of the Territorial law allowing children to be punished if they spoke their Native Hawaiian language in school. That little boy, little Danny Akaka, grew up to be the first Native Hawaiian ever elected to the U.S. Senate. Danny Akaka was a champion of Native Hawaiians and Native Americans, a champion of good government and the men and women who do that work in government.

He was a deeply spiritual and religious man, who once considered following his brother into the ministry but instead decided to help others in his own way as a teacher and a public servant. His was a life well lived.

Last night, I had a telephone conversation with Danny's wife, Millie Akaka--what a team, 69 years of marriage. They were just a few weeks away from celebrating their 70th anniversary. They were inseparable. He was the Senator, but she was the driving force in his public career. She managed every one of his campaigns. She knew everyone in every direction. She never forgot a name, and she was always

there to finish his sentences. We talked for a long time last night about the times when we were able to get together--my wife Loretta, Millie, and Danny--and the good times we had and the great people we met in the process. I also talked about the time when Danny came before the Senate Democratic caucus luncheon. We used to have a great tradition, where every few weeks Senators would get up and just tell a little bit about their personal lives--things that don't make the headlines.

I still remember Danny Akaka's presentation. He talked about growing up in a very modest family but having a mother with a very caring heart. His mother just couldn't stand to see someone who was struggling to find a home or a meal. She was always inviting someone in. Even though they didn't have a lot themselves, they were always sharing with people. She would say: Bring them over to dinner, Danny. Let's meet them.

Then, after they met them, they would offer them a room. Danny told a story of people who came and lived in his home with him--perfect strangers who became part of their family and lived with them for months and even years. Some of those people whom they befriended went on to greatness. One was a medical doctor who became famous and never forgot the kindnesses extended by the Akaka family.

His mother's lesson was learned by Danny Akaka. It was shared with us in the Senate. It was an indication of truly a caring heart and a person who was really prepared to serve every day of his life.

I join my colleagues in expressing our condolences to Danny's wife Millie, to their five children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. May your love and memories be a comfort in this time of loss.

To my friend, Senator Danny Akaka: Aloha and mahalo. Farewell and thank you.

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

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

I announce that the Senator from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth) is necessarily absent.

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

Madam President, I use the term loosely, but last Saturday, the 17th of March, was one of the high holy days in Chicago-- St. Patrick's Day. They color the Chicago River green. Everybody wears green. There are great parades, great celebrations. I look forward to it each year--going back to my parish, Old St. Pat's, for mass and celebration and having a wonderful day of a lot of good feelings.

During the course of the St. Patrick's Day Parade, I walked along with various groups who were going to march and came upon the Chicago Police Department's bagpipe and drum band. I noticed that the banner they were carrying for the day was in honor of a wonderful man by the name of Commander Paul Bauer.

Paul Bauer, a commander of the Chicago police force, was downtown in the Loop of Chicago on February 13. He was attending an important meeting, and he heard over his radio that a fugitive was trying to escape. He dropped what he was doing, joined in, and participated in trying to catch this fugitive. He was cornered in the stairwell by this man and shot dead. The man who shot him got off six rounds and killed this wonderful man who had served not only the city of Chicago but our Nation in his role with law enforcement. He left behind a young wife and beautiful teenage daughter. He was from the Bridgeport community of Chicago, and when his funeral was held, massive crowds showed up, people paying tribute to Paul Bauer.

The reason I raise that is because they traced the gun that was used to kill this brave policeman. It was a gun that was originally sold legally through a federally licensed dealer in Madison, WI, and then the person who purchased it sold it, without a background check, to a member of his gun club. We don't know whether that person was disqualified, under the law, from owning a handgun, but we do know that the next purchase was the purchase that made a difference. That person decided to sell the gun on the internet, with no background check, and ended up selling it to a convicted felon--a person disqualified, under the laws of this country, from owning a gun. That is when that handgun got into the world of crime. It was used in the commission of a crime months before the shooting of Commander Bauer, and it was used to kill him on that day, February 13.

The reason I raise that is we know what we need to do. We need universal background checks--no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Whether selling to a person at a gun show or over the internet, there ought to be a background check. There is no excuse for selling a gun legally in the United States to someone who is prohibited by our laws from owning it--none. That is what happened. That is why that wonderful man, that brave policeman, lost his life.

The reason I raise that is we have a bill before us now. It is an Omnibus appropriations bill, and it includes some provisions about gun safety. They are good. I don't argue with them. One is called Fix NICS--try to make sure more information is put into the background check system. There is another one related to school violence, which provides grants to schools to make them safer and such. I have no objection whatsoever. But we are not getting to the heart of the issue.

This is the heart of the issue: We have a Second Amendment that gives rights to Americans to legally own guns and use them responsibly, and the Supreme Court has made clear that we can draw clear lines as to what is permissible in that gun ownership and gun usage. We can draw lines that say: Yes, if you have been convicted of a felony, you cannot own a gun. You cannot assert a Second Amendment right. You have disqualified yourself. We can say: If you are mentally unstable, you can't legally own a gun in America. You can't assert Second Amendment rights in that circumstance. We can put provisions in the law relating to the type of gun that you own, how old you have to be to buy that gun, what kind of background check takes place. But none of that--none of that--is included in this omnibus bill.

My fear is that many Members of Congress will say: Well, we got a lot of contacts after the Parkland, FL, situation, and met with a lot of people. Now we have taken care of our constitutional obligation with the provisions in this omnibus bill.

It will be a sad day if that is the case because what we have done in this omnibus bill would not have stopped that killer from taking the life of Commander Paul Bauer--not at all. So as far as I am concerned, we have fallen far short from where we need to be when it comes to gun safety.

Something is about to happen this Saturday, a week after our St. Patrick's Day Parade. There are going to be marches and parades across the United States on March 24. Tens of thousands of students and their supporters are going to march right here in Washington, in Chicago, where I will join them, and in cities and towns all across America, including Springfield, IL. They will march to urge lawmakers--like me-- to finally pass meaningful gun reforms that help keep our children safe and our communities safe.

There are things that happen in our personal lives that we bring to our professional lives, and I will share one of them with you.

After the terrible shooting that occurred in Florida, my daughter, who lives in Brooklyn, NY, was talking to her daughter, my little granddaughter, a first grader. Her daughter, that first grader, said: Mom, the teacher told us that if there is a shooter in our school, stay away from the windows and get down on the floor.

In first grade, they are being warned about shooters coming into their classroom. Who would have dreamed that

America would reach this point? It has. Who would possibly argue that the Second Amendment envisioned that possibility, that we would arm teachers so we could have some sort of a shootout in a first grade classroom anywhere in this country?

The marches that will take place on Saturday are a sign that perhaps America has reached a tipping point on gun safety. The fact that a majority of gun owners have stepped up and said that we should have universal background checks is an indication that we are reaching that point. The younger generation is standing up, speaking out, and, frankly, confronting us--those of us who are in positions of power, elected office--confronting us to do something and stop talking about it.

These young people are tired of living in fear, as are many students across this country. They are fed up with the status quo, in which hundreds of Americans are getting shot every day while politicians sit on their hands in fear of the gun lobby and the National Rifle Association.

I don't care what my scorecard is with the National Rifle Association. I know, incidentally, it is a failing grade, which I wear with pride. I don't care about my scorecard there. I care about my scorecard with the people I represent in Illinois, and I particularly care about the students and the parents who are worried about whether the school for their kids will be the next site of gun violence.

These young people who are going to march on Saturday are fed up with lawmakers who ignore the overwhelming majority of Americans who want to close loopholes in the background check system. Through their powerful advocacy and eloquence, these juniors and seniors in high school are already bringing about change.

Listen to what businesses across the country are doing. They are distancing themselves from the National Rifle Association. It is no longer considered just another political organization. They are voluntarily changing their business practices so they don't give a break to a gun lobby that will not give a break to honest Americans who want to be safe in their homes and schools. The students from Parkland, FL, have helped these businesses recognize that they need to be part of this effort.

We are seeing new gun safety reforms passed in State legislatures-- not so much here in Washington but in States like Florida that have a long tradition of voting the other way on gun issues.

Unfortunately, the Republicans, who control the House, the Senate, and the White House, still haven't gotten the message. What we have included in this omnibus bill is weak soup; 17 lives in Parkland, FL, are worth more than what we are putting in this bill. Even after Parkland, after all of the lives that have been lost to violence, even as the school shootings continue, including a shooting in a Maryland high school this week, President Trump and the Republican majority of Congress are still unwilling to push for universal background checks and an end to high-capacity magazines and assault weapons.

There were modest measures included in this bill. Is that all we get? Is that it? Is that the end of the national debate on gun safety for another 5, 6, or 8 years?

There is important language that I included in the defense portion of the bill, directing the Department of Defense to not only submit all its relevant records for NICS background checks but also to flag and prevalidate the records that would prohibit a person from buying a gun. It is a step in the right direction. It is necessary, but it is not sufficient to really make a difference when it comes to gun safety.

The prevalidation and flagging are important for the FBI to help us and will help them quickly confirm whether a person should be blocked from a gun sale. But let's be honest; this omnibus bill that we are considering today and tomorrow doesn't address the fundamental challenges our Nation faces when it comes to gun violence. It takes a pass.

It is time for Congress to start considering legislation on gun violence that the gun lobby might not like. We can't let the National Rifle Association have veto power over gun policy in this Nation. Politicians need to recognize the obvious. The gun lobby is increasingly angry, sometimes paranoid, often isolated in its political positions. It no longer speaks for the majority of people who own guns responsibly in America.

Remember, the gun lobby cares about one thing more than anything: selling firearms. It is all about the business side of the ledger--the bottom-line profit margin.

Violence prevention is not the focus of the gun lobby's agenda. In fact, the gun lobby usually opposes violence prevention legislation just in case it might hurt gun sales. It has reached the point where the NRA endorsement of gun reform proposal is typically a sign that the proposal is not meaningful.

We can't settle for the status quo anymore. We are facing a public health crisis of gun violence, and half-hearted measures are not enough. We need to fight for meaningful gun safety reforms. We need to call up measures like universal background checks and ending high- capacity magazines.

Tell me why a person who owns a firearm, whether it is handgun or a semiautomatic weapon, needs to have a high-capacity magazine so that they can fire 30 or 60 rounds at a time. Tell me why. You might need that if you are in the military. You might need it when it comes to police work and keeping our communities safe. There could be circumstances where they are needed, but why would an individual citizen need the capacity to fire 30 or 60 rounds at one time? Those are the clips that are being used, incidentally, by these shooters. Those are the clips that are being used for mass killing in America. Those clips do one thing: They take human lives. It is not a question of sport or hunting or target practice.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 3 additional minutes, if the Senator from Utah will give me that opportunity.

Let me close by saying, on March 24, students and Americans of all ages will march in the streets to honor those who have been lost to senseless gun violence and to call on their elected representatives to step up. I support the marchers. I will continue to work for meaningful action to help reduce gun violence. I am going to keep doing everything I can to put the safety of our kids and our neighborhoods ahead of the gun lobby's agenda.

I don't have any obligation to the National Rifle Association whatsoever, but I do have an obligation to a granddaughter living in Brooklyn, NY, in the first grade, who has been warned about what to do if a shooter comes into her classroom.

I hope my colleagues from across the aisle will join me. It is time to take a stand and show leadership. America is waiting.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today, on this side of the aisle, to thank my friend Senator Cochran.

Yesterday, I made a longer speech in the Congressional Record, but I didn't want this moment to go by without tributes from both sides of the aisle while you are personally present on the floor.

My relationship with Senator Cochran was fortuitous. There used to be two giants in the Senate--Ted Stevens and Danny Inouye--and forever and ever they were the two, a Democrat and Republican--who were in charge of the Department of Defense Appropriations bill, and we bowed to their knowledge and wisdom. Then the day came when they were both gone, and the new people stepping in were Thad Cochran and Dick Durbin.

I felt totally undeserving to be given that responsibility, and certainly could never follow the act of Danny Inouye, as great as he was in serving our country, both in the military and the U.S. Senate, and Thad had the responsibility of following Ted Stevens as the Defense Committee chair.

While we both knew we were being held to high standards as people compared us, as they inevitably would, the thing we decided to do from the beginning was to do it together--to learn on the job and to work together. It really hearkens back to a Senate that I remember--and I am sure Senator Shelby and others remember--when we first got here, when the Appropriations Committee assignments were really bipartisan assignments, start to finish.

My work on the Defense Subcommittee with Thad Cochran was bipartisan from the start. It always was. There was mutual respect. If I ever had an issue, I could go to him. He knew the same thing was true, if there was an issue related to his concerns or the State of Mississippi, he could come to me. We never ever set out to trouble or embarrass one another publicly. We tried to always have a good, positive working relationship. The very few disagreements we had were behind closed doors and usually resolved behind closed doors. It really was the Senate I was elected to and the one I miss today. We need more of it.

Thad Cochran, you made it easy when you were chairman of the Defense Committee for this ranking Democrat to be an active partner of yours in doing some important things. I think we accepted our responsibility and did our level best; I think our American national defense is stronger today because of it; and I am lucky because I had a good friend, good mentor, and good colleague by my side.

I wish you the very best. If you want a longer version of this speech, it was given in the Record yesterday, so you could take it home and read it, if you would like.

I thank you again for being such a great Senator, a great representative of your State of Mississippi, and a great colleague when it came to our appropriations work.

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

Mr. President, we are in the process of considering an omnibus budget bill. It is over 2,000 pages long. In fairness, it includes many provisions of legislation that has been worked on by many of us for months, so it isn't a surprise package, by and large. There are elements in it that are new and that have been recently negotiated, but the underlying bill--the appropriations bills included in it--has been the subject of committee hearings and negotiations literally for months. I know that because since last year, we have been working on the Defense Department appropriations, which is included in the bill.

My reason for coming to the floor, though, is to address an issue that is not included in the omnibus bill--one that I believe should be and one that is timely and compelling--and there is no reason why it is not included. It relates to those young people who were brought to the United States by their parents when they were infants, toddlers, children, and ended up in undocumented status in this country.

Some of them--a very small number of them--may have been smuggled across the border into the United States. More likely, a common situation is that they came here on a visitor's visa with their parents, the visa

expired, and they stayed. That accounts for almost half of those who are currently undocumented in the United States.

The difference is obvious. We are talking about children who really had no voice in their parents' decision about coming to this country and who literally grew up here, many times believing they were legal in the United States. It wasn't until later in life, usually when they were 10 or 12 years old, that their mothers and fathers sat down and said to them: We never filed the appropriate papers. You are undocumented in America. It means that your life is different from the lives of all the other kids you go to school with.

These kids may be worried about making the football team or getting an A in math, but then their parents say: You also have to be worried about somebody knocking on our front door and deporting our family back to some other country.

Your life in the United States could end at any moment. Be careful. Be careful not to violate the law. Be careful to keep your head down. Whatever you do, don't tell people that you are undocumented because it could subject you and members of your family to automatic deportation.

That is what they grew up with. Through no fault of their own, they were brought to the United States. They are living in this country. They are standing in classrooms in our schools, pledging allegiance to that flag every single day, yet not legal, not documented in the United States. They are undocumented.

Sixteen or seventeen years ago, I introduced a bill called the DREAM Act, which said that those young kids deserve a chance--a chance to earn their way to legal status, earn their way to citizenship. If they become part of drug gangs or criminal enterprises, so be it--they will forfeit any right to become any part of America's future; if not, if they are prepared to finish school and prepared to either continue their education, enlist in our military, or get a good job, we will give them a chance. That is what the DREAM Act said, and for 17 years, I have been trying to make it the law of the land, and I have fallen short.

President Obama, when he was a Senator here from Illinois, was my colleague, and he was my cosponsor on the DREAM Act. So when he became President and it was clear that we couldn't pass the DREAM Act in Congress, I asked him: As President, can you do something to help? And he did. He created the DACA Program.

Under the DACA Program, these young people could come forward, pay about a $500 filing fee, and go through a criminal background check to make sure they were no danger to this country. If they passed it, they would be given permission under President Obama's Executive order-- under the DACA order--to live in the United States for 2 years at a time and then to renew their status. During that 2 years, they couldn't be deported, and they could legally work.

It was a big decision for a lot of these young people. Remember what I said earlier--that their parents had warned them: Don't tell the government who you are. Don't tell them where you live. They could use that information against you.

But 780,000 young people came forward, trusting this government-- trusting that if we invited them to be a part of the United States on a renewable, temporary basis, it would not ultimately hurt them--780,000.

What did they end up doing? Most of them went to school, but going to school as an undocumented person in America is a different challenge. You don't qualify for one penny of Federal assistance--no Pell grants, no government loans--so getting through college under those circumstances means borrowing money from some other source or working jobs to pay for your education, which many of them did.

Over the years, these DACA recipients ended up graduating from school. There are 20,000 of them teaching in schools across America. They are the teachers in the grade school and middle school and high school classes, and they have DACA protection. Nine hundred of them volunteered to serve in our military. Think about that for a moment. They stood up and took an oath to serve the United States in the military and to literally risk their lives for a country that does not recognize their legal status. Nine hundred of them are in that circumstance.

Many of them have done amazing things in their lives. I have come to the floor and told maybe 100, 110 stories of these Dreamers. They are amazing young people. They are resilient; they are talented; they are promising; they are exciting. Yet they are not legal in the eyes of the law in America.

So we tried. We tried to make sure there was a way to protect them when the new President came into office. President Trump had said very clearly in his campaign that immigration was a big issue. He said a lot of things. Some of them were inflammatory, but, interestingly enough, he said several times that Dreamers are different. These young people are different.

He told me personally: Senator, don't worry about it; we are going to take care of those kids. I believed him. I was hoping he would find a way to either embrace the Dream Act or extend DACA so that these young people would have their chance.

But on September 5 of last year, President Trump made an announcement with Attorney General Sessions. He said: This is the end of DACA. This is the end of protection for these young people. By March 5 of this year, 2018, the program will no longer exist. He said to Congress: Do something about it. He challenged us to pass a law.

The March 5 deadline was looming. Young people were falling out of the protection of DACA status, and their lives were uncertain. Some of them had quit school. They just didn't think there was any future or hope for them. Some of them faced the prospect of losing their job when they lost DACA protection. That was the reality.

So there we sat, with that March 5 deadline looming--a deadline we knew was important because that was when all protection and all renewals would end for many, many thousands of these young people. A number of us took it up as a challenge, six of us--three Democrats and three Republicans. We sat down for months to try to write a new DACA law--and then there was a breakthrough.

On January 9 of this year, President Trump called about 24 or 25 Democrats and Republicans, House and Senate Members, to actually come to a meeting at the White House in the Cabinet room. It was an interesting meeting. It was the fourth time I had ever spoken to President Trump, and he invited me to sit right next to him. It was a little surprising that a Democratic Senator would be allowed to do that, but he invited me to, and we spent an hour, with the television coverage constant, discussing this issue. The President said some things that were encouraging about what we could do to solve this problem--a problem he had created when he eliminated the DACA Program.

He said many things during the course of that meeting. He said: ``We're going to do DACA, and then we can start immediately on . . . phase two, which would be comprehensive.'' He was referring to other immigration measures. Then he said: ``We do a phase one, which is DACA and security, and we do phase two, which is comprehensive immigration.''

The President added that as part of any immigration deal, he wanted to end the diversity visa lottery--a separate issue--and change our longstanding laws that have allowed families to stay together and eventually be reunited as Americans. He referred to this as chain migration.

When the President made that offer to solve the problem, which he had created when he eliminated DACA, several of us came back to Capitol Hill and said: We have to get this done.

We labored quickly and made some tough decisions, Democrats giving on some issues, Republicans giving on others. We came up with a bipartisan bill--just what the President had asked for.

We called him. It was 2 days later--January 11. I know; I made the call. I said: Mr. President, we have a bill. Senator Graham, a Republican of South Carolina, and I, as well as four other Senators, have come up with a bipartisan bill.

He said: Bring it to the White House. Don't waste any time. I want to get this done.

That was at 10 in the morning. We were scheduled and went to the White

House at noon. By the time we arrived, it was pretty clear that something dramatic had happened in the meantime, because someone in the White House had invited five other Members of Congress from the Republican Party, all of whom opposed our effort. The meeting was pretty well stacked against us. I will not get into the detail of the meeting. It has been widely reported. But at the end of it, President Trump rejected a bipartisan approach to solving this problem.

It wasn't the only time he rejected a bipartisan approach. Senator Schumer and Leader Pelosi had offered him a similar approach before, saying: We can work together. It appeared they had an agreement, but it evaporated in a matter of hours.

We know, as well, that there were offers made of bipartisan approaches. Senator McCain and Senator Coons offered a bill on the floor of the Senate. It was a good bill--not exactly what I wanted by any means, but at least it solved the problem. It was vehemently rejected by the Trump administration.

All in all, there were six different bipartisan proposals offered to President Trump to solve the problem he had created by eliminating DACA. He rejected every single one of them.

He sent to the floor of the Senate a bill offered by Senator Grassley of Iowa. Senator Grassley's bill embodied the President's approach to this. Now, understand the Senate's scorecard here. There are 51 Republican Senators and 49 Democratic Senators. So when the President called his own bill, one of our Senators, Senator McCain, was away ill, but there were 50 Republican Senators and 49 Democrats who voted on that day.

How many votes did the President's immigration proposal get? Thirty- nine. The President got 39 votes. It was kind of a shock that the President's own party didn't support the President's bill--at least not all of them.

When we offered the one I supported, the plan offered by Senator Rounds and Senator King, it ended up with 54 votes. Eight Republicans joined to have a bipartisan measure. But it wasn't enough; 54 votes will not do it. On an issue like this, it takes 60. So we have nothing--nothing. What that means is, in the eyes of the law, for the time being, these DACA-protected young people have no legal protection--save one other element.

While we were debating, the courts were also involved. Two different Federal courts issued an order to the Trump administration and said: Stop. Don't do another thing; don't deport these kids. In fact, allow them to renew their DACA status.

Former Senator Sessions, now the Attorney General, filed an emergency effort before the U.S. Supreme Court to stop that decision, and the U.S. Supreme Court rejected it. So now, today, there at least has been a postponement of deporting the young DACA kids. We don't know if that postponement will last a week, a month, a year. There is no telling. It is a pending court case. That is the only thing that is stopping the deportation of these 780,000 young people. That is it.

The obvious question is, Well, why did you stop? If you failed to meet the March 5 deadline, why didn't the Congress--why didn't the Senate, why didn't the House--continue the effort to try to solve this problem? Isn't that what you were elected to do, Mr. Senator?

The answer, obviously, is: Yes, we should. But we haven't.

That is why I have come to the floor today. We have this 2,000-page bill that does not solve the DACA problem. We have this 2,000-page bill that addresses every subject imaginable but doesn't address the looming deadline we face in America. We are one court decision away from hundreds of thousands of young people being deported.

What do the American people think of this idea of undocumented people, here but not recognized by law? I will tell you what they think. Eighty-five percent of the American people believe we ought to do what is right and fair for these young people. They support the Dreamers, and they support giving DACA protection. Eighty-five percent--60 percent of those who voted for President Trump--say that we should fix the DACA Program.

But we have failed again. We have failed to do what the President challenged us to do, as he continues to reject every bipartisan proposal that has been brought before him--every one of them.

I am going to be making a unanimous consent request when this is over. I think I know how it will end. Any single Senator can object and stop the protection of these DACA young people, and one is prepared to do it. It is my understanding that he is going to demand that we instead pass the President's immigration plan, which received-- remember--39 votes. Not even all of the Republican Senators supported it. It wasn't bipartisan in any way. There are provisions in the President's plan that are just plain wrong, and even 14 Republicans realize that and voted against it.

So here we are at this moment, with an important bill with many positive aspects in it for all of America, including my State of Illinois. Yet there is one critical element still missing. We have failed to include a provision to solve the DACA problem created by President Trump. His refusal to accept any bipartisan compromise leaves us emptyhanded and these poor young people struggling to figure out what their lives will be.

Last week, I was in the Chicago for what I refer to as high holy days in Chicago--the St. Patrick's Day weekend, with parades and parties and breakfasts and lunches. I skipped one of the traditional breakfasts to go out to Loyola University's school of medicine. The reason I went there is called Match Day at medical schools. It is when graduates of medical schools apply for their residencies. Residency, of course, is a continuation of their education, leading up to their becoming actual practicing physicians. It is a huge day in each of their lives. They have gone through college; they have finished medical school; and now they wait for that letter that gives them a chance to finish their medical education.

I wanted to be there because six of the graduates of the Loyola University Chicago Stritch College of Medicine were protected by DACA. They are young people who are extraordinarily talented from all over the United States. They were given a chance to go to medical school, and here they were in a situation, waiting to see if they could become doctors. It turned out that because of our failure--because of the President's removing the DACA Program and our failure to pass a replacement, two of them have their residencies in doubt. A residency is a job. It is a big job. You don't just work 40 hours a week. It is sometimes 60 to 80 hours a week. It is a big undertaking. These young people, without DACA protection, cannot legally work in America and, therefore, found it next to impossible to find hospitals and universities that would take them and allow them to complete their medical education. That is the real-life consequence of our failure to act.

That is the real-life consequence of our failure to include in this omnibus bill--or any bill to this point--a solution to the problem created by President Trump. That is why I am going to make this unanimous consent request that will, in fact, pass the Dream Act, solve this once and for all, and create a law that protects these young people and others in similar categories--one that has been offered on a bipartisan basis in the Senate and one that I believe should be passed immediately.

Unanimous Consent Request--S. 1615

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of S. 1615 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. I further ask consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Reserving the right to object, Mr. President, I thank the Senator from North Carolina, and I believe he does have a genuine interest in this issue. I attended several of our meetings to discuss a bipartisan compromise, and I hope we can continue to do that. In the meantime, though, what he has offered is the Grassley approach, which was President Trump's immigration approach, which limited legal migration to the United States and members of families who wanted to be reunified, some of whom have waited 10 or 20 years to rejoin their families in the United States. Unfortunately, it also included the $25 billion wall, which may be the price that has to be paid to spare these young DACA Dreamers, but I object.

Mr. President, this past Saturday was St. Patrick's Day. The city of Chicago celebrated, as it has every St. Patrick's Day since 1962, by dyeing the Chicago River a deep emerald green.

In the Windy City and in cities and towns throughout Illinois, across America, and around much of the world, people wore green and attended St. Patrick's Day parades and parties.

No nation--including Ireland herself--celebrates St. Patrick's Day with as much enthusiasm as Americans do. Whether your ancestors came to this country from Dublin or the Dominican Republic, from Galway or Greece, on March 17, as the saying goes, everyone is Irish.

But America didn't always love the Irish. From the middle of the 19th century and well into the 20th century, it was not uncommon for employment ads in America to carry the warning: ``No Irish Need Apply.'' In 1857, Harpers Weekly asserted that ``nearly 75 percent of our criminals and paupers are Irish . . . [and] 75 percent of the crimes of violence committed among us are the work of Irishmen.''

Irish immigrants had been an integral part of America since our earliest days as a nation. Nine of the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence were Irish Americans. They included four men who were born in Ireland. And Irish Americans fought and died in the Revolutionary War to secure America's freedom from England.

The Irish who came to America beginning in the mid-1840s, however, were different than the earlier arrivals from Erin's shores. These were ``the Famine Irish.'' They fled Ireland to escape one of the greatest catastrophes ever to befall that nation.

We know it today as ``the potato famine.'' In Ireland, it was called ``the Great Hunger'' or, in Gaelic, the old Irish tongue, ``An Gorta Mor.''

In 1845, a fungus, carried to Ireland from America, destroyed all of Ireland's potato crops. All across Ireland, potato fields turned black and rotted from the blight.

Ireland was not an independent nation then, as it is now. It had been occupied and ruled for hundreds of years by England, and most of the land was owned by absentee English landlords.

The native Irish were mostly tenant farmers, what Americans would call ``sharecroppers,'' allowed to farm only tiny plots of land. The calorie-rich potato became the subsistence crop for the Irish, the one crop they could grow on their small parcels of land that could feed a family.

When the potato crops failed, England refused to intervene. Some in England warned that providing emergency food relief to the starving Irish would disrupt with the workings of a free market. Others declared that famine

and death were God's way of punishing the Irish.

Starving Irish who could no longer pay their rent were driven off their land and into workhouses. Others died on the sides of roads, their mouths stained green from eating grass. Soon, typhus and cholera were claiming as many lives as starvation.

When the Great Hunger began, 3 million people lived in Ireland. Three years later, 1 million people had died, and another 1 million had fled Ireland, most of them to America. In the period between 1845 and 1860, approximately 20,000 Irish a month were flooding into America.

They called America ``An t-Oilean Ur''--``The Fresh Land,'' but many of the old prejudices followed them. The Famine Irish, the first large group of non-Protestants immigrants to America, were derided as superstitious Papists incapable of adapting to America's Anglo-Saxon culture.

Irish Americans were denounced as ``simian'' or apelike.

An editorial published in the Chicago Tribune in 1855 captured the antipathy with which many native-born Americans regarded Irish immigrants. It asked, ``Who does not know that the most depraved, debased, worthless and irredeemable drunkards and sots which curse the community are Irish Catholics?''

In the 1850s, a new political party emerged. The Native American Party, better known as the ``Know Nothings,'' was virulently anti- Catholic and anti-immigrant.

Many politicians were cowed by the anger of the Know Nothings, but Abraham Lincoln was not. Lincoln employed Irish staff at his home in Springfield and, later, in the White House. He donated to Irish famine relief.

In a letter he wrote to a friend in 1855, he came out foursquare against Know Nothingness. ``How can anyone who abhors the oppression of Negroes, be in favor or degrading classes of white people?'' he asked. ``Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid,'' As a nation, we began by declaring that `all men are created equal.' We now practically read it `all men are created equal, except Negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read `all men are created equal, except Negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.' When it comes to this,'' Lincoln continued, ``I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no presence of loving liberty--to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.''

A decade later, Lincoln's brave refusal to embrace the bigotry of the Know Nothings helped save the Union. Although Irish Americans were mostly Democrats, they heeded the call of America's first Republican President to save the Union when slavery threatened to destroy it.

During the Civil War, more than 150,000 of the reviled Irish rallied to the side of Lincoln and the Union. They included some of Lincoln's best generals.

Among them was Brigadier General Thomas Francis Meagher. A brilliant orator and the son of a wealthy Catholic family in Ireland, Meagher was a leader in a failed 1848 revolution in Ireland called the Young Ireland Rebellion. He was convicted of treason and sentenced to a life in exile in an Australian penal colony. Within 3 years, he had escaped to New York and became a prominent attorney.

Thomas Meagher's remarkable, improbable life is told in an excellent new biography, ``The Immortal Irishman,'' by National Book Award winner Timothy Egan. I recommend it highly.

When the Civil War broke out, Tom Meagher wrote to President Lincoln seeking permission to form an ethnic Irish brigade. He recruited a full company of infantrymen to be attached to the U.S. 69th Infantry Regiment New York State Volunteers.

``The Fighting 69th'' fought in some of the war's bloodies conflicts, including the first battle of Bull Run and the battles of Antietam and Chancellorsville. After seeing Meagher's men at the Battle of Fredericksburg, General Robert E. Lee declared, ``Never were men so brave.''

The Fighting 69th was not the only Irish brigade fighting for the Union.

This year, Illinois is celebrating its 200th anniversary as a State. Among the countless chapters in our State's history in which we take pride is the story of the 23rd Regiment of the Illinois Infantry, Illinois' own ``Irish Brigade.''

The brigade's commander, James Mulligan, was born in New York and moved to Chicago as a boy. He became the first graduate of Chicago's first university, St. Mary's of the Lake. Later, he became a lawyer and a friend and confidant of Stephen Douglas.

When the Civil War broke out, Mulligan placed an ad in the Chicago Tribune on April 20, 1861, calling for a rally that evening. Thirty-two men enlisted at the rally; 3 days later, 1,000 men had joined the regiment.

Mulligan's Irish brigade spent most of the war in Virginia. They participated in Siege of Petersburg, and they were present for Lee's surrender at Appomattox.

James Mulligan did not live to see the Union victory. He was wounded on September 19, 1864, at the third battle on Winchester. As his Irish soldiers rushed to his side, Mulligan saw that the colors of the 23rd Illinois were about to be captured, and he gave his men an order, ``Lay me down, and save the flag.''

The colors were saved; Mulligan was captured and died of his wounds in Confederate captivity.

Private Albert Cashier was an Irish immigrant who fought for 3 years with the 95th Illinois Infantry, Company G. At just 5' 3'', he was the smallest man in his company and, many said, the bravest.

He returned to Belvidere, IL, after the war, and in 1869, he moved to Saunemin, IL, where he made his living as a farmhand and church janitor.

In 1911, after he was hit by a car and was no longer able to work, Albert Cashier moved to the soldiers and sailors home in Quincy, Illinois.

His mental state deteriorated, and he was moved to Watertown State Hospital for the Insane. It was there that hospital staff discovered his secret and told it to newspapers: Albert Cashier was born Jennie Hodgers.

The reactions were disastrous for Private Cashier. The government charged him with defrauding the government in order to receive a pension. The case was dropped after Private Cashier's comrades from the 95th Illinois rallied to his defense.

The hospital staff forced Private Cashier to wear women's clothing. At 67 and frail, he tripped on his skirt, broke his hip, and spent the rest of his life despondent and bedridden.

He died on October 10, 1915, and was buried in the Army uniform he had kept intact all those years. His tombstone was inscribed ``Albert D. J. Cashier, Co. G, 95 Ill. Inf.''

Albert Cashier is one of the best known of the 400 women who fought in the Civil War.

Whether Private Cashier was transgender or simply a woman unwilling to accept the severe limits imposed on women in the 19th century will likely never be known.

This much is clear, however: The brave service of Irish Americans in the Civil War helped to diminish the hostility that greeted the Famine Irish. Within two or three generations, Americans would elect two Irish-American Presidents: John Fitzgerald Kennedy, still the only Catholic President, and Ronald Reagan.

Some of the voices we hear in today's immigration debate would sound right at home among the Know Nothings of Lincoln's time. Sadly, one of the loudest of those harsh voices belongs to the current President of the United States.

President Trump opened his campaign by vilifying Mexican immigrants. He tried to ban visitors from seven predominantly Muslim nations from entering the United States. He has cruelly placed Dreamers in legal jeopardy. He has recommended cutting legal immigration--legal immigration--to America by one-half, to its lowest levels since the 1920s.

President Trump's anti-immigrant, antirefugee proposals are an affront to America's history as a nation of immigrants, and they would deal a harsh blow to our economic future. If you doubt it, just ask yourself: Where would America's economy be today without the contributions of immigrants Sergey Brin and Elon Musk, or Steve Jobs, the son of a Syrian immigrant?

I believe that future generations of Americans will look back on today's anti-immigrant agitators with sadness

and bewilderment. They will applaud those Americans who worked to preserve America's values as a nation of immigrants.

I am proud to say that one of those champions is an Irish immigrant from Chicago. His name is Billy Lawless. He moved to America with his family nearly 20 years ago.

Billy, his wife, Anne, and their four grown children are all American citizens now. Together, they own some of the best, most popular restaurants and pubs in Chicago.

Billy Lawless is also a tireless and eloquent advocate for immigration reform. It is not just Irish immigrants that he cares about; it is all immigrants and refugees. He is chairman of a group called Chicago Celts for Immigration Reform and a founding member of the Illinois Business Immigration Coalition.

Two years ago, he gained another, extraordinary platform from which to advocate for just immigration policies. Lawless, who holds duel U.S.-Irish citizenship, was appointed to serve in the Irish Senate, representing the Irish Diaspora overseas.

``The America that I believe in,'' he says, ``is a humane nation. It is the land of the free, the land of opportunity, and the land of immigrants.''

Let us remember that this month, as we celebrate the contributions of Irish immigrants to America.