Floor Statements

I announce that the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Jones) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Jones) is necessarily absent.

Mr. President, last week, rainstorms and melting snow caused flooding across Illinois, with more than 20 counties throughout the State placed under a flood warning. As the water level of rivers continued to rise, several communities had to evacuate their homes for their own safety. Sadly, these storms were so severe that flooded roadways claimed the life of an Illinois resident after her car rolled into a rain-filled ditch. Multiple communities were evacuated, and in some areas, residents had to be rescued by boat.

Some of the worst impacted areas were in Iroquois, Kankakee, and Vermilion Counties. The Governor declared a State disaster for these counties, and the American Red Cross established shelters for evacuated residents.

These floods were not just limited to communities in east central Illinois. Counties in western and downstate Illinois were also among the most impacted. In Ford Heights, a suburb of Chicago, at least 100 homes were impacted and seven residents were rescued by boat. In north central Illinois, a nursing home in LaSalle County had to be evacuated, and the next day, parts of the county were placed under mandatory evacuation order.

Downstate, rain continued through the weekend, and crews from the Department of Corrections worked to install flood gates in Hardin County, and the Department of Transportation delivered pumps, hoses, and sandbags to aid in recovery. The Illinois Department of Natural Resources also provided boats to aid with flood patrols.

Some of the areas that experienced heavy rains and flooding throughout last week, like Freeport in northwestern Illinois, were also impacted by flooding just last year. Freeport was flooded in July 2017, and on Friday night, the Red Cross once again opened an emergency shelter there. Situations like this are the reason that communities that often experience flooding need more assistance, both to plan for emergencies and to quickly mitigate the aftermath.

With extreme weather conditions like these becoming more frequent and more severe, I have heard from many Illinois constituents who are concerned about their ability to recover from repeated flood events like these. I stand ready to assist at the Federal level to help these communities rebuild and recover in a way that will allow them to be more resilient when the next flood occurs.

As is often the case when a disaster like this occurs, I was so impressed with the residents, first responders, and local officials who worked tirelessly to protect their communities. I want to thank our local law enforcement--firefighters and police--who always do the best job to keep our communities safe and work long hours because of it.

I also want to recognize the hard work of the State and Federal employees that have pitched in at every level, including the Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of Natural Resources, and the Illinois Emergency Management Agency.

Our thoughts are with the family and friends of the Illinois resident who lost her life and with all those who have experienced damage to their homes and other property. We will rebuild--as the people of Illinois always do--and will once again be stronger for it.

I announce that the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Jones) is necessarily absent.

Mr. President, I rise with a heavy heart to pay tribute to Chicago Police Commander Paul Bauer, who gave his life to protect the city he loved. We use the word ``hero'' far too often, but in this case, that word is fitting. Commander Paul Bauer is a true American hero, and his loss is a tragedy.

On February 13, Commander Bauer was at an ``active shooter'' training session in downtown Chicago, but he didn't hesitate to help out his fellow officers when they were pursuing a fleeing suspect. Commander Bauer was shot several times by the suspect and died from his wounds. Commander Bauer's story is a reminder to us all that our heroes serving in blue risk their lives every day, and even routine calls can turn into tragedy in an instant.

A 31-year veteran of the Chicago Police Department and the commander of the 18th Police District in the Near North Side, Paul Bauer was a pillar of that community. Last year, he was commended by the city council for a charity holiday party he helped host for underprivileged kids. Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said it best: ``This department didn't just lose an exemplary police officer. The City lost a piece of itself.''

Last week, when the charges were announced against the alleged shooter, an impromptu memorial developed outside the Thompson Center. People brought flowers, left crosses, and displayed signs reading, ``RIP CDR Bauer.'' One woman on her lunch break even left a plush stuffed dog that she hoped would make it in to the arms of Paul's teenage daughter. It was a tremendous show of love, respect, and gratitude.

A few years ago, I gave a commencement address and asked the students to think about what they wanted people to say about their lives. I asked them, ``What will you be remembered for? What service did you render to your community? Your nation? You world?'' The great thing about living in America is we can choose the answers to those questions. Commander Bauer will be remembered for is his service to his community. He gave what Lincoln called, ``the last full measure of devotion'' and did so for the people and city he loved and served, but he will be remembered for so much more. A friend described Paul as ``every bit the good guy he's being made out to be,'' but also added: ``You can't capture his goodness.'' What a beautiful legacy.

For all Paul Bauer's professional accomplishments, the highlights of his life were his family. Paul met his wife, Erin, met at a fundraiser for a Chicago police officer who was also killed in the line of duty. The Friday following Paul's death, February 16, would have been the couple's 16th anniversary. Together, Paul and Erin raised a bright and wonderful 13-year-old daughter Grace. Paul's family will carry on his legacy of love and his devotion to service and community.

Commander Bauer was the quintessential officer, a role model in his department and his bravery inspires the rest of us, especially his friends and family. After his memorial service Commander Bauer's wife, Erin, sent a touching message to all who paid tribute to her husband. She wrote: ``One man almost stole my faith in humanity, but the City of Chicago and the rest of the nation restored it, and I want to thank you for that.''

We are all humbled by her strength, and our thoughts and prayers are with Erin, Grace and all who loved and knew Paul. Commander Paul Bauer was one of our best.

Mr. President, the Toomey amendment will withhold critical funding from cities, counties, and States whose police departments refuse to deploy their police officers as immigration agents for the Federal Government.

Listen to what the two chiefs of police in Storm Lake and Marshalltown, IA, wrote last week to the Des Moines Register:

Most significant, the proposed bill would diminish the

trust that keeps our cities safe in the first place. We

depend on residents, including immigrants, to come to us when

they see something suspicious or potentially criminal. If

they hear of a looming ``crackdown'' that could affect their

families and friends, they are less likely to come [forward]

to report and prevent actual crimes.

This is from Iowa chiefs of police in the Midwest. It is common sense.

My superintendent in Chicago, Eddie Johnson, said:

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Undocumented

immigrants are not driving violence in Chicago. That's why I

want our officers focused on community policing and not

trying to be immigration police.

Vote for our men and women in uniform. Vote against the Toomey amendment.

Mr. President, I call up the Coons amendment No. 1955 to the Schumer amendment No. 1958.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, this is immigration week in the U.S. Senate, and we are preparing today's procedural moves to bring bills to the floor for consideration as early as today, perhaps tomorrow at the latest. It is an unusual time when the Senate is focused on such an issue and actual bipartisan amendments and substitutes are being offered.

We are at this point at this moment in time because of a decision by President Trump on September 5 of last year when he announced he was ending the DACA Program. DACA was a program created by President Obama by Executive order, which allowed those who had been brought to the United States as children, infants, and toddlers to be able to stay legally in the United States on a temporary visa renewable every 2 years. It was called DACA, and 780,000 young people stepped up and paid the filing fee of almost $500, went through a criminal background check and an interview and received DACA protection. They then went on with their lives, with 90 percent of them going to work or to school, enlisting in the military--undocumented in America, willing to hold up their hands and take an oath that they would die for America. That is how much they love this country. Twenty thousand of them went to work as school teachers across the United States of America. Perhaps they are teaching your children or grandchildren today. They are doing important things in this country. But President Trump announced last September 5 that the program that protects them and allows them to work will end.

Then he challenged us. He said to the Senate and the House: Do something about it. Pass a law. Isn't that what you are there for? The President is right. That is our job.

This week we are going to try to pass a law to end this crisis, which is going to reach a head on March 5 of this year when the DACA Program officially ends and 1,000 young people a day lose their protection. We have less than 3 weeks. So we are going to move today, I hope, or tomorrow or this week, at some point to consider some alternatives to solve this problem.

I am sorry to say that there is no plan in the U.S. House of Representatives to even address the problem--none. I don't understand it. They know that lives hang in the balance, and they know that overwhelmingly the American people want to give DACA and the Dreamers a chance. The numbers come rolling in; 75, 80, 85 percent of Americans agree that these young people should be given a chance to earn their way to legal status and citizenship. Even 60 percent of those who voted for President Trump agree with what I just said. It is a popular political issue on both sides, and it also is the right thing to do.

What the President has proposed as his alternative, from my point of view, is unacceptable. Let me tell you why. Two weeks ago the White House released a one-page framework on immigration reform and border security. The White House claimed that this is a compromise because it includes a path to citizenship for Dreamers--some of them. That, of course, as I mentioned, is supported by a majority of Americans. The reality is that the Trump plan would put the administration's entire hard-line immigration agenda on the backs of these young people. These young, DACA-protected people are being held as political hostages for President Trump's hard-line immigration agenda.

For example, the White House wants to dramatically reduce legal immigration by prohibiting American citizens from sponsoring their parents, siblings, and children as immigrants. We are talking about literally millions of relatives of American citizens who entered this system legally and are following our immigration laws. Some have been waiting for as long as 20 years to immigrate to the United States.

The conservative Cato Institute says the following about President Trump's proposal:

In the most likely scenario, the new plan [from the Trump

administration] would cut the number of legal immigrants by

up to 44 percent or a half million immigrants annually--the

largest policy-driven immigration cut since the 1920s.

Compared to current law, it would exclude nearly 22 million

people from the opportunity to immigrate legally to the

United States over the next five decades.

You have to go back in history to a time when there was a proposal that passed on the floor of this Chamber that cut as many legal immigrants to the United States. The year was 1924. Calvin Coolidge was President of the United States. We had just seen the end of World War I. There was a growing fear that because of all of the damage that was done in Europe, Europeans would come to the United States. There was also a concern that the wrong people were coming to the United States, in the eyes of some of the Members of Congress.

The Immigration Act of 1924 passed, and it set quotas for countries, and it set quotas for people. It was expressly designed to exclude certain people from around the world from entering the United States of America. It was a notorious piece of legislation. Those who were to be excluded from America included people from Italy, Eastern Europe, Japan, Asia, and Jewish people. That was the immigration policy of the United States of America because of that bill in 1924. That is the last time this Chamber has made such a dramatic cut in legal immigration to America. It was a source of embarrassment for decades. The United States established quotas and said: We want America to look a lot different than it would look if other immigrants came to this country.

Thankfully, in 1965, it was changed. Thankfully, we gave up the quotas that had been criticized roundly as being insensitive to the realities of the world population and the reality of the population of America.

Now the Trump administration wants to cut legal immigration to the United States again, by 44 percent, the biggest cut--as the Cato Institute tells us--since that horrible bill was passed in 1924.

Let me tell you what else the Trump immigration proposal would do. It would create an unaccountable slush fund of $25 billion of American taxpayers' money for a border wall that, as I remember correctly, Mexico was supposed to pay for--$25 billion. I have to double check, but I think that is almost the annual appropriation for the National Institutes of Health. The President wants $25 billion and wants no strings attached. He wants to be able to spend it where, when, and how he wants. That is an invitation for fraud and waste. It is an invitation for money to be spent for something other than its purpose. It is an invitation for taxpayers to be the ultimate losers with this slush fund for President Trump's famous Mexican wall.

The President's proposal on immigration, in the midst of the worst refugee crisis on record in the world, is now calling for fast-track deportations without due process of women and children fleeing gang and sexual violence. I can't tell you how many times we have had this conversation with members of the Trump administration. They create a scenario. The scenario is of a 6-year-old child who is swooped up in some Central American country. The parents give thousands of dollars, their life savings, to a smuggler who says: I will get this child to the border of the United States. The child is then taken off by the smuggler in a car or truck or bus to the border. The child then comes out of the car, is pointed toward one of our Federal employees with the Border Patrol, and the child walks up and hands a piece of paper to the Border Patrol agent with the name of someone in the United States. That process then unfolds, and the child ultimately, in many cases, ends up with that relative while a decision is made about the status of the child.

Is there exploitation in this system? You bet there is. Is there abuse in this system? For sure. Is there actual human trafficking taking place? Yes.

Are atrocities committed against these children in the course of this journey? All true. Should we be dedicated to cleaning this up? Sign me up, on a bipartisan basis.

Let me tell you another scenario, another story that has a different origin than turning over a child to a smuggler. Let me tell you about cases we know of in Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala where, because of the rampant crime, gang activity, and violence that takes place, parents, desperate to save their children--some of whom have daughters who have been victims of rape by these gangs--send them to the United States in the hope that they can save their lives. They show up at the border, having lived in fear of this violence in their countries, and they are accepted into the United States to determine whether that fear can be established in a hearing.

These are two different cases--a little child being exploited by a smuggler, a young girl escaping violence and perhaps death because her parents have nowhere to turn to save her life. Should we treat them both the same? I don't think so. Historically, we have said that when it comes to asylum seekers, who come to this country with a credible fear for their own lives, the United States has given them a chance to be protected. We have said that over and over again. We said it to the Cubans who were escaping Fidel Castro. We have said it to the Soviet Jews who wanted to have freedom of religion and came to the United States, believing this was the only chance they had in the world.

The Trump immigration proposal does not make a clear distinction on those two cases. In fact, what it does is end up with fast-track deportations without due process. Accepting the Trump approach will literally return many of these folks who have come to our border to harm and in some cases death.

There are fast-track deportations in the Trump proposal without due process for millions who have overstayed their visas. An estimated 40 percent of the 11 million undocumented fit in this category. So even if they have no criminal record, without considering their legal claims to remain in the United States, they would be deported. It dramatically cuts immigration from sub-Saharan African countries.

We have a diversity visa program. It is far from perfect, but it is a program that was created years ago, so countries that do not have an opportunity to send people to the United States for legal immigration would have a chance. Immigrants who come from these countries are limited in number. They have to go through the background checks, criminal background checks, biometric investigations--all of the investigations and interviews that we would expect in order to make sure we do everything humanly possible to cull out those who would be any danger to the United States. They face that same scrutiny, and they should. Many of them are rejected. They can't make the case for their lives and what they have done with them, and they are not given a chance to come. The President wants to eliminate the diversity visa program. For those living in sub-Saharan African countries, huge countries, about 12,000 to 15,000 come to the United States each year through this program. By eliminating this program, the Trump administration sadly is going to deny those immigrants from Africa even a chance to apply for this opportunity.

In the past, many Democrats have been willing to support some of the President's proposals, changes in our immigration system, eliminating the diversity visa lottery, but when we made that offer 5 years ago, it was part of comprehensive immigration reform with give and take and compromise that tried to make sense out of senseless immigration laws.

In 2013, a Democratic-led Senate passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill with a strong bipartisan vote of 68 to 32. The bill was a product of months of negotiations, with committee and floor debate. Unfortunately, the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives refused to even consider the bill. Now we are being asked to accept the administration's proposal with no conditions, no compromise, no give and take; rather, take it or leave it.

Democrats have shown they want to comprehensively fix our broken immigration system, but right now we have to fix our focus on the DACA crisis created by President Trump with his announcement of September 5. That has to be our priority.

In the next day or two, we expect the so-called Grassley proposal, which is the Trump immigration plan, to come to the floor. I want to say for the record, Democrats support comprehensive immigration reform, but we will not stand by and allow Dreamers to be held political hostage to the administration's entire immigration agenda.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, every day in America we face the devastating reminder of the toll of gun violence. Today, we are watching the horrific scenes at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, where yet another school shooting has taken place. It is gut-wrenching. We know that so many families have just had their worlds and lives changed forever by senseless gun violence. Ironically, this is the 10th anniversary of a similar shooting at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, IL. Our prayers go out to the victims, to the families, to the first responders, and, of course, to the Parkland community.

Honoring Commander Paul Bauer

Yesterday, Mr. President, in the city of Chicago, which I am honored to represent, we lost one of our finest, Commander Paul Bauer of the Chicago Police Department. He was shot and killed by a gunman in the Chicago Loop.

Commander Bauer was a 31-year veteran of the CPD and the commander of the 18th police district in the Near North Side. He was a pillar of that community. He was well-known in his district. He had been commended by the city council last year for a charity holiday party he helped to host for underprivileged kids.

He was a husband to his wife Erin and a father to a 13-year-old daughter named Grace. Commander Bauer was at a training session yesterday in the Loop, but he didn't hesitate to help out his fellow officers when they were pursuing a fleeing suspect. Commander Bauer was shot several times by the suspect, and he died from his wounds.

Chicago police superintendent Eddie Johnson said this was an extremely difficult day for the Chicago police family. Commander Bauer was a hero in life. He made the ultimate sacrifice to help protect the city he served and the city he loved. His loss is a tragedy.

Our prayers go out to the commander's friends, colleagues, his loved ones, and, of course, his family and daughter.

10th Anniversary of Northern Illinois University Shooting

As I mentioned, Mr. President, today marks the 10th anniversary of one of the most devastating shootings ever to occur on a college campus in America. On February 14, 2008, a gunman with a history of mental instability walked into a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb and opened fire. His bullets killed five students and wounded 17 more. It was a horrific mass murder, and it shocked the entire Nation.

The five young Illinoisans we lost that day all had bright futures ahead of them: Gayle Dubowski, 20 years old, from Carol Stream, who worked as a camp counselor and was a talented singer in her church choir; Catalina Garcia, of Cicero, 20 years old, a smiling, outgoing young woman who planned to be a teacher; Julianna Gehant, of Mendota, 32 years old, who served our country in the U.S. Army and Army Reserve and who went to NIU to study to be a teacher; Ryanne Mace, of Carpentersville, a 19-year-old, who was funny and fun to be with and who aspired to work as a counselor; and Daniel Parmenter, 20 years old, from Westchester, a rugby player, who lost his life because he shielded his girlfriend from the shooter.

It is heartbreaking to think what these five young people could have accomplished in the 10 years since that horrible day. We mourn their loss and, again, our hearts go out to their families.

We remember and honor the wounded who still bear the scars of that terrible day. We renew our thanks over and over to the law enforcement officers and first responders who headed toward the sound of gunfire that day and who treated the victims as they were wounded.

We commend the many members of the NIU community who stepped up in the days that followed, working to persevere through this tragedy, with heavy hearts but unbroken spirits and moving ``forward, together forward,'' in the words of that Northern Illinois University Huskie fight song.

It is devastating to think that in this great country, students and educators could be gunned down in our schools. But it happens so often that I am afraid a numbness is setting in.

Just in the last few months, we have had fatal shootings of students at Aztec High School in Aztec, NM; Wake Forest University in North Carolina; Marshall County High School in Benton, KY; and then, today, in Florida.

Other tragedies have been narrowly averted because of well-trained staff. At Mattoon High School in Illinois, a heroic teacher named Angela McQueen stopped a student gunman from causing a massacre there last September.

The threat of shootings in our schools is ever present. According to a tally kept by the group Everytown, there have been at least 18 incidents so far this year where a gun has been fired on a school or college campus.

Schools and colleges are doing the best they can to prepare and protect their students. I salute the educators and administrators who are working hard, but is Congress doing all that it can to keep our Nation's students safe from gun violence? Not even close.

Of course, there is no single reform that could stop every shooting in America, but we know there are big gaps in our laws that make it easy for criminals, abusers, and mentally unstable people to get their hands on guns that hurt innocent people. Congress has done nothing-- nothing--in recent years to close those gaps and make America safer.

Congress hasn't even closed the gun show loophole that the 1999 Columbine, CO, killers used to buy their weapons, and we did nothing in response to the murder of 20 first graders and 6 educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

In fact, the only vote taken by the Senate on gun laws in this current

Congress was to weaken gun law safety provisions on the books. That was a vote that Senate Republicans brought up last year that prevented the Social Security Administration from alerting the FBI's gun background check system about people with mental illness.

It is likely that before this year is over, the Republican majority will call up more bills to weaken gun safety laws. That is the wrong response to the epidemic of gun violence in America.

I am not going to give up on trying to close the loopholes in our gun laws. I am going to keep fighting for universal background checks, tougher straw purchasing laws, and better laws to prevent gun theft. I am not going to give up because of people like Patrick Korellis, who was shot in the head 10 years ago at the tragedy at Northern Illinois University. Luckily, Patrick survived, and since that day, he has been a leader in Illinois, fighting for commonsense gun reform. I have come to know and admire him for his efforts.

No one should have to go through what Patrick went through and so many others went through on that day in DeKalb, IL, 10 years ago. We owe it to Patrick, to the other NIU victims and families and community members, and to the hundreds of thousands more across America who have been killed and wounded by guns this past decade to keep trying to reduce the toll of gun violence.

Maybe we can't stop every shooting, but if we do our best to keep guns out of dangerous hands, we will save lives. I intend to keep doing my best to achieve that goal.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, last week marked the 25th anniversary of the Family and Medical Leave Act, a landmark law that resulted in an important victory for working families in Illinois and across the country. I am proud that I supported this bill in 1993 while serving in the House of Representatives.

Before passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act, being a working parent meant that you might have to choose between keeping your job or taking care of yourself and your family. This is an impossible choice that no hard-working American should have to make. This legislation extended important protections to workers so that they would no longer have to risk losing their job in order to care for a new child or a loved one who is seriously ill or to address their own serious health condition.

But for too many hard-working Americans, taking unpaid leave is still not an option. These workers could be fired for taking time to care for a loved one, meaning they can't buy food, clothes for their kids, or pay medical bills. In Illinois alone, unpaid leave through the Family and Medical Leave Act is inaccessible for 60 percent of working adults. I have heard from many of these constituents. They are worried about the impossible choices they are forced to make in order to take care of themselves and their loved ones.

Additionally, just 15 percent of American workers have access to paid family leave. These gaps cost nearly $21 billion in lost wages annually, making it more difficult for parents and family caregivers to boost their earnings and savings over time.

At the same time, the responsibilities of the American workforce have changed in the past 25 years. As working Americans get older, they are more likely to require medical care and support from their loved ones to recover from illness. At the same time, more and more women are becoming the breadwinner for their families; among women of color in my home State, this trend couldn't be clearer. Eighty-four percent of Black mothers and 49 percent of Latina mothers in Illinois are the breadwinners in their family.

In Congress, we must do more to ensure that family leave is widely accessible and fits the needs of today's workforce. I am proud to be a cosponsor of the FAMILY Act, which would create a national paid family and medical leave policy. Expanding access to paid family leave makes it easier for parents and caregivers to return to their jobs and stay in the workforce. It also means they have more money to spend and put back into their local economies. This policy doesn't just make moral sense, it makes economic sense.

As we mark the 25th anniversary of the Family and Medical Leave Act, I hope that Congress can come together on this issue and expand paid family and medical leave to cover more Americans. I am committed to doing my part to ensure fairer workplaces and better health and financial security for hardworking families across the country.

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

Mr. President, we are in the midst of debate in the Senate on the issue of immigration. It is the first time in 5 years we have taken up this issue. There are many compelling reasons for us to get this right.

On September 5, President Trump announced that he was going to end the DACA Program, a program created by an Executive order of President Obama's that protects 780,000 young people who are undocumented in the United States. The elimination of that program officially on March 5-- just a few weeks away--will mean that these young people and many just like them will be subject to deportation and no longer allowed to legally work in the United States.

President Trump challenged Congress to do something about it, to pass a law. As you can see, more than 5 months have passed, and we haven't done that. But we have a chance this week to get it right. We have a chance to make this work.

This morning, I come to the floor for a brief time to tell the story of two young women. The first one is named Tereza Lee. Tereza Lee is the reason for the DREAM Act, which is legislation I introduced 17 years ago.

Tereza was born in Brazil. Her parents were from Korea, but they traveled to Brazil first. She was brought to the United States at the age of 2 and made it to Chicago, IL.

Her father wanted to be a Protestant minister and to start a church. That was his dream, and he worked at it. They were a poor family. They didn't have much money to start with, but he pursued his dream. He gathered some people together in church settings.

Her mother went to work at a drycleaners in Chicago, which is not uncommon. The vast majority of drycleaning establishments in that city are run and owned by Korean families. It is a hard job, a lot of hours, but she was prepared to work to feed her family and to raise Tereza and her brothers and sisters.

During the course of her father's ministry, Tereza started banging away at an old piano at the back of the church and fell in love with the instrument. Someone gave her family a discarded piano, and she spent hours each day practicing. She signed up for something called the Merit Music Program in Chicago, which is available for kids in public schools who can't afford lessons, and she developed her skill as a pianist. At the point she reached high school, she actually was playing with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. People took notice of it and said: Tereza, you have to go forward with this amazing skill of yours and apply to the best music schools. She did. She applied to the Juilliard School of Music and the Manhattan School of Music, and she was accepted.

She did run into a problem. When it came time to fill out the forms to go to school, there was a section where she had to declare her nationality or citizenship.

She said to her mom: What do I put here?

Her mom said: I don't know. We brought you here on a visitor's visa, and we never filed any more papers.

Technically, Tereza was an undocumented person in America. She didn't have legal status. So she contacted our office and asked what she could do. That was 17 years ago. We took a look at the law, and the law is pretty brutal for those who are undocumented in this country. It basically said to this 18-year-old girl: You have to leave the United States for 10 years and petition to come back in and apply for green card status and citizenship. Ten years? Brought here at the age of 2, she was banished by our laws in the United States and given no future.

That is when I introduced the DREAM Act--for her initially but for many others in similar circumstances, kids who are brought here to America as infants and toddlers, young children, young teenagers who had no home, who had no country. They go to our public

schools and pledge allegiance to the same flag we pledge allegiance to every morning, but there is no legal status for them.

The story has a happy ending for Tereza Lee. Even though the DREAM Act is not the law of the land, benefactors stepped forward and paid for her education at the Manhattan School of Music, and she ended up with a Ph.D. in music. She ended up playing piano in Carnegie Hall. She is now married and because of that marriage has become a legal citizen of the United States and is the mother of two.

That is the story of Tereza Lee, a Korean-American young woman who, in her way, with her musical skill, makes America a better nation.

There is another Korean-American girl I would like to salute as well. Her face may be more familiar. In 1982, a Korean immigrant came to the United States. He didn't speak English very well. He carried a Korean- English dictionary with him. He had a couple hundred dollars. He landed in California and decided he was going to make a go of it here in America, so he went off to school and obtained a degree in manufacturing engineering technology, and then he started to raise a family.

In that family was a young girl who showed at a very early age an interest in snowboarding. Her father, this Korean immigrant with no measurable skills and little proficiency in English, decided that he would help her, and he did. He made great sacrifices so she could develop her skills in snowboarding, and ultimately she became one of the best in the world.

Yesterday at the Olympic Games in South Korea, she was awarded the Gold Medal because of her skills in snowboarding and the fact that she won this halfpipe competition against the others, some of the best in the world.

This is Chloe Kim. Chloe Kim, this Korean-American girl, like Tereza Lee, developed an amazing skill. Today, all across this country and all across the world, we are saluting this amazing 17-year-old girl and the skill she developed. But let's remember that Chloe Kim's story is the story of immigration in America. Chloe Kim's story is the story of people who come to these shores determined to make a life. They don't bring wealth. Many of them don't even bring proficiency in English. They certainly in many cases don't bring advanced degrees. They only come here with the determination to make a better life for themselves and a better country for all of us.

That is the story of immigration. It is the story of this Korean- American girl, Chloe Kim. It is the story of Tereza Lee, another Korean-American girl who was a Dreamer and inspired the introduction of the legislation we are debating this week in the Senate.

There is a difference of opinion among Senators about immigration. Several Senators have said: We have too many immigrants; we have to limit those who come to this country. Some of them have even said that we have to be careful that we select only the best and brightest to come into this Nation. Well, I am the son of an immigrant myself, and I can tell you for sure that my grandparents and my mother didn't come to this country with any special skills or proficiency. They came here with a determination to make a better life, and they did, for themselves and for me. That is my story, that is my family's story, and that is America's story.

This week as we debate immigration, let's not only applaud Chloe Kim for her great achievement as a first-generation American, the daughter of an immigrant who came here with nothing, let's applaud Tereza Lee, too, who was determined against the odds to use her skills to make a better life for herself and a better country for all of us.

I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, there have been meetings going on all day on a bipartisan basis to try to resolve the issue before us, which was the President's decision to end the DACA Program effectively March 5 of this year. I believe progress is being made. I hope we can continue along those lines. The proposed amendment by the Senator from Pennsylvania does not address this issue, and for that reason, I object.

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

Mr. President, this week in Washington we are going to do something that hasn't been seen for a long time--for over a year. If you are not careful, you may tune in and see an actual debate on the floor of the Senate--real Senators, Democrats and Republicans, coming to the floor actually debating an issue.

I am not sure what is going to happen because it has been so long since we tried this, but it really is exciting to think about; that men and women elected to this body, known as the greatest deliberative body in America, are finally going to deliberate. It is true, and it is by design, not by accident. After a lot of negotiation back and forth, Senator McConnell, the Republican leader, agreed that this week we would debate immigration and DACA, the Dream Act; that it would come to the floor of the U.S. Senate.

I am excited about it, although I have no idea how this debate will end--in most good debates we don't know because it depends on the strength of an argument as to whether a measure is going to pass or not pass, but it is certainly an issue I have been waiting for.

In fact, I have been waiting 5 years for it. It is a long time even by Senate standards. It has been 5 years since we actually debated immigration on the floor of the U.S. Senate. It is not because the immigration laws of America are so perfect--far from that. It is because it is a tough issue, it is a delicate issue, and it is a volatile issue, and it always has been in America. I have this notion that as soon as the Mayflower landed and the passengers got off the boat, they looked over their shoulder and said: I hope no more people are coming. We are perfectly happy with this country the way we see it--because throughout history and up to today, there has always been a resistance by those already here to new people from new places with different languages, cultures, religions, and food.

We have done some things in the past which are not exactly things to brag about. It was 1924 when we passed an immigration bill. There was a fear after World War I, because Europe was in shambles, that all these people would come flooding into America. So the Congress here and in this Chamber and the House of Representatives passed the Immigration Act of 1924. It was horrible. It was horrible. It expressly excluded groups we didn't want to be a part of America's future--groups like people of the Jewish religion, Italians, people from Eastern Europe, the Japanese, and many others. That immigration act said: We don't want any more of those people, and for 41 years that was the law of the land. There were slight modifications, but that was the basic standard for immigration in America.

Not until 1965 did we look at immigration again with a different view to a broader acceptance of the world as part of are our future. Since then, we have continued to have problems with immigration and questions about change of policy.

I will just flat out state, from 10 or 15 different perspectives, the current immigration system in America is broken--broken. When we have 11 million undocumented people in the country today, it is a broken system. Eight of us got together 4 years ago--four Republican Senators and four Democratic Senators--and spent months debating a new immigration system for America. I might say immodestly, I think we did a pretty good job of it. We presented it to the Judiciary Committee, and it faced over 100 amendments, people who wanted to change it. At the end of the day, we had a bill we brought to the Senate floor, and it passed with a substantial, overwhelming bipartisan vote-- comprehensive immigration reform. We tackled every aspect of it, from ag laborers to H-1Bs, to the Dream Act, to undocumented, right on through. We passed it in the Senate, but, of course, with our bicameral system of government, we needed the House to tackle the same problem, and they refused. They wouldn't even consider the bill we passed. They wouldn't come up with an alternative. They wouldn't try to amend it. They just said: We are not going to talk about it, and they didn't.

For 5 years, we have done nothing, and this year we have a chance to do something. The fact is, we need to do something. On September 5 of last year, President Trump announced he was eliminating what was known as the DACA Program. The DACA Program was created by Executive order under President Obama to give those who were characterized as Dreamers a chance to be legal in America on a 2-year renewable basis. So 780,000 people signed up for President Obama's DACA Program all across the United States. These were young people brought to the United States by their parents at a very early age, and they were going to be given a chance to stay here 2 years at a time and not be deported and be able to legally work.

Who are these young people? Well, 91 percent of them are currently in school or working. We know, as well, 20,000 of them have graduated from college and are teaching in our grade schools and high schools. We know 900 of them, even though they are undocumented, volunteered to serve in the U.S. military and are currently in uniform willing to risk their lives for this country that hasn't accepted them as citizens. The list goes on. They are premed students, they are in first responder status, they are doing some pretty extraordinary things, but President Trump announced last September 5 that the program that allowed them to stay in the United States was coming to an end.

When? In 3 weeks, March 5 of this year. What happens if Congress fails to do anything before March 5? If we fail to do anything to resolve this crisis created by President Trump, we will see 1,000 of these young people every single day falling out of protected status, and they will be in a position where they can be deported from this country. For many of them who were brought here as infants and toddlers, they would be sent back to some country they don't even remember to face a language they don't speak. That would be a terrible outcome.

That is why we need to take up this debate and pass, on a bipartisan basis, a measure to correct the situation, the challenge created by President Trump's actions. We need to do it now because if the House of Representatives is to take action before March 5, we have little time left. Both the House and the Senate will be gone for 1 week in the month of February, so there is very little time left before the March 5 deadline, and I hope we can tackle it and get it done.

The question that needs to be asked is, what will be debated this week? I think a lot of things may be debated. It is an actual open debate on the floor to some extent. It could conceivably not only be on DACA and the Dream Act, it might even get into other immigration issues.

There was a recent poll that was taken by Quinnipiac on some of the issues that may come before us this week in the U.S. Senate. The American people have been listening to this conversation, and it comes to some pretty interesting conclusions.

This is a new Quinnipiac poll that was just released today. By a margin of 81 percent to 14 percent, Americans want Dreamers to gain citizenship. Support is overwhelmingly pro-Dreamer when respondents were asked if they support ``allowing undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children to remain in the country and eventually apply for citizenship.''

Support for the Dreamers is overwhelmingly across party lines--94 percent of Democrats support it, 82 percent of those who are Independents, and 68 percent of Republicans support citizenship for these Dreamers. I have read other polls that say even 61 percent of Donald Trump voters support it. Republican voters support citizenship 68 to 24; White men, 75 to 20; and voters over 65, 80 to 14. It is hard to find any issue in our politically divided country that brings so many people together, but this one does overwhelmingly, both political parties and Independents.

The other side of it is that the President is proposing a border wall. Well, we remember that during the campaign, for sure--a big, beautiful wall from sea to shining sea, and the Mexicans are going to pay for it. How many times did we hear that speech? Many times.

Well, where are the American people on this border wall? Interesting what the Quinnipiac poll tells us. By approximately a 2-to-1 margin, the American public opposes a border wall, and when you attach the pricetag to it--how much it will, $25 billion--the numbers change. When first asked if they support or oppose a border wall with Mexico, the public opposes it 59 to 37 percent. A followup question, which includes a reference to the $25 billion pricetag President Trump has requested to build the wall, generates even more opposition: 65 to 33--2 to 1 opposed to the border wall.

Then some on the other side say: We should slash legal immigration into the United States. Let's put some numbers behind this question. We are a nation of approximately 350 million people. Each year 1.1 million legal immigrants come into the United States. About 70 percent of them are Members of families of those already here. Some of them have waited for their chance to join up with their families 20 years. So 75 percent of the legal immigration is family reunification. As I mentioned, some have waited for a long time.

Many on the other side want to limit legal immigration into the United States, want to limit this family reunification effort and those who come in with promises of jobs. So the question was asked in the poll as to whether we should cut legal immigration levels.

In the Quinnipiac poll, 78 percent of Americans are opposed to cutting legal immigration. A majority of Americans--54 percent--support keeping legal immigration at the same or current level. More Americans, 24 percent, support increasing it rather than decreasing it, 17 percent. Even 71 percent of Republican voters want legal immigration levels to stay either the same, 53 percent, or increase, 18 percent.

Additional poll questions found support for maintaining the current policy regarding family reunification at 49 to 43, and the diversity visa lottery, 48 to 49. Then we asked hot-button issues on immigration. Throughout our history these are the issues usually raised about immigrants. Immigrants, they say, take American jobs. Immigrants, they say, commit too many crimes. If you listened to the President's State of the Union Address a week or two ago, he talked about MS-13, a reprehensible gang engaged in criminal activities overseas and in the United States. I don't know of anyone in either political party who endorses that. The President used some graphic examples of their horrible, violent conduct, but when the public was asked about those two positions--Are these immigrants taking away American jobs? Are they committing more crime?--there was an interesting result. The American public overwhelmingly rejects the idea that undocumented immigrants take jobs from Americans and are prone to commit more crime.

Despite the transparent, relentless scapegoating efforts of some, Americans do not believe that undocumented immigrants take jobs away from Americans; by 63 to 33 percent, that was rejected. That is because our eyes can see. Come to Central Illinois, near my hometown of Springfield. Go to the local meat processing plant or the chicken processing plant, and watch who comes out of that plant at quitting time. Hispanics and Africans are taking what are pretty tough, dirty, rough jobs because others don't want them. Take a look next time you go into a nice restaurant in Chicago, which is certainly my honor to represent, and look who just cleaned the dishes off the table, and when the door swings, take a look at who is in the kitchen doing the dishes. By and large, it is going to be immigrants who are doing those things. Not many of us say to our sons and daughters: I am hoping the day will come when you decide to go and pick fruit for a living. You hardly ever hear that because we know it is hard, backbreaking work, and immigrants do the work. So many jobs they fill are jobs that Americans aren't jumping to fill.

How about the issue of crime? The majority of Americans do not believe that undocumented immigrants commit more crimes than American citizens; 72 to 17 percent rejected this idea, and that just reflects the reality. The incidence of crimes committed by those who are immigrants is lower than that of those who are native born. It is a fact. It is a fact that some like to ignore.

When it comes down to the fundamentals of the debate that faces us in the Senate, the American people, by overwhelming majority numbers, have picked their side on this. The question is whether Democrats and Republicans here can find a middle ground to agree on. It remains to be seen.

I have been engaged in this debate now for 17 years. That is a long time even by Senate standards. It was 17 years ago when I introduced the DREAM Act. It was 17 years ago when I said: If you were brought here as a kid, a baby, an infant, a toddler, even a young teenager and you had no voice on where your family was headed, it shouldn't be used against you. If you have had a good life, gone to school, are not a criminal, and offer some promise for a job or future in America, you deserve a chance to earn your way to legal status and to citizenship.

I come to this with some prejudice. My mother came as an immigrant to this country. She was brought here at the age of 2. She was the first Dreamer in my family, and she was brought here from Lithuania, where she was born. Her mother brought her to this country and didn't speak English, but she brought her three kids here in the hope that they could find opportunities that they couldn't find back in Lithuania. For them, the land of opportunity was the city of East St. Louis, IL, which is where I was born and I grew up. It offered immigrants a lot of tough jobs but opportunities to maybe create a better life for their kids. When it came to this kid, my mom and her family gave me a chance to serve in the U.S. Senate. That is my story, that is my family's story, but that is America's story. Time and again, that is America's story. My grandfather didn't come here with any extraordinary skills. He came here with a strong back and a determination to work and feed his family, and he did it; my grandmother, the same. That is the story of this country.

We are going to debate this week in the U.S. Senate whether it will continue to be the story of this country. Some will argue that we have had enough of these immigrants; we don't need any more of them. Others, I hope, will realize that we have an opportunity here--an opportunity not only to allow people to come to this country and be part of this country's future but to create the kind of diversity that makes us unique in the world, the diversity of immigration. I think we can come up with a reasonable answer to this. There will be differences of opinion, strongly held beliefs on one side or the other.

The question is whether this body, the U.S. Senate, with 49 Democrats and 51 Republicans--just about as close as you can get--can reach a common, bipartisan agreement. Wouldn't it be a headline across America if this Senate actually had a debate and this Senate actually agreed on something--a bipartisan agreement. I see some heads nodding, and I won't say where, but it is somewhere in this Chamber--people who are following this debate. I think we can do it. I really believe we can. It will be a real test for us, but that is what we are sent to do, isn't it? It is not to debate, issue press releases, and wave our fists at one another, but to actually tackle a problem.

The President has created a challenge--a challenge that involves hundreds of thousands of lives. Now it is our turn to meet that challenge as a Senate and to show we are up to the job.

I yield the floor.

I announce that the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Leahy) is necessarily absent.

Mr. President, I come to the floor, as I have over the past few months, urging the U.S. Senate to come together in a bipartisan fashion to address important issues facing our Nation. The American people expect it. They understand how closely divided we are-- 49 Democrats, 51 Republicans in the Senate--and for the most controversial issues, 60 votes are required. Unless we work in a bipartisan fashion, we achieve little or nothing.

After many months of difficult negotiation, I stand here today in support of a bipartisan, 2-year budget agreement announced by Leaders McConnell and Schumer that will finally produce results for the American people. For too long, this gridlocked Congress has lurched from one continuing resolution--that is a temporary spending bill--to another. That has prevented us from working together to craft appropriations bills that save taxpayers money and that invest in things that are important at every level for our future.

While this budget deal doesn't include everything I would like to see, it certainly includes some highlights of things that I think are critically important for the State of Illinois and our Nation.

I am particularly disappointed that it does not include a solution to the DACA--or Dreamer--crisis that was created by President Trump on September 5 when he announced that he would eliminate the program that provides protection from deportation for almost 800,000 people in the United States. That was over 5 months ago. President Trump challenged this Congress--challenged this Senate--to come up with a legislative solution. As I stand here today, we have not produced it.

I will certainly acknowledge that Senator McConnell, the Republican leader, together with Senator Schumer, the Democratic leader, has charted a course for us next week. We are going to do something in the Senate we haven't seen in a long time. We are going to come to the floor of the Senate and act like Senators. For some of my colleagues, it will be their first-time experience of a bill on the floor, open to amendment and actual debate. Yes, it is going to happen right here. Stay tuned on C-SPAN. Next week could be historic.

It has been over a year and a half since we have had a meaningful debate on the floor, but next week we will. The topic: immigration and DACA. We know we have to. The March 5 deadline is looming, when this program will end by President Trump's prohibition of the program and, at that point, 1,000 young people each day, on average, will lose their protection from deportation and their legal right to work in America. They will walk off the job because we failed to act, unless we get it together.

I am sorry this bill that includes so many good things doesn't include that solution, but we are poised to do it anyway, and I look forward to that debate next week. I hope this agreement will provide a spirit of bipartisanship that will be felt next week when we come together and discuss the fates of hundreds of thousands of Dreamers across the United States.

Let me tell my colleagues what this budget agreement does, which I think is well worth our bipartisan support. It includes a huge investment for America's military. We will prepare our men and women in uniform to be not only ready for battle but to continue to be the strongest and the best military in the world. That is something we have seen go by the boards and, frankly, be ignored in the past, but now we are going to focus on it.

I have the greatest confidence in General Mattis, in terms of his commitment to our military, both in his personal life and in his new role as Secretary of Defense. I believe he will direct the spending appropriately so we can prepare our men and women for

battle and prepare our Nation to defend itself under any threat and, if necessary, use our force for good around the world.

We also make a dramatic investment in nondefense spending. In the past 8 or 10 years, we have seen a dramatic downturn in nondefense spending in our budget. Many people have said nobody will notice. Well, America noticed as we cut back our investment in education, in healthcare, and in so many fundamentals.

There is one particular area I want to highlight. When I had to make a decision as to whether to run for another term in the Senate, I sat down and made a very short list of things I wanted to accomplish or work on if I were given another 6-year term. At the top of that list, of course, were Dreamers, but second was medical research. I came back here and sat down with my colleagues, including two Republicans, Senator Alexander and Senator Blunt, and my wonderful friend and colleague in leadership, Senator Patty Murray. I said: We need to do something.

Dr. Collins at the National Institutes of Health had told me the problem with medical research is, if it is not certain that next year you will receive a grant to continue your medical research, you get discouraged, and then you start looking for another job. We can't let that happen. We can't lose the best and brightest who are searching for cures to diseases which haunt and plague many families across America.

Dr. Collins suggested 5 percent real growth in the budget of the National Institutes of Health. I salute especially my colleagues, Senator Blunt, a Republican, and Senator Murray, a Democrat. They really made good on that promise. We worked together, and they delivered. This will be the third straight year we have had a more than 5-percent increase in medical research. If there is ever an issue that is bipartisan, it should be this one.

The good news is, this budget agreement will go beyond 5 percent. We are talking in the area of 7 or 8 percent real increases in spending for medical research.

Dr. Collins told me years ago, when he talked about this goal that if we could provide this kind of reliable increase in medical research, dramatic breakthroughs would occur. We are starting to see them. Some of the cancer therapies that are curing cancers today were unthinkable just a few years ago, and there is more to follow.

Think about all of the news reports now about flu and what it is doing to children, some of whom tragically have lost their lives, many of whom stayed home from school, and others around our Nation and the world plagued by influenza each year. At this moment, NIH is working on a universal flu vaccine. If it is discovered, it will be a lifesaver. It will change the basic life pattern that many of us have faced our entire lives. It can happen. I am old enough to remember when Dr. Jonas Salk came up with the polio vaccine, and that was a breakthrough many of us never imagined. It can happen. This budget will help it happen, and that is why I am so happy to see it in this bill.

I also want to say they have done a great job in providing resources to fight the opioid crisis, the worst addiction epidemic in the history of our Nation.

Funding our community health centers is a critical part of public health and of making certain that basic primary care is available to every American; healthcare for our children through the CHIP program and improving our veterans health facilities. We will be investing, for the first time in years, billions of dollars in new veterans healthcare facilities, some of it long overdue.

Also, we are going to help fix our Nation's aged and broken infrastructure.

This bill provides resources and funding for Florida, Texas, California, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. There are many people from Puerto Rico who live in the city of Chicago. Some of them are extremely close friends. I am happy to report that this bill makes the investment we need to make to get that island back on its feet: $2 billion to put into electrical infrastructure, in and of itself, can bring Puerto Rico back and restore electrical service to the families who have been waiting months for what each of us takes for granted each and every day. This disaster relief will make a difference in their lives.

How did we achieve this amazing outcome where Democrats and Republicans would come to the floor and praise it? Well, we sat down and made a compromise. We gave on both sides, and we realized it was time to roll up our sleeves, stop squabbling, stop fighting for headlines, stop putting out press releases, and get down to work.

I hope next week that spirit continues when we enter the debate on immigration and DACA. It is my sincere hope that we will have a bipartisan breakthrough on immigration next week--not just for the Dreamers and their families but for the good and the future of America.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President I thank my colleague from Delaware, Senator Tom Carper. He and I came to the House of Representatives together many years ago. He went off on another assignment as Governor of his State, and then came back and ran for the U.S. Senate. We are lucky to have him. He is a great Senator, a great friend, and a great colleague. He takes on important issues every day on behalf of his State and the Nation, and I thank him for his support for this conversation about DACA and Dreamers.

I would like to take a little different approach to this than I usually do on the floor, and I have come to the floor many times to talk about it.

I would like for everyone here who is listening to this debate to pause and think for a minute: What is the worst job you have ever had-- the worst job? Maybe it was the worst job because it was boring, and boring jobs are terrible. But there are some pretty bad jobs out there.

I could tell you my worst job. I was working my way through college in what we euphemistically call a packinghouse. In the old days, they called them slaughterhouses. What happened was that hogs came off the truck in one door, and two days later pork chops and bacon went out the back door. In between, there were some pretty awful jobs--hot, dirty, smelly, and dangerous jobs.

I took it as a college student because it paid $3.65 an hour in the 1960s--pretty darned good, in fact, better than anything else I could find. I raised enough money working there four different summers to go to college. There was never any doubt at the end of the summer that I was going to stay with my job and not go to college. I couldn't wait to go to college in the hopes that I would never have to work in a packinghouse or slaughterhouse again in my life.

Take a look today at the packinghouses, slaughterhouses, and poultry processing places across the United States of America, and I will tell you, almost without exception, what you will find. Take a look at the workers who come out of those places at the end of the workday. They are tired, they are sweaty, and they are dirty, and they are, by and large, immigrants--people who come to this country from other places.

In Beardstown, IL, there is a processing place, near the central part of my State, and the workers there are largely Hispanic and African. They are immigrants who have come to this country and, like generations of immigrants before them, were prepared to take the worst, dirtiest, hardest jobs available just to make it in America.

Go to the restaurants in Chicago, if you want a contrast from what I just described. We are lucky. I am lucky to represent that city, but we are lucky to have some of the greatest restaurants, I think, in our country. I would put them up against any city. I sat down with a person who owned some of those restaurants and talked to him about the immigration issue.

He said: Senator, if you took the undocumented people and the immigrant people out of the restaurants and hotels of Chicago, we would close our doors. We couldn't operate without them.

Oh, you don't see them in the front of the house--not your waiter and not the maitre d' or the person who takes your reservation. But just look at who carried the dishes off the table, and take a look through that door when it swings open at who is working back there in that hot kitchen. Over and over, you are going to find immigrants and undocumented people. So they are part of America, and they are part of our economy and, even more, they are part of our history.

We have had debates about immigration from the beginning. I say jokingly that when the Mayflower landed and they got off the boats, a lot of them looked over their shoulders and said: I hope no more of these folks are coming.

But they kept coming. They came in the thousands, even in the millions, from all over the world, anxious to be a part of the future of the United States of America.

A ship landed in Baltimore in July of 1911, and a woman came down the gangplank with three kids. She was coming from Lithuania. She landed in Baltimore with those three kids--one of them a 2-year-old girl she was holding in her arms--and tried to find her way around Baltimore, MD, because she didn't speak English.

Somehow or another she found that train station, got on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and somehow or another she made it to East St. Louis, IL--her idea of a land of opportunity in 1911. There she was reunited with her husband, and there she made a life--a hard, challenging life but one that led to good things. The 2-year-old girl she was carrying was my mother, and my mother was an immigrant to this country. In my office upstairs behind my desk is my mother's naturalization certificate. I keep it there to remind myself and everyone visiting who I am, my family's story, and America's story.

If you think that we have come to accept immigration as part of America, then you don't understand the history. We have had our ups and downs when it comes to immigration laws. There have been times when in this Chamber--in this Senate Chamber--there were debates that led to the decision to exclude people from certain parts of the world who were no longer welcome in America. The most notorious in modern times was in 1924. The object of our immigration exclusionary law was to keep out undesirable people from the United States of America. Who fell into that category in 1924? Jewish people, Italians, people from Eastern Europe--people from where my family came from. We made it clear in the law there would be quotas, and we were not going to accept people who were not desirable for the future of America. That was in 1924.

Let me read you this incredible statement that was made. When President Calvin Coolidge signed the 1924 law justifying the quotas excluding Jews, Italians, Eastern Europeans, and others, here is what the President of the United States said in 1924:

There are racial considerations too grave to be brushed

aside. Biological laws tell us that certain people will not

mix or blend. The Nordics propagate themselves successfully.

With other races, the outcome shows deterioration on both

sides.

President Calvin Coolidge, 1924, signed that immigration law. That was the law in the land of America for 41 years. Our attitude toward parts of the world and whether people from those parts were welcome was determined in

1924 and defined by this Presidential statement.

Then, in 1965, we passed the Immigration and Nationality Act that established our current system. Do you know what we said was the bedrock of that system? Reuniting families, bringing people to this country and allowing them to not only make it in America but to make a family in America.

How many times have those of us in politics stood up and talked about faith and family and flag? I believe those words. I think my colleagues do too. When it came to immigration, that was the bedrock of what we were going to do--to make sure that families could be reunited in America.

That 1965 law replaced the strict national origin quotas of the 1924 immigration law that favored Northern Europeans and excluded Asians. That was one of the other groups excluded under the 1924 law.

When President Lyndon Johnson signed that 1965 law, he said: ``It corrects a cruel and enduring wrong. . . . For over four decades the immigration policy of the United States has been twisted and distorted by the harsh injustice of the national origins quota system.''

The Cato Institute is a research group. I don't usually quote them because they are on the other side of the political spectrum. I am on the left side, and they are on the right side. But I am going to quote them tonight because what they had to say about the proposal coming from the White House about immigration is worth hearing. The White House is part of changing immigration laws in America. It wants to dramatically reduce legal immigration by prohibiting American citizens from sponsoring their parents, siblings, and adult or married children as immigrants. We are talking literally about millions of relatives of American citizens who have done the right thing by following our immigration laws, and some have waited in line 20 years to be reunited with their families in America--20 years waiting for the day when their families could be together again. Listen to what the Cato Institute, a conservative think tank, says about the proposal from the White House, which has been introduced in the Senate by two of my colleagues. This is what Cato says:

[I]n the most likely scenario, the new plan would cut the

number of legal immigrants by up to 44 percent or half a

million immigrants annually--the largest policy-driven legal

immigration cut since the 1920s.

Compared to current law, it would exclude nearly 22 million

people from the opportunity to immigrate legally to the

United States over the next five decades.

You have to go back to 1924 to find that kind of reduction in legal immigration in America. What is it about? Is it about security? No. Every single person we are talking about has to go through a serious criminal national security background check before they will ever be allowed into the United States. It isn't automatic. You have to be thoroughly investigated. Some of them wait 20 years with all these investigations for the chance.

Is it about jobs? Think back to those jobs these immigrants take in the United States. How many of us would say: My son--I am so proud-- didn't know what to do with his life. I told him: Well, why don't you consider washing dishes at a restaurant in Chicago? Why don't you consider working in a packing house in Beardstown, IL? Why don't you consider landscaping?

Those are not the jobs we want to see for our children, and they are jobs that go vacant unless immigrants and people like them are willing to pick our fruit and our vegetables, milk the cows, and do the hard work that is required in so many different parts of America.

We have, at this point, an important decision to make, not just as a Senate but as a nation. On September 5, President Donald Trump announced the end of the DACA Program. March 5 is the deadline. As of March 5, 1,000 young people every single day will lose the protection of DACA and be subject to deportation and unable to work legally in America. Who are they? Twenty thousand of them are teachers--teachers in grade schools and high schools around America who will lose their jobs on March 5 as their DACA protection expires. Nine hundred of them, undocumented, will lose their opportunity to serve in the United States military. That is right--undocumented. They took the oath that they would risk and give their lives for America to serve in our military. On March 5, as their DACA protection expires, they will be asked to leave the military of the United States of America.

I can't tell you how many thousands of students will find it impossible to continue school because they can no longer legally work in America. I can tell you about 30 med students, premed students at Loyola University in Chicago. They told me the reality. At the end of medical school, you finish your education with a clinical experience, a residency--not 40 hours a week, sometimes 80 hours a week, but it is a job. You better take it, and you better learn the clinical side of medicine if you are going to be a good doctor. When they lose their DACA protection, they lose their legal right to work in America, and they cannot apply for a residency. It is an end of their medical education because President Trump had a deadline that said: On March 5, it's over.

Here we are. What have we done in the 5 months since the President challenged us to fix the problem he created? We have done absolutely nothing. Nothing. Not one bill has passed in the House or Senate, despite the President's challenge and despite the disastrous impact this is going to have on hundreds of thousands of people across the United States of America.

I shouldn't say that we have done nothing. Some people in this debate have sent out a lot of tweets. Boy, that sure helps. There have been a lot of press releases and press conferences, but not a single bill has come to the floor. That is going to change. That is going to change very quickly. Senator McConnell, the Republican leader--and I take him at his word because he said it publicly, he said it privately, and I have told him personally ``You said it, and I believe you''--is going to call this measure for a vote in the Senate next week.

For those of you who tune in to C-SPAN or visit in the Chamber here, please show up next week because something is going to happen on the Senate floor that hasn't happened in a year and a half--maybe longer. We are actually going to have a debate. This empty Chamber will have people in it. We will be considering a bill. People will be offering amendments. We will be debating it on the floor. For some of my Senate colleagues, it is the first time they will ever see this happen. We don't do that anymore, but we are going to do it on this important issue, and we should. The reason we should is not just because the President issued the challenge and not just because so many lives are hanging in the balance. It is because when we get down to this issue, it becomes extremely personal.

Today for the 108th time, I am going to tell the story of a Dreamer. I use the word ``Dreamer'' because I am proud of it. The President said at the Republican retreat: Don't ever use that word ``Dreamer.''

I use it because I introduced the DREAM Act in 2001. Before I introduced that bill, if you said ``Dreamer,'' people thought you were talking about a British rock group with a guy named Freddie. We created the DREAM Act, and I want to tell you the story of this Dreamer. This is Saba Nafees. She is the 108th Dreamer I have told the story of on the floor. When she was 11 years old, they brought her to the United States from Pakistan. She grew up in Fort Worth, TX. In high school, she played piano, sang in the choir, and played tennis. She then studied mathematics at Texas Tech. She was ineligible for any government assistance to go to school. She had to work, borrow money. That is how she went to school--a mathematics degree at Texas Tech. There she was, a research scholar, co-vice president of the Student Service Organization, president of the Texas chapter of the National Mathematics Honor Society. She participated in premed and math mentoring programs for younger students. She was awarded the Texas Tech department of mathematics prize for excellence in mathematics by an undergraduate woman.

In 2014, Saba graduated from Texas Tech Honors College with a bachelor of science in mathematics, with the highest honors. Today, Saba is a Ph.D. candidate studying mathematical biology. Please do not ask me on the final what

mathematical biology is, but she is majoring in it at Texas Tech. She is focusing on a better understanding of biological data and disease. She teaches undergraduate students as a graduate teaching assistant. What is her dream in America? To use mathematics to advance research to cure diseases like cancer.

Let me read you what she wrote to me. She said:

I am an aspiring scientist and hope to continue my research

in mathematical biology. Currently, there's an ever

increasing need for computational and mathematical analysis

of biological phenomena, specifically in the areas of

bioinformatics and medicine. I hope to contribute to this

field and give back to my country just as this country has

contributed to my education. . . . Without DACA, I would have

been forced to continue living a life in the shadows, a life

with constant upper bounds, and a life that is imprisoned in

the very country I call home.

Saba is what this debate is all about. There are those who say: We are too busy to do this; we will get back to it later. There are those who say: Well, I am sure she is a very talented person, but she is illegal, you know.

There are those who say we are fools to let a talent like this leave America. We are crazy to give up on such amazing young people.

We are wrong to call them lazy, for goodness' sakes. There isn't a lazy bone in this young woman's body. I don't think so. What she has achieved is nothing short of a miracle as an undocumented student in America.

Some others have argued: Well, she can stay, but you have to punish her parents. We have to make them leave the United States of America.

There has to be a better way. Yes. Was it wrong? Did it, maybe, even violate a law for them to bring her here? What parent wouldn't do it if it meant survival or if it meant a future for a child? We can make them pay a price. In the comprehensive immigration bill, there is a fine and a long waiting period. All of the things could be included in here.

For goodness' sakes, this young lady and her family can be an important part of America's future if and when we decide in the U.S. Senate that she is worth our effort. We will have that chance soon. We will start the debate soon. Young people like her will listen to this debate because they know what is at stake and whether there is any future for them in the United States of America.

For goodness' sakes, in the name of justice, in the name of the values that made this country what it is today, we ought to stand up on a bipartisan basis and solve this problem in a humane and sensible way.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I don't know if you want to announce the business of the day or if you have already done that.

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to speak of an issue which really defines America. With the exception of Native Americans who preceded us, with the exception of many African Americans who were brought here in bondage, virtually all of the rest of us are the sons and daughters of immigrants to America, immigrants from literally all over the world who have come to this Nation and made us different--different in a positive way. They have given life to this democracy. They have given hope when it comes to our future. They have inspired us.

I will be the first to admit that I do not come to this debate without strong personal feelings. Like millions of Americans, I am the son of an immigrant. In 1911--107 years ago--my grandmother came to this country with three little kids. One of those kids was my mother. She was 2 years old when their ship landed in Baltimore. My grandmother didn't speak a word of English, but somehow she managed to take those three kids and make her way to join my grandfather in East St. Louis,