Floor Statements

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 4 minutes.

Madam President, I thank my distinguished colleague from Oregon for his courtesy in allowing me to do so.

I agree with everything my colleague from Florida Senator Rubio has said about this issue, and I appreciate his leadership alongside with us. He has been following Venezuela intimately. So many people in the State of Florida have exiled there, and so he personally understands this issue and he has been a tremendous champion.

Since February of this year, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan citizens have protested about the lack of security from rampant crime and violence and an inflation rate that is the highest in the world and a scarcity of food and basic consumer goods that has become part of their daily lives. But instead of listening to the legitimate concerns of its people, the Government of Venezuela has responded with a deplorable display of force and brutality that was seen around the world. To date there have been more than 40 deaths, more than 50 documented cases of torture, and more than 2,000 unlawful detentions.

In May of this year Human Rights Watch released a report on these human rights violations. The report documented how Venezuelan security forces systematically violated the rights of students, women, men, members of the political opposition, and journalists. They said they did so ``to punish people for their political views.''

Last week the Venezuelan Government opened its show trial against opposition leader and prisoner of conscience Leopoldo Lopez. After spending 5 months in a military prison just for speaking his mind, Mr. Lopez and his attorney were barred from presenting any evidence in his defense--none. No defense allowed.

If that were not enough, we saw that recent events showed that the Venezuelan Government is even willing to threaten regional stability to get its way.

Last week law enforcement officials in Aruba picked up Hugo Carvajal, the former head of the Venezuelan military intelligence and an individual who was designated as a drug kingpin by the U.S. Department of Treasury back in 2008. When indictments were unsealed last week, the world saw evidence of how a senior Venezuelan Government official was deeply involved in the international drug trade, allowing traffickers to operate freely in Venezuelan territory and even coordinating drug shipments himself.

When this official was arrested, what did the Venezuelan Government do? It threatened to cut off flights from Venezuela to Aruba and Curacao. It threatened to end a contract with Curacao's oil refinery, and it moved naval vessels into the waters surrounding these islands. In short, it resorted to every form of blackmail and coercion at its disposition until the Dutch Government released Mr. Carvajal.

We should be clear that democracy has had its opportunity. In recent months foreign ministers from across South America and the Vatican have attempted to mediate dialogue between

President Maduro and his allies and the political opposition, and they have not been able to accomplish it.

It is time to move more vigorously forward with the types of sanctions and other efforts envisioned in the other legislation I and Senator Rubio have offered, and if we do that tomorrow we will send a message to the hemisphere and to the people of Venezuela that, in fact, they have a real opportunity to have their voices heard, and we will stand on the right side of human rights and democracy.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, first of all, let me say I am really moved by Senator Booker's passion, Senator Nelson's clarity of thought, and by my other colleagues who have joined us. I am compelled to join them because we do have a crisis, but we also have, in my mind, a clear moral and legal compass we need to follow.

We have a refugee crisis on our southern border, which I argue requires an emergency response domestically and the urgent recalibration of our foreign policy. Why do I say that? Because, as I have argued for several years in the Foreign Relations Committee, the continuous cuts we have had in the programs that are in our national interests, in our national security, were going to bring us a day in which we would rue the consequences of those cuts.

So here we are with Honduras having the No. 1 murder rate per capita in the world, and the other two Central American countries from which these children are fleeing in the top five in the world. As Senator Nelson spoke so eloquently, there is the whole question of the narcotics trafficking taking place, using this as a via to the United States where the demand is, and the total inability of these countries to deal with entities that have more money and very often have more firepower than any of the national governments that are engaged. Then add to that the dynamic and explosive growth of gangs. I am talking about gangs armed and fueled with money in a symbiotic relationship with the drug traffickers. That creates a challenge. In one of these countries it went from 600 to 40,000 members of a gang. This isn't about some far-off place; this is right here in our own front yard, in our hemisphere, a very relatively short distance. Unless we deal with the root causes of these problems, there will be no resources or any change in law that is going to ultimately meet the challenge of those who flee because to stay is to die.

So that is the challenge we have before us. We have to deal with that challenge on our southern border, and our distinguished chair of the Appropriations Committee has fashioned a package I think is balanced and seeks to do that. But as we deal with this refugee crisis, in my view, it is equally important that we not rush to change our laws in a way that strips children of the very rights for which we have been known as a country. I am not even talking about the 2008 law; I am talking about the very essence of our immigration law for decades that has asylum as a fundamental pillar.

It is imperative to understand this is a desperate effort by desperate parents to do what any parent would do to protect their child from violence and the threat of death. Imagine the circumstances a parent must be in to send an 8-year-old on a treacherous journey of 2,000 miles where all things can happen to them in the hope--in the hope--they can arrive and make a claim for asylum, but not knowing whether their child will actually be able to arrive alive. That is some dramatic choice,

but those are choices facing these parents.

These children are facing tremendous threats: towns and schools controlled by narcotic traffickers, gangs threatening to kill them, rapes and manufacturers.

In the Foreign Relations Committee recently, we held a hearing and I noted a piece that was written in the New York Times by Pulitzer Prize- winning author Sonia Nazario, who testified before the committee. This was to give the Senate the sense of what we are talking about.

A young boy named Christian Omar Reyes, a sixth grader--his father was murdered by gangs while working as a security guard. Three people he knows have been murdered this year. Four others were gunned down on a corner near his house in the first 2 weeks of this year. A girl his age was beaten, had a hole cut in her throat, her body left in a ravine across from his house. Christian said: It is time to flee.

Carlos Baquedana, a 14-year-old who worked in a dump picking scrap metal when he was a boy, making a dollar or two a day, when he was 9 years old, barely escaped two drug traffickers who were trying to rape him. When he was 10, the drug traffickers pressured him to try drugs and join a gang or die. He has known eight people who were murdered-- three killed in front of him. In one case he watched as two hit-men brazenly shot two young brothers execution style. Going to school is even too dangerous for him now.

These stories are, unfortunately, not unique. They are tragic stories of life-changing experiences that too many children face in Central America every day--children such as Christian and Carlos whose stories are unknown but no less tragic.

Let me take a moment to repeat that I strongly oppose changing existing law. The answer is not to repeal the law that keeps these children safe and gives them an opportunity--that is all the law gives them, an opportunity--to determine whether their status here can be adjusted under asylum. The answer is not to deny these children their day in court and send them back to very probable death. But those who want to repeal the 2008 law would be doing exactly that.

If we provide the funding the government needs, the administration has the authority to deal with the crisis in a safe and humane way without turning our back on the rule of law that we take pride in as a nation.

Antitrafficking organizations have explained to me that this trafficking law was designed by both Republicans and Democrats in broad bipartisan efforts to give special protections to children who cannot adequately represent themselves and who often do not self-identify as victims of abuse, crime or human trafficking.

Congress sought to provide special protections for those who have fled thousands of miles in recognition of the fact that a larger percentage of these children may have very compelling and legitimate claims.

Unfortunately, the Border Patrol's cursory review of Mexican children's claims often results in a failure to identify children who are at risk of persecution or trafficking, according to the U.N. Commissioner for Refugees. Extending this type of superficial screening to Central American children would certainly mean serious abuse or death upon their return.

We can keep this important antitrafficking law and at the same time address the situation on the border. Let me explain how the administration already--already--has the authority to control this crisis.

Critics have complained that the 2008 trafficking law requires children to be released into the community, but what the law actually says is that children need to be held in the manner that is in the ``best interests of the child.'' In this situation, where we are dealing with an influx of thousands of children, it is clearly in the best interests of these children to hold them in a safe and clean shelter rather than returning them to face possible death or quickly releasing them into the hands of a sponsor who may not be properly vetted. Failure to properly screen these children could result in children being returned to their very traffickers.

Critics have also complained that deportation hearings do not take place for years after the children arrive and that this creates an incentive for children to come to the United States. But the law allows the Justice Department to hold hearings much more quickly--without denying due process--by moving recently arriving children and families to the front of the line for hearings before a judge.

As the Justice Department testified last week before the Appropriations Committee hearing, that is exactly what they are doing-- surging resources and expediting full hearings.

This expedited process that still protects due process would send a signal to the parents in Central America that children without valid claims--and there will be a significant universe that will not have a valid claim and will be deported--will not be able to stay in the United States. But at the same time we protect the rights of legitimate refugees and trafficking victims.

So while not every single child apprehended at the border will have a valid claim to stay in the country, and many will be deported, we have a moral and a legal obligation to keep them safe until their status is resolved.

The answer is not to repeal the law that protects them but to enforce it and to provide the administration with the resources it requested to address both the domestic and international aspects of this crisis.

This problem was not created overnight, and it will not be solved overnight. But the solution is not to abandon our values and the rule of law that we uphold as an example to other nations so every child will be safe wherever they may live. If we do this now, I can tell you, I do not know how we will have any authority to look at any other country in the world and say to them: You must accept refugees from Syria, you must accept refugees from Congo, the Dominican Republic, you must accept refugees from Haiti. The list goes on and on.

There is a reason this law was passed. It was passed to say if you are fleeing 2,000 miles to try to come to the United States, there may be a greater probability that you have a real case to be made for asylum because you have a credible fear for the loss of your life.

As I hear those who advocate for the rule of law, I say you are right. The rule of law means you do not undermine the law or change it when you do not want to ultimately live under it. You obey it. You obey it.

If you flee 2,000 miles because you were told by the gangs to join or die or if you were raped and you flee 2,000 miles never to experience that tragic and traumatic set of circumstances again, you have a very compelling case.

So let me close by saying the fact is there are some who are exploiting this issue for political gain, some who could not even see their way to cast a vote or to allow a vote on the type of comprehensive immigration reform the Senate passed on a broad, bipartisan basis in which both border control and human trafficking and all of these other issues we are now facing would have had the resources and would be addressed.

I also find it incredible to see the Governor of Texas saying he is going to send the National Guard to the border. What is the National Guard going to do in what is otherwise a Federal law enforcement obligation with Border Patrol agents who ultimately are obviously interdicting these young people but they are actually turning themselves over to them. What is the National Guard, with rifles, going to do at the Texas border that the Border Patrol cannot do themselves?

This supplemental bill is almost entirely for enforcement of the law. I know Republicans have been saying for years they want more money for enforcement of immigration law. Well, folks, here it is. Here it is. I cannot believe with the resources that are going to the very States that say they face a challenge, there will be those who will vote against it. I cannot believe that just because the President is proposing it, they cannot ultimately find their way to vote for the money that is going to go largely to the States that face the most critical challenge at this time.

So that is what our immigration debate has come to. We began this Congress with an overwhelming bipartisan vote in favor of commonsense immigration reform, and here we are unwilling to even provide something I have never

voted for but will--strictly enforcement funding. We have Republicans calling for DREAMers to be deported as part of this bill in the House of Representatives and a rollback of legislation to protect small children from human trafficking. That is what we have come to.

Rolling back this law, which passed with broad bipartisan support in both Houses of the Congress and was signed by a Republican President, is not something I can personally accept, and I will use the procedures of the Senate--I hope with others who feel the same--if that is the choice that has to come before us, not to permit that to happen.

The President has the authority to control this crisis already. Let's give him the resources to do the job, and let us, in the process of doing that, not create a dark day in our Nation's history which we will regret for years to come.

With that, I yield the floor.

Madam President, I come again to the floor to speak about one of our greatest national security challenges, which is a nuclear-armed Iran and the latest conflicting remarks coming from Iran's leaders.

I will say at the outset, as I have said in the past, I support the administration's diplomatic efforts. I have always supported a bipartisan, two-track policy of diplomacy and sanctions. At the same time, I am convinced that we should only relieve pressure on Iran in exchange for very verifiable concessions that will fundamentally dismantle Iran's illicit nuclear program and that any deal be structured in such a way that alarm bells will sound from Vienna to Washington to Moscow and Beijing should Iran restart its program anytime in the next 20 or 30 years.

I am gravely concerned by the recent remarks of Iran's Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah, whose views about what Iran is willing to give up in a deal seem to deliberately undermine the positions of Iran's negotiators in Vienna and clearly curtail their flexibility as we enter into a critical stage of the talks.

Yesterday, Foreign Minister Zarif gave an interview that went public with Iran's negotiating position. Let's break down exactly what it is he offered. He said Iran will freeze its nuclear fuel program for several years in exchange for being treated like other peaceful nuclear nations and for sanctions relief. Let's be clear. This will leave 19,000 centrifuges spinning in Iran. It would not, from what I can tell, require Iran to dismantle anything. In my view, that is not a starting place for an end game. It is the same obfuscation and the same Iranian tactics we have seen for years and decades. Iran puts offers on the table that appear to be concessions but in reality are designed to preserve Iranian illicit nuclear infrastructure and enrichment so that the capacity to break out and rush toward a nuclear weapon is still very much within reach. That is not an end game; it is a nonstarter.

Essentially what Zarif is offering is the same concessions as what Iran made for the interim agreement over 6 months ago. In exchange, Iran gets sanction relief--except we know Iran is not like any other nation, and its history of cheating, lying, and evading inspections proves it.

One commentator said this morning: ``So it seems that Iran is trying to protect its nuclear breakout capacity while trying to appear moderate.''

Zarif's proposal last night is nothing more than smoke and mirrors. It is more moderate than the Ayatollah's outlandish demand for 190,000 centrifuges last week, but at its core it is an offer to not give anything in terms of enrichment capacity and in exchange receive sanctions relief, and that is unacceptable.

The Zarif proposal will extend the joint plan of action, allowing Iran's nuclear program to run in place subject to inspections but will not make a single concession--none--that would demonstrably set back Iran's nuclear ambitions in the long term, including no concessions on the number of centrifuges in the secret Fordow enrichment facility. Iran would get the relief it wants while retaining the infrastructure to quickly rebuild its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. That is straight out of the North Korea handbook--freeze and preserve your ability for a future date.

I remind my colleagues in the Senate that in October of 1994, the United States and North Korea signed an agreed framework which the international community hoped would end the ongoing crisis over North Korea's nuclear program. The agreement froze the operation and construction of North Korea's nuclear reactors which were part of its covert nuclear weapons program. In exchange, the United States agreed to provide two proliferation-resistant nuclear power reactors. There were high hopes for the agreement. Many called it a first step in the full normalization of political and economic relations with North Korea.

While North Korea carried out some of the measures in the agreement, it simultaneously continued its ballistic missile program by improving the range and accuracy of its missiles, and it secretly began to pursue a clandestine program to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons separate from the plutonium program which the agreement had frozen.

Once again, international tensions came to a head in January of 2003 when North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and following its withdrawal from the NPT, North Korea kicked out IAEA inspectors, restarted the nuclear reactor that had been frozen under the 1994 agreed framework, and began moving spent fuel rods to a reprocessing center that could produce plutonium.

At the time of its withdrawal, North Korea, like Iran, said it ``had no intention of making nuclear weapons'' and that its nuclear activities ``would be confined only to power production and other peaceful purposes.'' Of course, as

we know now, North Korea would conduct a nuclear test establishing its potential to build nuclear weapons.

This history should serve as a warning about what could happen if we allow Iran to maintain a robust nuclear infrastructure.

The fact is that Iran is simply agreeing to freeze and to temporarily lock the door on its nuclear weapons program as is and walk away. Should they later walk away from the deal, as they have in the past, they can simply unlock the door and continue their nuclear weapons program from where they are today. That is exactly what the talks--in my mind--were intended to avoid.

As I stand here, there is a rush for our negotiators in Vienna and Secretary Kerry to go and try to save the essence of what seems to be a significant distance between the parties. I know our side is working in good faith to reach an agreement. Our terms have been on the table for months, and now, at the critical hour, the Supreme Leader throws a monkey wrench into the negotiations and even surprises his own negotiating team by demanding that 190,000 centrifuges remain for any final deal.

At this point it is our obligation to ask some very pointed questions. Are Zarif and President Ruhani truly empowered to make this deal? Even though Zarif and Ruhani's intentions seem sincere, can we say the same about the ultimate decisionmaker in Tehran, Supreme Leader Khamenei? Does the Supreme Leader truly want a deal or are his redlines an attempt to undermine the negotiations?

Secretary Kerry said this morning that ``the U.S. believes Iran has the right to a peaceful nuclear program under the NPT.''

Let's remind ourselves of first principles. No country has a right to enrichment. They may have the ability to enrichment or a desire to enrich, but they do not have the right to enrich, and certainly not Iran given its past behavior.

Let's remember how we reached this point. Over a period of decades, Iran has deceived the international community about its nuclear program, breaching its international commitment in what everyone agrees was an attempt to make Iran a nuclear weapons state or at least a threshold state. Experts such as those at the Institute for Science and International Security believe that Iran began building a secret uranium enrichment centrifuge facility underground at Fordow in 2006--3 years--3 years--before it was declared to the International Atomic Energy Administration. Now Iran is seeking to turn the tables on the negotiation to again convince the international community--through words rather than deeds--that it seeks a peaceful nuclear energy program. The Supreme Leader called the idea of closing Fordow ``laughable.'' For my colleagues, this is a facility built under a mountain, declared only after Iran was caught cheating, and designed to withstand a military strike. It does not take a nuclear expert to draw the obvious conclusion about Iran's intentions.

If Iran can't even agree to close the facility that is at the heart of its covert enrichment program, what concessions can it possibly make that would address international concerns? Are we supposed to take Iran at its word when its actions have demonstrated over years that it is not a good-faith actor? Are we supposed to believe that Iran wants 190,000 centrifuges--about 171,000 more than it has right now--for peaceful purposes? That is truly laughable.

Even for a country that doesn't have the world's third largest oil reserves--which Iran does--that would be an absurd position. Iran can-- and in fact already does--get cheaper and better nuclear fuel for the Bushehr reactor from Russia than it could make at home. Let me repeat that. It gets cheaper and better fuel from Russia for its nuclear reactor at the Bushehr facility than what it can make at home.

Experts agree that centrifuges must be a part of the deal. David Albright, a respected former International Atomic Energy Administration inspector, has said for Iran's move from an interim to a final agreement, it would have to close the Fordow facility and remove between 15,000 and 16,000 of its existing 20,000 centrifuges. Even then, we are looking at a breakout time of about 6 to 8 months, depending on whether Iran has access to uranium enriched to just 3.5 percent or access to 20-percent enriched uranium.

Dennis Ross, one of America's preeminent diplomats and foreign policy analysts, who has served under both Democratic and Republican Presidents, has said Iran should retain no more than 10 percent of its centrifuges. That is no more than 2,000.

So maybe the comments we have heard from the Supreme Leader were, as some analysts have suggested, an effort by the Supreme Leader to superimpose limitations on the negotiating team so at some point they would be free to say these issues are out of their hands, in the hope of somehow forcing a better deal this week in Vienna. So I suggest that we are either seeing a not so clever game of good cop-bad cop or Iran's negotiators in Vienna have done a poor job of communicating what their boss believes is the bottom line at the negotiating table or maybe we just haven't been listening to what we don't want to hear. From the onset of the talks, Iran's Foreign Minister Zarif and President Rouhani have said they would not dismantle any centrifuges. President Rouhani was adamant in an interview on CNN that Iran would not be dismantling its centrifuges.

Let me quote from that interview with Mr. Zakaria.

President Rouhani:

We are determined to provide for the nuclear fuel of such

plants inside the country, at the hands of local Iranian

scientists. We are going to follow on this path.

Zakaria said:

So there will be no destruction of centrifuges, of existing

centrifuges?

President Rouhani said:

No, no, not at all.

Let's remember that the onus in these talks is on Iran, not the P5+1. Iran is the party at fault. Iran is the party that came to these talks with unclean hands. Iran is the party that has been consistently and overwhelmingly rebuffed by the United Nations and the international community for its nuclear ambitions and support for terrorism, the subject of six U.N. Security Council resolutions and a multitude of sanctions regimes.

Just last week the U.S. courts agreed to a landmark payment of $1.7 billion to the families of Iranian terror victims, including families of the 241 servicemembers who died in the bombing of the Marine Corps barracks bombing in Lebanon in 1983--31 years ago--and 19 who died in the Khobar Towers bombing in eastern Saudi Arabia in 1996--both bombings perpetrated by Iran. Iran's duplicity has been going on for decades.

So who is the bad guy here? Now commentators may choose to see the U.S. Congress as the antagonist here, but I suggest they look across the table and decide whether they want to take a deal with Iran on a nod and a handshake. In my view, through its history, through its actions, through its false words and deeds for decades, Iran has forgone the ability for us to shake on a deal that freezes their program. The only option on the table can be a long-term deal that dismantles Iran's illicit nuclear weapons program--a deal that clearly provides for a long-term verification, inspection, and enforcement regime, and incentives for compliance in the form of sanctions relief-- based on Iranian actions that are verifiable, not on what Iran claims to be the truth.

The fact is, from my perspective, there is no sanctions relief signing bonus. If Iran wants relief from sanctions, then it needs to tangibly demonstrate to the world it is giving up its quest for nuclear weapons--period.

Let's remember that, although none of us in this Chamber are at the negotiating table, we have a tremendous stake in the outcome. Without Congress's bipartisan action on a clear sanctions regime, there would have been no talks and we would not even have had the hope of ending Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions. As a separate and coequal branch of government representing the American people, Congress has an obligation to provide oversight and a duty to express our views of what a comprehensive deal should look like. I will continue to come to this floor to express my views and my concerns given what we have heard and seen in the past from Iran.

Iran has a history of duplicity with respect to its nuclear program, using past negotiations to cover advances in its nuclear program. And let's not forget that President Rouhani, as the

former negotiator for Iran, said, in no uncertain terms:

The day that we invited the three European ministers to the

talks, only 10 centrifuges were spinning at Natanz. We could

not produce one gram of U4 or U6. We did not have the heavy

water production. We could not produce yellowcake. Our total

production of centrifuges inside the country was 150. We

wanted to complete all of these. We needed time. We did not

stop. We completed the program.

That is his quote.

The simple truth is he admitted to deceiving the West.

Everyone knows my history on this issue. Everyone knows where I stand. It is the same place I have always stood. For 20 years I have worked on Iran's nuclear issues, starting when I was a junior Member of the House, pressing for sanctions to prevent Iran from building the Bushehr nuclear powerplant and to halt IAEA support for Iranian mining and enrichment programs. For a decade I was told that my concern had no basis, that Iran would never be able to bring the Bushehr plant on line, and that Iran's activities were not a concern.

Well, history has shown those assessments about Iran's abilities and intentions were simply wrong. The fact is Iran's nuclear aspirations have been a long and deliberate process. They did not materialize overnight, and they will not end simply with a good word and a handshake. We need verification.

If Iran's nuclear weapons capability is frozen rather than largely dismantled, they will remain at the threshold of becoming a declared nuclear State should they choose to start again, because nothing will have changed if nothing is dismantled.

Make no mistake. Iran views developing a nuclear capability as fundamental to its existence. It has seen the development of nuclear weapons as part of a regional hegemonic strategy to make Tehran the center of power throughout the region. That is why our allies and partners in the region--not just Israelis, but the Emiratis and the Saudis--are so skeptical and so concerned about having a leak-proof deal. Quite simply, our allies and partners do not trust Iranian leaders, nor do they believe that Iran has any intention of verifiably ending its nuclear weapons program.

So while I welcome diplomatic efforts as what we have worked toward and I share the hope that the administration can achieve a final comprehensive agreement that eliminates this threat to global peace and security, for the U.S. Congress to support the relief that Iran is looking for, we will need a deal that doesn't just freeze Iran's nuclear weapons program, but a deal--demonstrated through verifiable action by Iran over years--that in fact turns back the clock and makes the world a safer place.

Let me say the fact is there are those who have created a false narrative over the last 6 months that now seems to be self- perpetuating, that anyone who expresses an opinion different than the desire to have a deal--almost a deal at any cost--is a warmonger. For those who now say, Well, if we don't have a deal, then what? I would remind them of what the administration has said time and time again: No deal is better than a bad deal. I agree with that sentiment. But I am concerned that there are forces that would accept a deal even if it is a bad deal. This doesn't serve the interests of the negotiators at the table in Vienna, and it doesn't serve the interests of the American people who want to ensure that Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon, and that any deal permanently eliminates the possibility that Iran could develop a nuclear weapon that threatens the international order. One mistake is all it takes.

At the end of the day, keeping the pressure on Iran to completely satisfy the United Nations and the international community's demands to halt and reverse its illicit nuclear activities is the best way to avoid war in the first place.

With that, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, we are here today to address a refugee crisis in America. I never thought I would have to use those words on the floor of the Senate, but there is no other way to describe what is happening on our southern border.

What is happening in Central America--the violence, the kidnappings, the failure of the rule of law--is the root cause of the problem and it is threatening tens of thousands of families and thousands and thousands of children. It is causing a refugee crisis that is simply unacceptable in America and unacceptable in our hemisphere. Let's be clear. It is being caused in large measure by thousands in Central America who believe it is better to run for their lives and risk dying than stay and die for sure. It is nearly a 2,000-mile journey from these countries to the U.S. border. These families are not undertaking this journey lightly.

My Republican colleagues make it sound as though parents are willingly choosing to risk their children's lives, send them on a 2,000-mile journey fraught with smugglers, thieves, child abductors, and sex traffickers as if that is a choice. They are parents, just as we are parents. I, as a parent, cannot imagine having to make that choice--to send them on a perilous journey with no guarantees of survival except out of an absolute fear for their lives if they stay. To politicize the decision to send a child away as opportunistic, as a way to take advantage of American law, is as cynical a position as I have ever heard.

First of all, there is no deferred action. Nothing we did for DREAMers in this country would help any of these people. They don't qualify under any elements of that provision. The immigration reform that passed here in the Senate by a broad bipartisan vote--68 votes-- would not help any one of these people because they would have had to have been in the country by December 31, 2011. Nothing in that law is an attraction--nothing.

Yet the Republicans in the House of Representatives will not even take a vote on immigration reform. Frankly, my Republican friends cannot have it both ways. They cannot criticize the President--in fact, sue the President--for abusing his Executive authority and at the same time come to this floor and criticize him for a lack of leadership when they will not even cast a vote. That is nothing if not totally and transparently political.

This is not about a welcome mat. It is a desperate effort on the part of thousands of parents to do what parents instinctively do, and that is to do what you must do to protect your child from the threats of violence and death at home even if it means sending them away.

Let's be clear. First and foremost, violence and crime are a pandemic that has sadly become part of life in Central America--in Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. Honduras has the highest per capita murder rate in the world. El Salvador and Guatemala are in the top five in the world.

Second, more than 80 percent of the illicit drugs coming from South America to the United States travel through Central America. Drug traffickers and local gangs harass and extort local residents, and they are able to use their profits to corrupt the police, judicial system, and government institutions.

Third, the rates of poverty and inequality in these countries are sky high, while levels of economic growth and development lag far behind other countries in Latin America.

A recent report by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees found the majority of the minors they interviewed here in the United States had left their home country out of fear. The bottom line is we must attack this problem from a foreign policy perspective, from a refugee perspective, and from a national security perspective. We need to do all we can to stabilize the situation in Central America and stop the flow of children and refugees to our border.

After a full year of squandering every conceivable opportunity to pass commonsense immigration reform, Speaker Boehner has admitted his party has killed any prospects for reform. Now we have to deal with the political consequences of the Republican leadership's obstructionism.

I fully support the President's efforts to fix some of the most urgent problems facing our Nation's broken immigration system, and I look forward to seeing those families who are here and eligible receive relief from deportation as we continue to advocate for a permanent legislative solution.

In the meantime, we need to provide emergency funding to deal with this refugee crisis. To begin with, the President's supplemental appropriation request is a very tough pro-enforcement legislation.

By the way, as we talk about more money for enforcement, we are actually doing a good job in enforcement of the border. Why do I say that? Because the reason we know of the size of the refugee challenge we are facing is because we are interdicting and apprehending these people at the border and then putting them in detention facilities. It is not that the Border Patrol is not doing their job. They are doing their job.

Yet we have a supplemental request on the appropriations bill that includes $3.7 billion for enforcement, Homeland Security, and other resources. It provides critical funding to prosecute traffickers who are bringing these kids here, and that is what my Republican colleagues have been asking for.

Let's be clear. We need to keep the supplemental clean and free of riders and authorizing language. If we don't keep it clean, it will never get passed. One person will want to add an item to immigration reform, and then another person will want to add an item to immigration reform. The bottom line is this body already passed--with over 68 votes--comprehensive immigration reform. We don't need to have a debate on a bill we have already passed. We need to deal with the emergency.

I love it when my Republican friends scream for action. This is emergency funding, and it is as conservative as it gets, focused almost entirely on enforcement. The bill is giving Republicans what they have always asked for--more money for border enforcement, especially in the border States.

We need to provide the President with the money so he can handle the refugee crisis. It is what we expect of nations around the world. It is what we tell other nations around the world. The history of America is to treat refugees appropriately and according to international standards.

Some of these children and families are refugees and some of them are not. The children who have claims should be able to pursue those claims with a day in court under existing U.S. law. If they lose, they will be deported. We have a legal system to address the crisis. Let's use it, and let's give the President the resources he needs to enforce it.

The President's supplemental appropriations request, in my mind, is an essential beginning, but I hope the administration will consider the 20-point plan I laid out that deals, in part, and I think importantly, with the root causes. Because if we spend $3.7 billion for enforcement and spend what we have been spending, which is about $110 million among five countries in Central America to create citizen security so people don't flee in the first place, it seems to me we have this equation a little wrong. We are going to spend $3.7 billion to deal with the consequences, but we are going to spend $110 million to deal with the cause. If we don't deal with the cause, guess what. There will never be enough money, and there will always be a continuing challenge of refugees fleeing the violence in their countries.

I hope we will increase aid for citizen security directed to help them with our law enforcement entities, to deal with the security of their country, to deal with the drug traffickers, to deal with the gangs. I hope we will increase aid to be able to create a sense of security in neighborhoods so people don't flee the country; so it isn't likely that your mother or father will be killed in front of you or your brother will be killed or your sister will be raped, which is increasingly the stories heard from these individuals, and that we will do it while implementing humane reforms that don't put innocent children in harm's way.

South of our border, we are seeing unprecedented violence, unprecedented suffering, unprecedented abuse. This is far more than an immigration issue, it is a refugee issue, much as we have seen in other parts of the world, and we must stop it. It will not be easy. There are no easy answers and no easy fixes, but I, for one, believe we should muster all the outrage we can to come up with a short-term fix and a long-term solution, as well as a strategy that does the following:

First, we have to identify the root causes of this far-reaching refugee problem. Second, we have to put pressure on governments in the hemisphere that are not handling crime and violence in their Nations in a way that prevents families from sending their children across the border in the first place. Third, we need to combat the smuggling and trafficking rings in Central America. That is in our own national security interests. Fourth, we have to effectively deal with the situation at hand and meet the humanitarian needs of these children-- and I mean children, 8 years old, 7 years old--no matter what it takes, without placing them in jail in the process.

Fifth, we have to deal with the overriding issues and basic causes from a foreign policy point of view. Then, we can deal with the join-or-die gang recruitment and the gang threats against children and their families in the hemisphere--in Honduras and in Guatemala. Six, we have to do all we can to combat international crime, working with our neighbors to end the violence, threats, and crime activity that is destabilizing the region. Seventh, we need to crack down hard on the explosion of gangs and smugglers forcing families apart and preying on young children.

I can tell my colleagues, as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I am seeing day after day violence in so many countries spreading to so many countries, but I have never seen or thought I would see refugees from this hemisphere spilling over our borders. We need to act, and we have to deal with the immediate crisis at hand.

This is not just a challenge here. Asylum claims in the region, meaning to other countries in the Central American region, have skyrocketed by 700 percent in recent years. Current law protects the ability of those children under our system who apply for asylum and trafficking protection and other specialized forms of relief to have their day in court. Not every child will have a valid claim, and those who do not will ultimately be deported and reintegrated back to what is obviously a violent set of circumstances as it exists today, but that will be the case. But it is critically important that every child be given the chance to have due process under our existing law so we don't inadvertently return them to death and violence. There are better ways to deal with this population than through detention or expedited proceedings that don't undermine that due process.

I would like the administration to explore the use of alternatives to detention for families we want to monitor and make sure they show up at their court proceedings. This supplemental appropriations bill should also include the opportunity to make sure we look at those systems and that the representation of children in court is an adequate one.

While the short-term needs are very pressing, we must also not ignore the long-term importance of shoring up our regional security in Central America. Congress should increase funding for CARSI, the Central America Regional Security Initiative, to assist with narcotics interdiction, institutional capacity building, and violence prevention.

State and USAID must develop a long-term strategy that includes increased development budgets to support sustainable growth. The Millennium Challenge Corporation should accelerate engagement in the region. I also think the State Department should designate a high-level coordinator to establish an office to be the focal point for policy formulation and a response to humanitarian concerns facing children escaping this region. Lastly, State and USAID should work together to establish effective repatriation and reintegration programs for children who are returning to their home countries.

If we don't deal with the root causes, this is what is going to happen: We will expedite the process, we will deport, and when they go home and face the same violence we have done nothing to change, their option will still be the same, flee or die. And they will take the risk all over again, and we will have the challenge all over again.

There are no easy answers, but I truly believe, at the end of the day, immigration reform--which had very significant border protection provisions, very significant antitrafficking and smuggling of individuals--in terms of assistance to deal with those challenges, would have been and is still incredibly important.

Convincing our Republican colleagues in the House that if we continue to do nothing, then there will continue to be trouble on our borders and the refugee problem will only get worse seems to be a difficult proposition. The fact is the Senate-passed bill actually contains important border security measures. If it had been passed in the House 1 year ago when the Senate passed it and sent it over there, then maybe we would have preempted a good part of the challenge we have today. It contains antismuggling, antitrafficking measures. It contains provisions to address criminal activity. Yet the House Republican leadership cannot bring itself to marginalize the extreme rightwing and do what is right and just and fair.

The bottom line is that we have to attack this problem from a refugee perspective, a foreign policy perspective, and a national security perspective. We need to do all we can to maximize our effort to fight the criminals, increase development opportunities, and provide the type of economic statecraft that can provide relief. We have to give families a chance to fight back economically and politically against those who are causing the violence and the illicit trafficking, the gang and drug violence, and those running criminal networks in the region.

I am concerned and I am angry and it is time to fight back, but it is also time to deal with the crisis that is upon us, and we can only do that if we give the President the resources to meet the challenge. Failure to be willing to support the resources to do that will rest on those who cast a negative vote and, therefore, from my perspective, will risk the national security along the border of the United States, will risk the consequences of the humanitarian and refugee crisis that will continue to flow, and will risk the consequences of the drug traffickers in Central America, the gangs in Central America, all who use that as a route to come to the United States.

It is easy to say no. It is far more difficult to be constructive. So far what I have heard in response to this crisis is the negativity of no, the criticism of the President for using Executive powers when the Congress of the United States fails to act in its own right. You can't have it both ways. This is a moment to call for the greater interests of the Nation than to play partisan politics that I have seen so far.

With that, I yield the floor.

Madam President, rising from the ashes of the 1994 genocide, the Rwandan people can be proud of the progress their country has made over the past two decades. Through reconciliation and resilience, Rwanda has entered a new phase of economic growth and is working to protect civilians in other countries through its vital contributions to global peacekeeping missions. The world has cheered these successes, but today we have cause for concern.

To cement its legacy as a world leader and model for development, there is in Rwanda today a clear need to ensure space for a thriving civil society--a hallmark of any democracy. I am deeply troubled by reports of shrinking space for dissenting voices. Rwanda's domestic human rights movement has been profoundly constrained by a combination of intimidation and stigmatization, threats, harassment, arbitrary arrests and detentions, infiltration, and administrative obstacles. The government's actions to censor domestic and international human rights

groups appear to be part of a broader pattern of intolerance of criticism.

In 2013, the United States, the United Kingdom, the United Nations Human Rights Council, Amnesty International, and Freedom House all expressed concern over the interference of the Rwandan Government in determining the leadership of the Rwandan League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights, one of the last remaining independent advocacy organizations in the country. This has effectively curtailed domestic civil society initiatives to monitor human rights abuses.

In June of this year, the U.S. State Department cited its deep concern over the arrest and disappearance of dozens of Rwandan citizens over a period of 2 months, citing incommunicado detention and a lack of due process, as well as the threatening of journalists.

Also in June, Human Rights Watch, HRW, an organization that has worked on Rwanda for more than 20 years and documented the 1994 genocide, was accused by the Ministry of Justice of political bias and collaboration with the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, FDLR, some of whose members participated in the genocide and committed horrific human rights abuses in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC. These accusations come in the wake of a May HRW critique of the Rwandan Government's actions, including forced disappearances, and discount HRW's constant critique of the FDLR's egregious human rights record in the DRC. HRW, the last independent international organization based in Kigali speaking out against human rights abuses, appears at increasing risk of not being able to do its job, and perhaps even of being shut down.

Rwanda's past should not be used as an excuse to suppress free speech and independent reporting in Rwanda today. Dissent is an important tool for citizens in holding their elected leaders accountable. Peaceful, law-abiding individuals and organizations should not be labeled as conspirators or enemies of state because they question the government. Freedom of expression and due process are rights that should extend to all Rwandans and its visitors--including journalists, human rights advocates, opposition members, and everyday citizens alike.

Rwanda has made great strides, but there is still work to do. As Rwanda faces its newest challenges, the United States stands with its people and remains committed to their success.

Madam President, I rise to speak to the 42 very well- qualified and very patient nominees who, through no fault of their own and certainly no fault of the Foreign Relations Committee and no fault of their records of service to this Nation that have been established, are trapped on the executive calendar, unable to assume their appointed posts because the Republican leadership has chosen obstructionism as a political tool. They have consciously chosen the strategy to do nothing, pass nothing, approve nothing, and leave, most importantly in my view, key diplomatic posts unfilled for months, threatening in many cases national security and our ability to conduct foreign policy.

Those who say that Congress is broken are wrong. The Congress isn't broken, but if the Republican leadership wants you to believe it is, they use every parliamentary tool to make certain, among other posts, we cannot fill key foreign policy positions. And the world waits, American foreign policy waits, diplomacy waits, and our allies wait to let these nominees and their families have some closure and get to work.

The blame for these posts being left vacant with these people being in political limbo rests squarely on the shoulders of the Republican leadership. It is not a problem with Congress or the Democrats or the President or with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Never, to my knowledge, has this body as a political strategy obstructed en masse the appointments of noncontroversial career Foreign Service officers who have worked for both Democratic and Republican administrations. Never.

Never have we held up appointments to so many ambassadorial positions, State Department positions, USAID positions, and representatives to the multilateral development banks. Eighteen of the forty-two pending nominees are ambassadors who would fill important posts in the Czech Republic, Bosnia, Albania, Gabon, Mauritania, Cameroon, Niger, Sierra Leone, Djibouti, and Kuwait. Nearly 20 percent--20 percent--of our total ambassadorial presence in Africa is being held up by the Republican leadership. All of them have waited on average 280 days--280 days--for Senate action. That is unfair to them. It is unfair to their families. It is bad policy. It is unnecessary, irresponsible, and completely unacceptable. And it has to end. It harms our regional coordination on issues such as food, security, and counterterrorism.

We are seeing what is happening across Africa, particularly northern Africa, and we have a challenge. We have a challenge that involves our national interests and our national security. You cannot promote the solutions to those challenges if you don't have an ambassador on the ground in those countries. Let us remember that U.S. leadership plays a major role in supporting peace and security efforts alongside our development, democracy, and humanitarian goals across Africa and around the world, preventing us from being able to project power and leadership, leaving us--in my view--vulnerable from a national security standpoint.

In West Africa, the Nigerian terrorist organization Boko Haram is perpetuating a brutal campaign of violence

and fear, kidnapping young women and taking advantage of porous borders with Niger and Cameroon. The United States is leading an effort with our international partners to improve regional coordination to address both this threat and serious development challenges in the region.

Unfortunately, the Senate has yet to confirm the ambassadorial nominees to Niger or Cameroon. We need to fill these ambassadorial positions in order to promote our interests and our coordination in the region in pursuit of some of these goals.

Mauritania has been a key partner in addressing the terrorist threat posed by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, AQIM, in Africa's volatile Sahel region.

Let's not forget that the East African Nation of Djibouti holds U.S. Africa Command's Combined Joint Task Force--Horn of Africa and is the U.S. military's only enduring infrastructure in Africa, Camp Lemonnier, home to some 4,000 U.S. servicemembers and civilians.

Our cooperation with Djibouti supports counterterrorism efforts against Al-Shabaab in Somalia and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in nearby Yemen and anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden. Al-Shabaab recently carried out its first terrorist attack in Djibouti, targeting a restaurant frequented by westerners. Yet our ambassadorial nominee, Thomas Kelly, remains unconfirmed.

In addition to supporting peace and security efforts in Africa, the United States also plays a key role supporting democratic governance across the continent, which in turn contributes to greater stability.

Niger and Namibia are set to hold Presidential elections within the next 9 months and both ambassadorial nominees have yet to be confirmed by the full Senate.

At a time when stability in parts of Africa is tenuous, at best, with conflicts, famine, and the ever-increasing threat from criminal and terrorist organizations, it is simply not in our national interest to have the President's nominees--many of them career Foreign Service officers--in many cases held up for political reasons for nearly a year--a year in so many cases.

U.S. leadership in international organizations is being negatively affected. In fact, the nominee for Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs was reported to the Senate on March 3. Her nomination is not the least bit controversial, and yet she has not been confirmed.

Nominees for posts at the United Nations have been pending for months, including the nominee to be U.S. Representative to the U.N. Conference on Disarmament, who was reported out on March 11. These gaps have affected our credibility around the world, and they are affecting U.S. national security.

It is worth understanding that this list is not static. We are constantly adding nominees to the Executive Calendar. We held hearings for an additional five nominees last week. Four more had their hearings today, chaired by Senator Cardin--who is here on the floor with me and has done an exceptional job in this regard--including our nominees to be ambassador to Korea and Vietnam. Simply stated, the backlog is weakening America's role in the world.

The vast majority of these nominees are uncontroversial. They have passed committee by voice vote, not even a recorded vote, and are nominations that normally would have gone through the Senate en bloc by unanimous consent. Holding them hostage is simply wrong on every level.

Never has one party stood in the way of full and complete conduct of foreign policy, and it is time the American people understand who is to blame for the dysfunction that is holding them hostage for political reasons. And as we hold up action on these nominees, the world is convulsing. The days are filled with a steady stream of breaking-news stories, disheartening images, trending tweets of reports of unrest in Ukraine, Iraq, Venezuela; mass atrocities in Syria, South Sudan, the Central African Republic; heart-wrenching accounts of kidnapped girls in Nigeria and alarming events of violence against women in Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and other parts of the world. That is the daily diet of what we see unfolding across the world.

American leadership is expected by the international community during this challenging period, and it is in fact something that is in our own national interests and national security interests.

Some complain that the United States does too much and others argue that we don't do enough, but always the debate in foreign affairs is centered on our Nation and the vital role we fill within the international system. We live in a new world defined by technological advancement and rapid globalization, but we are history-bound by a deeply imbued duty to provide moral clarity when it appears lacking, of serving as a lighthouse to a community of nations undergoing profound transformation.

In one very particular arena, we are failing this charge. We are leaving our embassies without the tools they need, without the necessary leadership to pick up that metaphorical hammer.

Using obstruction as a political tool, we are being forced to turn from our vital responsibility of confirming ambassadorial nominees to conduct American foreign policy. That means turning from our responsibility in everything from providing emergency services for Americans abroad to responding to humanitarian crises around the world, to supporting U.S. businesses and our commerce agenda overseas. The lack of confirmed ambassadors is crippling our global agenda.

Consider this: Key U.S.-held positions at the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, the Inter-American Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and other international financial institutions are not filled.

Seizing the opportunity, Russia and China are actively lobbying IMF members to reduce U.S. ownership share in the bank. Just recently, Christine Lagarde, IMF managing director said: ``I wouldn't be surprised if one of these days the IMF was headquartered in Beijing.''

No nation can hear what we have to say if we are not there, if we have no voice. It is not an overstatement to say our national security is affected by Republican noncooperation. One example is the Assistant Secretary of State for Verification, Compliance, and Implementation tasked with monitoring and verifying our arms control agreements remains empty, and that affects our ability to design and implement a potential agreement to halt Iran's illicit nuclear weapons program.

Last week, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing for the nominees to serve in Egypt, Iraq, and Qatar. Imagine those countries not having a U.S. ambassador during a time when they are going through massive turmoil and change--some of them, not all of them, but Iraq is certainly going through turmoil. We will soon vote to approve these Foreign Service officers, but there is no guarantee they will be confirmed expeditiously by the Senate despite the very obvious need for a constant U.S. presence in these Nations. Iraq is on the verge of civil war and we have no way to confirm Stu Jones, a very qualified nominee who is currently serving in Jordan for the post to replace Robert Beecroft, who is headed to Egypt but is currently in Iraq.

That this scenario is even a possibility, given their pending assignments, concerns me and should concern all of us. Perhaps their fate will be similar to the nominee to Kuwait, who has not received a confirmation vote for nearly 200 days.

The Emir of Kuwait recently made a historic visit to Iran. Persistent reports link wealthy Kuwaiti donors to a variety of extremists, including the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria--the ISIS, which is threatening Iraq. Yet we lack the ambassador's ears and eyes on the ground to provide the analysis we need.

Of the 42 unconfirmed nominees, almost half are career ambassadors, who, as I said earlier, have served this Nation for a lifetime on behalf of Democratic and Republican administrations. Some were already confirmed, as I said earlier, in the past by the Senate and served as ambassadors in previous posts.

So let me conclude by saying since becoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, we have debated and voted to approve 125 nominees, oftentimes unanimously and without discord.

But apparently the pricetag for Leader Reid executing what some call the nuclear option to get anything done in the Senate is the Republican leadership's intransigence that gums up the Senate proceedings, particularly holding ambassadorial nominees hostage and in so doing harming our national security objectives. This standoff is having very negative and real implications in the world that is beset by chaos and in need of American engagement. It has to end and it has to end now.

It is not about a Republican or a Democratic divide in terms of importance. This is about the national interests and security of the United States. If we are not in our embassies abroad as a leader, we can do all the diplomacy and efforts from the State Department, but at the end of the day the person on the ground every day and engaging with the leadership of that country and promoting American ideals, values, and interests is the ambassador. In the absence of an ambassador, we cannot be heard. I don't want the United States not to be heard.

I see my colleague from Maryland, a distinguished member of the committee who has held so many of these hearings for nominees and has done a fantastic job on behalf of the committee. He is going to speak next. As the chair of one of our key subcommittees, it is critical, as you will hear from him, that we have our nominees so our interests can be represented.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today the United States men's soccer team begins its quest for World Cup glory in Brazil. The 23 players selected by head coach Juurgen Klinsmann include native New Jerseyans Tim Howard, Michael Bradley, Jozy Altidore, and Alejandro Bedoya. They have dedicated themselves to being the best at their craft, and now have an opportunity to represent the United States of America at the world's premier soccer event.

The World Cup is an extraordinary tournament whose reach extends well beyond the pitch. It has the incredible ability to unify peoples in celebration and even halt civil conflict, as was seen temporarily in Coote d'Ivoire in 2006. I sincerely hope that moving into the future, the institution of the World Cup can be a symbol of increased international cooperation.

While many consider the U.S. a relatively recent addition to the global soccer community compared to our friends in Europe and South America, we actually finished third at the first ever World Cup held in Uruguay in 1930. I hope that this U.S. team will build upon our rich soccer history and represent our great Nation well in our seventh consecutive World Cup appearance. As our supporters say, ``onward

Madam President, 2 weeks ago I came to the Senate floor to ask unanimous consent to ratify the protocol amending our tax treaty with Switzerland. I argued that the new protocol would no longer permit Swiss banks to withhold information on U.S. individuals who have hidden behind Swiss bank secrecy laws to avoid paying U.S. taxes.

Today I come to the Senate floor to ask unanimous consent to ratify the bilateral income tax treaty with Chile.

If the protocol with Switzerland is the perfect example of how tax treaties enhance our efforts to prevent tax evasion, the treaty with Chile--the first between our two countries--is the perfect example of why the United States pursues tax treaties. We pursue them to promote greater trading investment.

We pursue them to protect American companies from double taxation. We pursue them to expand new markets and develop new business opportunities for companies and investors.

On April 1 the Foreign Relations Committee, with strong bipartisan support, reported favorably on a proposed new income tax treaty with Chile. If ratified, the treaty would be only the third U.S. tax treaty in all of Latin America, but it would be a significant step forward in a region critical to U.S. international economic interests and would be with one of our strongest allies in the hemisphere.

What does this treaty do? Simply put, it promotes trade and investment between the United States and Chile. It provides for reduced withholding rates on cross-border payments of dividends, interest, and royalties. It would prevent avoidance or evasion of the taxes, includes rigorous protections against treaty shopping, and ensures exchange of information between our nations' tax authorities.

Let me also add, the American private sector's support for this treaty is unequivocal. To quote from a 2013 letter to Senate leaders from the National Foreign Trade Council, the National Association of Manufacturers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and other major U.S. business associations, `` . . . ratification would represent an important milestone in lowering tax barriers to U.S. companies operating in Latin America . . . and would protect the interests of U.S. taxpayers'' in Chile.

This protects and grows U.S. investment in Chile. It expands U.S. economic engagement in the region, and that is a win-win-win.

I know there are those in the Chamber who do not see it that way, but these are the facts of economic engagement and economic statecraft in the hemisphere.

In the last decade, Chile has taken a regional leadership role on trade issues. It is one of our most important bilateral economic partners in the region. Total bilateral trade has nearly tripled since 2003, and U.S. investment in Chile has more than tripled from $10 billion in 2004 to roughly $35 billion today. Ratifying this treaty will take the bilateral commercial relationship to the next level.

I understand newly inaugurated Chilean President Michelle Bachelet plans to travel to Washington later this month to continue the close partnership between our two countries. Ratifying this treaty would send President Bachelet a strong message that we value our partnership with Chile and we are serious about further expanding economic opportunities between our two countries.

Madam President, 1,421 days have passed since the last time this Senate ratified an income tax treaty. We can end that ignoble streak right now.

So I ask unanimous consent, at a time to be determined by the majority leader, in consultation with the Republican leader, the Senate proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 8, treaty document No. 112-8; that the treaty be considered as having advanced through the various parliamentary stages up to and including the presentation of the resolutions of ratification; that any committee declarations be agreed to as applicable; that any statements be printed in the Record as if read; that if the resolution of ratification is agreed to, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action and the Senate then resume legislative session.

Madam President, I would have more extensive remarks, but I know my colleague from Maryland has a different unanimous consent request. Let me make just three quick points.

Chile's and other tax treaties the Foreign Relations Committee has reported favorably do not represent the first time the Senate has considered treaties providing for information exchange based on a ``foreseeably relevant'' or ``may be relevant'' standard.

In fact, since 1999--so that is about 15 years now--the Senate has adopted resolutions of advice and consent for at least eight other tax treaties using the relevant standard. This standard has been part of the model of U.S. tax treaties since 2006. So it is not correct that the ``may be relevant'' or ``foreseeably relevant'' standard is vague or ambiguous. In fact, it has been extensively defined in agreed guidance to which no country has expressed a dissenting opinion to date.

I must say that not only are these objections ultimately not providing all the benefits that all of the private-sector interests have expressed--as I referred to before, the entire business community--but by the same token, I simply have a tough time accepting that those who cheat get away with cheating and that somehow we are going to make it easier for them to cheat when the average American does not have the opportunity nor the desire nor do they cheat in terms of their payment of whatever are the taxes they owe to the Federal Government in a way that helps sustain all of the things we seek as Americans: the best armed forces in the world, security here at home, educational opportunity for our kids.

So there is a fundamental difference here. I will push these tax treaties, and I will urge the majority leader to give us votes then in a process because it has overwhelming support and we cannot have one Member of the Senate object to a process that can provide such benefits and such equity across the board.

I yield the floor.

I thank the distinguished Senator from Arizona and a distinguished member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for his courtesy. I know he will be making comments in which I share his concerns and for which he has been very outspoken. I will try to condense my effort here.

On Monday, the Department of Justice announced that Swiss bank Credit Suisse pled guilty to the criminal charge of helping American citizens cheat on their taxes, and agreed to pay a $2.6 billion fine. The bank admitted to using bogus entities to disguise undeclared U.S. accounts from American tax authorities, and it admitted to helping its clients arrange large cash transactions to skirt U.S. reporting requirements.

The guilty plea means that the bank will be punished for its transgressions, and it serves as a warning to others who would engage in or enable tax evasion. But astoundingly, Credit Suisse will not be required to disclose additional names of U.S. citizens who hired the bank to help them cheat on their taxes and evade prosecution by U.S. authorities.

As the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations reported earlier this year, the Justice Department has only been able to obtain the names of 238 Credit Suisse customers out of 22,000 U.S.-owned accounts at the bank. The reason for this is simple. Swiss bank secrecy laws forbid Credit Suisse and other Swiss banks from sharing information about their clients with U.S. tax authorities, even if those clients are actively violating U.S. tax laws.

Luckily, we have a simple solution, one which we could enact right now with the agreement from this body. On April 1, the Foreign Relations Committee, with strong bipartisan support, reported out favorably a new protocol amending our tax treaty with Switzerland. For decades, tax treaties have played a key role in facilitating greater and more transparent trade and investment. They have helped protect American companies from double taxation and made it easier for them to explore new markets and business opportunities.

They do this all while simultaneously protecting U.S. taxpayer privacy and information confidentiality. They enhance our efforts to prevent tax avoidance or evasion. The new protocol with Switzerland would not permit Swiss banks, like Credit Suisse, to withhold information on U.S. individuals who have, for years, hidden behind Swiss bank secrecy laws to avoid paying U.S. taxes.

The protocol brings our tax treaty with Switzerland into conformity with both the entire internationally accepted standards on the information exchange as well as the most recent U.S. model tax treaty. It includes an arbitration provision to ensure that when disputes arise between the U.S. and Swiss tax authorities over issues like the exchange of information, these disputes will be resolved expeditiously, rather than dragging on and frustrating cross-border tax enforcement.

The Swiss government has already ratified the protocol. We should do the same. Credit Suisse pled guilty to abetting tax evasion--a criminal charge. But they were not forced to disclose the names of actual tax evaders because doing so would violate Swiss bank secrecy laws. Ratifying the treaty with Switzerland is therefore necessary.

It will enable U.S. authorities to obtain information about these and other tax evaders who are still taking advantage of bank secrecy laws to avoid paying their fair share.

I ask unanimous consent that at a time to be determined by the majority leader, in consultation with the Republican leader, the Senate proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 9, treaty document No. 112-1; that the treaty be considered as having advanced through the various parliamentary stages up to and including the presentation of resolutions of ratification; that any committee declarations be agreed to as applicable; that any statements be printed in the Record as if read; that if the resolution of ratification is agreed to, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate resume legislative session.

Very briefly, I am disappointed because basically what we are going to do--those of us who are law-abiding and pay our taxes have to suffer the consequences of those who cheat and go abroad to do so. When they do that, they undermine the ability of this government to have the resources to arm the men and women who serve us abroad, protect them, take care of their health care, and deal with the challenges of educating the next generation of Americans.

Let me just say that this question that the treaty somehow infringes--first of all, if Switzerland is not a friendly country, I don't know what is. It is not a question of a country that isn't friendly, so let's remove that objection.

The treaty supposedly infringes on the fourth amendment rights of U.S. citizens. Look, these bilateral tax treaties only permit the exchange of information that is foreseeably relevant to the collection of taxes.

The proposed treaty also provides protection against fishing expeditions. To exchange information, the requesting country must demonstrate that the individuals targeted have engaged in activities that suggested they are engaging in fraud.

The existing treaty with Switzerland requires the requesting country to establish tax fraud or fraudulent misconduct as a basis for the exchange. That standard has clearly proven to be too narrow for the purposes of prosecuting tax evasion, as demonstrated by the outcome of this Credit Suisse settlement, where the bank still does not have to hand over the names of individuals who use Credit Suisse accounts to hide their income.

Now the wages and U.S. bank account interests of Americans are both reported to the IRS. There is no reason why people with foreign bank accounts should be able to hide their money from the IRS in a way that average, hard-working Americans cannot. It boggles my mind that we are going to treat average, hard-working Americans in a different way than those who have the money to cheat and ultimately avoid their responsibility to our collective society, so we will continue to raise this issue.

I won't expound upon it any more--I have plenty to say--in deference to the Senator from Arizona, who was gracious enough to yield the floor.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 22, 2014, at 9:30 a.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet, during the session of the Senate, on May 22, 2014, at 10 a.m. in room SD-430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing entitled ``Examining Access and Supports for Servicemembers and Veterans in Higher Education.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation, and Community Development be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 22, 2014, at 9:30 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Bringing Our Transit Infrastructure to a State of Good Repair.''

Madam President, a year ago the Senate Judiciary Committee reported out a piece of legislation that would do more than increase the gross domestic product, do more than reduce the deficit, do more than promote prosperity, and do more than create jobs. It passed legislation that would take 11 million people out of the shadows in America, prevent anyone from becoming a second-class citizen in this country, and finally establish comprehensive, commonsense immigration reform.

Today, 1 year later, it sits languishing in the House of Representatives and 11 million people wait and wait and wait. While they wait, while they hope that we come to our senses and govern as we should, the toll from inaction compounds: families suffer, children suffer, deportations continue, and injustice prevails.

There is a cost to our inaction, a cost those in the House of Representatives are forcing upon us, as we wait for them to act, that accrues every day. They claim they are for fiscal responsibility. Yet their inaction is costing us each year, on average, $80 billion of

real GDP, $40 billion in higher deficits, 40,000 STEM grads who earn a Master's or a Ph.D. in STEM fields from U.S. universities, 50 million in the Social Security trust fund, over 50,000 fewer jobs, and $13.5 billion in lost revenue.

I hope our Republican colleagues in the House understand exactly what the cost of inaction is. I hope they understand that every minute we waste passing commonsense immigration reform is costing American taxpayers more and more, and the cost is on them, and the losses I view as Republican losses.

The fact is Republicans are acting as if nothing is at stake, as if there is no cost, as if the lives of people and families are not in the balance, and they could not be more wrong. Besides the economic cost of inaction, there is a very real human cost. Franklin Roosevelt once said, citing Dante, that, ``Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.''

Let us not be frozen in the ice of our own indifference. Let us act, govern. I call on my Republican colleagues to warm their hearts and think about the costs of inaction not only in dollars and cents but in the lives of families and the future of this Nation. The legislation we are waiting for is a comprehensive way to tackle our immigration problem.

We are on the verge of historic change. I am proud to have been part of the Gang of 8 that hammered out a strong bipartisan effort that passed this institution with 67 votes. That is not usual these days for questions of great controversy.

I say to my friends in the other body: Do the right thing for America and, by the way, for your own party. Find common ground, lean away from the extreme, opt for reason, and govern with us.

In my view, the leadership in the other body has a chance to be American heroes, a chance to bring both sides together in an alliance that will ensure passage of this bill. I believe, based on poll after poll, that a vast majority of Americans want immigration reform to pass, and will thank them for doing the right thing. I hope they have the political will. I hope they have the political courage to unite the Nation and send this bill to the President's desk. I hope they will pass a bill that will increase the gross domestic product, reduce the deficit, promote prosperity, and create jobs.

As I have pointed out on this floor many times, this chart shows cumulative economic gains of the legalization process over 10 years after passage of this legislation. Fixing the broken immigration system would increase America's gross domestic product by over $800 billion over the next 10 years; it would increase the wages of all Americans by $470 billion over 10 years, and increase jobs by 121,000 per year for 10 years. That is over 1.2 million jobs.

What do we ever get to do here that increases the gross domestic product, reduces the deficit, raises the wages of all Americans, and creates 120,000-plus jobs per year? Very little. This legislation does that, not just simply because I say it but because the Congressional Budget Office said many of these figures were, in fact, a reality. Immigrants will start small businesses, they will create jobs for American workers, and it is time to harness that economic power.

The CBO report also tells us we reduce direct spending and the deficit by $158 billion over the next decade, and by another $685 billion more from 2024 through 2033. Let's remember, we are talking about almost $1 trillion in deficit spending that we can lift off the backs of the next generation, exactly what our Republican friends demand. Yet they are balking in the face of achieving one of their very fundamental principles. What other single piece of legislation increases GDP growth, increases wages, increases jobs, and lowers the deficit?

The Center for American Progress found that fixing the broken immigration system would increase wages of all Americans by $470 billion over 10 years and increase jobs by 121,000 per year. What we realize now and what the numbers tell us is that giving 11 million people a clear and defined earned pathway to citizenship is, in effect, an economic growth strategy that lowers the deficit and creates jobs. That is exactly what we are looking to do to move this economy forward.

New Americans who follow this pathway we lay out will have to play by rules. They will have to pass criminal background checks, they will have to pay a fine, they will have to pay their taxes. But if they do, there will be no obstacle they cannot overcome to the day when they raise their right hand and pledge allegiance to the United States and become a naturalized citizen.

Too many families have waited too long for that day. Too many have waited too long to say those words that will change their lives forever. They changed my mother's life, and, in turn, gave me a chance to stand here today and vote for a pathway to citizenship that can change the lives of millions of others.

But it is not just the economics of the legislation that creates the urgency of now, it is the human toll, the toll on millions living in the shadows. That can be pretty dark and frightening. Last year over 150,000 people were deported just for paperwork violations. Hundreds of thousands have been deported despite having U.S. citizen children. They are not criminals; they are hard-working families trying to make ends meet.

For many years I have asked the administration to stop deporting fathers and mothers, stop separating families, stop taking away parents from their U.S. citizen resident children. Let me tell you about one of these cases, the case of Carlos Oliva-Guillen who was about to be deported away from his three U.S. citizen children, including his 7- month-old infant son who is suffering from a life-threatening disorder. The baby was on the verge of a coma and facing potential brain damage while his dad was in detention about to be deported.

The doctors needed to do a blood test on Carlos, the baby's dad, to see if the baby's illness is genetic. Thank God that Carlos was released and brought back to New Jersey so doctors could pursue these lifesaving tests and treatment.

Those tragedies continue as long as we do not have comprehensive immigration reform. With all of these economic benefits and the tremendous human suffering at stake, what are we waiting for? We are waiting for the House leadership to stand up to a minority--to a minority. We are waiting for Speaker Boehner to schedule a vote. We are waiting for reason to prevail, for our Republican friends in the other body to once and for all do what is right and think about the cost of inaction, not only in dollars and cents but in the lives of the families and the future of this Nation.

We are waiting for the Speaker to stop letting the most radical voices, such as Stephen King, dictate the future of immigration reform. Speaker Boehner himself has publicly denounced Congressman King for his ``hateful language.'' Yet the only--the only--immigration-related vote the Speaker of the House of Representatives has allowed in the past year was for radical proposals to end DACA and deport our Nation's DREAMers. It is time for Speaker Boehner to stand for the majority of the Republican Party and of the Congress in the House of Representatives and remove Stephen King's undeserved carte blanche on immigration policy.

If we had a vote in the House, the Senate bill as passed would pass. It would pass today. It would pass with both Democratic and Republican votes. We have the votes in the House to pass the Senate bill. We just need the will of a Republican leadership behind a bill that reduces the deficit, increases the GDP, creates jobs. I cannot understand, for the life of me, why they cannot break the stranglehold by a few against the will of the many.

Considering that there are enough votes in the House to pass the Senate bill and send it to the President, we deserve action. Eleven million people deserve, at the very least, the political courage to face down the extreme minority and do what is right and govern from the commonsense center.

Time is not on our side. There is a limited window of opportunity. We only have about another 2 months at most for the Speaker to act. So it is in the Speaker's hands. Does he want reform or doesn't he? I know I hear him say he does. I want to believe that. I will be the first to applaud him.

Speaker Boehner, however, on the one side said he wants to get immigration reform. The next thing I hear is that he questions the President's commitment to enforce the law as the reason why they are not moving forward on immigration reform, even as this President is deporting more people than the Bush administration. This administration has deported almost 2 million people. I do not understand. When the Speaker says, ``We can't trust the President to enforce the law,'' it seems to me what he is calling for is even greater deportations than the greatest deportations that have taken place over the last Republican administration.

So saying the President isn't enforcing enough, the Speaker is really arguing for more deportations and has done nothing to stop those deportations.

The only conclusion we can draw is that my friends on the other side support the current dysfunctional system, and they do so at a cost to the country. They do so at a cost to families, and I also believe that beyond all the policy arguments that I have talked about--the GDP, the reduction in the deficit, the creation of jobs, the raising of wages, helping our agricultural industry through the ag jobs provision, helping our high-tech industries through the provisions of the legislation, and so many others--not only do they risk all of that and risk the families, but I believe they risk their political futures.

The road to the White House goes through the barrio, as my friend in the House of Representatives, Congressman Gutieerrez, says. If we look at States across the country in which there are large immigrant populations who vote, who are U.S. citizens, and who look at this as the civil rights issue of their time, you cannot win the electoral votes of those States if you cannot find a way to a commonsense immigration reform. So their own futures, politically speaking, are at risk.

But even more than that political risk, our country is at risk--a risk that will hinder our own economic growth and leave millions in the shadows as second-class citizens, a risk that deportations will continue to tear parents away from their infants, despite the parents desperately seeking to register, get right with the law, and pay their taxes.

I thought that so many of my colleagues talk about the family values. Well, family values isn't about ripping families asunder. Family values isn't about ultimately saying that someone has a paperwork violation, so you rip them apart from their three American children--a risk that we will address as one of the greatest civil rights issues of our time.

I have cases in my office of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents of the United States unlawfully detained in immigration raids because of the happenstance of where they live or what they look like or how they speak.

Who among us, who have the privilege of serving in this institution, is ready to become a second-class citizen because of the happenstance of where you live, what you look like or how you speak, when you are a U.S. citizen or a legal permanent resident? This includes among others, in one case, an Iraq war veteran who was detained while his status was determined.

My first and foremost focus is on getting the House Republican leadership, after 1 year of this body's having passed an immigration bill, to either consider the Senate legislation or their own comprehensive version. That is the ultimate solution. Everything else is a bandaid. But let me be clear. There is a limited window of opportunity we have open to us until the end of July.

If Republicans do not act, they will have forced the President to ultimately use his executive powers on enforcement questions and on deportation relief.

Either they are tone deaf to the priorities of the Nation's largest- growing and fastest-growing minority or they are ignoring the will and interests of their own party and acting against their own stated goal of reducing the deficit.

They can keep finding excuses for inaction, but there are no more excuses. Enough is enough.

The community across the country is riveted in their attention as to what is going to happen in the House of Representatives. I hope that attention will ultimately be a joyful one if the House acts. But if it does not, it will reap the wrath of a community who sees this as the critical civil rights issue of their time and the consequences will be longstanding. I hope they meet the better angels that are within them and ultimately produce the comprehensive immigration reform the Nation needs for its security, for its economy, for doing the right thing as a nation of immigrants, by doing the right thing for those families.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, the 2014 Ice Hockey World Championship began on May 9 in Minsk, Belarus, one of the last vestiges of authoritarianism in Europe. By hosting a global sports competition that promotes integrity and observes uniform regulations, Belarus should take this opportunity to show the international community that it will follow suit and support the fundamental rights and freedoms of its citizens.

This year also marks the 20th year of President Lukashenka's iron- fisted Presidency whose elections have been marred by the detention of political opponents and civil society actors, as well as the lack of an open and free press. During his rule, he has eliminated all political opposition, eroded the rule of law, and curtailed the freedoms of expression, assembly, and association.

President Lukashenka, the international community calls on you to support the right of every Belarusian citizen to be free. We call on you to take decisive steps towards making Belarus an open and democratic country where the rules of politics, as well as those of sports, are governed by free and fair standards.

Madam President, I wish to recognize National Tourette Syndrome Awareness Month, which runs from May 15, 2014, through June 15, 2014. This annual observance is an opportunity for us to help the many Americans affected by Tourette syndrome by raising awareness and encouraging expanded investments in research.

Tourette syndrome, or TS, is a neurological disorder that typically develops during childhood. TS is characterized by repetitive, stereotyped, involuntary movements and vocalizations called tics, which can range from mild to severe and disabling. The National Institutes of Health, NIH, estimates that 200,000 Americans have the most severe form of TS and as many as 1 in 100 Americans exhibit milder symptoms such as chronic motor or vocal tics. Additionally, people with TS often have other co-occurring mental or behavior health conditions. A child diagnosed with TS has a 79-percent chance of being diagnosed with another condition such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADHD, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, OCD, anxiety or depression.

An often misunderstood and stigmatizing disorder, TS can have a profound and negative impact on the quality of life of those affected. Research indicates that TS may be hereditary and that abnormal signaling between brain circuits plays a casual role, but the cause of the disorder remains unknown. Treatments for TS are also limited, although several agents have proven effective in mitigating tics and improving social functioning.

Expanding our national research efforts on TS can help us to identify the cause, discover new treatments, and find a cure. Last session, I introduced the Collaborative Academic Research Efforts, CARE, for Tourette Syndrome Act, which builds upon our national research efforts in two major ways. First, the bill expands and intensifies data collection on the prevalence of TS and the availability of medical and social services for those with TS and their families. Second, the bill establishes centers of excellence to conduct in depth, multidisciplinary research into the causes, treatments, diagnosis, and prevention of TS.

National Tourette Syndrome Awareness Month, which runs from May 15 to June 15, presents us with an opportunity to advocate for the passage of the Collaborative Academic Research Efforts, CARE, for Tourette Syndrome Act (S. 637). We must provide the NIH with the tools necessary to further our understanding of TS. Through greater awareness, expanded information, and enhanced therapies and treatments, it is my hope that we will improve the quality of life for all people touched by TS.

Reserving the right to object, this request is, in my view, without merit. It is an effort to follow in the footsteps of the unfortunate, politically motivated creation of a just-founded special committee by the House of Representatives just in time for midterm elections. The supposed reason once again we hear colleagues saying we need to have another review, another hearing, another investigation, is the White House email. This is the smoking gun.

When you read the email, in fact, it is nothing more than a day-to- day work product and part of the job of the President's staff when they are talking about, not Benghazi--not Benghazi--but what is happening across the entire region, and clearly across many parts of the Arab world. What happened as a result of that video was a visceral response, and it is in that context that this email is being discussed, but our friends--who will never be satisfied because it doesn't solve their political concerns--at the end of the day seek to use this as their latest claim for their ``investigation.''

Their previous one-trick pony, repealing the Affordable Care Act, has finally been put out to pasture. The Republicans desperately need another political trick, and apparently when there is nothing else of substance to fire up their base, their plan is to yell ``Benghazi'' as often and as loudly as possible.

This request is, from my perspective, purely a political witch hunt without merit. There have been 11 congressional hearings on the attack. The executive branch has released 25,000 pages of documents and email related to the incident. There has been an independent Accountability Review Board report. There have been multiple Congressional reports on the attack. The Senate Intelligence Committee issued a bipartisan report last January on the attack. The House Armed Services Committee issued a report on military response to the attack. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which I chair, has held multiple hearings and briefings to review the events that occurred in Benghazi. We heard from Secretary Clinton. We heard from Secretary Kerry. We have heard from Deputy Secretary Burns. We have met with survivors of the Benghazi attack. We have multiple briefings from Assistant Secretary Starr and with diplomatic security. We have had briefings from the intelligence community and the Department of Defense.

Whatever questions remain are meant, from my perspective, only to score political points. I feel confident the Congress and the American people have received the necessary information about the attack, but Congress is not without responsibility. We also have an obligation to do our part to comply with the Administrative Review Board's recommendations.

Benghazi again highlighted the need to maintain focus and to revise policies to better protect the nearly 70,000 men and women serving across the world in more than 275 posts. The Congress took a serious look at the issue following another set of tragedies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam that resulted in 224 deaths, including 11 American citizens.

We may not be able to prevent every single terror attack in the future, but we can and we must make sure our embassies and employees, starting with high-risk, high-threat posts, are capable of withstanding such an attack. That is why the Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed S. 1836, the Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods, and Glen Doherty Embassy Security Threat Mitigation and Personal Protection Act of 2013.

If the Senate wants to take effective action to safeguard our brave men and women serving in U.S. embassies and consulates abroad, if we want to actually be serious about discharging our duties and to make sure these attacks are less likely to occur in the future, rather than grandstanding for cheap political advantage, then it is time to take up S. 1386 and immediately pass a bipartisan bill--that Senator Corker and I authored together with support from both sides of the aisle on our committee--that would authorize the funding for the key items identified by the Accountability Review Board on Benghazi, including embassy security and construction, language training, and an improved and integrated foreign affairs security training for State Department personnel.

It provides contract authority to the State Department to allow it to award contracts on a best value basis, rather than to the lowest bidder, where conditions require enhanced levels of security, and it goes on and on about our high-risk, high-threat posts meeting all the elements of what the review board said was critical to make sure we don't lose lives again.

I would rather we legislate, which our constituents sent us to do, and pass bills extending our Nation's security policy and addressing the real challenges and real lessons to be learned from the tragic events at Benghazi. The bipartisan embassy security bill does just that.

For that purpose, I would ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 257, S. 1386, a bill to provide for enhanced embassy security; and further, that the committee-reported amendments be agreed to; that the bill as amended be read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.

I would say to my colleague from Texas that the consent request for embassy security we passed in committee in a bipartisan effort is much different than a partisan effort to have an investigation that ultimately also is led by a partisan effort in the House of Representatives. So one is guaranteed to have the support of both sides of the aisle in order to ensure that we protect our men and women in the Foreign Service in the days ahead. The other one is guaranteed to pursue a political line and a political attack instead of making sure we ultimately save lives in the future, not because I said it but because an independent review board made these recommendations that we incorporate them. So, of course, the two are not the same.

I am happy to answer my colleague on that, because he suggested that his 10 questions--that because he asked the 10 questions, they are suddenly worthy of being answered, worthy of in fact not being viewed

through the prism of any politics. I would simply say if there is political spin--several of the Senator's questions are pretty shocking to me in terms of the political nature of them.

As I said to the body, we have had a whole host of efforts to review the facts and come to a determination of the truth of what happened on that day. They have been in public hearings and they have been in secure intelligence briefings. Members on both sides--on both sides-- have been exposed to it. Members on both sides got to ask questions across the spectrum, and so from my perspective we have gone through the search of what happened on that fateful day. We all abhor what happened to the men who lost their lives on that day. That is why what I want to do is ensure that we lose no more lives as a result of this Congress's irresponsibility to act on embassy security, knowing what in fact a panel of experts, undisputed in their capacity, has said is necessary to protect our men and women around the world. Yet we cannot seem to get that legislation passed through the Senate. Now, that is about congressional responsibility from my perspective.

I think whether the President slept on that day, the question is, Did he even get told by those who had information that such an attack was going on? I don't know. The bottom line is would that have saved anybody? I don't know that either.

The bottom line is does the Senator want to do something about saving future lives or does he just want to do politics with this issue? If he wants to save lives tomorrow, where he does have the control--where he does have the control at this moment--then he will let the embassy security bill go forward. If, God forbid, we have an attack somewhere in the world, and the legislation we are seeking in a bipartisan way in response to that independent board is stopped because the other side wishes to stop it, then God forbid we have an attack and lives are cut off. Then there will be an accounting at that time.

I say to my colleague from Texas that we have come to a conclusion based on all of the hearings, all of the testimony, and all of the reports as to what transpired and what we can do to save a life prospectively; therefore, I say to the Senator, he has it in his control to ultimately ensure that we set the foundation so no one else will lose their life. If he wants to hold that hostage to his political efforts to continue an issue that has had thousands of hours of reviews, hearings, reports--all with bipartisan participation--then he can choose to do so.

I object.

Mr. President, I wish to honor 59 high school seniors in Camden County, NJ for their commendable decision to enlist in the United States Armed Forces. Of these 59, 18 have elected to join the United States Army: Troy Anderson, Cody Andreczski, Jacob Bauscher, Ennajee Brisbane, Juliana Davis, Nicholas Dzindzio, Kristopher Espinal, Tyler Fisher, Glenn Gray, Rajven Herrera, Austin Hughes, Velez Lopez Velez, Anthony Nigro, Chandler Pons, Tyron Robinson, Orlando Santos, Joshua White, and Gordon Zenzola. Five have joined the United States Navy: Raul Paneto, Spencer Wiggin, Taquayla Wilson, Angel Gonzalez, and Kenneth

Ralph. Five have elected to join the United States Air Force: Ryan Swift, Ryan Bauer, Alam Nazmul, Christian Burgos, and Alex Thach. Nineteen have elected to join the United States Marine Corps: Michael Porch, Thomas Hutchison, Johnny Nunez, Jerome Williamston, Jordan Freeman, David Zane, Anthony Reed, Emily Krowicki, Randy Nguyen, Nicholas Celenza, Ian MacKenzie, William Hemphill, Steven Charyszyn, James Pitcher, Ryan Gustafson, Douglas Bardalesarevalo, Ezekiel Williams, Kyle Azzari, and Michael Hurley. And 12 have elected to join the New Jersey National Guard: Caitlyn Mount, Clarimar Rodriguez- Vargas, Zachary Blome, Christopher Foschini, Michael Lombardo, Kevin Martina, Patrick Martina, Patrick O'Hanlon, Kristie Siegman, Christopher Robinson, Kylah Thomas, and Charles Reiss.

These 59 will also be honored on May 20, 2014 at an ``Our Community Salutes South Jersey'' recognition ceremony in Voorhees Township, NJ.

The future of our Nation remains strong because of young men and women like these 59 individuals who have decided to step forward and commit themselves to the defense of our Nation and to upholding the ideals upon which it was founded. Indeed, these New Jerseyans represent the very best of America, and they should rest assured that the full support of the Senate as well as the American people, are with them in whatever challenges may lie ahead.

It is thanks to the dedication of untold numbers of patriots like these 59 that we are able to meet here today, in the Senate, and openly debate the best solutions to the many and diverse problems that confront our country. It is thanks to their sacrifices that the United States of America remains a beacon of hope and freedom throughout the world. We owe them, along with all those who serve our country, a deep debt of gratitude.