Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 7 minutes prior to the vote on the Kahl nomination.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak about Colin Kahl, the President's nominee to be Under Secretary of Defense for Policy.

The most basic responsibility of our government and our military is to protect the national security of the American people, which requires helping our allies and constraining our enemies. The Pentagon's policy chief is responsible for those evaluations.

Unfortunately, I have come to believe that Colin Kahl's judgment is irreparably marred by obsessive animosity toward Israel. I can think of no other way to explain his years of consistently wrong views regarding the Middle East--and not just wrong but impulsive and reckless.

He has repeatedly spilled out his conspiracy theories and attacks on Twitter and other public venues. He views the world through a cracked lens.

And I challenge my Democratic colleagues to explain one simple thing: What other explanation, other than animosity to the world's only Jewish state, could possibly account for all of these staggeringly wrong judgments?

I would like to begin with a topic the Senate has been united on: our opposition to anti-Semitism and to anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

In 2019, this body came together unanimously to pass a resolution that I authored, along with Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, condemning anti-Semitism as a unique form of bigotry that distorts people's judgments.

Recently, a top adviser to the Ayatollah Khomeini acknowledged what the world long knew--that in 2018, in an operation right out of a Hollywood action movie, Israel seized Iran's national nuclear archive. The archive proved that Iran had been keeping nuclear weapons blueprints and materials on the shelf. The nuclear deal, of which Kahl was a principle architect, had been flawed from the start.

Kahl responded to the news of the raid by suggesting on Twitter the archive was fabricated by Israel, with the aim of dragging American boys and girls into another Middle East war. This was a pernicious, anti-Sematic conspiracy theory, a blood libel, not just pernicious but wrong.

That was not the only time Kahl leveled troubling conspiracy theories about Israel and Iran. He suggested on Twitter that Trump's policies regarding the Iran deal and Jerusalem were linked to donations from Jewish billionaire Sheldon Adelson. This is not the judgment of anyone who should be anywhere near power or policy.

Another decision the Trump administration made was to move our Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. There was an active debate within the Trump administration. I leaned in vigorously with the President, and the President agreed with the view I articulated; that we should say to our friends and our enemies that we stand unshakably with the nation of Israel.

Kahl spent years fighting against that move, fighting against moving our Embassy. According to reports from 2012, Kahl was personally responsible for trying to remove language from the Democratic Party platform embracing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

This is a long-abiding passion of his.

And when President Trump recognized Jerusalem, Kahl predicted it would isolate the United States and Israel and even potentially trigger a third intifada. He was wrong.

Just like he was wrong about supporting Israel, he was wrong about opposing Iran. In 2017, Congress passed legislation mandating that the President declare Iran's IRGC a terrorist organization. Kahl said we were playing ``politics'' so that we could show we were tough on Iran, and again he predicted disaster. Again, he was wrong.

Kahl has even attacked Democrats on this issue. For instance, he has repeatedly attacked Chairman Menendez for trying to ``kill'' and use ``poison pills'' to block appeasement of the Iranian regime.

Turning to current topics, the Obama-Biden team shamefully, repeatedly, recklessly used leaks to leak secrets about Israeli operations against Iranian terrorists and forces.

Now there are new reports on a taped phone call that then-Secretary of State Kerry may have leaked Israeli attacks to Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif, with whom he is personally close. If verified, these reports would mean he maliciously endangered not just Israeli national security but American lives. If these reports are true, John Kerry should resign, and if he doesn't resign, President Biden should fire him.

Colin Kahl was prominent in shaping Obama-Biden policies on Israel and

Iran, and he has been credibly accused of weaponizing and leaking classified information.

I recently joined 17 other Senators in a letter to FBI Director Wray, requesting that the FBI immediately investigate whether he did so. But we are not going to have the answer before we vote today, and I don't see how he can be principally advanced without it.

On issues of foreign policy, this body is often united when standing up against our enemies and standing for our friends. This nominee, I believe, is the most virulently anti-Israel nominee who would serve in the entire Biden administration.

Many of our friends on the Democratic aisle like to say they support the nation of Israel. Well, this is a chance to demonstrate you mean it because you cannot vote to confirm a rabid, anti-Israel, conspiracy theory-tweeting radical to the No. 3 position in the Department of Defense and then claim you are a reliable friend of Israel.

Colin Kahl's record is extreme, fringe, and radical. He has a lifelong obsession with and antipathy to the State of Israel, and he has demonstrated a willingness to endanger Israeli lives and American lives to advance that hostility.

I urge our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to oppose this nomination.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise in support of amendment No. 1456, which I have introduced, along with Senator Kennedy from Louisiana.

Additional Cosponsor

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Hagerty also be added as a cosponsor to the amendment.

Mr. President, this amendment is straightforward. It targets the ongoing discrimination that is being directed against Asian Americans by colleges and universities across the country, including preeminent institutions such as Yale and Harvard, which are denying admission to qualified Asian-American applicants in favor of underrepresented minority groups. The U.S. Department of Justice was suing Yale for its discrimination against Asian Americans until the Biden administration dismissed that lawsuit.

My amendment, simply put, would prohibit institutions of higher education from receiving any Federal funding if they have a policy or if they engage in discrimination against Asian Americans during the recruitment review of applications or admissions.

I urge the adoption of the amendment.

I yield the remainder of my time to Senator Kennedy.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I rise to speak in support of Senator Lee's amendment No. 1425.

Despite the protections of the First Amendment, over the course of the pandemic, many States have placed heavy-handed restrictions that have limited Americans' freedom to gather for worship, to meet in smaller groups for religious purposes, or even to sing praise and worship.

At first, many Americans accepted these restrictions. Our Nation was grappling with the new and deadly virus, and the restrictions were only supposed to be temporary. But as the weeks and months dragged on, States lifted restrictions on restaurants, on casinos, on museums, while keeping tight restrictions in place for synagogues, for churches, for temples, for mosques, and other religious gatherings.

Senator Lee's amendment requires the Department of Justice to investigate whether the government applied the same rules to religious groups that were applied to similar nonreligious organizations and businesses and whether those restrictions complied with the First Amendment.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Lee's written remarks on his amendment be inserted into the Record.

I urge adoption of the amendment.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, I rise today to express concerns over two of the Democrats' nominees. There have been a number of questionable nominees put forth by this new administration, but these two nominees may be the two most radical nominees put forth.

First, I would like to talk about Vanita Gupta. Today, we are set to vote on discharging Vanita Gupta's nomination out of the Judiciary Committee because Ms. Gupta could not garner a majority vote in the committee on moving her nomination forward to the full Senate.

The Judiciary Committee is deadlocked and for good reason. This nominee's record is that of an extreme partisan ideologue. I can assure the American people, Ms. Gupta is not a moderate, is not mainstream but is, rather, an extreme political activist whom the Democrats want to be the No. 3 lawyer at the Department of Justice.

When she testified before the Judiciary Committee last month, she consistently dodged questions. She wouldn't answer if she supported any restrictions, whatsoever, on abortion. She wouldn't answer--not partial-birth abortion, not anything.

When it comes to the Second Amendment, I asked Ms. Gupta if she thought the Heller decision, the landmark decision upholding the individual right to keep and bear arms, if that decision was rightly decided. She refused to answer that question.

For years, she has demonstrated a persistent hostility to religious liberty, such as when she defended the Obama administration's targeting and persecution of the Little Sisters of the Poor. Not too long ago, religious liberty was a bipartisan commitment in this body. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act was introduced by then-Representative Chuck Schumer, now the Senate majority leader. It had passed the House unanimously. It passed the Senate 93 to 3 and was signed into law by Democratic President Bill Clinton.

Sadly, today's Democratic Party has abandoned religious liberty. That is no longer a commitment. Instead, today's Democratic Party embraces extreme ideas like the Equality Act, which has just come out of the House of Representatives. It is a radical piece of legislation that, among other things, explicitly repeals major parts of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act designed to take away your religious liberty.

Ms. Gupta has been a vocal defender of the misnamed Equality Act. She lobbied for its passage, a fact that she didn't disclose to the committee initially. When she was before the Judiciary Committee, I asked if she agreed with the provisions of the Equality Act that take away religious liberty protections from Americans. Again, Ms. Gupta refused to answer that question, too.

Ms. Gupta has demonstrated radical hostility to school choice, so much so that when she served in the Department of Justice during the Obama-Biden administration, she helped intervene in a case trying to kill a Louisiana school choice program, even though many of the African-American parents in Louisiana strongly supported and desperately needed that program. The Federal court involved in this case even reprimanded the Department of Justice under her leadership for ineffective lawyering in this case.

At the Judiciary hearing of Ms. Gupta last month, I asked if she regretted using the Department of Justice to fight against the school choice program that was providing hope and opportunity to low-income minority kids in Louisiana. Again, she refused to provide a straightforward answer.

When it comes to defunding the police, it is here that Ms. Gupta is most radical. Last year, Ms. Gupta, in a written filing with this Senate, encouraged Congress to ``reexamine Federal spending priorities and shrink the footprint of the police and criminal legal system in this country.'' She also encouraged reallocating resources, writing, ``Some people call it `defunding the police,' other people call it `divest-invest,' but whatever you call it, if you care about mass incarceration, you have to care about skewed funding priorities.''

These weren't Ms. Gupta's college writings. These weren't scribblings on a Post-it she made somewhere. These statements were from last year, submitted to the U.S. Senate. And on their face and unequivocally, they advocate for defunding the police.

There is no question on her record that Ms. Gupta is a hard-left partisan radical whose beliefs don't align with the majority of the American people. So why are Democrats so hell-bent on making sure she gets confirmed? Two reasons.

Reason No. 1: Headlines. Democrats care so deeply about looking good in the press, they continue to press through partisan bills and partisan activists for adulation by adoring media.

Reason No. 2: Today's Democrats are beholden to the far-left voices in their party, and they are fulfilling campaign promises that they made to the radical left.

That is why they nominated Ms. Gupta, and that is why they broke Judiciary Committee rules to move forward her nomination. Rule 4 of the committee, preserves the right of minority members to speak before a vote. It only allows for stopping debate and bringing a matter to a vote if a majority of the committee agrees, including at least one member of the minority party.

But the Democrats didn't have a majority. If they had tried to bring a matter to the vote under the rules, the vote would have failed. So, instead, Chairman Durbin unilaterally silenced and stopped a member of the committee from speaking, midsentence, and forced a vote. He did so in flatout violation of the rules, without even a pretense of a justification under the rules.

The chairman knew that this was an abuse of power. Every Democrat on the committee knew it was an abuse of power. It was an abuse of power that had never been done against them when Republicans had the gavel for 6 years.

Yet today's Democrats are about power. So if the rules stand in the way, to heck with the rules. Ignore them. That is what the Senate Democrats did on the Judiciary Committee.

I also want to talk about Kristen Clarke, who has been likewise nominated to a senior position at the Department of Justice.

Like Ms. Gupta, Ms. Clarke's record is that of an extreme radical. Last year, she wrote an op-ed in Newsweek, entitled: ``I Prosecuted Police Killings. Defund the Police--But Be Strategic.''

In that op-ed, Ms. Clarke wrote about the protests that erupted last year and stated:

Into that space has surged a unifying call from the Black

Lives Matter movement: ``Defund the police.''

Now, like Ms. Gupta, she tried to run away from her record. At the prompting of Senate Democrats and at the prompting of Chairman Durbin, Ms. Clarke said: No, no, no, no, no. I don't support defunding the police. She said: You know, it was just the headline of the article. I didn't write the headline. Ms. Gupta did the same thing. Both of them were instructed by their handlers to backpedal as quickly as possible from their repeated and explicit advocacy in writing. So Ms. Clarke says she doesn't support defunding the police.

Yesterday, when Ms. Clarke came before the Judiciary Committee, I asked her straightforwardly if she still thinks ``defund the police'' is a unifying call. That is what she wrote not 10 years ago, not 5 years ago but last year. She wouldn't answer the question. Instead, she just repeated her talking point: ``I do not support defunding the police.''

As I told Ms. Clarke yesterday, that claim is objectively ridiculous. She asserted she doesn't advocate cutting the funding of police, which on its face was a lie.

In that same op-ed she wrote in Newsweek, there are no fewer than three separate paragraphs that begin with the following words: ``We must invest less in the police''--three paragraphs in a row. Now, when you write three paragraphs that begin with ``We must invest less in the police; we must invest less in the police; we must invest less in the police,'' you don't get to come and say: I don't support investing less in the police. That is objectively absurd, but, sadly, it is even worse.

Not only is Ms. Clarke an extreme advocate for defunding the police, but she has a history of not just excusing but of celebrating murderers who have murdered police officers. It has been widely reported that, in college, Ms. Clarke helped to organize a conference with speakers who referred to convicted cop killers as ``political prisoners.'' This included Mumia Abu-Jamal, who murdered a Philadelphia police officer, and Assata Shakur, who was convicted of murdering a New Jersey State trooper, who escaped from prison, and is on the FBI's Most Wanted list. Multiple speakers at the conference thanked Ms. Clarke by name for inviting them to speak, and now the Democrats want Ms. Clarke to head the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.

I ask you the question that I asked Ms. Clarke yesterday: What is a police officer in Philadelphia who is watching the proceedings before this body or a police officer in New Jersey who is watching C-SPAN today supposed to think about the Democrats nominating someone to a senior position at the Department of Justice, knowing that this individual participated in a conference celebrating and lionizing cop killers who murdered a Philadelphia cop and murdered a New Jersey State Trooper? How should a police officer today react to that news?

There are numerous Members of this body--Senate Democrats--who, when they go home to their States, like to tell their constituents they are not all that liberal; they are really quite reasonable; they are really quite moderate. Well, the nice thing about politics is that actions speak much more loudly than words. These two nominations--Ms. Gupta's, which we have before us right now, and Ms. Clarke's, which I expect we will have before us relatively soon--are two of the most radical nominees ever to be put forward. Indeed, you could call the two of them the radical twins. They are zealots; they are ideologues; and they both are leading advocates for abolishing the police.

I say to my Democratic friends: This is a 50-50 Senate. That means just one of you--just 1 out of 50--could say: OK. Enough is enough.

How many Senate Democrats have gone home and said, ``I don't support abolishing the police''? Quite a few Senate Democrats, I suspect, are telling their constituents back home that they don't support abolishing the police.

Today, you have a vote because I will tell you, if you as a Senator vote to confirm the radical twins, both of whom are among the leading advocates for abolishing the police, your constituents back home will know exactly where you stand on abolishing the police. You don't get to put radicals who want to abolish the police in the top positions of the Department of Justice and claim you oppose abolishing the police.

President Obama nominated for a senior position in the Department of Justice another lawyer who had celebrated and defended a cop killer, who had lionized a cop killer, and this body, in one of the few instances, decided that was too much; that was too far; and they were not going to confirm that lawyer.

Unfortunately, the Democratic Party has changed. The Democratic Party today is radicalized. They hate Donald Trump. Now, I understand Donald Trump is a unique character. I understand that his existence and every word he uttered enraged the Democrats, but they have emerged from 4 years of the Trump administration more radical than any majority party in this body ever has been. There are quite a few Democrats who, when they are at home, like to pretend otherwise.

Today is a perfect opportunity to demonstrate that the pretense is not mere empty words. In fact, if you don't support abolishing the police, then don't support abolishing the police, and if you don't support celebrating cop killers, then don't confirm people who have celebrated cop killers to senior positions in the U.S. Department of Justice.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I rise today to bring attention to the serious humanitarian crisis at our southern border. Right now, as we speak, thousands of children have entered the United States illegally and sit in crowded detention centers wrapped up in emergency blankets, hundreds, even thousands, of miles away from home. They are without their families and without their parents. Many of them have been trafficked and have been physically and sexually abused along the way.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported that just last month alone, 29,792 unaccompanied children came across our border, including 2,942 children under the age of 12. All of these children came here without their parents, and they have come here in large numbers because they know that President Biden is promising them amnesty.

The illegal immigrants coming across our southern border right now are not just children. President Biden's Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, has said: ``We are on pace to encounter more individuals on the southwest border than we have in the last 20 years.''

In February, more than 100,000 illegal immigrants came across our southern

border, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which is 3 times the number of illegal immigrants who came through the southern border in February of 2019, and it is almost 6 times the number of illegal immigrants who came through our southern border in February of 2018.

The Biden administration refuses to call this a crisis, but that is what it is. We have a humanitarian crisis, and we also have a security crisis.

Of the over 100,000 illegal immigrants who came here in February, 71 percent of them are single adults, according to the Pew Research Center.

The Biden administration's policy has been to welcome these illegal immigrants and to halt or slow deportations as much as possible. When Joe Biden became President, he immediately halted construction of the border wall. He ended the ``Remain in Mexico'' policy, an incredible foreign policy victory President Trump negotiated with Mexico, which stipulated that illegal immigrants from Central America crossing illegally through Mexico to seek asylum in the United States would stay in Mexico during the pendency of their proceedings. President Biden ended that, ripping apart that international agreement, and, instead, he reinstated the failed policy of catch-and-release.

So now when we apprehend illegal immigrants, we let them go, including illegal immigrants who are criminals and who are convicted criminals guilty of violent crimes. President Biden's political decisions have produced a crisis and a crisis that is growing.

What the Biden administration has made clear in the last 2 months is that their priority is illegal immigrants and not American citizens. That is why, in just a moment, I am going to propound a unanimous consent request that the Senate pass Kate's Law. Kate's Law is named for Kate Steinle, who was 32 years old when she was tragically killed on a San Francisco peer by an illegal immigrant who had several felony convictions and had been deported from the United States not once, not twice, not three times, not even four times. He had been deported five times. By the revolving door of our border, this violent criminal kept being deported, and he kept coming back, and he kept coming back, and he kept coming back. And beautiful Kate Steinle was shot and killed because of our broken immigration system.

Kate's Law is commonsense legislation. It would amend Federal law to impose a mandatory minimum sentence of 5 years for any illegal reentry offense. Kate's Law is critical to ensuring that illegal immigrants who have been deported, especially those with violent criminal records, are deterred from repeatedly entering the country illegally over and over and over again. If the illegal immigrant, violent criminal wh killed Kate Steinle had been in prison for illegally entering the United States the fifth time, Kate would still be here today.

I have had the opportunity to meet Kate Steinle's family. They don't understand why our system is broken. They don't understand why we keep letting in violent, criminal, illegal aliens over and over and over again. And I will tell you, the American people--roughly 80 percent of Americans--agree with Kate's Law. This is commonsense legislation.

We are about to see a Democrat object to it because today's Democratic Party doesn't care what the American people say. But if this were in the realm of sanity, Kate's Law would pass 100 to nothing. Look, we can have disagreements about legal immigration, about what the rules are, but when it comes to violent, criminal, illegal aliens who enter the country illegally over and over and over again, it ought to be real simple. We ought to be able to come together as Democrats and Republicans and say: All right, let's draw the line there. We don't need more murderers in America.

I have spent a lot of time down in the valley and at the Texas border. I have spent a lot of time with agents from the Border Patrol. Tomorrow, I am going back to the border to see for myself what the conditions are like right now. I am leading a delegation of 17 other Senators, and we are going to go talk to Customs and Border Patrol agents. We are going to meet with CBP leadership. We are going to meet with law enforcement and community leaders. We are going to tour the detention facilities directly.

Now, you may not see that on TV because the Biden administration is refusing to allow the press to see the facilities. For 4 years, Democrats went on and on and on about kids in cages. Now, those cages were built by Barack Obama, and they are bigger and fuller under Joe Biden. And the Biden administration doesn't want you to see the Biden cages. So they have declared a media blackout, that reporters are not allowed.

The Trump administration allowed the media to go to the border. The Obama administration allowed the media to go to the border. The Bill Clinton administration allowed the media to go to the border. The George W. Bush administration allowed the media to go to the border. But Joe Biden wants to cover up the crisis that his administration has created, and it is a crisis that, sadly, Senate Democrats are complicit in creating as well.

We have yet to have a single Senate Democrat willing to break with the Biden administration on the unfolding humanitarian crisis on the border. The worse it gets, the more kids who are abused, the more kids who are assaulted, the more Americans who are put at risk of COVID, and the more Americans who are put at risk of violent crime. At some point, I hope and pray we will see Senate Democrats willing to say: Enough is enough. It is time to stop being angry partisans, and it is time to come together with common sense and protect the American citizens.

For that reason, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of S. 890, and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Madam President.

Madam President, I appreciate the warm sentiments of the Senator from New Mexico, but the American people can distinguish the difference between talk and action.

The Senator from New Mexico suggested that all Democrats support holding criminals to account. I would suggest the facts are precisely to the contrary.

Just 2 weeks ago, on the floor of this body, we introduced an amendment to provide that $1,400 government stimulus checks should not go to criminals currently in prison. Every single Senate Democrat voted against that. That amendment failed by one vote. If even one Democrat had said ``OK, that is reasonable,'' it would have passed.

Yesterday, I introduced multiple unanimous consent requests to stop money from going to convicted criminals in prison and to send the money instead to the Crime Victims Fund. A Democrat objected.

I then said: All right, if you don't want to do all criminals, how about murderers? Can we agree, if you were convicted of homicide, if you killed somebody, let's not send you a government check; let's send it to the Crime Victims Fund? The Democrats objected.

I said: All right, how about rapists? The Democrats objected.

I said: How about child molesters? Surely, we can all agree child molesters are not worthy of a $1,400 taxpayer government bonus given by the Democrats. The Democrats objected.

So with all due respect to my friend from New Mexico, it is not the case that Democrats support holding prisoners to account.

Today, in the Rules Committee, the Democrats are pushing forward an election bill, the Corrupt Politicians Act, which would allow every felon in America who has been released from prison to vote. It would allow murderers to vote, rapists to vote, child molesters to vote. So it is not the case that Democrats are willing to stand up to violent crime.

Now, there are a couple of things that the Senator from New Mexico said that I wrote down. He said the only thing he disagreed with was ``the assertion that immigrants are inherently criminal.'' Well, I challenge anyone watching this exchange to read the transcript.

I am glad he disagrees with that assertion. That assertion never came from my mouth. I am the son of an immigrant who came from Cuba. We are a nation of immigrants. I am not remotely asserting that immigrants are inherently criminal. There is a right way to come, and that is to come legally.

But case law isn't about immigrants generally; it only applies to criminals. It is immigrants that have a criminal conviction, that have an aggravated felony conviction. So when my friend from New Mexico says that we need to focus on felons--and he closed his remarks with the following: ``We need to go after criminals and felons, not children and families''--the case law does exactly that.

If the Senator from New Mexico believes the words he said, the next words out of his mouth would not have been ``I object.'' By virtue of objecting, he prevented us from, in a bipartisan way, going after criminals and felons. Case law is targeted at those criminals and felons. It is not targeted at kids; it is targeted at criminals and felons.

I would ask the Senator from New Mexico and every Senate Democrat: What would you say to Kate Steinle's family? I have heard them testify in the Senate Judiciary Committee. I have visited with them personally. If you were looking them in the eyes, what would you say to a system where Kate Steinle's murderer was deported five times--multiple criminal convictions?

I am the original author of Kate's Law. We have voted on this on the Senate floo multiple times. Every time we have voted, every single Democratic Senator has voted against Kate's Law. You don't get to vote against Kate's Law, you don't get to vote against stopping violent criminals from repeatedly entering the country illegally, and then claim you are against violent criminals repeatedly entering the country illegally.

Actions mean more than words, and, unfortunately, the actions of today's Democratic Party are extreme and out of touch with the American people we were elected to represent.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, in a moment, I am going to propound a unanimous consent request. But before I do so, I want to make some brief observations.

Earlier this month, Democrats passed their extreme partisan reconciliation bill--a bill that President Biden signed into law. When the Senate was considering the bill, I introduced an amendment to ensure that illegal aliens would not receive the $1,400 taxpayer payments provided in the bill. Every single Democrat in this body voted against that amendment. It failed by a single vote. If even one Senate Democrat had voted for that amendment, it would have passed.

At the time, Senator Durbin incorrectly told this Chamber that no illegal aliens would receive stimulus checks under this bill. It was clear then, and it is even more clear now, that that statement was very much in error, as even Senator Durbin has admitted.

Last Thursday, I gave my Democratic colleagues a chance for a do- over, once it became clear that there was a very substantial number of illegal aliens who would be receiving these checks. Unfortunately, the Democrats objected again and put themselves on record that they are just fine with millions of illegal immigrants getting taxpayer stimulus checks.

There has been some debate as to the exact number, but, just this week, the Center for Immigration Studies released an economic report that catalogued that we are indeed talking about millions of illegal immigrants who are receiving these checks.

At the same time we were debating this partisan reconciliation bill, the Senate considered another amendment, which I had introduced and Senator Cassidy had introduced, to prevent the payments from going to criminals currently incarcerated in prison. Again, unfortunately and astonishingly, every single Democrat in this Chamber voted against it. It failed by a single vote. If even one Democrat had demonstrated the common sense to say violent criminals who are currently in prison right now, today, shouldn't be getting $1,400 taxpayer stimulus checks, that amendment would have passed. But every Democrat lined up in a party- line partisan vote to say no.

Today, I am going to give Democrats another chance at a do-over to recognize that that extreme position is a position, frankly, none of us could go home and explain to our constituents without being laughed at, even in the bluest of States. And I am going to give an opportunity in this instance for Democrats to vote on stopping the funds going to criminals currently incarcerated and sending those funds instead to the Crime Victims Fund, a program that is run by the Department of Justice to compensate victims of crime.

So this is a choice the Democrats have: Do you want $1,400 checks going to criminals in prison, or do you want instead to direct those funds to the victims of crime that have suffered at the hands of those criminals?

Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 928, introduced earlier today. I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, the Senator from Oregon, I guess, demonstrates the principle that hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue, because the Senator from Oregon suggests that somehow payments to people who are not criminals will be delayed if we don't pay criminals in prison. That claim, on the face of it, is absurd.

The Federal prisons are administered by the Bureau of Prisons. Government may not be good at everything, but I feel quite confident that the Federal Government can produce a list of currently incarcerated prisoners. I know the States can

The IRS, likewise, is perfectly capable of recognizing whether it is mailing checks to prisoners in prison. This is not whether you have ever been convicted of a crime. It is, Are you sending the checks to Sing Sing? If so, don't send it.

The claim that somehow Joe Six-Pack at home is not getting his check because we don't want to send checks to prisoners is demonstrably untrue.

The Senator from Oregon also claims Republicans oppose stimulus checks, when he knows that is simply not the case. As he noted, this body overwhelmingly passed bipartisan COVID relief five times last year. It is only when Senate Democrats took the majority that bipartisan legislation ended because the Democrats decided to push a hard partisan bill instead.

A clean bill providing relief checks would have passed with an overwhelming bipartisan majority in this body, and the Senator from Oregon knows that.

We have now discovered, though, that given a straight-up choice between sending checks to criminals in prison versus sending checks to the victims of crime, Senate Democrats stand with the criminals.

Mr. President, I am going to suggest an even narrower situation. Perhaps we can't agree on victims of crime. How about murderers?

We just had a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee on gun violence. We saw a horrific mass murder in Colorado. Can't we agree that murderers shouldn't get checks--$1,400 stimulus checks--from the taxpayers? Let's take the money going to murderers and put it in the crime victims task force fund instead.

And so, Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 929, introduced earlier today. I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, you know, it could be hard in these partisan days to know what the truth is. Both sides yell at each other. They insult each other. It is hard to know who is telling the truth.

I ask the folks at home who are listening to this debate to exercise a little bit of common sense. The Senator from Oregon just told you the Federal Government has no idea who are murderers currently in prison. I want to suggest that doesn't make any sense.

I feel quite confident the Department of Justice could produce a list of currently incarcerated murderers in Federal prisons within 24 hours. I am absolutely certain the State of Texas could produce that list. I am confident the State of Connecticut could produce the list of the murderers currently in Connecticut prisons. I am even confident the State of Oregon could produce a list of the murderers convicted of homicide currently incarcerated in the State of Oregon.

The claim that we don't know who the murderers are who are in our prisons serving time for murder--it doesn't pass the laugh test.

Mr. President, once again, the Senator from Oregon has said something that is demonstrably false and that he knows is false, which is that he has suggested that I opposed sending stimulus checks to the American citizens, to law-abiding citizens. I not only didn't oppose it, I voted for it. Republicans supported it. He knows that. That is a red herring.

He just read a statement from the IRS Agency saying they get a list of prisoners from the Bureau of Prisons, and he said: But we don't know the crime.

The first unanimous consent request I put before this body is, everyone on that list in the Bureau of Prisons, don't send them a check. That doesn't delay your check. If you are not looking at bars, if you are not in a jail cell that is 5 feet by 10 feet, this doesn't affect you. This only affects criminals currently in prison.

Mr. President, there is an old saying that you don't learn anything from the second kick of a mule.

The first time the Senator from Oregon said that I sought to disrupt stimulus payments, perhaps he did so because he didn't know my views on that topic, but he has since been corrected that I voted for stimulus payments to American citizens in the time of economic crisis and didn't oppose them. So he is now repeatedly stating falsehoods, knowing that they are false.

You know, all of us were there when Joe Biden gave his inauguration speech making a call to unity, making a call to healing, and there was a chance we could have done that. On COVID relief, you don't have to ask theoretically. Last year, when Republicans had control of the Senate, we passed five bipartisan COVID relief bills, coming together with overwhelming bipartisan majorities.

The Democrats decided, when they took control, they didn't want to do that. You want to know just how far out of touch and how radical today's Democratic Party is? We have seen the Democrats now say we will send taxpayer stimulus checks to millions of illegal immigrants. We have seen Democrats say we will send the taxpayer stimulus to criminals in prison. We have seen the Democrats say we will send the taxpayer stimulus checks to murderers in prison. We have seen them say we will send the checks to rapists in prison. And we now just saw them say we will send the checks to child molesters in prison.

It should be the essence of common sense to say don't give this money to violent criminals; give it to victims of crime instead. In a sane world, that would be a hundred-to-nothing proposition.

I challenge any one of you in the brightest of blue States: Go home and explain to your constituents that you refused to take the money from child molesters and give it to the victims of that crime. That is the position of every Democrat in this Chamber because every single Democratic Senator was the deciding vote rejecting the amendment on the floor.

It is unfortunate just how extreme the hard left is right now, but it is far out of touch with the American people, and it has long abandoned any semblance of common sense.

I yield the floor

Mr. President, the Senator from Oregon suggested that the concern of the Democrats is to get taxpayer funds to needy people. People currently incarcerated are not needy. The Senator from Oregon said we need to help Americans struggling with rent. You know what? People currently incarcerated pay zero in rent. They don't have rent costs.

So the argument of the Democrats is: We don't know who the criminals are who are currently in jail. That does not comport with reality, and any fairminded person watching this knows that.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, in a moment, I am going to propound a unanimous consent request, but before I do so, I want to make some brief remarks.

As my colleagues know and as several fact checkers have confirmed over the past week, the Democrats' partisan reconciliation bill that became law last week will provide many illegal aliens with $1,400 rebate checks paid for by the American taxpayer. By several estimates, millions of illegal immigrants will get these rebates.

I offered an amendment 2 weeks ago to the Democrats' bill to close this loophole. During debate on my amendment, one Democratic Senator spoke against my amendment, saying that no illegal aliens have Social Security numbers, and therefore the premise of my amendment and my speech was, he said, ``not true.'' In fact, here are the Senator's full remarks from the floor 2 weeks ago:

Mr. President, the statement from the Senator from Texas is

just plain false. Let me be clear. Undocumented immigrants do

not have Social Security numbers, and they do not qualify for

stimulus relief checks, period.

And just in case you didn't notice, they didn't qualify in

December when 92 of us voted for that measure, and they don't

qualify under the American Rescue Plan. Nothing has changed.

And for you to stand up there and say the opposite is just

to rile people up over something that is not true.

It is not true, and we know what is going on [here]. They

want to be able to give speeches and say the checks go to

undocumented people. In the circumstance where there is a

parent receiving--

At that point, the Senator's time expired.

Following that debate, the Senator in question took to Twitter to double down. So it was not, after an all-night of no sleep, a moment of erroneous comment, but, rather, on Twitter that same Senator tweeted:

Sen. Cruz's claim is only meant to rile people up over

something that's not true. You cannot receive a stimulus

check without a Social Security #. That's a fact. Instead of

discriminating against mixed-status families, let's

prioritize getting more relief to those families.

A second tweet from the same Senator:

We simply cannot stand by and allow outright falsehoods to

be propagated on the Senate floor. It's time for GOP Senators

like Ted Cruz to stop trying to rile people up over

misinformation.

Well, as John Adams famously said, facts are stubborn things, and it turns out the comments from the Democratic Senator were categorically false and my comments that this bill would send checks to millions of illegal aliens were categorically true.

Numerous fact checkers began looking at the claims. Newsweek initially fact-checked it, and, as is the wont with a fair number of media fact checkers, took the word of the Democrats for it, concluded my statement was mostly false.

Following that, my staff got on the phone with Newsweek and presented them with incontrovertible facts--incontrovertible facts that of the roughly 12 million estimated illegal aliens who are here, roughly 60 percent of them are visa overstays, people who came legally and then overstayed their visa, and a significant percentage of visa overstays have Social Security numbers and will receive checks.

Indeed, that is why my amendment was scored at saving the Federal Government over $600 million, because of the checks that would not go to illegal immigrants if my amendment had been passed.

When Newsweek heard these facts, they did something really quite impressive, admirable. They admitted they were wrong. They revised their fact check, and they changed their fact check from mostly false to true. True, period. No caveats. True. I want to commend Newsweek for demonstrating journalistic integrity. Correcting that fact-check, I am sure, was not an easy decision for them to make, but it was the right decision for them to make.

So, Mr. President, I would ask unanimous consent that we enter this fact-check into the Record.

Mr. President, it is clear and indisputable that a significant number of illegal immigrants will receive checks and are receiving checks right now. All 100 Members of this body were misinformed by the Democratic Senator that no illegal aliens would receive fact checks--would receive, rather, stimulus checks. So I want to give my colleagues a chance to adopt the amendment now, with the correct information, with the true information, with the factual information.

I would note as well, in these deeply partisan times, it is easy for Republicans to throw insults at Democrats; it is easy for Democrats to throw insults at Republicans. Far too much of that occurs.

The Senator from Illinois, who is a friend whom I served with for 9 years, is a talented Senator. I am not here suggesting that when he stood up and spoke on the Senate floor and said things that were absolutely false, that he did so knowingly and maliciously. I would certainly give the Senator from Illinois the benefit of the doubt that he was in error rather than deliberately misstating facts, but the facts are now clear.

We have a rule in this body, rule XIX, to reprimand any Senator who imputes the character or integrity of another Senator. I am not going to seek refuge in that rule, although I think there is an argument that I could. But I will say this, that once the facts have been made clear, I hope my friend from Illinois will show the same principle Newsweek showed--to apologize, to say he was wrong and he is sorry for calling me a liar on the Senate floor and then going to Twitter to do so twice. That would be the right thing to do, to acknowledge an error when it occurred. The Senator from Illinois' statement that no illegal immigrants will receive checks under this bill is categorically false.

For that reason, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to immediate consideration of S. 842, introduced earlier today. I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President.

I would note several things. No. 1, the Senator from Illinois said he didn't know if the number of illegal immigrants getting checks from the Democrats' stimulus bill was in the tens or the hundreds or the thousands. With all due respect, he does know that. It is not in the tens. It is not in the hundreds. It is not in the thousands. JCT, the Joint Committee on Taxation, which is a nonpartisan organization that reports to this Senate and this Congress, scored my amendment as roughly 482,000 illegal immigrants are getting checks under the Democrats' proposal. Two outside organizations have scored it as millions of illegal immigrants.

I would note what Newsweek said, when they corrected their fact- check, and I am going to read a quote:

The Ruling. True. Cruz's claim that millions of illegal

immigrants would receive stimulus payments is true, given the

amount of people who have overstayed their visas over the

years. Once they overstay, they technically are considered

``illegal.''

Nowhere in the Senator from Illinois' remarks was a word of apology for

falsely calling me a liar on the floor of this Senate and on Twitter. That is unfortunate.

What the Senator said right now is also incorrect. The Senator from Illinois said this amendment would halt the payments that are going out. This amendment doesn't do anything of the sort. This amendment restricts sending payments to people who are here illegally. When the Senator from Illinois said he would love to do that, with all due respect, that doesn't withstand even the slightest bit of scrutiny because if he would love to do that, all he had to do was not object, and the American citizens, the people who are here legally, would all get their $1,400 checks, would get them on the exact same timeframe, but those here illegally would not.

Today's Democratic Party supports sending checks to millions of illegal immigrants. They have justified it, as the Senator from Illinois did, by falsely claiming none of them are getting checks. Those are not the facts, as the Newsweek fact-check makes clear.

I would note that a bill that Democratic Senators are trying to push, denominated H.R. 1, what many are calling the corrupt politicians act, would compound that by allowing millions of illegal immigrants to be registered to vote and, no doubt, to cast votes.

This is a political decision that is far outside the mainstream. It is unfortunate, but sadly it reflects where today's Democratic Party is.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I rise to oppose the nomination of Xavier Becerra for Secretary of Health and Human Services.

There are, unfortunately, numerous nominees in the Biden administration who are either extreme or unqualified for the positions for which they have been nominated, but of all of those nominees, I believe Mr. Becerra is the single worst Cabinet nominee put forward by Joe Biden to serve in the Cabinet.

President Biden has told this country repeatedly that his top priority is defeating the COVID-19 pandemic. The Department of Health and Human Services is on the frontline in fighting COVID-19. Mr. Becerra, by any measure, is woefully unqualified to lead that Department.

Mr. Becerra is not a doctor. Mr. Becerra is not a scientist. Mr. Becerra has no healthcare experience whatsoever. He has no medical experience whatsoever. He has no experience in virology. He has no experience with pharmaceuticals. He has no experience running a State or local healthcare agency. He has no experience in logistics. The Department of HHS is in the process of distributing and administering hundreds of millions of vaccines. Mr. Becerra has never so much as distributed french fries at a McDonald's.

Mr. Becerra's only qualification and, indeed, the qualification that earned him this nomination is he is a radical, leftwing trial attorney.

If a Republican President had nominated as the head of the Health and Human Services Agency someone with zero healthcare experience, zero medical experience, zero pharmaceutical experience in the midst of a global pandemic, that Republican President would have been laughed out of the room.

If a Republican President had done that, all of the Democrats would have been lined up here thundering: This is a President that doesn't care about science. We would have heard Democrats telling us: This is a President for whom defeating COVID-19 is not a priority, is not serious.

``This is a President,'' our Democratic colleagues would have told us, ``who puts partisan priorities above defeating the public health menace of COVID-19. This is a President who is more concerned about appeasing his radical base than he is about protecting the public health and safety of Americans.''

Had a Republican President nominated a nominee as unqualified as Mr. Becerra, I feel confident the Democrats would not have been alone. We would see multiple Republican Senators standing up, saying: No. We should actually have an HHS Secretary who knows something about science. We should have an HHS Secretary who knows something about medicine, something about pharmaceuticals.

I would note, by the way, President Trump nominated two HHS Secretaries. The first, Dr. Tom Price, was a medical doctor; the second, Alex Azar, was president of a major pharmaceutical company in the United States. Both had years and even decades of healthcare experience.

As best I can tell, Xavier Becerra's only experience with healthcare is

suing the Little Sisters of the Poor. Frankly, it should be a joke.

If a Republican President did this, a Republican Senate would discover the backbone to stand up and oppose it. And what I would say is sad is not a single Democrat is willing to stand up to Joe Biden and say: No. Try again. It is a pandemic. Over a half million Americans have died. How about putting someone at HHS that knows something about healthcare?

I will tell you right now, every Senator that supports this confirmation, when they go home, should be prepared to answer to their constituents--should be prepared to answer when their constituents say: Why did you vote to confirm a guy at HHS who doesn't know anything about science or healthcare or medicine? Why, in the middle of a pandemic, did you put in a radical, leftwing trial lawyer instead of someone that could help us beat this pandemic?

And for all the Democratic Senators who love to intone gravely ``Listen to the science,'' that is actually--that sentiment is correct. We should listen to the science, which means we should have someone leading HHS who knows something about science

My career, as a lawyer, has been litigating cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. If a President asked me to lead the Department of HHS in the midst of a pandemic, I would tell that President: With all due respect, I don't have the professional experience or expertise to do that job. There are other jobs for which I would be qualified, but in a pandemic, the Health and Human Services Department should have someone who knows a damn thing about healthcare.

Instead of knowing anything about science or medicine or viruses or virology or immunizations, what Mr. Becerra does know about is persecuting citizens who don't share his radical, leftwing ideology.

Mr. Becerra, as attorney general of California, has demonstrated a consistent pattern of contempt for privacy. While attorney general, he used his partisan power to overcome the individual privacy rights of California. As attorney general, he demanded that thousands of registered charities annually disclose to his offices the names and addresses of major donors, even though California law didn't require that. But he used government power to violate their right to privacy. Then what did he do? Did he keep it private for law enforcement purposes to examine irregularities? No. Instead, he published the information from nearly 2,000 organizations, subjecting donors and those nonprofits to harassment and abuse.

Healthcare issues are personal. They are sensitive. When you and I go to the doctor, we don't expect our doctor to share our personal healthcare details with the world. Joe Biden has said to the American people: We are going to put someone in charge of the Health and Human Services Department who doesn't care about privacy and has a record of ignoring your right to privacy.

Later this year, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether Mr. Becerra's invasion of privacy violated the First Amendment to the Constitution. While his disregard for privacy is before the Supreme Court, what did Joe Biden do? He said: Let's put him in charge of healthcare in this country.

A third reason Mr. Becerra's nomination is so concerning concerns conscience protections.

The next HHS Secretary will be responsible for upholding the conscience protections that are written into Federal law to protect the rights of people of faith, whatever your faith--whether you are Christian or Jewish or Muslim or whatever your faith might be, the right of professionals, of citizens under the First Amendment to live according to their faith.

But Mr. Becerra, as attorney general, aggressively defended a California law that forced pro-life groups to advertise for abortion, a law that the Supreme Court deemed unconstitutional under the First Amendment.

Think about that for a second. He was so radical in going after and persecuting conscience rights, he wanted pro-life groups to advertise for abortion, and it took the U.S. Supreme Court to strike it down and say: That is unconstitutional. Joe Biden wants him to bring the same heavyhanded zealotry to the Health and Human Services Department.

And Mr. Becerra has not shown that it is just free speech that he has antagonism to, but it is religious liberty as well. Mr. Becerra has defended California's targeting of churches holding indoor services. The State of California concluded that if you go to an indoor service at a church and you pray or you sing or you worship, you are a public health menace. But if you go to a protest, if you go to other secular activities where the name of God is not invoked, then, magically, this virus is not contagious. It is ludicrous. It was facially absurd. It was driven by an unconstitutional animus toward people of faith, and it took the U.S. Supreme Court to strike it down and to say the policy that Mr. Becerra was defending is unconstitutional. Government cannot target people of faith.

So you have got a nominee with no healthcare experience, no medical experience, no scientific experience, but a record of being a radical, persecuting those with whom he disagrees, who has repeatedly gone before the U.S. Supreme Court and lost over and over again for violating the First Amendment, for violating free speech, for violating religious liberty. He is now currently before the Supreme Court for violating the privacy rights of Californians.

Do you want an HHS Secretary who doesn't respect your privacy, who doesn't respect your free speech or religious liberty? Do you want an HHS Secretary who is not qualified to draw blood or give a shot, who doesn't know how to distribute vaccines, who has never distributed anything?

If nominations and confirmations were based on the merits, were based on qualification to serve, Mr. Becerra's nomination would be rejected by this Senate by a vote of 100 to nothing. The fact that that is unlikely to happen and that every Democrat will march lockstep with the Biden administration to confirm a nominee who has no healthcare experience whatsoever in the midst of a global pandemic show just how profoundly partisan and radicalized today's Democratic Party is.

I believe all of us should be united in demanding a Health and Human Services Secretary who is actually qualified to protect our health and defeat this pandemic.

I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote against this nomination

Madam President, I call up my amendment No. 969 and ask that it be reported by number.

I ask unanimous consent for 2 minutes of debate equally divided.

Madam President, we are facing an absolute crisis with our schools. Today, only 40 percent of school kids in America are attending in-person school 5 days a week.

It has been a year since these COVID lockdowns began. Millions of school kids are falling behind, and it is falling disproportionately on low-income kids, on African-American kids, on Hispanic kids.

This bill spends billions of dollars on schools and doesn't require that they open. My amendment does something very simple. It says if a school is open, it gets the new money that is in this bill, but if the school is not open 5 days a week, then that money goes to the parents, up to $10,000 per child, so they can get their kids an education.

We have single moms with kids trapped in schools that are not open, and this crisis, this body can do something about. Those kids, if they fall behind, the science and the data tells us that they will be behind, potentially, for the rest of their lives. We should come together in a bipartisan way to say: We are going to open the schools, and we are going to give hope and relief to the kids who are being left behind.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 968 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 2 minutes of debate equally divided.

Mr. President, moments ago, the Democrats in this Chamber just voted to send $1,400 stimulus checks to murderers, to rapists, and child molesters incarcerated in prison. This amendment, just like the one we just voted on that Senator Cassidy and I introduced, this amendment before us today provides that the stimulus check should not go to illegal aliens in this country.

The question for the American people to answer is, Should your money, should taxpayer money be sent--$1,400--to every illegal alien in America? This amendment provides that it should not; that stimulus checks should only go to American citizens or to people lawfully present.

Now, Democrats may say their language allows for that, but they know that the IRS treats someone who is illegally present in the United States for 31 days last year as a resident alien. So this corrects that and ensures that illegal aliens are not eligible for taxpayer-funded stimulus checks.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. President, do I have any time remaining?

I call for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I rise today to commemorate Texas Independence Day. One hundred and eighty-five years ago today, on March 2, 1836, the Republic of Texas declared our independence from the nation of Mexico. Fifty-nine delegates who adopted the Texas Declaration of Independence on that day gathered at Washington-on-the- Brazos. The delegates adopted a declaration, modeled in significant parts after the Declaration of Independence of the United States.

The declaration decried the arbitrary acts of oppression and tyranny from the Mexican Government under the dictator General Santa Anna. In particular, it noted that that government had ``ceased to protect the lives, liberty, and property of the people from whom its legitimate powers are derived.'' And the Texans signing that declaration sought to protect their rights of free speech, their rights to keep and bear arms, and their rights of freedom of religion.

Signing that declaration commenced the Texas Revolution, our battle for independence, where we won independence from the nation of Mexico. And for 9 years, the State of Texas became the Republic of Texas, an independent nation. That, of course, ceased in 1845, when we joined the United States. And today, we celebrate that spirit of independence that is still found throughout all 29 million Texans