there is another provision, article 1, section 10, clause 3. that provision says in essence after telling the states that there are a bunch of things that they cannot do, states are not allowed to wage war, for example, states are not allowed to enter into an international compact, you know, with a foreign country and do certain things like that that are akin to what the federal government is rather uniquely empowered to do. but there's an exception at the end, and it's an exception that applies when the state is being invaded. that states have the power to do that. so perhaps informed by these and other provisions of the constitution the state of texas filed suit in u.s. district court in texas trying to seek an injunction, that is, an order telling the department of homeland security, look, you can't mess with texas. you can't mess with texas'

barriers. don't take them down. after some initial back and forth litigation at the -- in the u.s. district court, the matter went to the u.s. court of appeals for the fifth circuit which includes the state of texas and on december 19, 2023, just a little over a month ago, the fifth circuit issued an injunction, a preliminary injunction saying while this litigation is pending, while we figure out once and for all whether and to what extent and what circumstances the biden administration may or may not choose to go in and take down these barriers put up by the state of texas, homeland security and biden administration just can't do that. don't do it for now. doesn't mean don't do it forever. it just means don't do it for now while this litigation is pending, while the courts are ironing in out.

well, that remained in effect for just over a month. then this last monday, just a couple days, a the supreme court of the united states issued a one-sentence order vacating that preliminary injunction. what does that mean? well, that order doesn't do anything, doesn't tell the state of texas it can't put barriers in place. it doesn't tell the state of texas it has to take it down. it doesn't require any action on the part of the state of texas. all it does is it gets rid of the order that previously was in place, telling the department of homeland security and others within the biden administration that they could not do anything to mess with the barriers put in place by texas. meanwhile, the case is set to be argued before the u.s. court of appeals for the fifth circuit on february 7. so at that argument, the court

will consider -- the appellate court will consider the merits of the arguments and eventually make a ruling. i hope, i expect, i would imagine that in a case of this import and urgency, the court of appeals for the fifth circuit will probably try to issue something within a few weeks. i would hope not much longer than that, maybe a month or two. and at that point, if the state of texas prevails, then there will be a permanent injunction telling the biden administration it can't take that down. now, i'm sure whoever loses will take that to the supreme court. that will take some additional time. but the point is this -- through all this litigation, we've seen one consistent theme, through all stages of the litigation. we've got the biden administration going into court, making arguments like the following, pointing to provisions in title 8 of the u.s. code dealing with a

immigration issues, provisions dealing with the border must have access to areas within 25 miles of the border so that they can do their work, so that they can enforce the border. so that they can do their jobs. this is one of the primary arguments they were making before the courts is that is this barbed wire or these barriers put in place by the state of texas interfere with our ability, as border patrol officers, to access the land and to do our jobs. well, what's their job? well, to stop the illegal immigrants from coming across. so how exactly does this 27-mile stretch where the barriers have been put in place by the state of texas, how exactly does that hinder the border patrol from doing the border patrol's job? call my crazy, but i strongly suspect if we could bring a

handful of border patrol agents up, they'd tell us the opposite. they'd say that the placement of these particular barriers probably makes their job easier. but you know whose job it makes harder? the smuggler, sex tracker, organize to some, a majority of the women and girls trafficked through this network are subjected to sexual assault, many of them used as sex slaves, many of them forceded to continue in that capacity even after they get into the united states where they're working now as indentured servants. yes, just a few weeks ago i went to the border, down to the middle class allen sector, not too tusk -- down to the mcallen sector, not too far from where i w worked as a missionary in the early 1980's. my border patrol agents told me since the adoption of the 13th

amendment, which got rid of things like slavery and indentured serve toured, we've got people smuggled in who haven't been able to afford the $4,000, $5,000, who $6,000, $7 tho, sometimes more, if they can't afford it, they've got to work it off. so many of them remain as indentured servants and for many of the girls and women, in particular, they remain in sex slavery. so why exactly is the biden administration so concerned with all of this happening, with a barrier that could make the job of the border patrol more effective, that could lead to the apprehension of more individuals? knowing full well that by breaking up these barriers, all they're doing or, the only

people whose lives they're making easier are those of the drug cartels, the people who are semiconductoring all of these people -- who are subjecting all of these people to these horrible conditions and bringing in enough fentanyl every year to kill every american multiple times. why are they so concerneded about that? and on what planet, on what planet can you maintain that it's making the job of the border patrol harder because you're making it harder for people to enter our country unlawfully? it really defies reason, wisdom, and logic. it is against this backdrop, madam president, that we find ourselves today, in a position in which we've got a war going on half a world away, a conflict involving russia and ukraine. it is a tragic conflict. bad guy, vladimir putin, is

messing with ukraine yet again. without getting into all the gory details, because this is not the focus of my speech today of how that whar started, why it's been dragging on so long, there is a renewed push to send more u.s. assistance to ukraine, to send some additional aid to israel, and the votes aren't there to get it passed through both houses of congress. and so for that reason, they married up the project of getting more money to ukraine -- it's a $106 billion aid package. we still don't know exactly who would get how much. we still have yet to see bill text. but we're told that the majority of that money would go to ukraine, about $12 billion of it would go to fund ukraine's ongoing civilian government, pay the salaries of its civil

servants and its pensions, things like that, a lot of it involves direct military assistance. overall, we expect about $62 billion or so of the $106 billion would go to yucca. the votes aren't there to get it. so some members of congress, some members of the senate including both the democratic leader and the republican leader have decided to try a somewhat innovative approach, combine the supplemental aid package with a border security package. marry them up and then maybe you can get enough votes for both of them. i understand why they've come to the general conclusion. i understand that sometimes you've got to pair one thing up with another thing in order to build the consensus necessary to get either passed. it's a common technique used, and i understand it. and it's understandable

certainly why they'd with a with to use it here. -- why they'd want to use it here. i believe there are some real problems with the manner in which we're going about that particular effort. starting with the fact that it presupposes on the border security front that the reason for the current border surge, for the absolute humanitarian crisis unfolding along our southern border over the last three years and over the last three months in particular, is is somehow the product of inadequate legislative authority on the part of the president of the united states and those answerable to him and charged with enforcing federal law. madam president, it is not. it is not for want of adequate legislative authority in the executive officials charged with administering those laws. it is not for lack of any legislative authority on their part that we have this border

security crisis. the exact same statutes were in place when donald trump was president of the united states. donald trump faced, as we all recall, some rather significant border surges, as the cartels were pushing people by increasingly -- increasingly into this country and making a lot of money smuggling it into the country. he utilized existing law to bring that crisis under control. those same laws are in effect today. president biden could, should, and would be able to fix this if only he had the will, the willingness to do it. in fact, if only he didn't have this defiant attitude that convinces him that he'd rather help the drug cartels and poor and middle-class americans living in border communities and everywhere else in the united states. shame on him for not using those. now, the skeptic will immediately say, well, yes, why he, well, that was title 42

authority. title 42 kicked in only because of the covid pandemic. that's not necessarily true t he did use title 42 authority. that was pegged to the pandemic. but the crisis was mostly resolved, it was bringing it to a close by the time anyone had ever heard the cursed word covid or coronavirus in 2020. it was well on its way to being a thing of the passed, all without title 42. and it helped close the gap even further to the point where we had effectively ended illegal border crossings in 2020. but we were well on our way in that direction. the biggest singles step was not in fact title 42. it was the remain-in-mexico program, also known as the migrant protection protocol. an international agreement whereby the united states

effectively entered into a safe third country agreement with mexico. if you cross into our southern border, in our country across the southern border by land and thereafter claimed asylum, you were asked, you know, where you were from and you were returned back to mexico because you were deemed eligible to aplay four asylum -- apply for asylum in the first safe country you crossed into, or at least the country into which you were crossing before entering the united states. so they were returned to mexico. asylum applicants applying for asylum appearing -- crossing over land were told that they would have to wait while they were the their asylum application remained pending in mexico. this worked like a dream.

this dramatically reduced illegal border crossings. it took a significant amount of time by president trump, by secretary of state mike pompeo, by various department of homeland security officials, and a number of other members of the president's team in order to negotiate the terms of the remain-in-mexico program. and once in place, it worked like a charm. it worked really, really well. you see, because this is where a lot of this migrant surge phenomenon comes from. we have laws in place that offer asylum. asylum is something that we offer to people who are wanting or needing to come to the united states because they face some type -- they've been targeted for some type of persecution based on their statistic us a. -- on their status. and we're a nation of immigrants. we always have been. i hope we always will be a

nation that welcomes immigrants, and we do. we welcome them a lot. we want them to come the legal way. one of the ways in which we welcome immigrants is through our asylum laws. you do have to satisfy certain statutory criteria in order to be deemed eligible for asylum. over the last few years, the vast majority of the people who cross our border without documentation and thereafter apply for asylum are ultimately deemed ineligible for it t i've heard numbers ranging from about 90% to 98% or 99%. i don't know where the actual numbers shake out. i think they sailor -- i think they vary from time to time. and so when you have people come in and apply for asylum, the way

that it's supposed to work, they're supposed to be detained until such time as their asylum claims can be adjudicated by an immigration judge. they can be found either eligible or not eligible for asylum. if they are eligible, welcome to america. you're now a refugee. come on in. and we welcome them e but if they're not, then you're supposed to be removed. removed. sent outside the united states, typically back to their country of origin. the problem has opinion that we've somehow gotten confused. we've gotten confused over the fact that we are supposed to detain them until such time as their asylum application can be adjudicated. we've got it so confused that over the years it's morphed into this monster that the drafters of the asylum laws, who put it in place, would scarcely recognize them. it's morphed into this weird

thing, they come in, say i want asylum, today they're told okay, fill out the paperwork, tell us why you want asylum, then they're told okay, we're going to hold you for a few days, then they're told our bed space is all full, we can't detain you in i longer. then they're told not that they're going to be sent back to their home country or to mexico, as they would have been, as they were being under the trump administration, under the migrant protection protocols, also known as remain in mexico, but here's a plane ticket. we'll fly you anywhere you want in the united states, on us, and unlike the measly american citizens, all of whom have to produce a driver's license in order to board a plane, you don't have to worry about that. we don't really know who you are, whether you say you are who you say you are, but go ahead. here's the plane ticket. we'll make sure you get on the plane, we'll fly you in i where you want. as for your -- fly you anywhere

you want. as for your asylum application, don't worry about that. we humbly, pritely ask that at some point you're -- politely ask that at some point you'll have an immigration hearing, we ask that you show up to it. by the way, if you enterthe united states -- if you emptier the united states without -- enter the united states without asylum, you show up before the judge one day, here is when that will occur. a week? no, longer. six weeks? no, longer. six months? longer. now, it's in the mid 2030's. we're talking a decade or more away from today. so have fun, enjoy the plane ticket on us, go wherever you want in the united states. by the way, after 180 days, we'll even send you a work permit allowing you to work while here, even though you're

without documentation. we'll fix that. we'll make you documented. just because you've said you'd like to apply for asylum. this is insane. of course we've had ten million people come into this country illegally. when we run it like that, who wouldn't want to come to america? it's the greatest country on earth. is the probe lem is this is really -- the problem is this really dangerous. for those who are human traffic, all the people in america killed, 100,000 last year killed by the fentanyl they're bringing across, dangerous for our communities and people who lose their jobs because their jobs are replaced by people who shouldn't be here to begin with. it's dangerous for those who are victims of crimes of those people, who shouldn't be here, commit while here. like ten million people. among ten mill, you'll have sod bad ones. i'm sure you have good people too, trying to get by, trying to make a living, not be in a country where they feel they

can't get ahead. but that doesn't give them the right to be here. or asylum laws sure don't. i'll tell you why. because our asylum laws do not confer an individual right on anyone to asylum. no. this is a discretionary authority given to the secretary of homeland security that he may, he may grant asylum to those people who fit the criteria for asylum. he may. remember, you're supposed to keep them hocked up. you're -- locked up. you're supposed to detain them until you can adjudicate the legitimacy of their asylum claims in an immigration hearing, and then you're supposed to depart them if not eligible and let them in only if they are. instead, we run out of bed space, processing capacity, we say oh, forget it, here you go, come in, wheeling send you a work -- we'll send you a work permit in 180 days.

of course we're going to have this problem. then somehow that wasn't even enough by itself. i don't know why. because the asylum track was working real well for the biden administration to invite more and more drug cartel activity, enriching them to the tune of tens of billions a year. maybe it wasn't quite enough for the big guy. is maybe wasn'ted more to come in -- maybe he wanted more to come in. he looked for other loopholes in our immigration laws. he turned to the parole provisions. parole in the immigration context is not talking about what you think about when somebody is out on parole from prison. this is immigration parole. it involves a very specific type of relief that the president and those working under him in the area of homeland security may

grant. again, there's no right to parole any more than there is any right on the part of any individual to asylum. it's a discretionary grant of authority, but it's a narrow one. it's one that pursuant to which the president or those answerable to him in the homeland security arena may allow someone in for two possible purposes. either for a discrete, distinct, individualized humanitarian need, the classic example of this, the longtime understanding of what that encompasses it would involve someonout side the united states who doesn't have a visa to come into the united states but whose grandmother is dying or just died, he needs to attend the funeral. parole authority can be granted for humanitarian purposes in that circumstance, with the understanding that he will leave in a few days, after the funeral is over. or maybe somebody outside the united states who doesn't have a

visa here, has a rare medical condition, treatment for which is available exclusively in the united states. he needs to come in for a few days to get that procedure, be treated with the understanding that he will leave soon after getting the treatment. the other prong of parole, immigration parole, exists in the public need, the public purpose arena, where for example someone speaks an obscure language, not typically spoken in the united states and somebody is on trial in a court somewhere, they need an interpreter, someone who can speak that very rare language. they can't find someone in the united states, they want to bring in an interpreter from another country so the person can be afforded due process and a fair trial. that's the type of public need that can be filled with the parole authority loophole.

but it's always been understood, it has always been the law that parole is not to be granted en masse. it is to be granted on a case-by-case individualized basis with individualized findings in all circumstances. nor is it open-ended. parole is not a visa. it's a temporary grant of permission to interer the -- to enter the country for a brief period of time, with the understanding that when that need is over, in a finite period of time, the person will leave. so the biden administration now used parole, i believe last year alone about 700,000 people, undocumented or brought into the united states specifically using this parole authority. now, these were not individualized determinations. these were not 700,000 individual people saying i have a specific need, my grandma is dying or i need a kidney

transplant, whatever it was, or i speak this obscure language nobody else speaks and i'm going to provide interpretation services in a court and i need to get in to get out after doing the job. no, these were massive scale grants of authority, of permission to affronter the -- to emptier the united states -- to enter the united states under the parole authority. it's against this backdrop we have to get back to this supplemental aid package that promises okay, let's make lemonade out of lemons. we got a lemon that ukraine aid can't pass by itself. so let's make lemonade by getting those who want to make sure we get lots of money to ukraine, let's pair that with votes from people who really want to make sure the border is secure. it's really sad if you think about it, that we're not all in

that boat. people can reach different conclusions, reasonable people can take a different conclusion whether, to what extent, in what way we'll help ukraine, enforce ukraine's border. that part's considered sort of optional in that it's not our border. our border shouldn't be optional. that's not an extracurricular activity for us. that is the core of what we were supposed to be doing. article 1, section 10, clause 3, and article 4, section 4 will make that clear, as will a number of other provisions of the constitution and federal statute. this is not optional. getting back to that compromise, the idea is to marry up those who want border security, unfortunately not all of us, with those who want to make sure we get money to ukraine, so ukraine's border can be

protected. it's against that backdrop i've just been describing that we're faced with that set of issues being. so we're told what we're going to do is negotiate our way into passing new border security statutes, and those statutes will then end the border security crisis created will any by the -- willfully by the biden administration 's vehement, defiant refusal to enforce the law. wait a minute. why would we expect them to enforce a new law when they're not enforcing the old law? i'm confused. moreover, if we're going to negotiate this, doesn't that send a message to the rest of the country, the incorrect message, that if this project

fails, that president biden is somehow justified in not doing it, because oh, well, congress didn't pass the law, i would have enforced the law. i haven't enforced the border for years, the whole three years i've been president of the united states, so i guess i can't enforce it now. but i would have under new law, but i won't under existing law. why should we take that seriously? there are a lot of americans who are looking at this, asking why we're willing to spend so much money on other countries and securing their borders but not our own. how can we look those constituents in the eye? knowing full well that so far, according to the heritage foundation's estimates, this war, our support of this war, of ukraine since this war started, the $113 billion we provided, more than any other country on earth by far, $113 billion of

hard-earned american taxpayer dollars, that's real stuff. according to the heritage foundation, that amounts to about over $900 per american taxpayer on that conflict. even at the height of the multiple wars we were facing in 2008, where we were fighting wars in -- not through a proxy, not just by providing military aid, but we were fighting wars in iraq, in afghanistan, and to a degree in syria. even that year, at the height of that conflict, the cost per taxpayer was somewhere in the range of i don't know $700 or so. but just so far in the existence of this conflict, we've spent $113 billion already on ukraine. and the american taxpayer is now being asked to spend another

$62 billion on ukraine when we still haven't secured our own border. it's against that backdrop we're saying okay, we'll negotiate into this new border security laws. look, i would imagine there are a few of us who wouldn't vote for all kinds of things, wouldn't consider voting for all kinds of things, if we were assured, if we really were certain, if we could see the future and predict with the high degree of certainty that if we voted for x, y, or z, whether ukraine funding or something else that the border would be secure and it wouldn't be secure if we didn't vote for that thing. i don't know how i can look my constituents in the face and tell them yeah, we've got to spend this additional money here in order to get new laws so that president biden can now enforce the border. when i know full well, many of them know full well, that he

could enforce the border now if he close to do so -- if he chose to do so. i struggle with the premise of this at the outsed. i think it does send the wrong message, but that is only the beginning of my concern with this. the next step, we've got language that's been under negotiation, i believe since october, october, november, december and most of the way through january, we're like four months into this thing, into this negotiation. yet we still have yet to see legislative text. it's a little frustrating. what little we do know about it, what little we have been told, what little we've been allowed to see, i feel like a character in "oliver twist." asking, please, sir, may i have some more? when i'm told just crumbs of details about what's in this legislation. what we do know is a little

concerning. i'll be honest. we've got the asylum problem, the parole problem. as far as i can tell, there is no agreement at all, not even the hope of an agreement on the immigration parole issues, such that we would shut down the 700,000 or so people who were unl unlawfully brought in under parole authority in■k the last year alone. from my understanding, there is no agreement at all that would shut that down. and what discussions have occurred around parole deal with custodial parole issues involving some illegal immigrants than the immigration parole we're describing. it doesn't deal with that. it does apparently tighten the asylum standards in ways i'm told will be helpful but in ways that i have yet to be able to evaluate because i haven't seen the text of the language.

if objection. -- it might prove to be a nice thing to have. i don't dispute that. but is that what's going to make the difference between the utter defiant nonenforcement of our border and the laws that governor our border and the add miss ability of -- dismiss abilitiesy of those outside of the united states who be want to come into the united states now? no, it doesn't. because it remains the case today that asylum is a permissive grant of authority to the secretary of homeland security and not a right, not a right on any individual. and when the system's overwhelmed, the proper remedy should, in fact, be you're not coming in, we're shutting this down, the secretary of homeland security am declining to grant or process anymore asylum applications until we can get this under control, so it's shut

down. that leads me to another feature that we've been told just a little bit about as to the new proposal. that it creates a new authority wh whereby the president and the homeland security secretary can just shut down illegal crossings along the southern border once that they can do it if they choose once we've got 4,000 migrant crossings encounters a day, and they shall do it once we've got at least 5,000 migrant crossing encounters per day. that sounds intriguing -- intriguing, there are a thousand different ways this could be written and that could be helpful but there are things that scare me to death. things that if they're written just a little bit wrong could make matters worse. let me explain. maybe this is written in such a

way once we've reached 5,000 migrant encounters per day, that the requirement is perhaps, they don't know this, again, i'm having to speculate because they won't share the language with me or with anyone else, we will not process anymore asylum applications once we have more than 5,000 migrant encounters per day. let's suppose that's what it says. if that's what it says and that's a change compared to existing law, it would seem that perhaps the change, the assumption, not just the assumption, but the reality this is a permissive grant of authority, and that you shut this down only after you reach that level, then at that point you change the may shall nature of asylum, and the government's not required to start processing them if that's how it's written

until we've achieved that 5,000 migrant encounter per day number. by the way, that's a lot of people. that's a lot of people. a lot of people live in communities that are a fraction of that size. cities or towns that are smaurl than that. -- smaller than that. and when you multiply 5,000 people by 365 days, it comes up to 1.825 million people a year. that's a lot of people. is this just resetting the norm, saying that until that point it's not really a problem? i don't know because i can't see the text, but it certainly could mean that. by the way, even once this authority kicks in, this authority to supposedly shut down the authority, whatever capacity, through asylum or parole or whatever other means they throw in there, they limit the number of days in which that can remain in ee ekt.

i -- effect. i believe the authority, as explained to me, would apply up to 13 consecutive days, and then what, they would have to reopen it, regardless if the number of migrants encountered has dipped? i don't know. it gets worse than that. they say that there's a maximum number of days that the border can shut down. initially i'm told it's 275 days per year, that's the end. at at that point, i suppose you've made it through 275 days total in a particular year of the border being quote-unquote, shut down, not being able to process more asylum applications or exercise parole authority or whatever it is. but on the 276th day, all the way through the end of day 365, it's immigration mardi gras, it's carnival ride, it's

everybody on board the fun train, this is going to be great and the cartels are going to make even more money. they say, well, the cartels won't put up with that. nonsense. cartels are sophisticated enterprises that make tens of billions of dlas a year -- dollars a year just on joe biden alone. are you telling me they're not going to get around this to make even more money? i've got a bridge to sell you if you think they're not. it gets even worse, madam president, than that. you see 275 days per year is only the limit in year one. from there, it ratchets down. by the second or third down, it ratchets down to a maximum of 180 days a year that the border can be deemed shut down under this new authority. why in the sam hill would we agree to that? why would we do that?

why would you want to limit less than half of the total number of days in a year regardless of what's happening along the southern border, the time in which that border authority can be deemed shut down? i don't understand it. and it gets even worse than that, madam president. with regard to parole authority, the word -- the number 180 appears apparently in this legislation, not once, but twice, once in the one i just mentioned. that the border can be shut down under this new -- this new authority that apparently allows them to stop processing asylum applications, which they already have the power to do, but it appears a second time. you see,currently, there's a 180 day wait between the time an asylum application is processed

and then given the plane ticket to the destination of their choice in the united states on the plane they can board without any documentation of their identity, not even a driver's license, just get on board. 180-day wait until the time they board that plain until the time they receive their work permit, which they shouldn't have, we shouldn't process them in until such time they have been granted asylum, but whatever. they are given this mandatory wait period under current practice. they get rid of that in this proposal. no 180-day wait. you show up and as long as you're not in those 180 days a year when it's going to be shut down, we'll get you processed and we'll send you away from that detention facility before you board the plane with your

work permit already in hand. this is nuts. absolutely nuts. look, i have great respect for my colleagues who are trying in good faith to work through this. i love my colleague, the senior senator from oklahoma, senator lankford, one of my favorite not just in the senate, one of my favorite people period. i know he's doing the best job he can, working under strict orders not of his own choosing. i have deep respect for him. and that remains despite any differences we may end up having on how we vote on this legislation. nonetheless, i don't understand. i don't understand in part because they haven't been willing to share the text with me. when i asked why we can't see the text, it's typically something we do because we make laws here, that's our job. we make laws. laws consist of laws.

words have meaning. we need to see the words. well in advance of the time when we plan to pass them. when i ask for legislative text on this one i'm told it's not in one place, it's in lots of different documents. that's fine. for many years as a lawyer, constantly dealing with documents that we were putting together, contained input from many, many lawyers. and i had to deal with 5, 10, 15 different documents at one time, try to synthesize them all. we can handle that. everyone here can. those who have practiced law or engaged in some other occupation have had training that allows us to read and understand things, and we've got smart people who work for us, who can help us put it all together. but, no, we still can't see it. anyway, my point is got great respect for senator lankford and absolutely love the guy.

but i've got deep concerns with what little i know about this, and this is all i have to go on. i hope he can understand my frustration with the process that tells me i can't see it, even though i know darned well a day is going to come when if they get a deal, we may not have much time to review this thing. it happens from time to time. when the law firm of schumer-mcconnell, johnson and jeffries as it's currently comprised spits out legislation and we're given hours or maybe a couple of days to read it, that's not cool. it happens all the time with spending legislation. it shouldn't. it's a barbaric practice. it's exactly why we're $34 trillion in debt. it should never happen when we're dealing with something as fundamental to our safety and security as this legislation.

put it in context, madam president. the last time we undertook a major border security or immigration law overhaul, about a decade ago, we had that pending before the senate judiciary committee in markup for an entire month. judiciary committee markup usually takes an hour or two, sometimes three or four for a really long one. this one took a month because this stuff is really complicated. and so it's staggering to me that they would even consider rushing this through if and when they have a deal. other things that concern me within what little we know about the legislation, i'm told there will be 5,000 additional -- 50,000 additional new immigrant visas granted in this provision, and then an additional number of people, some have estimated in the tens of thousands.

others have estimated in the hundreds of thousands of work permits that will be issued attached to other nonpermanent visa holders, members of the nonpermanent visa holders' family who are adults but not authorized to work. this would allow them to work. some may have concerns with that. i remember over the years one of the many things that i've tried to fix in the immigration system, it's long been my belief you can fix our immigration code best if you target each particular issue as narrowly as possible and don't load everything up all in one bill or else the thing is going to fail. i've tried for many years to end a discriminatory provision in our immigration laws that is strongly biased against people born in heavily populated countries like india, for

example. if you had two immigrants who were eligible for an immigrant visa, whether work based or otherwise, but for the work-based immigrant visas you had two people equally eligible for a visa. one was born in luck someburg -- luxembourg and the other in india. the one born in luxembourg, that immigrant came from a small country, small population, might have that visa processed and be in the united states in under a year. the person in india might take 80 years, most likely for racist reasons, many decades ago to keep certain people that perhaps the race-minded lawmakers, the racist lawmakers at the time might have considered undesirable. i've been trying to fix that for

a long period. time. we finally passed something out of the senate that fixed this. it took forever to get this done. i had been working on it for about a decade. it should have been a real layup to pass in the house because there were 350 cosponsors of the same legislation in the house and they couldn't and wouldn't get it done. anyway, i bring all that up to say we moved heaven and earth to get all of that fixed without adding a single new visas, not a single new visas to the visas allocated under existing law. why? because a lot of people were opposed to that. i was falsely accused by those who misinterpreted of it granting all kinds of new visas, it didn't grant a single new visas, because we knew that would be controversial. to add 50,000 new visas and perhaps tens of thousands of new

work permits on top of that is not going to be n noncontroversial. you add to all of that, the fundamental fact that joe biden could end this border security crisis right now. he could do it. first, stop taking down the barrier in texas. you're embarrassing yourself and you're endangering our country. don't do that. you know better. shame on you, sir. secondly, after he does that, he could and he should restore the migrant protection protocol, the remain in mexico program. this was in place on the day that joe biden was sworn into office back in january of 2001, and -- 2021, and he was doing greater. trump handed over -- he was later ordered to reinstate it after lengthy litigation

concluded he acted unlawfully. he continued to drag his feet to this day. he could do it. he won't, but he should. and i can him to reconsider today. but, madam president, the fact that he's not doing this indicates that he and those who stand with him in this body are not acting in good faith. they're not negotiating in good faith. they cannot, must not be deemed to be good faith negotiators on this issue. why? because he refuses to enforce the law that -- laws that he has. and if for the sake of tightening some la mr. lankford: wage here and -- some language in ways that some have described as ambiguous and uncertain, if that's the primary thing we're getting is a tightening of the asylum standard, but we might also be limiting the ability of the current or future presidents, to

halt the abuse of asylum and parole, then we can't do this. we shouldn't be doing this at all. mr. lee: so,■@ look, bottom lin is this, i think we're back to the point where maybe we ought to try to pass these separately. if you can get ukraine supplemental aid passed, fine, go at it. if you can somehow come up with a deal that actually closes the border security gaps and actually forces the president's hands and places some accountability on him, then i'll consider that too. i may even vote for it if i think it fixes the job, notwithstanding the fact that i have concerns sending another $62 billion to a country, $900

per u.s. taxpayer, but i'd consider it if it would actually fix the problem. and i think there's probably ways to do it. one good way of starting is to start at at starting point -- at a starting point, take border security language passed by the house of representatives. some say it won't pass here, but we don't know that because we never tried attaching that to other legislation like the ukraine-israel supplemental aid package, and then add to that border security metrics that would tie the expenditure of these $62 billion that is supposed to go to ukraine, tie the release of those in phased packages over the next year or whatever the increment is, to the achievement of certain border security metrics, goals. they can bring down to what they themselves have said is

tolerable. i believe the border patrol maxed out when they get 500 daily migrant encounters. if we can reduce it down to that and the administration starts enforcing the law and actually starts refusing to let people in after they can no longer process them and reinstates the migrant protocols, the remain in mexico program that will bring this down to less than 500 migrant encounters today, if and -- and if you phase the release of the ukraine funding in that way, some may have assurance that this could happen. alas, there is no provision in this. it's stunning to me there isn't. there should be. the reason i say that is we've

had countless conversations within the senate republican conference where member after member after member would propose something like that. my friend and colleague, the senior senator from north dakota, john hoeven, was one of the first to raise the idea and has been among the most empassioned advocates for it, saying let's tie the ukraine funding to the achievement of certain border security met iks -- metrics, that will give everybody the confidence that we need that this will make a difference. i believe he is the first one to suggest it, and has made the argument more often than anyone else in the conference, but he's not alone. i think i've heard dozens of republican senators say something similar. it's true, i heard maybe one or two, three at the most, republican senators express

reservations with that, but many multiples of that speak out saying, yes, this would be a good thing. yes, this could bring a lot of us on board. and, yet, regrettably, my fwrend from oklahoma -- my friend from oklahoma was instructed not to even seek that. why? why do that? if we can't even tie the expenditure of the ukraine funds, which we know the administration cares about dearly, for reasons i cannot comprehend, he cares so much about ukraine's border than ours. i understand his desire to stop vladimir putin. vladimir putin is a bad guy. i wish he would recognize that there are things we could do to energy policy that might help in that direction if the united states had been exporting this whole time large quantities of lng, maybe that would help, because russia is funding this war and so many other things

through its hegemony in the foreign market, there's so many things we could do, but he remains concerned about this and wants to spend mr and more money -- more and more money on military aid to ukraine. but if he really cares as much as he does about ukraine and he wants to get that funding done, i strongly advise him to consider an option like what i just described. let us tie the release of the ukraine funding, let it be rolled out in staggered phases as the biden administration restores confidence, the confidence of not just members of the senate and the house, but of the american people. i think that might work. something like that, if it's packaged right and contains the right reforms, it might even get my vote. and i'm not somebody eager to

vote for that, but i really want to secure the border because america is a less safe place every day joe biden continues to enrich their drug cartels and subject women and children to sex slavery and indentured servant. we have a duty to bass good laws and make sure those laws -- to pass good laws and make sure those laws are passed as they should be and we should not fund every pet project that the administration deems important. sometimes we need to insist that they do their jobs. if we reward bad behavior, we're going to get more bad things, it will be -- and it will be dangerous for the american people. i believe in this country. i believe in the american dream. and that dream is becoming more distant every day lawlessness prevails. we can restore it. we can recapture it, but we do

have to insist that our border be secure. it is not may we make it secure once again is my entire endeavor in giving these remarks tonight. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor.

traditional reading of washington's farewell address take place on monday, february 26, 2024, following the prayer and pledge of the flag. the presiding officer: without objection.

the chair, on behalf of the vice president, pursuant to the order of the senate of january 24, 1901, as modified by the order of january 24, 1901, as modified by the order of january 24, 2024, appoints the senator from maryland, mr. cardin, to read washington's farewell address on monday, february 26, 2024. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent that the committee on health, education, labor and pensions be discharged from further consideration of s. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today it stand adjour ,ahe president be immediately notified of the senate's action. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

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mr. schumer: madam president. the presiding officer: the majority leader. we're not in a quorum. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to less lative session -- to legislative session and be in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: madam president, i have seven requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have the approval of the majority and minority leaders. the presiding officer: duly noted. mr. schumer: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding the order of january 24, 1901, the traditional reading of washington's farewell address take place on monday, february 26, 2024, following the prayer and pledge of the flag. the presiding officer: without objection. the chair, on behalf of the vice president, pursuant to the order of the senate of january 24, 1901, as modified by the order

of january 24, 2024, appoints the senator from maryland, mr. cardin, to read washington's farewell address on monday, february 26, 2024. mr. schumer: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the committee on health, education, labor and pensions be discharged from further consideration of s. 2853 and the senate proceed to its immediate consideration. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s.2853, a bill to require the secretary of health and human services and secretary of labor to conduct a study and issue a report on grant programs to support the nursing workforce. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding to the measure? without objection. the committee is discharged and the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. schumer: 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. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer:

madam president, in conclusion, i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today it stand adjourned until 10:00 a.m. on thursday, january 25; that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed; that upon the conclusion of morning business, the senate proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the lund nomination; further, that the cloture motion on the sherriff nomination ripen upon disposition of the lund nomination, and that if cloture is invoked on the sherriff nomination, all time be considered expired and the confirmation vote be at a time to be determined by the majority leader in consultation with the republican leader; further, that following the cloture vote on the sherriff nomination the senate resume consideration of the kolar tha motion ripen at 1:45 p.m.; finally, that if any nominations are confirmed during thursday's session, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the president be immediately notified of the senate's action. the presiding officer: without