united states supreme court decision in zavillas. the court held the immigrants admitted to the united states then ordered removed couldn't be detained for more than six months. four years later, the supreme court came along and extended the decision to people here illegally as well. that's what we're talking about right now. we're talking about illegals that come into this country. as a result of that, the department of justice and homeland security, they have no choice but to release thousands of criminal immigrants into our neighborhoods. the problem with these decisions is that the criminal immigrants ordered to be removed can't be deported back to their country if that country refuses to accept them back. now, stop and think about that because the case, i certainly wouldn't -- couldn't criticize a country for not taking back a

hardened criminal into their country and, of course, that's the case that happens. now, more importantly, these decisions have serious impact on public safety as recent cases have illustrated. six years ago, a vietnamese immigrant was ordered deported after serving time in prison for armed robbery and assault. he was never removed because the supreme court decision handicapped our authorities, our immigration officials couldn't deport him without the cooperation of the vietnamese government which they didn't get. the vietnamese government stayed said we don't want this guy back and his deportation was never processed. now, this same immigrant who binh thai luc is suspected of killing five people in a san francisco home in march of 2012. the story of kion wu puts the story in perspective.

wu felt safer after the man who talked her, choked her, punched her, pointed a knife at her and was locked up and ordered removed from the country. she naturally felt better because the guy was behind lock and key and then was going to be ordered back to his country. the man, wan chin had illegally entered the united states and has been the case of about 8,000 times in the last four years, mr. chin's home country refused to let its violent criminal return. here's a guy who is a violent criminal, we were going to send him back to the country and his country didn't want him. so handcuffed by the supreme court decision, immigration officials released mr. chen back into the community when they had no place else to send them, they released the guy. and as you can imagine, this story also does not have a happy ending because upon his release in 2010, wang chen murdered kion

wu. murdered her. she knew -- she suspected this was going to happen. and as you can see, this is a real problem with serious consequences and there are others like these people out there. according to statistics provided by the department of homeland security, there are many countries that are not cooperating or that take longer to repatriate their nationals, countries like iran, pakistan, china, somalia, liberia. these are all on that list. the supreme court, in making their decision, said that congress should clarify the law. so i have an amendment that clarifies the law by creating a framework that allows immigration officials to detain dangerous criminals, immigrants like binh thai luc and wang chen. specifically immigrants can be detained beyond six months -- this is what the amendment doe does -- immigrants can be detained beyond six months if they're under orders of removal

but can't be deported due to the country's unwillingness to accept them back into their country. and several conditions would have to be made, including if the release would threaten national security -- keep in mind now, we're talking about determinations are made that they threaten national security, threaten the safety of the community and the alien either is an aggravated felon or has committed a crime of violence. now, understand that the aclu is opposed to this. this should make everyone excited about getting this thing passed. and by the way, we're going to hear people say that this is -- there are no conditions. there are a lot of safeties that are built in to this. the secretary, for example, in order to keep someone past six months, will have to certify every six months that this is not indefinite and certify that the -- the threat is still the there. the alien still has access to our federal courts.

and so, you know, only the conditions of being a threat to the safety of the community and must also have committed a crime of violence or aggravated felony. so i can't imagine that anyone would be -- would object to this and would be putting all these people in danger. and, of course, we've already had some deaths. and i think it's very reasonable that we go ahead and take care of some of these things that would be very -- would be acceptable. and so for that reason, i would ask unanimous consent that amendment number 1203 be brought before us for its immediate consideration. a senator: i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. mr. grassley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: i'm not going to make any unanimous consent request. i just want to speak about a piece of legislation that i hope to get up before we finish the bill on immigration. this is a grassley-kirk amendment number 1299.

and i'm having a difficult time getting it put in place so we can get it brought up. i believe there's a lack of understanding of what my amendment does and i think i'll take this time to explain it so you fully understand it and i can get it to a roll call vote. i want to thank senator kirk for joining me on this amendment as a cosponsor. this amendment would address language in the bill that creates a convoluted and ineffective process for determining whether a foreign national in a street gang should be deemed inadmissible or be deported. i offered a similar amendment in committee because i believe this to be such a dangerous loophole that requires closing. my amendment even had the support of two members of the group of eight. specifically, in order to deny entry or remove a gang member,

section 3701 of the bill requires that department of homeland security prove a foreign national, one, had a prior federal felony conviction for drug trafficking or violent crime. two, has knowledge that the gang is continuing to commit crimes, and; three, has acted in furtherance of gang activity. even if all of these provisions could be proven, under the bill, the secretary could still issue a waiver, one of many opportunities for the secretary of homeland security to just forget about what the legislation says. as such, the proposed process is limited only to criminal gang members with prior federal drug

trafficking and federal violent crime convictions and does no not -- can you believe this? -- does not include state convictions like rape and murd murder. the trick here is that while the bill wants you to believe there is strong provision, foreign nationals who have federal felony drug convictions or violent crime convictions are already subject to deportation if they're already here or denied entry as being inadmissible. so the gang provision written in this bill adds nothing to current law and obviously will not be used. it is at best a feel-good measure to say that we're being tough on criminal gangs while really doing nothing to remove or deny entry to criminal gang members. it is easier to prove that someone is a convicted drug

trafficker than both a drug trafficker and a gang member. so as currently written, why would this provision ever be used? simply put, it would not be us used. my amendment would strike this do-nothing provision and issue a new, clear, simple standard to address the problem of gang members. my amendment would strike this do-nothing provision and create a process to address criminal gang members where the secretary of homeland security must prove, one, criminal street gang membership and; two, that the person is a danger to the community. once the secretary proves these two things, the burden shifts then, as it should, to the foreign national to prove that he -- either he is not

dangerous, not a street gang -- or not in a street gang, or that he did not know that the group was a street gang. it is straightforward and will help remove dangerous criminal gang members. my amendment also eliminates the possibility of a waiver. under my amendment, the vast majority of people here illegally that could be excluded based upon criminal gang membership would be able to appeal that determination to an immigration judge. and even if they are found to be a gang member, if they can show they are not a danger to society, they can gain status. this gives the secretary, and in the event th they appeal, an immigration judge, the ability to make these two determinations before denying entry or starting deportation. it is a real solution to

dangerous criminal gang members who are either here in the country now seeking legal status or who are attempting to enter from abroad. i urge my colleagues to look at this amendment, hopefully get it on the list of -- of issues we can discuss and vote on before we have final passage. to kind of summarize, the current bill is simply a feel-good measure that has very limited impact. it will rarely be used because it is written in a way with too many loopholes and even if it is is, the secretary can waive the deportation. and i think it's -- we ought to be emphasizing a greater extent how many waivers there are in this bill that really makes this bill too much delegation to the

secretary and we ought to be legislating more in these areas and making more determinations here instead of putting it up to the secretary. a vote against my amendment is a vote against commonsense legislation to address criminal gang members. now, i'm sure somebody's going to argue that this might be too high of a burden. my amendment simply requires that the secretary make the initial determination for purposes of admissibility. under my amendment, the vast majority of people here illegally that could be excluded based upon criminal gang membership would be able to appeal that determination to an immigration judge. so there is review of these decisions to deny status if the secretary believes the individual to be a gang member. criminal street gangs, as everyone knows, are dangerous and they survive by robbing their community of safety.

they're involved in drug trafficking, human trafficking, and prostitution. the way the bill deals with criminal gang members would allow gang members to simply say they are no longer a gang member with no further determination and they would be able to gain admission. in reality, then, it is hard to walk away from a gang and some will just claim that they did gain status. the only way to prevent gang members from gaming the system is through my amendment. it provides the secretary and immigration judges discretion they need. and even if they are a gang member, if they can show that they're not a danger to society, they can gain status. this is a reasonable standard that allows the ailing to argue that they are not a gang member and/or dangerous. there's a precedent in the immigration code related to group membership as a bar;

namely, membership or association with a terrorist organization. criminal gangs, although not legally terrorist organizations, can be just as dangerous as te tea --terrorists. why would we not want to give the secretary this authority? this bill provides sweeping waiver authority and discretion to the secretary to make all sorts of decisions, so i don't know why the sponsors would oppose discretion to the secretary to deny gang member admission. a vote against this amendment, if i get it brought up, is a vote to allow dangerous gang members a path into our country. now, some may argue that it should be tied to some sort of criminal conviction. well, criminal gang members are not often convicted of a crime of gang membership. in fact, the federal crime of being a gang member is almost

never used. to only allow gang members to those convicted would be a huge loophole given the difficulty of prosecuting someone for simply gang membership. the underlying bill doesn't even consider state-level convictions for gang membership, as my amendment would. simply put, my amendment will help prevent gang members from getting into this country and the bill will not. only before yielding the floor now, that -- i -- i just hope we can get this amendment on the list to be voted upon. i yield the floor. mr. leahy: mr. president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. mr. leahy: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: mr. president, i ask

consent the call of the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy: mr. president, i yield to the distinguished senator from hawaii. ms. hirono: thank you. mr. president, i rise to speak on my amendment, hirono number 1504, cosponsored by senators murray, murkowski, boxer, gillibrand, cantwell, stabenow, klobuchar, warren, baldwin, mikulski, landrieu, shaheen and leahy. i ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment. mr. leahy: i would object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. ms. hirono: thank you. so noted. to continue, mr. president, the immigration bill clearly if inadvertently disadvantages women who are trying to immigrate to the united states. s. 744 reduces the opportunities for immigrants to come under the family-based green card system. the new merit-based point system

for employment green cards will significantly disadvantage women who want to come to this country, particularly unmarried women. many women overseas do not have the same educational or career advancement opportunities available to men in those countries. this new merit-based system will prioritize green cards for immigrants with high levels of education or experience. by favoring these immigrants, the bill in effect cements into u.s. immigration law unfairness against women. that's not the way to go. the bill inadvertently, inadvertently restricts the opportunities available to women across the globe. currently, approximately 70% of immigrant women come to this country through the family-based system. employment-based visas favor men over women by nearly a 4-1

margin as they place a premium on male-dominated fields like engineering and computer science. but across the globe, women do not have the same educational or career opportunities as men. immigrant women made many contributions and positive impacts to communities. economically, women are increasingly the primary breadwinners in immigrant families. they often bring additional income, making it more likely for the family to open small businesses, purchase homes. in addition, women provide stability and permanent roots as they are more likely to follow through on the citizenship application process for themselves and their families. ensuring that women have an equal opportunity to come here is not an abstract policy cause to me. when i was a young girl, my mother brought my brothers and me to this country in order to escape an abusive marriage.

my life would be completely different if my mother wasn't able to take on that courageous journey. i want women like her, women like my mother who don't have the opportunities to succeed in their own countries to be able to build a better life for themselves here. the hirono-murray-murkowski amendment evens the playing field for women. this amendment would establish a tier three merit-based points system that would provide a fair opportunity for women to compete for merit-based green cards. complementary to the high-skilled tier one and lower skilled tier two, the new tier three would include professions commonly held by women so as not to limit women's opportunity for economic-focused immigration to this country. this system would provide 30,000 tier three visas and would not reduce the visas available in the other two merit-based tiers.

while maintaining the overall cap on merit-based visas. this amendment is supported by we belong together, women for commonsense immigration reform. by the asian american justice center. the national domestic workers association. the leadership conference on civil and human rights. church world service. family values at work. national asian pacific american women's forum. moms rising. national immigration law center. american immigration lawyers association. national organization of women. center for community change. lutheran immigration and refugee services. the episcopal church.

unitarian universalist association. united states conference of catholic bishops. catholic charities u.s.a. caring across generations. coalition for humane immigrant rights of los angeles. american federation of state, county and municipal employees. sisters of mercy. asian pacific american labor alliance, afl -- afl-cio. the international union, united automobile, aerospace and agricultural implement workers of america. national council of arasa. the united methodist church. national asian-pacific island alliance. hispanic federation. immigration equality action

fund. out for immigration. sojourners. communication workers of america, of the afl-cio. i believe that our amendment would address the disparities for women and the new merit-based system, and the dozens of organizations that i just mentioned believe likewise. let's work together to improve the new merit-based immigration system and make this bill better for women. i yield back my time. i note the absence of a quorum, mr. president. a senator: mr. president? mr. leahy: would the senator withdraw, please? ms. hirono: yes. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. rubio: thank you, mr. president.

mr. president, i wanted to come here today and talk a little bit about this immigration bill as we head to the end of this week because we're obviously hearing from many people outside of the building that are concerned about this issue, and i think it's important to make a few things clear as we head into next week and what i hope will be final passage of this measure. first, let me describe how this program works because i think this is -- you know, immigration is complicated. it can sometimes even be confusing. we throw around these terms here in the building and we assume that everybody back home understands what they mean, so i wanted to explain. the way i'm going to explain it is how this bill will work if we pass the amendment filed by senators hoeven and corker, which i believe would pass and should pass with significant bipartisan support. and here's how it would work. first, let's describe the problem we have today. the problem we have in the united states today is, number one, we have a broken legal immigration system. we have a system of legal immigration. about a million people a year come here legally, but the system is broken because it's

designed, for example, focused solely on family reunification which is how my parents came in 1956. the problem is the world has changed. as a result because we now live in a global economy where we're competing for talent, not just work force, but we need to have more of a merit-based and career-based immigration system. this bill would do that. it would move it in that direction. we have a broken legal immigration system, by the way, because it's cumbersome, complicated, bureaucratic. you really have to lawyer up to legally immigrate to the united states, especially in certain categories. particularly if you look at the agriculture sector, there is no reliable, sustainable way for agriculture to get foreign labor. and by and large, while there are americans that will do labor in the agriculture industry, there is a shortage of americans, a significant shortage of americans that will do labor, that will work in the agriculture industry, and we don't have a program for agriculture that works for people to come legally here. but the jobs are there so people are coming illegally. so we have a broken legal immigration system, and that has to be fixed, that has to be

modernized. this bill does that. that's why you have not heard a lot of conversation or discussion about it. the second problem that we have is that our immigration laws are only as good as our ability to enforce those laws. and if you want to get to the heart of the problem that we're facing here in terms of opposition to the bill, it's because in the past both republicans and democrats have promised to enforce the immigration laws and then have refused or been unable to do it. now, part of that has just been an unwillingness, to be quite frank. you talk about 1986. you talk about 2006. you talk about other efforts. in the past, people have been told we're going to enforce the immigration laws, and then they don't do it. so as time goes on and the problem gets bigger, people look at washington and say you told us this before. say you're not going to do it again. that really is standing in the way of more support for this measure. but the other problem we have is that the systems that are used to enforce the law are broken themselves. for example, on the border, there are sectors that have dramatically improved. so from that experience, we have learned what works, but there are sectors that have only -- that have actually gotten worse

or have not improved significantly. so to say that the entire border has been -- the southern border has been secured is not true, and we really shouldn't say that to americans, especially those living near that border who understand that that's not true. we also, by the way, have a problem with visa overstays. what that means is people come into the united states legally on a tourist visa or some other visa, and then the visa when it expires they don't leave. so they came in legally, they didn't jump a fence or cross the border, but then they get here and they stay. that's a visa overstay. that's 40% of our problem. and the third -- we don't have a system to track that. even though it's mandated by law, we do not have a system to track that. we track people when they come in but we don't track them when they leave in real time, so we don't have a running tally of who has overstayed their visas, leading to 40% of our illegal immigration problem. and the third problem we have is that the magnet that brings people here -- now, i'm not saying to you that everybody that comes here, every single person that comes here illegally is coming looking for jobs and

opportunity, but i'm telling you that the enormous majority of people that come here are coming because they believe there is a job in the united states for them so they can feed their families, and that's a magnet. you have jobs and you have people willing to do those jobs. those two things are going to meet. they are going to come. the choice we have is do they come through a legal process that is organized and counts who they are and is secure or do they come in a chaotic way that contributes to illegal immigration, and that's how they're coming now. and so that's why in this bill we have an entry-exit tracking system, but we also have something called everify. what everify simply means is that employers, any business, any company, anyone who hires someone, when you go hire them, you have to ask them their name, they have to produce their identification, you run that name through the internet on a system called everify, and it will confirm whether that person is legally here or not. and if you hire them after that system says they are illegally here, we double and sometimes even triple the penalties for

employers that do that. so those are important measures that this bill takes. and that's the second problem that we face. the third problem that we face is even more fundamental, and that is that as we speak, as i stand here before you today, estimates are that there are upwards of 11 million human beings living in these united states who are here illegally. they have overstayed visas, they were brought as children, they have crossed the border, they are here. they don't qualify for welfare, they don't qualify for any federal benefits, but they are here. they are here and they are working. they are working for cash, they are working under someone else's identification, but they are here. the vast majority of them have been here for longer than a decade. they're here. and let me tell you, that's not good for them because when you don't have documents, you're unprotected. when you're here illegally, you can be exploited, and that happens, but it's also not good for the country. it is not good for this country to have that many people here. we don't know who they are.

they're not paying taxes. they're working but they're not paying taxes. we have no idea the vast majority of them are not criminals, but a handful of them are. we don't know that. we don't know where they live, who they are, how long they have been here. we know very little about them. and that's not good for our country either. we have to deal with that. and that was my point. if we don't do anything -- let's say this bill fails or let's say we pass it and the house doesn't do it or let's say we decide not to do anything at all on immigration. all those things that i have just described to you, they stay in place. if we don't do anything, the border stays the way it is, we still don't have everify, we still don't have an entry-exit tracking system, and we still have no idea who these 11 million people are and we still do not have a legal immigration system that works. that's what happens if we do nothing. and so that's why i got involved in this issue. it isn't politics, and i disagree with my colleagues that have said that this is about politics. this is not about saving the republican party or anybody else. this is about correcting

something that is hurting the united states of america. i can certainly tell you it's not about my personal politics, because this is an issue that makes a lot of people unhappy. a lot of people that have supported me and support me now. people who i agree with on every other issue. n every other -- on every other issue. you pull out a list of issues facing this country, i agree with them on every other issue, but they disagree with me on this issue, and i respect and understand why, because they're frustrated, because they have been told in the past that this is going to get fixed and it hasn't. beca -- because they feel and see and know this is the most generous country in the world on immigration and it's been taken advantage of and they are frustrated by it. i've seen some described those opposed though immigration reform that they're haters. it's not true. these are people that are frustrated that the laws have been followed and they have not

been rewarded. i want to say to them i get it. i don't like this either. i don't like the fact that we have 11 million people here illegally. i don't like the fact people ignored our laws, crossed our borders and overstayed visas. i don't like this either but that is what we're going to get stuck with if we don't do anything about it. that is what this bill tries to do and let me explain how it does. first it says, first we outline -- when we filed this bill what we said is the department of homeland security, here's $6.5 billion. go out and design a border fence plan and a border plan. submit it to congress. issue a letter of commencement and then you can begin the process of identifying these people who are here illegally. that was our bill. then i went around my state, sometimes the country, and my colleagues did as well and people told us, look, we don't trust the department of homeland security. these people say the borders are already secure and you're going to tell them to design a plan? i thought that was a good point. now we have an amendment before

us by senators corker and hoeven that actually defines the plan. let me describe this new plan to you because i think it is the most substantial border security plan we have ever had before any body of congress. number one, it mandates -- doesn't say you can, doesn't say you should. it says you must. you must have universal everify for every business in america and you have to wrap that up within four years. it starts with big businesses until it gets to ag and the small businesses. the reason you need three or four years, in small businesses it will take time to buy the technology to do this. that's number one. number two, you have to finish the entry-exit tracking system. after this bill was presented to committee it says the 30 major airports in this country will have it biometricically.

third, you have to this technology: radars, sensors on the ground, night vision goggles, motion detectors, even unarmed drones. things that allow you to see people. and even if they get past you at the first stop on the border, you can follow them and apprehend them a few miles down the road. this technology didn't used to exist anymore. we go further than that in the amendment. we don't just say you have to deploy this technology. we tell you where you have to deploy it. we don't even leave that to d.h.s.. those ideas didn't come from senators. it came from members of the border patrol on the front lines. they have told us here's where we need this stuff. at a level of detail unprecedented in the history of this body, we say 50 goggles in this sector, 100 radars in this sector. that's the third thing that this bill requires you to do. the fourth thing that it requires you to do is to double the size of the border patrol. adding 20,000 new border agents.

this is a dramatic increase in the number of people. you know, cameras and sensors are great, but if you don't have people to do the apprehension, it doesn't work. 20,000 new border agents. and the last thing it says is you have to complete this fencing. and that includes where it's practical, where it's possible, getting rid of these vehicle barriers. one of the things they did with the fencing is they would put up some barrier on the road and say that's a fence. the problem is that may keep a vehicle but it doesn't keep somebody from climbing over it. we say where it's possible, where the terrain allows it, there are places where the terrain doesn't let you build a fence but where the terrain allows it, you have to put a fence there. in some places the fence is doubled, especially in urban areas. it's been very successful in san diego. these are five things that we require. we don't say you can, you might. you must. you must do these five things before anyone who has violated our immigration laws can even apply for permanent residency,

permanent legal residency in the united states of america. ten years from now, by the way. one of the criticisms is this bill is legalization first. it's not that simple. legalization and the way real people -- real legalization is permanent legalization. it's what we call a green card. you have to have a green card before you can apply to become a citizen of the united states. under this bill, illegal immigrants cannot get a green card, cannot even apply for a green card until ten years have passed and these five things i've just described -- everify, entry-exit tracking system, full technology implementation, 20,000 tph-r border agents -- new border agents, finishing the fence -- all five of those things have to happen. people say why are you linking the two things? here's the answer, because of the problems we had in the past. the only way we can make sure that a future president or a future congress doesn't do these -- doesn't go back on

these promises is if we tie it to something we know people want. that's why they're linked. and so no one who is here illegally, they cannot apply for permanent residency until these five things happen. and that's the trigger that's going to guarantee that this happens. the argument is, though, legalization first because you are allowing the people who are here illegally now to stay in the meantime. let me tell you the problem with that issue. the problem with that issue, first of all, we're talking about 11 million people that are already here. they're already here. we're not talking about 11 million new people. we're not talking about people that are outside the country that might come in in the meantime. we're talking about people that are already here. more than half of them have been here longer than a decade. the chances are they have children that are u.s. citizens. they're definitely working because somehow they're eating. they don't qualify for federal benefits because we don't even know who they are. they're already here. you have to do something about them in the meantime. you can't build a fence and you can't hire 20,000 border agents

in six weeks. it takes a little bit of time. it doesn't take ten years but it takes some time to do that. and so here's what we do. we say if you are illegally here and you've been here for -- they couldn't have come last week or even last year. you've been here for awhile and you're illegally here, you have to come forward. you're going to have to pass a national security background check. you're going to have to pass a criminal background check. you're going to have to pay a fine because you broke the law. you're going to have to start paying taxes and working. and the only thing you get to the extent you get something, the only thing you get is you get a work permit that allows you to do three things: work, travel, and pay taxes. when you get this work permit, you do not qualify -- you do not qualify for food stamps. you don't qualify for welfare. you don't qualify for obamacare subsidies. you don't qualify for any of these thepbgz. people may -- any of these things. people may say we're rewarding them. i want people to think about

this for a second. they're already here. they're already working. we're not going to round up and deport 11 million people so it's basically de facto amnesty. the only thing that's going to change in their lives is they're going to start paying taxes. they're tpw-g to have to pay -- they're going to have to pay a fine and we're going to know who they are. by the way, this work permit is not permanent. it expires every six years. if you come forward and get this work permit, which is temporary, in six years you've got to go back and apply for it again. if it's not renewed because you've broken a condition, you're illegally here. but now we know who you are and you won't be able to find a job because of everify. when you go back and renew it after six years you're going to have to pass another background check, pay another fine, pay another application fee, and you're going to have to prove that in the previous six years you've been here working and paying taxes. you're going to have to prove that, that you're self-sustaining, that you're not dependent.

this whole time you don't qualify to apply for permanent status, not to mention citizenship. and after ten years have gone by in this status -- not ten years after the passage of the bill. ten years after you, the applicant, has been in this status, then and only if those five things i talked about -- everify, entry-exit tracking system, the technology plan, border fence and 20,000 new agents -- only if those five things have happened, then you can apply for a green card through the green card process. that's another mistake people are making. they think ten years are here, you made the five conditions, they're going to hand you a green card. not true. you can apply for it. it isn't awarded to you. now is this perfect? i don't think this problem has a perfect solution. but i can tell you if we don't do anything -- let's suppose immigration reform fails.

suppose we do nothing. you're still going to have the 11 million people here. we're still not going to know who they are. they're still not going to be paying taxes. they're still not going to have undergone a background check and you won't have everify, you won't have border security, you won't have the agents, you won't have the technology, you won't have the entry-exit tracking system. you won't have any of that. life is about choices. legislating is about choices. and the choice can't be between what you wish things were like and this bill. the choice is between the way things are and this bill. or some alternative to it. and again, if we defeat it, then we're stuck with what we have. and what we have is a disaster. it's a disaster. i want to make clear another point. people said this border security is overkill. so much stuff. look, the united states is a special country. that's why people want to come here. a million people a year come

here legally. one million people a year. there's no other country in the world that comes close to that. understand what that means? other countries, they don't want people coming or people don't want to go. when is the last time you heard of a boatload of american refugees arriving on the shores of another country? people want to come here. we understand that. in fact, this country is so special that there are people that are willing to risk their lives to come here. and welling to come illegally to come here. we're compassionate. our heart breaks when we hear stories about that. but i also have to remind people we're also a sovereign country. every country in the world secures their border or tries to. many of the countries that people come here from secure their border. sometimes viciously. we're not advocating that. we have a right as a sovereign country to secure our border. we have a right to do that.

and while we're compassionate, no one has a right to come here illegally. and so i will just close by saying i know that this is a tough issue. i do. i really do. i understand that on the one side there are the human stories of people that you have met. and this issue really changes when you meet somebody. it is one thing to read about 11 million people that are here illegally. another one is to meet one of them: a father, a mother, a son or a daughter, someone who you know as a human being. and you know about their hopes and dreams and how much they're struggling. one thing is to know about that. it changes your perspective on it. but i also understand the frustration that people have, that they heard all these promises before. people have violated our laws, they have ignored them and that's wrong. we shouldn't reward them. i do. but ultimately i ran for the senate because i wanted to make a difference. i know i could have stayed back on this issue and come to the floor and not -- not meaning this as a criticism of anybody

else but i could have come to the floor and offered up what i want instead and be critical of what others were making. that was an option for me. but i could not stand to see how this problem is hurting our country and leave it the way it is. how is this good for us? we have to do something about this. and that's what we're trying to do here. and with this new amendment we will do more for border security than anyone has ever tried to do before. and all i would ask my colleagues and members of the public is to think about that. think about it. what do you want? do you want things to stay the way they are or do you want to try to fix it? and i would just say to you our country desperately needs to fix it. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from montana. mr. baucus: mr. president, i ask to speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. baucus: mr. president, just outside this chamber is a

bus -- is a bust of president theodore roosevelt. when i walk past it i'm offering one of my favorite t.r. quotes which is far and away the best prize life has to offer is a chance to work hard at work worth doing. for three years i've been working with my colleagues on the senate finance committee on comprehensive tax reform. it's been hard work but certainly work worth doing. we've had more than 30 hears. we've -- 30 hearings and heard from hundreds of experts about how tax reform can help families and help the u.s. become more competitive. we are starting to build momentum. senator hatch and i have been working very closely with members of the finance committee on a series of ten discussion papers examining key aspects of the tax code. each of the discussion papers on a different aspect of the code. it began back in march with a discussion on -- quote --

"simplifying the system for families and businesses." and there have been nine others. we then met as a full committee every week the senate has been in session to go through different topics, presenting a range of options and sitting around the table asking questions of staff what about this and that and questions of each other. it's very informative and a process that that's bringing us even closer together, establishing trust and confidence in what we're doing and learning a lot more about what the code is and is not. we concluded these meetings this morning with a discussion on nonincome taxes issues, for example payroll taxes and excise taxes. not income taxes. the meetings have been very beneficial. we're getting trust and getting everyone's buy-in. i speak weekly with the treasury secretary about tax reform, getting his ideas and what seems to make sense for him and the

administration. and i've been working for quite some time with my counterpart in the house, chairman david camp. in fact, we have been meeting weekly, chairman camp and i, face to face for more than a year now discussing matters that apply to the finance committee as well as ways and means but especially tax reform. because he's working just as hard on his side over in the other body. our shared goal is to make the code more simple, to make it more fair for families, to spark a more process suspect economy. i believe very strongly if we can simplify the code as well as some other measures that need to be taken, people will feel better about it, they'll not think that the other guy has a big loophole he nt take advantage of, it will help people feel better about themselves and it will certainly help small businesses because the code is so complex for small business and i think that will in itself help create some innovations and entrepreneurship and energy for more jobs.

together, chairman camp and i have recently a launched a web site called taxreform.gov and it will enable us to get even more ideas to hear directly from the american people, not people in washington, d.c. but from around the country, people all around can tell us what they think. we want to know what people think, what they think the nation's tax system should look like, how we can make families' lives easier and how we can ensure a less burdensome tax code. we've received a lot of hits, if you will to the web site, over 10,000 submissions, ideas people have, and that's from every state in the nation. people are overwhelmingly, if you were to categorize what's the character of the submissions, overwhelmingly they're calling for a much more simple code. people want the code a lot more simple. it's too complex. for example, a fellow named david from redmond, washington

wrote, i'm a required lawyer and i can't prepare my own tax runs. why? because of the incomprehensible language of the code, he says and i complend you and hope you are stefl scefl. richard from my hometown in helena, montana noted the current code is outdated and he said just needs to be more simple, more effective and more fair. again, another representative submission. i think richard and david hit the nail on the head. over and over that's what we're hearing. simple, effective, and fair. chairman camp and i are going to be making a big push this coming week to further engage colleagues here in washington as well as people all across america. so how are we going to do that? well, we're going to travel. we'll travel to other cities, can chairman camp and i together, outside of washington, d.c., where the real americans reside, and we're going to talk to individuals, we're going to talk to families, business

owners, big and small, hear directly what people have in mind. and, again, we're doing this because we want to hear directly from the american people, not just people in washington, d.c. and we'll be announcing our first visit outside of washington, d.c. next week. we want to hear what people think. momentum is building. now it's time to do reform and i might say if we can't get tax reform passed in this congress, i don't think we'll ever be able to address the issue for maybe three years. i doubt they'll do it next congress because that will be within a presidential election year and have to wait until there's a new president. going to take a long time. that's a critically dangerous because last time the code was significantly reformed was 1986. and the world's changed dramatically since 1986. the code is just too dated. i might say this, mr. president: since 1986, the last time the tax code was reformed, there

have been 15,000 changes to the code. 15,000. no wonder it's complex. no wonder people want it more simple and more fair. i think working together that we in congress can improve the code and update it for the 21st century. this comes down to working together. comes down to building trust. both sides of the aisle, both bodies, and because it's going to help the american people when we do reform the code in this congress, i don't know how much it's going to take but we're going to do all we can. teddy roosevelt said hard work is worth doing if it's for a good cause and it's clearly hard work, i can tell you that but it's also a good cause. i yield the floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. cornyn: mr. president? the presiding officer: the republican whip. mr. cornyn: i ask the quorum call be rescinded. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cornyn: i know things are speeding at -- seems like they're speeding by us at the speed of light on this bill. we've got an announcement of a breakthrough on the part of some of our colleagues that is going to give this bill the momentum to pass and come out of here with a bunch of votes. but i think there are some questions we need to ask first of all under the -- i see the distinguished chairman of the finance committee, he's probably looked at this. but the underlying bill provides that $8.3 billion is immediately

appropriated as emergency spending to fund the trust fund that will fund at least some of the operations in this immigration reform bill. but when i started to look at it more closely and consider the fact even though the underlying bill had zero funds for new border patrol, this new bill, this new rul proposal i should say we have yet to say, supposedly it's going to come around 6:00, has an additional 20,000 border patrol. 20,000 border patrol. that's doubling the size of the border patrol. senator hoeven, the distinguished senator from north dakota, said earlier in response to a question i asked him, that would cost an additional $30 billion, so you have $8.3 billion if my arithmetic is correct, $30 billion, that's $38 billion,

and i noticed here on page 48 of the congressional budget office cost estimate, the c.b.o. estimates that implementing this bill, the underlying bill would result in a net discretionary cost of about $22 billion more. that's starting to be real money. it seems to me. $60 billion. i know we were as a result of the budget control act, we've been having some spirited debates here about -- about whether the $85 billion or so that was sequestered under the budget control act was something we could live without or not or had to be made up through additional revenue. but this strikes me as very significant, that we're talking about $60 billion of additional

deficit spending, or additional spending, adding to the deficit, which has not been paid for. if my numbers are correct, and i would welcome anyone else to come help me out, figure that out. now, one of the rationales as i was talking to our colleagues, what they looked at the original score and said this actually generates additional revenue because people who come out of the shadows and are working will begin to pay social security taxes. but the $211 billion in the score is social security trust fund money, which, of course, must someday be paid in terms of benefits to these very same people. so what it appears is there's a double counting going on here. our colleagues are saying hey, we've got additional revenue

here because of the negative score, but that is money that's going to require an i.o.u. to the social security trust fund and will have to be paid back at some point in the future. so as senator sessions, the ranking member of the senate budget committee, has pointed out, the onbudget deficit will increase by $14.2 billion and that's before you add the additional $30 billion for 20,000 border patrol, and $22 billion in additional spending to fund this underlying bill. so my only point, mr. president, is i think we need to take a deep breath and first we need to read the bill, read the proposal that's coming out supposedly at 6:00, but already there's talk about what's the end game here in the senate. and potentially the majority leader will file cloture on this

corker-hoeven amendment and we'll have a vote on monday or maybe tuesday. i just think it's extraordinarily important when you're talking about numbers like this and a bill this big that we take our time and we're careful and we know exlg x.l. what the impact is on the bill. because if in fact what is happening is double counting which is my suspicion based on my review of the c.b.o. document domentation, that's a serious matter -- documentation, that's a serious matter indeed because that money is going to need to be paid back. on another but related note, i would say, mr. president, we've been told that this surge that's going to be funded under the corker-hoeven amendment and the additional 20 billion -- excuse me, 20,000 border patrol agents and a whole bunch of new technology and other assets, that this will be sufficient to secure our borders and make

illegal immigration a thing of the past. we've been told that supporters of the bill welcome a robust and extensive debate over its provisions, and yet when we look at the way this is happening where people are announcing breakthroughs, people are saying, well, i'm going to cosponsor that only to find out that the bill itself hasn't peen een been written or released, it seems to me that we've got the cart ahead of the horse. and we better be careful about what we're doing. we have members of the chamber calling for a vote this weekend on an as-yet-unreleased amendment. and i know i for one and others, i suspect, would like to read it and know what's in it. i commend our colleagues, and i mean this in all sincerity, for trying to do their best to improve this bill. but i worry that their solution amounts to throwing more money at the problem without any real

system of accountability. you know, we've talked about how important it is to have inputs into the bill, but really what we all want is results or outputs. and what we have under this amendment, as i understand it, and as i ask the distinguished senators from tennessee and north dakota, they conceded that because our colleagues on the other side of the aisle object to any sort of contingency between the probationary status and legal permanent residency based upon accomplishing the situational awareness or operational control, then all we have are more promises about future performance and i must say our record of promises -- keeping our promises when it comes to immigration reform are beyond pathetic. starting back in 1986 with the

amnesty and promise of enforcement, then we know in 1996 where as i mentioned earlier, president clinton signed a requirement of a biometric entry-exit system which has still not been employed at the exits, at airports and seaports. even though the 9/11 commission noted that the terrorists who killed thousand americans on september 11, 2001, some of them included people who came into the country legally and overstayed their visa and we lost track of them because we had no effective entry-exit system. and the 9/11 commission said this is something we need to fix and that was 2001. still hasn't been done. until today, our colleagues on the so-called gang of eight argued that it was too expensive and too impractical to add even

5,000 border patrol agents to say nothing of 20,000 agents, and as i pointed out earlier in questioning -- asking some questions of my colleague, our distinguished colleagues, senator mccain from arizona, senator schumer, the senior senator from new york, amazing how quickly their tune changed when their underlying bill had zero border patrol, when my amendment had 5,000 border patrol they said that's a budget buster. imagine my surprise when their amendment comes out with 20,000 border patrol. doubling the border patrol. $30 billion. well, i would really like to know whether the proposals that are being here have been sufficiently vetted. i don't know exactly what all of these new border patrol are going to be doing, and while i think it's important that we get

the advice of the experts in terms of what sort of new technology can be deployed here, i worry that by being overall prescriptive about both the number of the boots on the ground and the technology that they're going to use, that we're going to freeze in place legislatively a solution that will quickly become antiquated and become inefficient. that's why i prefer and why i think it is much more -- much better is an output or result metric that we could look at. and let the experts, let the border patrol, let the department of homeland security, let the technology experts who have developed great technology that we have already paid for and deployed in places like iraq and afghanistan through the department of defense, let them advise us in the border patrol what they need in order to accomplish the goals in order to meet the mark. let's not let a bunch of

generalists like us who are not expert in this field and not prescribe this solution for a ten-year period of time for it to become quickly outdated. so from everything i've heard, mr. president, and everything i have read -- and i think it was confirmed by the senators this afternoon, the hoeven-corker amendment creates a border security trigger based on inputs rather than outputs, and it is, i think, accurate to say it is aspirational. in other words, they promise to try to meet those goals, but ten years from now, i dare say half of the members of this chamber won't even be here. since 2007, we have had 43 new united states senators. since 2007. so the promises we make today in

exchange for extraordinary generosity toward the 11 million people to provide them an opportunity to gain probationary status and then potentially earn legal permanent residency and citizenship, that extraordinary offer made in the underlying bill, we have no idea whether the border security, the entry-exit system, or the everify will actually work and accomplish the goals that we all hope they will accomplish, so we're asked to once again washington says trust me, trust us. we mean well. we're going to try, but you know what? we have no means to compel the bureaucracy and the executive branch to actually do what we say they should do here, this is why we need a trigger, a hard trigger to realign the incentives so that all of us from the left to the right,

republicans and democrats, we all join together in putting the focus on the problem like a laser and making the bureaucracy hit those objectives. so we have promised a lot of things. we have had 27 years of inputs into our immigration system since the 1986 amnesty, and we still don't have secure borders. 350,000-plus people detained at the southwestern border last year. g.a.o. says we have about 45% operational control of the border, so who knows how many people actually made their way across, although we do know among those that have come across and were detained came from 100 different countries, including state sponsors of international terrorism. i'm not suggesting there is massive incursions of terrorists coming from other countries.

i'm saying that the same porous borders that will allow people to come into this country from other countries around the world can be exploited by our enemies, and it's a national security issue. now, when i go home to texas, people tell me they simply don't trust the federal government when it comes to securing our borders. and why would they? based on the historical experience, there is no reason for them to do so. three decades of broken promises have destroyed washington's credibility, and the only way to regain that credibility is to demand real results on border security and create a medicalism that in-- a mechanism that incentivizes all of us to make sure that it happens. i'm afraid this amendment, corker-hoeven amendment, no matter how well intentioned -- and i do believe it is well intentioned. everyone's eager to find a solution to the broken

immigration system, including me. the status quo is unacceptable, benefits no one. but in the rush to try to come up with something that seems good at the moment, in failing to take the care to look at the detail, whether it's financial or whether it will actually produce results, based on texts we haven't even seen yet, i think we just were rushing to judgment here and i think it's something we ought to reconsider. mr. president, looking beyond border security, i'm eager to know whether the proposed amendment includes other issues that were contained in my amendment that was tabled earlier today, because i know that speaking to the -- senator hoeven, senator corker, they did include a border security component, but as i understand it, there are other senators who are coming to them and saying we want to be included in your amendment, so we don't know what

subjects are also included in that amendment, but i'd like to know whether it includes things like does it prohibit illegal immigrants with multiple drunk driving convictions from receiving legal status? what about people who have been guilty of multiple instances of domestic violence? what about immigrants who fall into one of those categories and have already been deported? believe it or not, under the underlying bill, people can have actually been deported for committing a misdemeanor and be eligible to re-enter the country and register for r.p.i. status. i think that would be shocking to most people if they think about it, if they knew about it. under the gang of eight bill, all the people i just described are available for immediate registered provisional immigrant status. earlier this year, i mentioned a remarkable statistic, at least it is to me.

in fiscal year 2011, customs and and -- immigration and customs enforcement, i.c.e., deported nearly 36,000 people with d.u.i. convictions, driving under the influence. i challenge any member of this chamber to come down to the floor to explain why drunk drivers and people who have committed domestic violence should be eligible for immediate probationary status. i doubt any -- anyone would take me up on that challenge because who would want to defend the indefensible? as i have said before, and i will conclude my comments with this because i see other senators on the floor who want to speak. as i have said before, the american people are generous. they are compassionate. but they don't want to -- you know, it's the old adage, fool me once, shame on you. fool me twice, shame on me. they don't want to be fooled again when it comes to unkempt

promises in fixing our broken immigration system. i know we're committed to finding a reasonable and responsible and humane way to solve the problem of illegal immigration, but we should never, ever grant legal status to people with multiple drunk driving or domestic violence convictions. and i don't know, but i will certainly -- i certainly would care to read and learn whether the amendment that was tabled earlier today contained some of these provisions that were in the tabled amendment. if they don't, we will be filing -- we have filed separate amendments which we will urge a up-or-down vote on. mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. sessions: mr. president, would the senator yield for a question? mr. cornyn: i would. mr. sessions: i think you were very wise in raising the question of the budget score. our colleagues have been just blithely here asserting that

this bill is going to pay for itself, and the c.b.o. produced a report and they have cited that report that says it will pay for itself, but that's not exactly what the report says, it seems to me. here's the line in the report that the c.b.o. prepared. net increases or decreases in the deficit resulting from changes in direct spending and revenues from this bill. how will it impact increasing the deficit or not? the on-budget deficit even before the 30,000 new agents at billions of dollars in costs netted out that it would add $14 billion to the on-budget debt. okay? and so that's negative. it makes the debt more. but then there is the other line, the off budget.

now, what is the off budget? well, the off budget is social security and medicare. this is the trust fund money that comes out of your payroll taxes and your -- so people pay payroll taxes. the average age of the legalized group is about 35, so most of them aren't going to be drawing social security right away. they pay in to this, and so the government gets some extra money, and they are counting that money as the money to show that the bill is paid for. but let me ask you one simple thing, senator cornyn. if the individuals who are now given legal status are immediately given a social security number, immediately able to compete for any job in america, aren't they -- isn't the money that they will be paying for social security and medicare going to be used by them when they start drawing it? aren't they going to be eligible now for social security and medicare? and won't this money be

available for them? and isn't it double counting to say it's going to be available for their social security and then available to pay for all the spending in their bill? mr. cornyn: mr. president, i would say to the senator from alabama that he reads it the same way i read it, and you can't do both. you can't use the money to pay for the bill and say you don't have to pay social security benefits when these very same people are going to expect someday that they will get those benefits, so what happens, as i understand it -- and the distinguished ranking member of the budget committee can correct me if i'm wrong, but when we borrow money in essence from the social security trust fund, there is an i.o.u. there that's going to have to be paid back. so it does appear to me there's double counting here, and i would just say the $14.2 billion on-budget deficit, that's before

you add in the $30 billion of additional cost per 20,000 border patrol agents. and as i read page 48 of the c.b.o., they estimate that implementing the underlying bill would result in net discretionary costs of about $22 billion over the 2014-2023 period. so it sounds to me like the costs just keep mounting, and there is double counting going on, and i just think we have got to get to the bottom of it, and given our rush, we need to slow down and understand the numbers and understand the financial impact because that's not going to go away if we get it wrong. mr. sessions: i couldn't agree more. the truth is that's how this country is going broke. they are double -- there are two ways the counting is done in our budget. one is a unified accounting process, and the other one shows

these numbers in the fashion you and i just went forward. when you assume that the money that comes in for the newly legalized people that medicare and social security, when you assume that money is going to be available for their social security and medicare, you can't then assume it's available to spend on something else. it's a weakness in our system. it's been manipulated before, and we need to stop it. thank you for raising that. and of course i remember well how many good years you spent on the budget committee, and you understand it very well. i thank the chair and would yield the floor. ms. collins: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maine. ms. collins: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, the united states has always been a country of refugee for the persecuted, a protector of life and individual freedoms. this is evident in the entire

purpose of our nation's asylum program under which foreign nationals who can show a credible fear of persecution in their home country may apply for and receive shelter here. but flaws in the asylum program leave it vulnerable and open to exploitation by those who mean us harm. i have, therefore, proposed two amendments to the immigration reform bill: amendment number 1391 and 1393, that are designed to lessen those flaws by giving asylum officers the tools that they need to dismiss frivolous claims and more important, to

ensure that derogatory information about applicants who may wish to harm us is reviewed during the application process. mr. president, before i outline those amendments in detail, i would like to discuss the circumstances under which the suspects in the boston marathon terrorist attack came to be in the united states and how that terrible attack underscores the need for reform of our asylum process. according to media reports, the younger of the two tsarnaev brothers came to the united states on a tourist visa in 2002 and was granted asylum on his

father's petition shortly thereafter. as i mentioned before, asylum is supposed to be only available to those who can show a credible fear of persecution in their home country. curiously and not withstanding his supposed fear of persecution back home, the father came to the united states with only one of his four children, leaving his wife and three other children behind in the land that he claimed to fear. i can't help but wonder whether the asylum officer who reviewed mr. tsarnaev's application was aware of that fact and to what extent this was considered in determining whether he met the burden of proving a credible fear of persecution by his

country, since after all, he had left his wife and three of his four children behind. whatever the circumstances that caused mr. tsarnaev to seek asylum in 2002 after the boston marathon bombing, the international media caught up with him back in the land where he came from and now lives. even more curious are the questions surrounding the grant of asylum to another chechen immigrant, the individual who was shot dead while being questioned by the f.b.i. agents and local law enforcement regarding his association with the tsarnaevs and a 2011 triple

homicide. after his death, reports indicated that this individual came to the united states in 2008 on a j-1 visa, the type of visa intended to promote cultural understanding that allows foreign students to work and study in our country. and that individual was granted asylum sometime later that year in 2008. now, the way in this particular case the visa operated is he was supposed to work for four months and then travel for one month in our country. but that is not what happened. last month i was contacted by the council on international

educational exchange, or ciee, a j-1 visa sponsor organization located in my home state of maine. ciee told me that they had learned that this individual had come to the united states through their program, arriving in june of 2008. from the start, it appears that he had no intention of complying with ciee's j-1 visa rules, and, thus, on july 29 of 2008, ciee withdrew its sponsorship of him because he failed to provide the required documentation with respect to his employment. that very day ciee, which is a very responsible organization,

instructed him to make immediate plans to leave the country because they could not verify his employment, a key condition of the j-1 visa rules. ciee then recorded this information in the student and exchange visitor information system, or cebus, the data base used by the department of homeland security and the department of of state to keep track of foreign visitors who travel to the united states on exchange visas. as i understand the facts, ciee did everything right, it followed the rules when this individual was clearly out of compliance with the terms of his

visas. it alerted d.h.s. and the state department that he was out of compliance. i have spoken to the president of ciee, who told me that his organization was shocked to learn that this individual had been granted asylum and later given a green card. i find this very curious, mr. president. how is it that a young man from chechnya comes to the united states to participate in a cultural exchange program, immediately violates the conditions of that program, is told to leave our country, but then is able to be granted asylum? the fact that he was out of compliance with his visa was correctly recorded in the sevis

data base. did the asylum officer who approved his application review that information? did he check the data base for derogatory information? were any other data bases, such as that maintained by the national counterterrorism center, consulted during the review of this asylum applicants? when and where was his asylum application reviewed and approved? and by whom? more than two weeks ago i asked these fundamental questions of the department of homeland security through staff and by letters that i personally sent to the office of legislative affairs and to secretary janet napolitano. despite repeated phone calls and

e-mails from my staff, the department has still not provided me with the answers. what i have received instead are excuses. despite the fact that the subject of my inquiry is dead and my questions are directly relevant to the asylum provisions in the immigration bill before us, think about the failure of the d.h.s. to provide the basic information i've requested. i've not asked about the individual's relationship to the terrorist attack in boston, nor have i asked about his alleged connection to the triple homicide. the questions i've asked relate only to when he applied for and received asylum, whether the information related to his violation of his visa

requirements was available and reviewed by the officer who granted him asylum. and i've asked who made the decision to grant him asylum. we know from media reports that his asylum application was acted on in 2008, five years ago. is the department saying through its silence that information related to this individual's asylum application did in fact foreshadow the terrorist attack in boston in april and his ultimate death last month? why was his application approved? why didn't the department deport him from our country when it was clear that he was no longer in compliance with his j-1 visa? mr. president, i see that the

majority leader has arrived on the senate floor. if he would like me to cease my remarks, i would be happy to do so and yield to him and pick up where i left off. mr. reid: mr. president, i appreciate my friend from maine with her usual courtesy. the presiding officer: the majority leader is recognized. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent that the period for debate only be from -- we extend it for one hour, until 7:30. the time would be equally divided. i'd also ask consent that my friend from maine's statement not appear interrupted in the record. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. the senator from maine. collins collins thank you -- ms. collins: thank you, mr. president. the basic question is why wasn't this individual deported from our country when it was clear that he was no longer in

compliance with the requirements of his j-1 visa? instead what happens is he's granted asylum and then later given a green card. i can only take the department's refusal to provide answers as a tacit admission that a flawed asylum process allowed a dangerous man to get into our country on false pretenses and to stay here. that possibility, that likelihood underscores the importance of the two amendments i'm offering. the first of my amendments, numbered 1391, would require that before an individual can be granted asylum, biographic and biometric information about that individual must be checked against the appropriate records and data bases of the federal

government, including those maintained by the national counterterrorism center. in addition, this amendment requires that the asylum officer find that the information in those records and data bases supports the applicant's claim of asylum or, if derogatory information is uncovered, that the applicant is still able to meet the burden of proof required by law. the second of my two amendments, number 1393, would provide asylum officers with the authority to dismiss what are clearly frivolous claims without prejudice to the applicant and requires asylum officers and immigration judges to obtain more detailed information from

the state department on the conditions in the country from which asylum is sought. in other words, what we've discovered is this is another example of one department not talking to another department. it's very difficult for an asylum officer to make a right decision if he or she lacks information about conditions in the originating country. this amendment also calls for increased staffing for the fraud detection and national security direct threat at asylum offices funded through fees in this bill. now, mr. president, we can never know for sure whether the reforms that i'm calling for in these two amendments would have kept these dangerous individuals out of this country, and perhaps

even prevented the terrorist attack in boston and the triple murder in another town in massachusetts. but the way in which they used the asylum process clearly demonstrates that it can be abused and will be abused. my amendments will give asylum officers the tools they need to help prevent that kind of fraudulent use of a very important and worthwhile system. and it will help to protect the american public from those who would do us harm. with these modest reforms, america's asylum process will continue to shelter those who legitimately fear persecution in their home countries, but it will be less easily taken

advantage of by those who seek to harm us. i urge my colleagues to support these commonsense amendments and i yield the floor. thank you, mr. president. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. ms. landrieu: mr. president, i'm happy to report, actually, that there's been a lot of progress made in the last few hours on the package of amendments that are completely uncontested, and there's no objection on any side. and i really want to thank the members who have been attentive and supportive of trying to get back to a more normal way here

of operating, which is simply you can argue about the big, controversial issues, there are always going to be those on every bill we debate, but there will be some amendments that absolutely have no opposition because they are very well-thought-out ideas that do not generate in any heartburn on either side, that people can reason and say that helps the bill, it perfects the bill, it does something that improves the bill. now, we used to do that all the time around here, and we've really gotten away from it and it's hurtful. it's not just hurtful to the individual members, it's hurtful to our constituents, who would like their ideas brought up for consideration. now, i know that, as i said earlier in the day and i want

with my friend here, the senator from maine before she leaves the floor, before the senator from maine leaves the floor i want to make this perfectly clear, i am not holding up the debate on any controversial amendments. i'm not objecting to any controversial amendments, anybody that wants to debate an amendment, whether it's 60 votes or 50 votes. that is the leadership's job, and they're managing this bill very well. i have no complaints or criticisms about that at all. but as they're managing these very controversial amendments that are, you know, part of any debate, what i'm simply saying is, of the 228 amendments that have been filed, -- i'm sorry, let me get the exact number. if the staff would bring me that exact number. that might have been the committee amendments.

of the hundreds of amendments that have been filed, there are probably, by my review -- we've been spending a lot of time on this with republican and democratic staff -- potentially about 25 or 30 amendments that have absolutely no objection. now, the list has changed a little bit, but -- and i'm not going to go over all of the details. i've put it in the record. there could potentially be seven democratic amendments, five republican amendments, and ten bipartisan amendments that have no opposition known. and all i'm asking is sometime between now and when the leadership managing this bill calls cloture, that we have these votes en bloc, by voice, there would be no reason to have any more debate on them. no one is objecting to them. so we could take them en bloc, by voice. it will improve the bill.

then people can vote against the bill -- many people already know they're going to vote against the bill, some people are going to vote for the bill. that's the process. and i think it would be very healthy for the senate to get back to this kind of negotiation. but for these amendments that are noncontroversial that simply have been worked on across the aisle in good faith to be held hostage until somebody can get a vote an on an amendment that causes, you know, one side or the other lots of political difficulties, is just not right. so there are 350 amendments filed on this bill. 350. i'm only talking about 35 or less. all the other amendments have pros and cons, people are for them, people are against them, and i don't know how the

leadership is going to decide on how we vote or disburse with those. but, you know, i'm not managing the bill. senator leahy is doing a very good job of that with senator grassley and leader mcconnell and leader reid. what i'm saying is there are 35, approximately -- maybe a little more -- of amendments that have bipartisan support that people have really worked on, people like myself who are not on the judiciary committee. the senator had his hands full with the 17 members he has on the committee. there were 228 amendments filed on the judiciary committee. senator grassley himself filed 34, and he had 13 that passed and 21 that failed. that's a lot of amendments. some of us that are not on the judiciary committee, i've been very fortunate, at least i've had one of my eight which the

senator from vermont helped with, adopted -- mr. leahy: would the senator yield on that? ms. landrieu: yes, i'd love to. mr. leahy: the senator has several excellent amendments which i support and agreed to. we have given the other side over and over again a list of amendments that under normal circumstances would be agreed to in about five minutes by voice vote. including a number of the distinguished senator from louisiana's amendment. i keep hoping we might do that. we had 140 amendments in the judiciary committee that were voted on. all but one or two were passed with bipartisan votes, around 40 or more of them were

republican amendments. the others were all voted for by republicans. and we demonstrated we're willing to do this on a bipartisan basis. i can assure the senator from louisiana, who is a wonderful senator and dear friend, that i support these. i keep trying to get them accepted. i hope after two weeks on this bill and realizing what we did in the very extensive and open markup in the judiciary committee, that we could get to the point where we could start accepting a whole lot of amendments, both nick and republican -- democratic and republican, including those of the senator from louisiana. i'm sorry to interrupt her but she has worked so hard on this, she has gotten bipartisan

support, she has talked to all of us and at some point she should be allowed to have her amendments. i yield the floor. ms. landrieu: thank you, the senator from vermont, i really appreciate his support but actually having started out wanting to get a vote on my amendments, and i still do, i'm now more focused on this principle of getting uncontested amendments adopted. because i'm not the only one in this boat. i have friends like senator begich, senator carper, senator hagan, senator heinrich, senator coons, senator kirk, senator coats, from both sides of the aisle, senator hatch, senator, you know, shaheen, i could go on and on, that are in the same boat that i am in. we fashioned amendments with bipartisan support, we have

gone and done our due diligence with the leaders of the committees of jurisdiction which is what you're supposed to do, which is normal. we have gotten their blessing, if you will. we have published the details of our amendment. we have circulated the amendment. there is no opposition. so as i said, the senator from vermont, i want to be very clear, yes, i would love to have, i have four amendments on this list but i want to make this crystal clear: i am not here just arguing for the four landrieu amendments. i'm here arguing for all amendments by anybody, republican or democrat, that are noncontroversial, uncontested, germane to this bill. they should go on the bill. we need to get back to legislating in the senate. as i said, this is not a theater, it is a legislative body.

and i came here to legislate. i've only been here -- it will be 18 years, it's a long time, at the end of this term. there are members that have been here longer than i have. but it's been a while now, two or three years since we just sort of stopped really legislating. we give speeches, we do headlines, we posture, we position, and look, that's always been a part of the senate. i have no problem with it. what i do have a problem with is doing that and nothing else. that is what i have a serious problem about. and those of us that did not come here to be on the stage, we have had to sit on the sidelines and watch this theater for a long, long, long time, and i'm just saying that the people i represent are tired of it. now, we should know that, since the -- the rating for congress is now at 10%. the lowest level i think ever,

or at least in the last 50 years, 10%. this could have something to do with it. because contrary to popular opinion here on the floor, many people in america are very interested in this bill and are actually sending suggestions in through the emails, through -- you know, through telephone, through all sorts of communications saying look, i've read the bill, you all should think about this, this could be improved and, oh, my gosh, some of us actually take those suggestions and work with other members on the other side of the aisle, fashion them into amendments. the people we represent deserve deserve -- you know, they deserve the respect. now, if anyone thinks that my amendments are controversial, you cannot vote for them because, you know, they upset the balance of power in the world or upset western civilization or -- then just come tell me.

i'll work with you on it, i'll take the amendments off the list, i'll put my amendments on a lies to be debated. but the days -- list to be debated. but the days of us coming to the floor and absolutely not accepting bipartisan amendments so we can spend all of our time talking about partisan amendments that have no chance of passing are over with. over. because i have enough power, just like senators on the other side have enough power to push us the other way, i have enough power to push back and i plan to use it. those days are over. when we come to the floor, you can have all of your controversial amendments, we can set aside as many hours of the day to vote on controversial amendments. equal number on both sides or none. but the uncontroversial amendments, the ones that members actually do the work of the senate -- research,

writing, talking, debating privately and coming up with good ideas, no longer are those going to be swept under the rug. it is not respectful to our constituents, it dishonors the senate, and it causes the public to have, you know, doubts, serious doubts as to whether anybody around here is actually working in a bipartisan way to improve the bill. now, these are minor amendments. nothing in here undermines -- none of these amendments undermine the bargain, tough negotiations by republicans and democrats on this bill. and i want to give a lot of respect to the gang of eight. they have taken on the tough, tough issues. tough, big ones, very controversial. that's not these. these are amendments that would help like parents who are trying

to adopt children. now, if i have to wait for a bill to come to the floor to help these parents, they may be waiting ten years. he they are american citizens. they have a right for senators to represent their interest and i intend to do it. there are amendments here that would make sure that children with mental illness or that are mentally disabled -- this is not my amendment but it's a good one -- make sure they have a lawyer. now, why can't we do that? because we're so angry with each other that we won't help a child? that is cruel and it is not correct. so i am going to end here. there are other members that want to speak. i'm hoping that we can -- i have no idea when the cloture vote will be. i'm not sure. but if this -- if these amendments, these noncontroversial amendments are not adopted by voice vote or by roll call vote en bloc or separately before cloture, all

of them will fall away, which means we will not be able to consider any of them, because after cloture, they are no longer germane because we cannot get them pending. okay. so this is the problem. and i thank my colleagues for being, you know, understanding of this, and i actually think that it might help us move forward. so i yield the floor and will be back when the cloture motion is propounded. the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: i want to make a few points in response to the senator from louisiana who has been pushing to get a number of so-called noncontroversial amendments adopted. there has been a number of misrepresentations. a major incorrect point that was

made is that our side responded with only a list of controversial amendments. the fact is that we sent over for consideration by the other side a number of amendments on her list, but we did not hear that we could just get a vote on -- but we did ask in addition to spending back a list of noncontroversial amendments, we did ask that we could just have a vote on a number of our amendments, and so talk about breakdowns. we can't even get a vote on our amendments. now, in regard to some of the amendments that the senator from louisiana has suggested, they are not as easy as it appears. some are badly drafted. so we tried to fix them and sent it back. we haven't heard yet. and the list that we sent over doesn't mean that we won't agree

to more amendments later, but we have got to work through these and fix those that are messed up, frankly. but the latest problem is that the democrats want to pick which republican amendments we can vote on. i have, for instance, an antigang amendment that the democrats don't want to vote on. their bill allows gang members to become citizens. we should get votes on our amendments in addition to this whole process of approving a list of noncontroversial amendments that can be adopted en bloc. i yield the floor. ms. landrieu: may i respond? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. ms. landrieu: thank you, mr. president. as i have said many times, i have the deepest respect for the senator from iowa. he and i hardly ever disagree, so this is quite unusual, because we cosponsor so many pieces of legislation together for foster kids, for adoption, and his work is just legendary.

but i do want to say this -- i have tried to be extremely constructive here, and again, this isn't about our list or their list. i'm not even in charge of our list or their list. i literally am not a floor manager of this bill. i'm not even a member of the committee. so i don't even have access to our list or their list. i don't want it. i do not want to review the 200 amendments that are pro-gay, anti-gay, pro-fence, anti-fence. i'm not interested -- i am interested, but it's not in my lane. i'm -- you know, i have issues that i have got to focus on as chair of the homeland security. i'm not a gang of eight member. i am not on the judiciary committee. but i am a senator. and i came here to legislate, and there are amendments -- i'm not sure this list is perfect, but i promise you out of 350

amendments filed, just by nature of averages, at least 10% of them have got to be uncontroversial. i mean, not every amendment that's filed is going to arouse suspicion or concern or violate any principles that we hold, just by nature you're going to have 10% or 15% or 20% of all amendments that actually with a little bit of work should be adopted. and what senator leahy said is absolutely correct. we used to do that. when we trusted each other, when we respected our constituents. and i intend to push this body back to that place. now, i may be unsuccessful because i'm only one senator, but senators have a lot of power, if you haven't noticed. we have been held up for weeks over one senator because they didn't get everything they

wanted every day. again, i want to say to my colleagues i am not fighting for landrieu amendments. i'm fighting for a principle and a process that is vital to the functioning of this body, and i am going to continue to fight and hope that we get a breakthrough. so please, the other side, do not send me your list or the democratic list. i'm not interested. i'm interested in a list of amendments that i believe based on conversations with senators are not controversial and would improve the bill. we were sent here to do that, i intend to do that, and i yield the floor.

mr. flake: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. mr. flake: i take the floor to speak in favor of the hoeven-corker amendment that will be soon filed. let me just say the goal of the so-called gang of eight has always been to bring forward from congress a solution to our broken immigration system. we introduced our bill knowing full well that it would be a starting point for this legislative process. we had under senator leahy and senator grassley's purview a great markup in the judiciary committee. it went on for days. more than 300 amendments filed, more than 100 adopted. we have had a full-throated debate on this -- in this chamber already on this bill, and out of this vetting and this debate that we've had, we have had several consistent messages of things that need to be improved in the legislation and what we are doing right now, i

think, is going a long way to deal with these concerns. we've heard that we have allowed too much discretion to write the strategy for the border security plan, we have given too much to the department of homeland security that will simply spend the billions of dollars that will be appropriated eventually. this amendment includes a detailed list of technologies that will have to be put in place by the department. we will set a minimum floor of what they have to do, and then they can go beyond that. the underlying legislation, we require that a strategy is deployed in the underlying legislation, that an entry-exit system for all airports and seaports be in place, and that everify be up and running for all businesses in the united states before anyone is granted legal permanent residency. there are persistent concerns that that still won't be sufficient to ensure a secure

border, that we need more incentive there. this amendment filed by senators hoeven and corker will require 700 miles of fence be completed and that we have double the number of border agents that we currently have. these things have to be done before anybody in provisional status adjusts to get a green card. this is important. this amendment dramatically increases the trigger that will have to be met in order for anyone, as i said, who is in provisional status to adjust to get a green card. this is a product of the ongoing scrutiny that this bill has received, scrutiny that it deserves. we said from the very beginning that this bill deserves debate, due process, through committee and on the floor in this chamber, and it is receiving that today, and it is a better bill for it. it is going to be considerably improved, particularly after the

hoeven-corker amendment is introduced and hopefully adopted. i hope that in the coming days, we will also have as much scrutiny on the positive aspects of this bill, state and local governments currently deal with a sizable undocumented population, all of them, particularly in arizona. businesses are looking for a legal work force that they simply don't have access to right now. right now, the best and the brightest come here, we educate them in our universities, and then we send them home to compete against us because we won't allow them to stay on a visa. the u.s. economy overall could use the boost that will come if we could pass meaningful immigration reform. again, i support this amendment. i commend my colleagues from tennessee and north dakota and all those who were working in the gang of eight and elsewhere. there are some who say that many people are trying to kill this bill and bring poison pill

amendments. for the most part, what i have seen are people who want to improve this legislation, to make it better, to deal with this problem in a way that will solve it for good so we don't have to return to this a couple of years from now. again, i appreciate my colleagues for offering the amendment. i look forward to discussing it either this weekend or next week. i yield the floor. mr. leahy: mr. president? mr. president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. leahy: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: i would ask consent the call of the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy: mr. president, several senators have mentioned this legislation has been pending on the senate floor since the beginning of last week and near the end of this week. if everybody here had been at least in favor of getting a vote one way or the other on the immigration bill, we would have started disposing of amendments during the first week the bill was on the senate floor, and fortunately there are some who don't want any bill, no matter what we write. they will have every objection to every amendment, every delaying tactic possible, but they are a tiny minority. what we ought to do is show the

majority, republicans and democrats, vote for or against the bill. the people who object to it, they objected to proceeding to comprehensive immigration reform, that cost us several days, and then when we proceeded, we got 84 senators voted in favor of proceeding. it should tell the american people something. this week, i have been working closely with the majority leader, with the ranking member and others to make progress, but every time we try to bring matters up and get them passed, we face objection. so far, we have considered amendments. but there are 250 amendments that have been filed. in a week and a half, we have gotten to 11, 11. that's not progress.

that's not -- no wonder the american people wonder what's going on. if we continue on this rate, we're going to be singing crystal carols -- christmas carols as we come to the end of this legislation, and we will have done nothing else. now, some would like that. they would like to have this take up all the time. we don't do judges, we don't do budget. i mean, we still have the other side objects even to going to a conference which had more republicans on it than democrats, for a conference on the budget. what is this? if people are that opposed to government at all, any form of democratic government, then let them set up an alternative government. but this is ridiculous. we have a system.

the people claim we are for the constitution, let the constitution work. let people vote up or down. this is important. this is long overdue legislation to repair our immigration system. let's vote on it. now, senator landrieu came to the floor last night. she came again today to talk about the delays we've had. i agree with her. senators on both sides of the aisle worked hard on the amendments they filed on this legislation. senators who are not on the judiciary committee have been waiting for their opportunity to contribute to this bill, and many of their amendments are bipartisan. they ought to be heard. many of the amendments are noncontroversial. they have widespread support. but we know some amendments are

controversial. but the amendments that have been proposed to me as noncontroversial are intended to improve and strengthen the legislation. in the past we take them up over an hour's time and vote them all through. except we have some who give great speeches about worry about people coming to this country, but they're determined not to let anybody in to this country. mr. president, you and i and virtually everybody in this country would not be here if these had been the rules when our parents or our grandparents or our great-grandparents came to this country. let's vote. let me say what the judiciary

committee did. we considered a total of 212 amendments over an extensive markup that involved more than 35 hours of debate, and we made sure it was in the public. we streamed it live. people all over the nation watched it. more than half of the amendments considered were offered by the republican members of the committee. it went back and forth, one democrat, one republican; one democrat, one republican. we adopted over 135 amendments to this legislation. 132 of them had republican and democratic votes. they're bipartisan. now we set a gold standard. this body should do the same thing that the 18 of us did. i filed a managers amendment

that combines a number of the noncontroversial amendments that have been offered to this legislation. i hope that the republicans and senator grassley, the judiciary committee's ranking member, would join in the disposing of these noncontroversial amendments. we did it in the committee. the bill that finally came out of committee was by a bipartisan vote. look at the amendments included in the managers amendment, noncontroversial, widespread support, filed by senators on both sides over the last two weeks. many have been discussed at length on the floor. we improve oversight of certain immigration programs. noncontroversial technical amendment that has been agreed to by the ranking member and by the authors of the bill. an amendment from the chair and ranking member of the committee

on homeland security and government affairs, senators cochran and coburn, is to establish an office of statistics within the department of homeland security. an amendment by senator cochran, senator landrieu as the chairwoman of the appropriations subcommittee on homeland security. it requires increased reporting on eb-5 program. an amendment by senator heller requiring d.h.s. report to congress about implementation of biometric exit program that was added to the bill in committee by senator hatch. bipartisan amendments offered by senators kirk and coons, support the naturalizeation process for active duty members in the armed forces who receive military awards. who could possibly disagree with that? 12 amendments championed by senators landrieu and klobuchar

to ease the process for international adoptions. an amendment by senator hagan to reauthorize the bullet-proof vest program, incidentally, a program begun as a bipartisan program. an amendment by senator nelson to provide additional resources for maritime security. an amendment that requires d.h.s. to submit a strategy to prevent unauthorized traveling to mexico. these are amendments, if read a roll call votes, they would probably get 90, 95 votes; they would probably get all 100 of us. let's vote on them. let's adopt them. let's show the american people we actually care about having immigration reform.

you know, the senator from louisiana and others are right. we ought to take up those amendments. we share a common ground. we so often get bogged down by divisive amendments, why not join together and pass those that we agreed on, republicans and democrats? if we do that, we might actually fix our immigration system. the one thing everybody agrees on, the system does not work today. we're trying to fix it. at least bring up and vote on and pass those provisions that both republicans and democrats support. more importantly, the american people support and get it passed. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent the call of the quorum be terminated. the presiding officer: without objection.

mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent that the time for debate only be extended to 8:30 and i be recognized at that time. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: and that we would have the time equally divided between the majority and minority during the next hour. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i would also say this, mr. president: the amendment we've been with waiting for i think is done, we finally, we got the last sign-off just a few minutes ago. mr. sessions: mr. president, could i inquire what the u.c. just got agreed to? mr. reid: extend the time for debate only until 8:30. the time is equally divided. mr. leahy: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: i appreciate norm nevada getting this unanimous consent agreement.

i'm glad it was agreed to and i commend the majority leader for his work he's doing on this. it is a slow process. it would be an awful lot slower if it wasn't for the very accomplished hand of our majority leader. i yield the floor and i suggest the absence of a quorum. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: i appreciate the distinguished chairman of the committee for saying some nice things about pee, but my involvement in this is minimal compared to -- about me, but my involvement in this is minimal compared to many other people. mr. president, if we have -- someone suggests the absence of a form in the next few minutes i ask the time be equally divided. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: any other questions anyone has? the presiding officer: the senator from alabama.

mr. sessions: i appreciate the majority leader's -- but he speaks softly and i don't hear as well as i should so i'm not sure what we agreed to or he propounded. mr. reid: have you heard now? that we extended the time for debate only, the time equally divided between the majority and minority until 8:30 tonight. the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. the presiding officer: who yields time? the clerk will call the roll.

mr. leahy: mr. president, i request that the time be equally divided. the presiding officer: without objection. the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. sessions: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from alabama is recognized. mr. sessions: mr. president, i would ask consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sessions: mr. president, here we are with an intent to have an amendment that's supposed to solve all the problems of this legislation,

and we had it announced earlier this morning, and we haven't seen it yet, and so we're now here. earlier today, we thought we had an agreement to have as many as a half a dozen votes tonight, so we had some today, we're going to have some more tonight. we have only had nine votes on this legislation as of today. this is really odd. and so we haven't seen this bill, we don't know what's in it, everything has been stopped, waiting on some agreement that senator schumer said among the allies, he said they are showing the bill to allies. they hadn't shown it to senator lee, hadn't shown it to me, so the allies of the gang of eight are going through the bill. i don't know if they are going to have nebraska kickbacks in it or cornhusker kickbacks or whatever else they're going to put in it to get somebody to vote on it. i hope that's not where we are going, but what i'm concerned about, having been around here a

few years now, is that we'll have a vote on cloture on this amendment. they're going to file the amendment, immediately file cloture, apparently, and then have that vote early next week and then have a couple of more votes, and the next thing you know, final passage and no amendments have been allowed of significance to occur. i have a number of amendments. the house has done a really good job in working on the interior enforcement weaknesses of our current law. they have put together some good language. i have taken a lot of it and put it into an amendment. i'd like to have a vote on that. and we ought to talk about it because there is some feeling around here that the only thing that matters is the border, but that's not so. 40% of the illegal entries into america today come by visa overstays, and that's not dealt

with at all in any significant way that i'm aware of in this new amendment which we haven't seen. so i'm worried about this whole process. the american people deserve an open process. it was promised that. we had -- i don't know how many amendments we had in committee, senator lee, lots of them, but we only had nine now, and we lost a group that we were going to have today, and we can't tell from our discussions with the -- senator reid and others if there will be any more amendments next week, because i guess the powers that be, the masters of the universe have all gotten together and they have decided this. they have decided that everything is fixed, and we'll just -- by hoeven-corker, and we'll just pass that amendment and nobody else will be heard. but that amendment, from what i read in the papers about it in

general, doesn't fix anything like the loopholes and weaknesses of the legislation. senator lee, i appreciate your eloquence on this issue, but i did want to share that i feel like that something is going awry in the open debatable process, and we thought we were going to have for a day or two, it seems we jumped off the tracks completely. mr. lee: it does indeed, and i was disappointed by the fact that in judiciary committee, on which you and i both serve, we had a lot of amendments. i don't remember exactly how many votes we had in committee, but it was in the dozens if not scores, and we had extensive discussion. now, not all the votes turned out the way that you and i wanted them to, but the important thing is we had a lot of discussion. we had on the record debate, we had amendments proposed, discussed and debated. that's not how it's happened this time.

in my understanding, i wasn't here, unlike my friend from alabama, in 2007, the last time we had a comparable discussion of a bill like this one, but my understanding is that there were 50-something, perhaps 53 amendments that were debated, discussed and received votes in 2007. my understanding this time around is that we have had nine votes and maybe two or three that were taken by voice vote. that's not enough. it's certainly not enough when you're talking about a bill that's more than a thousand pages long, a bill that is going to affect many millions of americans, and it's going to do so for many generations to come. the american people deserve more than this. they deserve more than just debate and discussion, roll call votes that can be measured in the single digits. they call this the greatest

deliberative legislative body in the world, and yet we make a mockery of that description when we do things like this, when we allow a thousand-page bill to be rammed through in a matter of days with only a small handful of amendments debated, discussed and amended. so through the chair, i'd like to ask my friend and my distinguished colleague from alabama whether he has seen anything like this in his career, whether this is something that i should anticipate moving forward as i look forward to my years in the senate, is this something that i should expect on a regular basis with legislation like this of this complexity, of this level of importance? is this something that is just par for the course? mr. sessions: i'm afraid it is becoming par for the course. i remember we had a bill, a bankruptcy bill a fourth of this in size. i think it was on the floor three weeks and we had maybe

nearly 100 amendments, and a lot of people, everybody had their chance to speak, and we ended up passing the bill. we were well over 80 votes. but the point is that in this new mood in the senate, we have a situation in which the majority leader too often fills the tree and controls even the amendments that are brought up. in fact, do you think it odd as a new member to the senate and a student of law and washington governmental processes, isn't it odd that a senator can't come to the floor and offer an amendment without seeking permission of the majority leader, and he says no, i won't take your amendment, i will only take this amendment. does that strike you as contrary to what your understanding of as to how the senate should operate historically? mr. lee: yes. in fact, i find it appalling. i find it repugnant to the system of government under which

we are supposed to be operating. i find it even repugnant to article 6 of the constitution which makes it clear that there's one kind of constitutional amendment that is never appropriate. you can't amend the constitution to deny any state its equal representation in the senate. and if at any moment we end up with a situation in which we have second-class senators, senators that may commit and propose for debate and discussion and a vote an amendment, and if we have to go to the majority leader and say mother may i, then perhaps we have lost something. perhaps we have lost the environment in which each of the states were supposed to receive equal representation. it also seems to me to take on a certain character, a certain banana republic quality that we're asked to vote on

legislation. in many circumstances, just hours or even minutes after we have received it. we take on a certain rubber stamp quality when we do that. i remember a few months ago, in connection with the fiscal cliff debate, as we approached the fiscal cliff on new year's eve, we were told by our respective leaders just wait, something's coming. go back to your offices, watch your televisions, play with your toys, do whatever it is that you do, but be good senators, run along and stay out of trouble, we're taking care of this. we'll send you legislation as soon as we're ready. well, at 1:36 a.m., we received an email, and attached to that email was a 153-page document. that was the bill that we would be voting on. that bill was one that we would be called to vote on exactly six minutes later at 1:42 a.m.

so to my utter astonishment and dismay, senators flocked into this room, and with very, very little objection ended up passing that legislation overwhelmingly. this is just one of many examples i can point to in the two and a half years since i have been here when members have been asked to vote and did in fact vote enthusiastically, willingly and with hardly a whimper of objection to legislation that they had never seen, to legislation that they were familiar with, only to the extent that it had been summarized for them. now, that brings us back to this legislation here. we've had this in front of us in one form or another for the last couple of months, but for a long time before we even had it, what we had was a summary of this. we had a series of bullet points. those bullet points were very favorable. for a long time, the bullet points were all we had. the bullet points i,age rate

slightly to prove a point, but they read something like this. is this bill outstanding? yes. will this bill solve all of our immigration problems? absolutely. is there anything wrong with this bill? heavens no. that's how the bullet points read, and it was on that basis that groups around the country and some members even of our own body decided that they would vote for senate bill 744, even before senate bill 744 even existed. we had groups across the country, some even in my home state, that came out strongly in favor of the yet to be released gang of eight bill, saying we're going to vote for it, we're going to support it, and anyone who doesn't vote for it in the united states senate is a backward fool. well, they hadn't read it. they couldn't have read it because the bill didn't yet exist. now, in some respects, what happened with this is very similar to what we're now facing with the yet to be released corker amendment.

i haven't seen it, but i'll tell you what i have seen. i've seen a set of very brief bullet points about the corker amendment, and the bullet points read something like this. is this amendment outstanding? yes. will this amendment solve our border security problems? absolutely. is there any problem presented by this amendment? absolutely not. so, i say to my friend from alabama, if this is what i can expect in my career in the united states senate, i am a little bit troubled, but i would ask my friend from alabama if there's anything we can do about this, if there's any way we can right in ship, if there's any way we can turn this around, separate and apart from the policies surrounding this bill stlrks anything we can do to make this a real legislative body, the kind of body that actually does debate and discuss things? because you don't really have a true, deliberative legislative body unless you have enough time to debate things before we vote

on them, to where the members can actually read them before they come up. mr. sessions: yes, we can do that if we just follow the traditional rules of the senate. and you're exactly right. here we are being told that this legislation -- this 1,000 pages is all decided because somebody has got a bill -- an amendment somewhere that nobody has seen -- at least nobody that has any skepticism about it has seen -- and that's going to solve all of the problems. i.tit's just rather remarkable. and on the fundamental question you raised about the senate, i do believe, senator lee, that we need to begin to appeal across party lines and think more clearly about what's happening here. i talked with one of the great historians of the senate, somebody i've known -- he's work the here, been on the floorks writte--been on the floor, writa

book about it. he said, it's kind of like getting like the old russia russian-soviet diewm ma where aa where they all got together and decided on it. and i'm worried that that has too much relevance to what's been happening here. i really do. a united states senator, as you said, is equal to any other senator. the majority leader has the power of first recognition, but it was never intended that the majority leader should say, you can't get your amendment, senator from alabama; only the one from maine can get their amendment -- and actually be able to execute that. it's just rather stunning. and that was not the way it was when i came. and this filling the tree process started maybe not long

after i came, and both parties have used it, but it's now gone to an extent which we've never seen before and adversely impacts the whole senate. so i think you are a h you're st that. i just saw senator portman from ohio. he has worked extremely hard on a very significant amendment dealing with everify in the workplace. and he's not sure he is a he going to get a vote on it. he thought he was going to get a vote on this. and it's very frustrating for him that that won't be the case, and what is this? we're not going to be in session tomorrow apparently. nobody gets their amendments. maybe -- virtually no other amendments get brought up of significance. so i am concerned about it, and i have a couple of key amendments. i know senator cruz has an amendment or two. you may have amendments.

and amendments are valuable in that they point out weaknesses in legislation, and they provide a fix for that weakness, and i think why would we want to deny people the right to make a piece of legislation better? mr. lee: you know, one of the distinguishing characteristic is disiks of a democracy is that you have choices, you have options. i'm not intimately familiar with the inner workings of the soviet government, but i have it on good authority that they had elections in the soviet union, but the big difference was the government decided who was on the ballot, and they decided that very, very carefully. only those candidates that had been very carefully screened by the communist party officials could appear on the ballot. so people had choices. i.t. just thait's just that thee

really, real limited. they were limited so as to guarantee a certain ordained outcome. now, if you'll forgive the analogy here, what we have here makes sense, and it makes sense that all the 50 states are represented. but only if in fact we are presented with actual, legitimate choices, with actual, legitimate options. one of the reasons why we've seen legislation pushed through at the very last minute -- and our colleagues in this body vote for that legislation overwhelmingly -- is that they're told at the moment you have no other option; you have a he got a binary choice here. you can vote "yes" or you can vote "no," but you don't really have the option of making any changes to this. so a lot of times people vote for something, even if it is a bill that they otherwise didn't like or if it had a lot of problems with it. they'll vote for it because they conclude that unbalanced voting,

yes, is -- that voting "yes" is better than voting "no." the problem is that we're supposed to have more options than that. in this body we're supposed to have the opportunity to propose amendments. and in theory to have unlimited debate an discussion. and unlimited debate and discussion, necessarily, really entails more or less unlimited opportunities to amend, to make it better. that's what real compromise is. real compromise involves allowing all the stakeholders to come together and explain what's important to each member of the group, to each stakeholder. we don't have that here. we're supposed to have that in the united states senate. historically it has existed. i know that not from my service here, but i know it from reading books and from talking to colleagues who have been here a little bit longer than i have. but it's time we restore that it's time we restore what once existed but has since been lost. so that our democratic system of government actually functions as it was designed.

mr. sessions: you were at a press conference this afternoon with a group of tea party patriots. kenny beth martin and a number of other people were there. they came to washington and had a number of people who had immigrated to america. they spoke from their hearts about law and rules and proper procedure. maybe you could share with our colleagues and those that might be listening the gist of that. but i thought it was a very moving thing to have people who came to america -- some from countries where they'd been persecuted -- and were so proud of the rule of law and really felt deeply that we need to be careful about what we do in the senate to preserve the rule of law here. thank you for leading that press conference today and letting those individuals, those americans, speak their minds. and just in general, i would say

that that whole tea party movement, which is -- many have tried to demean, was -- came right from the heart of america. it represented a deep concern that people in washington were out of touch, weren't in connected with the real world, were not following the constitutional processe process, meeting in secret with special interests and trying to win elections and not serve the people in an effective way, and i thought it was good to have them speak out today as they did in opposition to this monstrosity. mr. lee: that's exactly right. the movement that you describe is a spontaneous grass-roots movement that started in 2009 in response to an observation that swept across the country that the federal government has become too big and too expensive, in part because it is doing too many things it was never designed to do. in part because it has lost

sight of the fact that it was always created at the outset to be a limited-purpose government, one in charge of just a few basic things: national defense, establishing a uniform system of weights and measures, declaring war, otherwise providing for our national defense, protecting trademarks, copyrights, and patents, granting letters of reprisal -- fascinating instruments, a hall pass issued by congress in the name of the united states that entitles the bearer to engage in state-sponsored acts of pie a coin the -- piracy on the high seas. regardless of how long i might serve in the senate, a i do want to get a letter of mark and reprisal someday. i hope my colleague will join me. among those other powers was the power to establish uniform laws governing naturalization, what today we would more broadly call immigration. that's one of our jobs. so it was appropriate that at

this gathering today where we were joined by a lot of supporters of this grass-roots movement, we had some immigrants to this country, people who came here legally, people who sacrificed much, put a lot at risk in order to come to this country. and they explained that one of the thongs that attracted them to -- one of the things that attracted them to this country, one of thone of the unifying ret all of them came to the united states, despite the sacrifices they had to make to get here and the risks they undertook in coming here, was the fact that they loved the rule of law. they see the difference as all of us do any time we travel to a country where the rule of law is absent, that the rule of law makes all the difference. you can tell almost immediately after you step off the plane whether or not you're in a country where the rule of law is respected, where it's honored. there are relatively few countries in the world where it is. fortunately, this is one of them. and it is our job to make sure at that continues to be that way.

many of these immigrants commented on the fact that they find it distressing that while they expended the time and effort and resources to make sure that they immigrated legally, they're disturbed about the fact that under this legislation, well-intentioned as it may have been, under this legislation, 11 million people who came here illegally, for whatever reason, will vauntsly find themselves in a position of not only being able to stay here, not only be ail to keep dt only be able to keep their current job, they'll actually become citizens. this reminds me of a letter that i received not too long ago from a schoolteacher in utah, a school teefn who explained that she had come here on a visa, a visa that will expire i think in 2017. she explained to me that she has every expectation that she will be unable to renew and extend that visa, though she said i

expect effectively to be deported in 2017, because i don't intend to break the law of a country whose laws i promised to uphold if they would grant me this visa. and she said, it's very distressing to me that meanwhile people who broke your laws, people who didn't respect the rule of law, as i did, people who didn't expend a lot of time and money and resources and place a lot of risk in applying for and obtaining the necessary visa to come here, a lot of those people who broke all of those same laws will get to stay here, they will get to become citizens, and that's not fair. mr. sessions: and i thought that group reflected those concerns very well, and i think the whole movement -- grass-root movement did, and as i recall, senator lee -- and you were involved in that election in many ways, it was a ramming through of the massive health care bill that nobody had read, and we were told, well, you got to pass it to find out what's in it.

that generated that whole movement. isn't this in many ways similar? and does it feel the same to you that we are moving rapidly through a bill of massive consequences, over 1,000 pages, and there's a lack of understanding fully of what's in it? mr. lee: there certainly are some similarities. i will point out at the outset there are some differences. one of them being we have fortunately had the text of this for a little bit longer than i think congress had the text of the affordable care act when it passed. we have had some opportunity to amend it in committee, and that's been nice. but, yeah, there are a lot of similarities, both bills are very lengthy, both bills involve excessive -- remarkably excessive delegation of authority to decision-makers in another branch of government, within the executive branch.

there are, by one count, something like 490 instances of delegated discretionary decision making authority. you know, this is a problem, because for centuries great thinkers including our founding fathers, but really going back even before them, have warned that the legislative power involves the power to make law and not the power to make lawmakers. to a very significant degree, the law making power is not subject to gel gas emissions. it should -- to delegation. it should not be delegated to someone else. now obviously we have to delegate a lot of tasks to the executive branch. i.tit's the executive branch's b to implement, enforce, apply the thraws we pass. -- apply the lawyers that we pass. but on some level there is a difference that we can tell

between giving someone the task of implementing and enforcing a law and giving someone else the task of coming up with policy. either policy as embodied in the code of federal regulations or policy as embodied the exercise of pure discretion that will evolve and over time become its own form of law. and so this law, much like the affordability -- the affordable care act, involves hundreds and hundreds of instances of delegated policymaking authority. one of the problems with that is that when you delegate policymaking authority to the executive branch, to the executive branch, the regulatory state, so to peek, you give it to people however well intentioned, however well educated, however wise, about are not themselves