comics and other things here from these killings. you know, if that was mentioned, my guess is the political debate that we have right now would be dramatically different from the way it is. thank you very much. i appreciate your time. [applause] >> the senate is about to gavel in after a weeklong fourth of july break. senators will spend much of the day today on general speeches. at 5:30 eastern, they'll vote on an appeals court nomination, and then senators will vote on moving ahead with a bill that opens more federal land to hunting and fishing. the chaplain: let us pray. eternal god, the source and ground of all truth, give our senators the grace of reflection that will unite the scattered forces of their souls.

may life's frenetic pace not hinder them from thinking about it's meaning and its end. grant that your truth will take root within their souls, providing them with wisdom to know when to be a stain and when -- when to abstain and when to persevere. as they read your sacred scriptures, may they feel the stirring of your holy spirit. lord, bless all human hearts that today are lifted up to you. accept their prayer and praise,

as you guide them on the road as you lead them on the road that leads to eternal life. we pray in your merciful name. amen. the presiding officer: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the presiding officer: the clerk will read a communication to the senate. the clerk: washington, d.c., july 7, 2014. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable tim kaine, a senator from the commonwealth of virginia, to perform the duties of the chair. signed: patrick j. leahy,

president pro tempore. mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: i move to proceed to calendar number 384, s. 2363, hagan sportsmen's bill. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: motion to proceed to calendar number calendar 384, s. 2363, a bill to protect and enhance opportunities for recreational hunting, fishing, and shooting, and for other purposes. mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: following leader remarks, the senate will be in a period of morning business until 5:30. senators during that period of time will be able to speak up to ten minutes each. at 5:30 there will be two roll call votes. the first will be on the confirmation of cheryl krause to be a circuit judge. the next will be on a mexico to invoke cloture on a motion to proceed to s. 2363, the hagueen sportsmen's bill. i'm told that s. 2562 is due for its second reading. the presiding officer: the clerk read the title for the

second time. the clerk: a bill to provide an incentive for business to bring back jobs to america. mr. reid: mr. president, i would object to any further proceedings with respect to this bill. the presiding officer: objection having been heard, the bill will be placed on the calendar. mr. reid: mr. president, a lot of people within the sound of my voice won't understand about what i talk, and that is having an emergency break or a parking brake on a car. it used to be standard procedure. you would pull that out and 99% of the time you would remember to release it before you took off. but sometimes you would forget, and that car would still go forward, but it didn't go forward very well. it could smart smoking. oh, i forgot to turn that off. so, emergency brakes. what does that have to do with

us they're this morning? it appears that the republicans in the senate have intentionally left on the emergency brake, because everything we try to do, it's like when you used to drive a car and have the emergency brake on. it just doesn't move just right. it moves very slowly. throughout president obama's time in office, republican leader here in the senate has done its best to keep the brakes engaged, slowing aniest to legislate -- slowing any effort to legislate any bipartisan bills. we should be working to protect working families, instead of wasting hundreds of hours as we struggle to perform one of our most basic duties: confirming presidential nominees. last year in response to unprecedented -- i repeat, unprecedented republican obstruction, the senate was forced to change its rules to

ensure that some of the president's nominees received the up-or-down vote that they deserved. i'm so theap that that change was made, mr. president -- i'm so happy that that change was made, mr. president. it has allowed the senate to make progress in one of its primary duties. now, mr. president, in spite of our having changed the rules, the republicans are still continuing to try slow everything down. again be, the brakes are on -- again, the brakes are on. and they only have one reason that i can come up with for doing this. it is not that they dislike the president's nominees. it is just that they want to do everything they can to slow down his administration, to make him look bad, to make senate democrats look bad because they believe that even though they're the cause of the obstruction, that everybody will look, democrats control the senate.

why aren't they doing more? mr. president, we can't do more because they put the brakes on. even though we changed the rules and are moving through especially the judges very quickly, because for the viewing audience here, mr. president, on a judge they can only stall for one hour. and they usually do. on circuit court judges, 30 hours, and they take up all those 30 house, even though they wind up voting for the judge. on cabinet nominations, 30 hours. on subcabinet hours, they get eight hours. that's the rules. we changed some of the rules. we didn't change that. in hindsight, mr. president, we'll have to wait and see if they're going to continue this, maybe we'll have to take another look at that. just, it's outrageous, mr. president what they've done. we've made substantial progress, as i've said, on one of our

primary functions, but the senate is continuing to progress confirming these nominees, in spite of the republicans putting up roadblock after roadblock. instead of saying their needless obstruction has hurt us, the republican leadership has respond with what can only be described as a temper tantrum, i guess, mr. president. we've already established they're doing it to make us look bad and the president look bad. but think what it's doing and has done to our country. they're mad about a lot of things, i guess. the number-one thing they're mad about is they're mad that obama was reelected. remember, frank luntz called a meeting here three days after

president obama was first elected. number one, we're going to make sure that obama is not reelected. that was a flop. number two, we're going to oppose everything the president wants, and that's what they've done. they've continued to do it. i have said it before. the first congress we had a lot of democrats, 58, 59, and for a short period of time, 60. we had some moderate republicans this enthat we could work with. but they're all gone, except susan collins. the next two have been thwarted by the oka obstructions that wee found and everything that we've tried to do. the republican leader is obviously now resorting to a tactic that they've decided to do in the frank luntz meeting. and that is just trying to run out the clock. it's as a football game, there's only a minute left to go. let's just run out the clock, who are a basketball game or a

soccer game. stall it. we're ahead. it's tied. that's where we need to stay. instead of killing time on the score board, the republicans are using the cloture clock to till the remaining six months of this congress. they want it to go away. preventing nominees from getting confirmed and preventing legislation from getting passed that's good for the middle class. would it be good for the middle class, mr. president, to raise the minimum wage? of course it is. it would be great. would it be good for the american public to have it so that my daughter, if she does the same job that your song does, that they get paid the same amount of money? they filibustered that. they've stopped that. how about student loans? student loans are the highest debt in america today, almost $i$1.3 trillion. and we tried to remedy that, make it pert for the students and -- make it better for the

students and their families who are paying for these large loans. filibustered. stengded unemployment benefits, filibustered. so, mr. president, they're doing this to make the president look bad, make us look bad, but it's to run out the clock. that's what they're trying to do. again, so people understand, when we take cloture -- and it takes a simple majority -- they can stall for many, many hours. i've said so. circuit judges, 30 hours. nominees for cabinet posts, 30 hours. eight hours for subcabinet. only an hour on other judges. if we take a close look at how they've utilized the time that we've wasted here, let's look at

-- let's save the last two months of the united states senate that we've been in session. the senate republicans have forced us to waste almost ten days. more than half the time that we've been in session. 236 hours in order to slow confirmation of president presit obama's nomination. 236 hours. of those 236 hours, senate republicans have used five hours to actually come to the senate floor and debate the qualifications of the nominees. the rest the time we sit as the viewing public sees in these quorum calls, but we sit hey hee and do nothing. for every hour we've debated these nominations, the republicans have wasted more time killing time. five hours out of 236 hours is time they' they've actually use. to further highlight the absurdity of their obstruction, the republicans have voted

overwhelmingly to confirm most all of these same nominations they've obstructed, they've filibustered. so far this year republicans have blocked immediate confirmation of 22 nominations that they later voted unanimously to confirm. why are they blocking these nominations that they all support? mr. president, they're just -- they just want to slow things down. they want everybody to look bad. they know they're not in control here. that's what the american public feels, even though they have all these rules that they force us to -- the procedural gimmicks that we have to work our way through. there's no other way to look at what republicans are doing. this is obstruction for obstruction's sake. the republican leader is desperate to keep this emergency brake on, hoping that by slowing down every senate process imaginable, he can run the remaining six months out and damage almost. the harm that this does to our

country i guess is not in their calculation. he's playing a very dangerous political game at the expense of this great country, and of course the american taxpayer. the senate currently has a backlog of 130 -- backlog of 130 nominations that have been languishing on the senate calendar for an average of 281 days. 281 days. and it's particularly outrage arks mr. president, that they're stopping us from confirming noncontroversial career foreign service officers and ambassadors. what does this mean, a career foreign service officer? the presiding officer has been in government a number of years, been governor of one of the larger-populated states in the area, been in the united states senate. and you have seen, i am convinced of this, young men and women who have decided they want to go into the foreign service.

mr. president, they are the brightest of the brightest. they do extremely well in school. they have tested they have to pass, written and oral. they speak and learn many different laings. -- different languages. they have been waiting their whole year to be named ambassador. it is like being selected to go to the super bowl, to be on the probowl team. when it comes time for their, to get this thing they worked for their whole career, they're being held up here. and these are ambassadors to places, mr. president, of course we need american diplomats every place, but you need a boss. 20%, 25% of the ambassadorial spots in africa they blocked. these are not political nominees. most of them are career

nominees. they are republicans and democrats. when these ambassadors are chosen, they're not chosen based on their political party. they're chosen on merit. we have places like honduras, qatar, vietnam that we don't have ambassadors there. they're even blocking the department of defense, the navy, air force. they're at the mercy of the republican leader's clock-killing obstruction. american interests abroad and the defense of our nation are forced to take a back seat while the republican leader hopes to make political gains by running out this clock. after having returned from the fourth 4th of july, this country's birthday, i ask the republican leader to stop needless obstruction. what is to be gained by needlessly grinding the senate to halt? the only thing i can say is they think they are going to hurt

obama, who they are so upset that he got reelected and got reelected very easily. so, mr. president, i say to them if you oppose a nominee, let's have a debate on the nomination and vote. don't delay a vote an career foreign service officer who has worked, he's worked his or her entire life to become ambassador. don't delay national security ambassador needed to protect our nation. don't delay key staff people at the cabinet level from doing their work for the american people. so i don't expect republicans to give their unanimous consent to every nominee on the calendar. rather senate democrats are asking the republicans in legislative good faith. let's look at these. if there's something wrong with them, let's debate them. if nominees are deserving of their unanimous support, and most of them come out of the committees unanimously, why waste the senate's time by blocking confirmation of these individuals? there is no reason for doing that. we have so much to address over the coming weeks, mr. president.

the sportsmen's bill tonight, with the highway bill, the emergency supplemental, manufacturing legislation. we're going to do something about the hobby lobby legislation we need to correct. there is so much that we have to do. we have carriers of insurance; we have to do that. export-import bank, we have to do that. but we are being stopped from doing that, mr. president. we have more than enough to keep us busy. that's an understatement. so what we're doing instead of doing the thing necessary for the american people, we're just being forced because of the obstructions of republicans, to sit here and struggle through a few nominations that we can work out by spending eight hours on this one, four hours on that one, 30 hours on this one.

it's really unfair to the american people. mr. president, would you announce the business of the day? the presiding officer: under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved, and the senate will be in a period of morning business until 5:30 p.m. with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. sessions: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. sessions: mr. president, i would ask consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection, it is suspended. mr. sessions: mr. president, the crisis at our border continues unabated. it's a crisis that should never, ever have occurred. it occurred as a direct result

of a failure of the united states leadership and the clarity of our message and our willingness to enforce simple, plain immigration laws. and last week we reached the point where the president of the united states, who's directly responsible for sending messages and effecting policies that encourage the flow of immigration to the united stat states, he was -- he announced that he would be asking congress, us, to cooperate with him and provide him with $2 billion in additional funds to deal with the humanitarian crisis, a crisis, as i indicat indicated, that was produced as a result of his activities. so in the same breath, at that moment when he asked for more money to take care of the crisis, he announced that he will deliberately and openly go around the congress of the united states and the

constitution and unilaterally change immigration law again through a enforcement policy. he said -- quote -- "today i'm beginning a new effort to fix as much of our immigration system as i can on my own, without congress. as a first step, i'm directing the secretary of homeland security and the attorney general, directing them to move -- to move available and appropriate resources from our interior to the border. i've also directed secretary johnson and attorney general holder to identify additional actions my administration can take on our own within existing legal authorities to do what congress refuses to do and fix as much of our immigration system as we can. i expect their recommendations before the end of the summer, and i intend to adopt those

recommendations without further delay. well, the problem, ladies and gentlemen, is that we have laws and congress has established laws, and the president wanted to change those laws, and congress made a decision. the decision was not to change those laws. those laws remain in effect. and as president of the united states of america, he has the highest duty to see that the laws of the united states are faithfully executed. remember now the president is the chief law enforcement officer in america. the f.b.i. answers to him. the d.e.a., the drug enforcement administration, answers to him. the department of justice, he appoints the top officials, they answer to him. and so does the border patrol, so does the immigration, customs and enforcement officers and the immigration officers throughout. and the secretary of homeland security.

his administration. and he has used powers to go beyond those that i'm aware of any president has used to basically declare that i will not enforce the laws passed by congress. and i am going to change those laws and i am not going to -- i don't have to change them. i am just going to direct my officers not to carry them out, not to enforce them. and one of the things he said was that young people here would not be deported. he invited a number of them to the white house. and as a result, the word got out in central america in particular that if you came to the united states as a young person, a parent could bring them or a brother and sister could bring them and you could get into the united states, you would not be deported. you would be allowed to stay and you could get a promiso. that is, you would be given --

allowed to be released on bail to some family member's custody and you could show up at some point in the future to have a hearing. i've heard that the -- that it may be as many as 500 days before a hearing occurs. and who is going to go and look for these individuals when they don't show up for court, as is happening continuously in high numbers not showing up for court. so it is a disturbing thing to me that we are in this situation. and $2 billion, make no mistake about it, is a lot of money. we work hard around here to try to pay for things that we need to by saving money here and saving money there, and now the president just sends over a message i'm going to demand $2 billion. and we've got to take care of the children. we can't leave them in a circumstance where they're not fed or taken care of or in a safe condition. we'll have to find some money, i

guess, to do that, but the question is how did it happen, why did it happen? $2 billion, well, that's more than the general fund budget of the state of alabama where i'm from. $2 billion is a lot of money. extra money this year. why? because in 2011, we had 6,000 unaccompanied children apprehended at the border, and this year we are projected to have 90,000. that's why we need $2 billion more, because the message got out, the word got out you could come to america and -- as a young person and you wouldn't be deported. and, in fact, congress doesn't know it truly at this point, but in fact that's true. young people coming to america unlawfully from central and south america other than mexico are being allowed to stay.

and it encourages more. we have to have a lawful system of immigration, a system that serves the national interest and a lawful system means one that's carried out effectively and efficiently, and it's wrong and it's immoral to create a system in which there is no law. laws are violated willy-nilly and nothing is ever done about it. that's not a healthy thing at all for any nation. and i would submit clearly that any nation must maintain its integrity of its borders, and to do so -- fail to do so undermines the very sovereignty of that nation. and no nation in the world that i'm aware of maintains open borders. if you're not going to maintain open borders, then you have to set up standards for application

and admission, and then you have to -- if you establish those standards, carry them out fairly and objectively. there are millions of people who applied to come to america that are waiting in line, people with college degrees and relatives here that applied lawfully, waiting their turn, and how is it right, how can it be justified morally, religiously as a matter of public policy, as a matter of law that we just ignore that and that people come through by the hundreds of thousands. indeed, it's been projected unless something changes -- and i think it could change if we have leadership, but unless changes occur, we could have as many as 140,000 come -- young people come next year. i guess that would be $4 billion maybe, more extra money that would have to be funded just next year to take care of the cost of this. it's really an unbelievable turn

of events. i and my staff did a timeline some months ago, really before this crisis became so imminent, and we documented a series of actions in which the president of the united states has directed his agencies to conduct their operations in such a way that it undermines the laws of the united states. it's 39 pages. 39 pages. i have got to tell you, one of the first ones and most dramatic and i talked about it at the time and the ramifications that would occur from it, but nobody paid much attention. back in 2009, president obama took office in january. he had made a political promise. he had talked to activist groups

throughout the country, and he made a promise to them. so not long after he took office, immigration and enforcement officers executed a raid which they have been doing over a period of years and always have been able to do on an engine machine shop in bellingham, washington, detaining 28 illegal immigrants who were using fake social security numbers and identity documents. shoatly thereafter, a pro-amnesty group, these activist groups, criticized the administration for enforcing the law. an unidentified official at the department of homeland security was quoted in "the washington times" as saying -- quote -- "the secretary -- that's the new secretary of homeland security -- is not happy about it, and it is not her policy." close quote. instead of enforcing the law, the secretary investigated the i.c.e. officers who were simply

doing their jobs. the deputy assistant secretary of homeland security said on a phone call with employers and pro-amnesty groups that -- quote -- we're not doing raids or audits under this administration." that was a huge abandonment of a normal and natural law enforcement procedure to create a lawful system of immigration. right out of the chute, as a direct result in my opinion of promises made during the campaign. not for law enforcement reasons, not for the national interests of the united states. and i -- it goes on. january of 2009. secretary of homeland security janet napolitano delays the everify deadline. she delayed the everify deadline a second time. she delayed the everify deadline a third time. and it goes on.

page after page of activities in which they took steps to undermine law. in june of 2010, the obama administration sued arizona. the state was trying to help enforce federal immigration law and they sued the state of arizona, and they used any other state that attempted to do anything that would enhance law enforcement. in january of 2010, the obama administration ignored the dangerous sanctuary cities policy. we have amazingly in this country cities that are providing sanctuary to people illegally in the country. they arrest someone who is illegally here, they convict them of a crime. under law enforcement -- i was a federal prosecutor for many years -- they would hold them and turn them over to the federal law enforcement officers for deportation.

but these cities stopped refuseing to do that. nothing was done about that and this administration took no action. they actually seemed to encourage it, frankly. director morton of the i.c.e. offices directed an amnesty memo number one that weaken their enforcement and deportation procedures. he issued a second interesting memo in july of 2011. in december of 2011, reports surfaced that the obama administration will reduce the national guard at the border. president bush had beefed up our enforcement, sent a pretty good message that we were getting serious about the border. we were making some progress when he was doing that. but by 2011, the obama administration began to reduce the national guard's presence,

which has now been eliminated at the border. and on june 15 of 2012, president obama bypassed congress and unilaterally implemented in effect the dream act. legislation that had twice or three times been brought before this congress and failed to pass. this deals with children who entered the country before the age of 16 and who can prove how old they were when they entered, who can prove how long they have been here, and the legislation was poorly drafted and was rejected by congress on more than one occasion, and the president just said to his officers don't enforce it with regard to these young people. don't deport anybody that you apprehend who claims they entered the country before they were age 16. or 17 or 18. who knows what year it would be? and this is really the beginning

of the message to the people in central america, particularly, that young people weren't going to be deported. it's a direct action that led to the crisis we have today. and i pointed that out at the time and others did. chris crane of the i.c.e. officers wrote a letter last may, warning that we were seeing a surge of young people. morton issued another memo, and it goes on. as i said, 39 pages, multiple actions on some of those pages that were taken by the president's staff underlings that undermined and weakened the ability of our immigration law to be carried out effectively, consistently and fairly.

it's just a terrible, terrible thing. and now we have this crisis today. according to a new report from the "los angeles times," which probably i have to say is one of the more knowledgeable papers, if not the most knowledgeable paper in america concerning immigration issues. they issued a report that deportation of illegal immigrant youth has fallen dramatically under the current administration, even as the flow of illegal use in the united states has exponentially increased. the paper writes this weekend, just this weekend they wrote this -- quote -- "president obama and his aides have repeatedly sought to dispel the rumors driving thousands of children and teens from central america to cross the u.s. border each month with the expectation they will be given a promiso and

allowed to stay. but under the obama administration, those reports have been proven increasingly true." close quote. data from the paper shows that the number of illegal youths from central america who are apprehended averaged around 4,000 per year over the last decade. so the newspaper points out that over the last decade we've apre-helped about -- apprehended about 4,000 youths per year. some reports suggested that the number could reach 90,000 this year, an increase of more than 2,000%. yet since 2008, de-powerations of -- deportations of illegal youth have dropped roughly 80%. so we have an 80% drop in the deportations while we've seen a 2,000% increase in the number coming unlawfully. does this not tell