quorum call:

mr. durbin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the

senator from illinois. mr. durbin: i ask consent the quorum call be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: i ask consent to speak in morning business. the presiding officer: the senate is in morning business. mr. durbin: mr. president, i'm proud to join several of my colleagues this morning in introducing a substitute amendment to the justice for victims of trafficking act of 2015. human trafficking is a global scourge, and we should be working on a bipartisan basis and a bicameral basis to stop it. however, i'm deeply concerned to learn that our friends on the other side of the aisle have inserted a worrisome provision into this year's version of the bill. this provision would expand upon the so-called hyde amendment which restricts funds for women's reproductive health choices. the new language which has been offered by senator cornyn of texas would send a new dangerous precedent by enabling hyde restrictions to apply to non-tax funding streams set forth in this bill. this language paves the way for

political leaders in the future to interfere even more with a woman's basic personal health decisions. it sets the tone for expansion of abortion restriction for years to come. i'm upset about this provision in that it shouldn't be in this bill. this bill is not about abortion. it about human trafficking. instead, this provision has now become another opportunity for political speeches and delay. the good news is that the justice for victims of trafficking act can still be bipartisan and we have high hopes that it will be. democrats are ready to work with republicans to fix this bill and move past the partisan obstacle, which literally stopped us this week from doing anything. the substitute amendment removes the hyde restrictions from the justice for victims of trafficking act. it includes two important bipartisan pieces of legislation: the runaway and homeless youth and trafficking prevention act

originally offered by senator leahy, and the stop ploy station through trafficking act offered by senator klobuchar. we know that congress can work on a bipartisan basis to effectively address this issue. i urge my colleagues, when we look at what we have done so far in this session of congress, we have very little to show for the time that we've spent here. this is an opportunity to pass a bipartisan human trafficking bill not a grab bag for every notion or idea that any senator has on any subject but one that addresses a very serious serious issue. i also know that another senator from louisiana on the republican side has an amendment which he wishes to offer on this bill which again has nothing to do with human trafficking. senator vitter offers an amendment that would denizenship at birth to children born in the united states -- citizenship at birnl to children born in the united states unless one of the

parents is a u.s. citizen or an actively serving arm services member. let me begin with the obvious for my colleagues in the senate: birth right citizenship is a constitutional right. congress can't amend the constitution with a statute. i would think that every senator knows that. and to put this provision before us is merely to try to provoke a debate on a bill which has no impact on the constitution. the citizenship clause of the 14th amendment states, and i quote, "all persons born or naturalized in the united states and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the united states and of the state wherein they reside." end of quote. i urge my colleagues, particularly the one offering this amendment pick up the constitution and read it. the 14th amendment is as clear as can be. the citizenship clause has been restated and established by four

centuries of anglo-american jurisprudence. the14th amendment erased an exception to citizenship. we certainly remember the dred scott case. it was one of the provocations that led to a +seufl war in this country. we should take this issue extremely seriously. the supreme court has repeatedly ruled that the 14th amendment applies to u.s.-born children of noncitizens. what part of that does the author of this amendment not understand? the court rejected arguments that the son of chinese nationals who were forbidden under the chinese exclusion act from ever becoming a u.s. citizen could be deprived of citizen 147 because of his parents' status. nothing is settled than common law than the doctrine that the children of aliens are subject

at birnl. subsequent decisions back that up. the famous case of plier v. d.o.e. basically said the court reason that even if the government wanted to control the conduct of adults "legislation directing the onus of the parents' misconduct against its children does not comport with fundamental concepts of justice." the law is clear. so this amendment being offered by senator vitter is a provocative, unnecessary and basically feckless effort to stahl an important bill that should be passed on a bipartisan basis. i hope my colleagues, whatever their feelings on this issue will understand you cannot amend the constitution by statute. i thought that was in basic senate 101 but we've got to get back to it, to take clear that my colleagues understand that this important human trafficking bill cannot be -- should not be bogged down or stopped wishes

like abortion, as important as it is, which should be saved for a separate debate, or this effort to amend the united states constitution with an amendment on the floor to a statute. that certainly is not a good way for us to accomplish things in the senate. mr. president, i'd like to speak on a separate issue that -- and ask it be placed in a separate part in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: mr. president i've been coming to this in regard-- tothis floor for a long time talking about for-profit clenls. this is an industry, for-profit clenls that lures students with flashy ads and misleading promises. gobbles up the federal loan and grant money that these students can bring to them and then ends up producing students, if they're lucky enough to get a diploma, who can't find good-paying jobs. to understand the for-profit college industry in america

today, you only need to know three numbers and for those who are listening, this will be on the final. here are the three numbers: 10% of high school graduates in the united states of america go to for-profit colleges. when you think of for-profit colleges think of university of phoenix devry kaplan -- for-profit clenls colleges, there are a lot of them. 10% of high school students go to these schools. these scoocialtion the for-profit schools receive 20% of federal aid to education. why do they get so much if they only have 10% of the students? they charge so much. their tuition goes through the roof. 10% of the students 20% of the federal aid to education. but here's the number i don't want you to forget: 46. 46% of all student loan defaults are students of for-profit schools. what does that tell you? it tells you these students are

getting in over their head. they're borrowing too much money. it tells you these students end up dropping out and unable to pay their loans or end up with a worthlessworthless diploma and can't find a job. how can the united states senate stand back and say, this is acceptable? for-profit colleges are the most heavily subsidized private companies in america today the most heavily subsidized. mr. president, in your home state and mine, we have some farmers. our farmers get kicked around a little bit about all the federal money they receive. our farmers don't hold a candle to the for-profit colleges and universities. these folks have developed siphoning money out of the federal treasury to an art form. the money that they pay the c.e.o.'s who engineer these arrangements is in the millions of dollars each year -- all federal dollars virtually all -- 90%-95% federal dollars.

how can you call yourself a private for-profit company when 80% to 90% of your money is coming directly from the federal government? as a matter of fact, this industry the for-profit college industry if you just took the money we spent in subsidies to these schools would be the ninth-largest federal agency in washington. and yet many flinty conservatives who hate subsidies and hate deficits look the other way. oh, it is a private company. a private company? 10% of the students, 20% of the federal aid to education 46% of all the student loan defaults? and they're getting 80% of the money from the federal treasury and we're supposed to look the other way? from time to time, students come and sit in our galleries. many of them are soon to graduate from high school. they will be inundated impi -- they

they they will be inundated by these for-profit schools. i take a look back in recent memory. they actually ran an adhere, mr. president, -- an ad here, mr. president. it showed a very attractive young lady in her pajamas. she was lounging on her bed and she had her laptop computer. and she said, "i'm going to college in my pajamas. i'm going to a for-profit college. i don't even have to get out of my pajamas. i can go to college." mr. president, that's a bad joke. arntiondzand, unfortunately, too many young people are lured into this belief, i can just log on and get a degree. well it turns out that many times it's too darn expensive and worthless if you ever get it. the stories that have come to my office of young people that signed upped for up for these for-profit

schools and ended up with more debt than they could ever possibly imagine they're horrifying. a 31-year-old woman in the suburbs of chicago now living in her parents' basement with over $100,000 in debt and a worthless degree from everest -- now this wasn't everest college. ail talki'll talk about those folks in just a minute. but she received a dpre from one of the-- butshe received degree from one of the wornlless for-profit colleges i they told her she could go into law enforcement. not a single law enforcement agency in the chicagoland area would recognize that degree. was she ever told that along the way, with all those fancy ads? never. so i say to students, think twice about these for-profit schools. i want to say a word about one particular instance that bothers

me a lot. corinthian was one of the largest. most people didn't know corinthian was a for-profit school but they knew some of the schools that were involved. everest college -- everest colleges were sponsored by corinthian. well it turned out that corinthian ran into a problem. corinthian colleges was falsifying information that they gave to the federal government. the federal government asked corinthian college like it asked all these other for-profit clenls, how many of your students get jobs after they graduate? corinthian was falsifying the students getting jobs. in fact, corinthian had this arrangement with many companies. they would give them $1,000 and say, could you hire your graduates for a month? you can let them go, but hire them for a month or two. we'll give you some money to do it. the companies went along with that subsidized employees. then they let the employees go. then corinthian would report to

the federal government, our graduates all are working. well when we called them on it and they couldn't produce the real information corinthian started plummeting and eventually went out of business. i asked to have them investigated about falsifying job placement rates. it was originally reported by the "huffington post." well they looked into it. corinthian was in fact lying falsifying job placement rates. they would use inflated placement rates to lure other unsuspecting students into the school. after the department of education placed financial sanctions on the company and delayed their title for disbursements, corinthian said they didn't have the cash flow and would have to close. the department of education kept the school afloat, even after this shoveling hundreds of

millions of dollars to the failed corinthian company allowing it to continue advertising and signing up students. at a point when private investors were jumping ship, the department of education was jumping in. now in a transaction blessed by the department of education most of the former correspondent -- former corinthian campuses have been sold to ecm cevmentc, a corporation that has served as a debt collector for the department of education. this is a company that goes after students when they are not paying their student loans. now they are going to own one of these for-profit colleges, what's left of corinthian p. we're told this new debt collection university will operate as a not-for-profit entity. that was enticing, and i thought, well, at least they're not in the for-profit world. despite being a not-for-profit entity in name at least, i am a

troubled that ecmc is failing to live up to the promises they made to the students and me. here's an example. i wrote. cmc's -- ecmc's head in december asking him to dis-kin corinthian's use of mandatory ash strags clauses as part of the school's agreement. what are these closes? these clauses signed by students take away the rights of students to bring grievances before a court and once students end up in arbitration proceedings they find the rules stacked against them and in favor of the corporate repeat players. the associations represent not-for-profit schools and they've informed me that their member schools do not use the mandatory arbitration clauses. these clauses are essentially only used by companies in the for-profit college sector. i told mr. honduran that if he was truly going to run a

not-for-profit institution he should allow the nonprofit institution non-mandatory arbitration clauses for students. he certainly said the right things. he told me that ecmc "had eliminated corinthian's policies of binding mandatory arbitration arbitration." the reason this is important is that if a student has been defrauded and think sign one of these mandatory arbitration clauses, they can never get their case and their facts before an impartial jury or a judge. it's going to be decided in an arbitration hearing instead. mr. hahn summed up their policy and issue as -- quote -- "bottom line, we believe students have an unquestioned right to seek redress for grievances including a right to file a lawsuit. we will not stand in the way of any student who wants to pursue litigation based on his or her personal experiences." couldn't have been stated more clearly and