year ending 2016 and other related purposes. mr. durbin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the minority whip. mr. durbin: i ask consent to speak in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: mr. president, 15 years ago i introduced a bill called the dream act. the dream act was designed to give children brought to the united states by their parents who were undocumented a chance, a path toward legalization, a path towards citizenship. these were people now in their teens and early 20's who were brought to the united states as infants and children. it was not their conscious decision to come to this country. it was a decision by their parents. they've grown up in the united states. it is estimated 2.5 million young people came to this country under these circumstances. so many of them have done everything they have been asked to do.

completed their education, stood up in the classroom every morning and pledged allegiance to that flag, the only flag they've ever known, become part of america, excelled academically, started dreaming about what they might do as americans to make their lives better and this country better. but the law in this country is very harsh when it comes to these young people. the law says in its bleakest terms they have to leave the united states for ten years and petition to come back in. here they are 18, 19 years of age being told now that you've graduated high school, whatever your status, leave. go back somewhere where you cannot ever railroad living and -- ever remember living, and wait ten years. so i introduced the dream act and said if these young people completed their education, if they have no serious criminal issues, if they are prepared to come forward, serve their country in the military, finish their college education, we will give them a path to citizenship.

15 years we've waited. i can remember when these galleries were filled with young people, dreamers, undocumented young people who sat one saturday morning in their caps and gowns in the gallery, praying that we would pass the dream act and give them a chance to become part of the only country they have ever known. the measure failed on the floor of the senate. it was a brokenhearted moment for me, facing these young people, many of them in tears, sobbing not knowing what their lives would lead to. and i said to them if you won't give up on me, i'm not going to give up on you. let's keep working at this. and so i sent a letter in april of 2010 to my friend, the president of the united states, who had been a cosponsor of the dream act. and i said to president obama, can you do something? can you do something to allow these young people a chance? give them a chance. and he did. he came through with a program

called daca, and this deferred action program was really designed to give these young people a temporary stay from deportation. it's only temporary, for several years. but in order to get that stay, they had to come forward. they had to register with the government, pay a filing fee, make sure all their vital information had been disclosed, go through a thorough criminal background check, and then if they got a job, they would pay their taxes as required of every person living in this country, and they would have a temporary stay of deportation, to stay here, go to school or work. several years later they would have to do it all over again and go through the same background check and pay the same fees. the president signed that executive order and said it was within his authority as the chief executive to decide what are the highest priorities that should be deported from the

united states? the president rightly said let's go after felons and dangerous criminals. they shouldn't be part of our country. why should we only go after young people who only want to complete their education and be a positive part of our future. so the president signed the executive order for daca. some time later came an opportunity to consider families in similar circumstances. most people have the mistaken notion that if you're undocumented, everybody in your home is undocumented. i haven't found that to be the case. more often than not, only one parent will be undocumented. the father may be an american citizen. all the kids may be american citizens, but mom may be undocumented. so the president put in another proposal and said in those circumstances where you have someone undocumented in the country with a child who is an american citizen, you can apply for what's known as dapa, which gave them the same temporary stay of deportation. you had to pay your filing fee,

go through a criminal background check again, pay taxes on any money that you earned and for a temporary period of time you would not be deported. when the president signed that second executive order, a number of governors, all republicans, from across the states filed an action to stop the implement ation of the president's executive order. now, that's a big deal. it literally affects millions of people in this country who are undocumented. and these governors argued that if they were forced, for example, in the state of texas to give driver's licenses to undocumented people, they would have administrative expenses so that the president's order would create a hardship on their state. what they failed to acknowledge, of course, was that these new people under the executive order would be paying taxes, legally paying their taxes to the federal and state government, and they would pay any fee

necessary to get a driver's license imposed by the state of texas. the case went before the supreme court, and the decision was handed down just a few minutes ago. the decision of the supreme court, sadly, shows the traicial human cost of the senate republican strategy to recklessly refuse to fill the vacancy on the supreme court created by the death of justice scalia. you know what happened several months ago when justice scalia was on a hunting trip and sadly passed away to the shock of everyone, and there was a vacancy on the supreme court. the president of the united states did what he was supposed to do. you see, in article 2 of the constitution, there is a requirement that the president fill the vacancies on the supreme court. why would the founding fathers put a requirement on the president? they understood that some president could play games with

vacancies on the court. said no, you have to send your nominee's name to the united states senate where we will have the opportunity to advise and consent as to that nominee. the president met his responsibility. judge merrick garland works for the d.c. circuit court of appeals. in fact, he's the chief justice of the d.c. circuit. the president sent his name to fill the scalia vacancy. is merrick garland qualified? the american bar association just this week said what we already knew. merrick garland is unanimously well qualified for the position. so the president's nominee at that point would come before the senate. in the history of the united states, we have never, ever denied a nominee to the supreme court vacancy a hearing and a vote in the united states senate, never until this very moment when the republican leadership in the united states senate said no, we are not going

to fill the vacancy because we are hoping that our presidential candidate -- in this case, mr. donald trump -- will be able to fill that vacancy. so we'll keep the vacancy open for our dream candidate, president donald trump. it's the first time in the history of the united states the senate has turned its back on a presidential request to fill a vacancy on the supreme court. and we warned the republicans this could create some problems. today we see exactly the kind of problem that can be created. the human cost of the senate republicans' reckless refusal to fill this vacancy on the supreme court is going to be felt by literally millions of people. today the supreme court failed to resolve the legal challenge to dapa and expanded daca, the executive orders of the president. the result of that tie vote, 4-4 tie vote, the result of that tie

vote leaves millions of families across america in legal limbo. i urge the justice department to consider all the legal options to swiftly overturn the injunction that is blocking president obama from using his legal authority to set negligence enforcement priorities. dapa and an expanded daca will make our country safer and allow law-abiding individuals with deep roots in our communities to step out of the shadows and contribute more fully to the country they love. tie vote on the united states supreme court. i can't remember the last time that happened. it happens very rarely. it didn't have to happen. if the senate republican majority had done its job, had faced its constitutional responsibility, held a hearing for merrick garland and voted him up or down, i have confidence that he would have been approved and been a member of this u.s. supreme court. we could have avoided what we

now face, a split court 4-4, which cannot resolve critical and controversial issues. the net result of the republican refusal to fill that vacancy is to create an injustice across america for millions living in this country, an uncertainty about their future. that is the height of constitutional irresponsibility, and it played out across the street and was announced just minutes ago. this is what happens when the senate republicans refuse to do their job, when they say we're going to play politics with filling a vacancy on the supreme court. we're going to hope and pray that donald trump will come forward and fill this vacancy with somebody we like a little better than the nominee of president obama. it is a sad day, and now we know what this constitutional irresponsibility by the senate republicans has done. it has created a fraud court. it has split our nation in terms of the law.

it has really derogated one of the most important institutions in our government. i hope, i just hope that a few republicans will step up and realize that waiting for president trump to fill this vacancy is the wrong answer. we need to accept the constitution's mandate to move quickly to fill this vacancy as quickly as possible, and in the meantime, with this split court decision, we need to call on our justice department to do everything possible to try to find a path toward a just resolution which the supreme court was unable to find today. mr. sessions: mr. president, today the supreme court, in the case of united states v. texas, rendered an interim victory, i think, for law and procedure and lawfulness in america, a victory for the constitutional process by which congress passes laws and the president is obliged to faithfully execute those laws. he takes an oath to do that, to

be -- he is the chief law enforcement officer in america. congress is the body that passes laws and makes laws. and we have a series of immigration laws, most of which have been on the book for many, many years. they reflect a decided view of the government and people of the united states of america. those laws are obliged to be enforced in an effective and consistent way, and this decision today held that, on an interim basis, a stay should be issued -- in other words, an order issued by the lower court to block the president of the united states from carrying out a series of legal actions that he wants to carry out must be stopped. because he lacks the authority to do that. it's a huge, significant constitutional matter.

if yo you remember, colleagues,t wasn't too long that we had a national debate and a vote about reforming immigration laws in the united states. i believe that was not good reform, and we debated it and it failed in the congress. it did not get the support of both houses, although it did get support in the senate. that proposal failed. the american people spoke clearly on it. they contacted us in large numbers. people began to understand that the bill was not effective to do what it promised to do, and that was to end the illegality. it was going to be effective in granting amnesty to virtually everybody unlawfully in the country today, but it would not have been able to carry out an effective and lawful system for the future. that's what i believe intentionally. i was a federal prosecutor for

15 years. we tried to read the law and make sure that it was effective and it was not effective. it was not effective. well, so the president just decided that i'm going to use my pen and i'm going to issue orders to all the executive departments and agencies that are obliged to enforce the laws of the united states, and i'm going to tell them to do what the congress rejected. i'm going to execute an amnesty by the signing of my pen that legalizes everyone in the country here today. it's an unbelievable overreach, a matter of tremendous import. and it's an affront to the legislative process. it's an affront to the majority of the american people who want a lawful system of immigration, ones that serves their interest, serves the interest of america, the national interest, not some special interest who wants cheaper labor.

not some political interest who's looking for votes. but what's in the policy -- what's the policy that best serves the american people, that's what this issue is all about. but supreme court, by a 4-4 vote concluded that the state should remain. and that is he blocked the president at least on that portion of the executive orders he's issued that was before the court. he's done some other things that were not before the court and are, i think would be at risk too if properly challenged but they haven't made it to the court yet. i think this was an important vote. if you remember, the judge heard the case. he issued a stay, blocked the president from going forward with his own lawful -- his own law plan for immigration, the one that congress had rejected. then the court of appeals in

texas, the fifth circuit which includes more than texas, they ruled that the judge was correct. and now by a 4-4 vote, the ruling of the fifth circuit is upheld. on november of 2014, the administration, as i've said before, went on strike. it just announced we are not going to follow the requirements and the laws of the united states with regard to immigration. i am going to direct my offices to carry out a policy that i think should be the national policy. sorry the congress didn't pass it, and the historic law remains in place but i'm going to direct my officers not to do it. and that's what he did. in effect, it was a ceasing of the enforcement of immigration

law in so many key ways. under the guise of what he called exercising prosecutorial discretion, it explicitly -- his orders did, directed the law enforcement officers not to enforce plain law, forcing them to violate -- the officers to violate their oath of office to support and defend the constitution of the united states. and his own oath, which is to see that the laws are faithfully executed. and effectively eliminated entire sections in the united states code. but not only did the obama administration direct his officers and agents, all of which are in the executive branch under his supervision as the president of the united states, the chief executive, he ordered those agencies -- the department of homeland security -- not to follow the plain law. he further decreed that those who came here illegally and had children in the united states would be allowed to stay in the united states and granted work

permits. work permits and access to certain federal benefits. people who entered the country unlawfully. so no wonder the immigration and customers enforcement officials have had so much difficulties with that. an objective federal study that's done every year or periodically evaluates the morale of the federal officers in the united states. they have found on, i think again this year, that the morale of the homeland security agency is the lowest of any federal agency. why is this? because they have been ordered not to do their duty. they put their lives on the line. border patrol agents do, in dangerous circumstances, and they arrest people and bring them in. and what happens? they're not deported. they're released on bail or some

sort of promise to appear, and they go into the country as they planned to do all along. this is extremely discouraging for our officers and agents, and it's wrong and it should not happen. and it is a cause of the increasing number of illegal immigrants we have in the nation today. in fact, colleagues, a few years ago the immigration and customs enforcement officers association, a part of homeland security, filed a lawsuit against secretary janet napolitano and john morton, one of their supervisors, and said you are ordering to violate our oath to enforce the law. i've never seen a lawsuit like this. 18,000 or so agents and officers suing their supervisors for ordering them not to do their

duty. this is wrong. it demoralizes morale. and when you have that kind of situation, what message does it send to the world? it sends a message to the world that if you can get into the united states, you're going to be successful and you can stay here. you don't have to come according to the law. and we've seen an increase in lawlessness in recent years. and in fact it looks like this year, among a number of categories, we've already reached the same level of arrests that we did in all of last fiscal year. so we're having a rather significant increase again this year. well, what happened? over half the state attorneys general in the united states filed a lawsuit in the federal court.

judge andrew hainon in the district court for the southern district of texas heard the case. it went on for a considerable amount of time. the department of justice defended president obama's actions. the top lawyers in the u. department of justice go to texas and they defend this case, and they're opposed by more than half the attorneys general of the united states. judge hanen heard the case and issued an injunction. he said, mr. president, you are changing the regulations of the united states that have been issued pursuant to the immigration and nationality act. you're changing those. and before you can change regulations, you have to be able to go through a process, and you have to have notice, an opportunity for people to be heard and objections to be made. and before the regulations can be altered. that was basically the decision that he rendered.

the united states court of appeals for the fifth circuit next to the supreme court upheld the injunction, and today's decision confirms that the obama administration's lawless plans may not proceed. but the fight is far from over. the case will now be sent back to judge hahn nor for -- judge hanen for additional litigation on the merits and the ultimate outcome remains uncertain. but i would say that it takes -- to issue a stay and to block a federal agency for going forward with a rule or regulation, the federal judge in the federal court must find that the opposition litigants have a substantial likelihood or prevailing on the merits. so i think this decision

indicates that judge -- hannon and even the supreme court believe it's likely that judge hannon would be upheld in his decision. but what is clear, as highlighted by the egregious, unethical conduct of the lawyers of the united states department of justice, where i served for almost 15 years, and we worked our hearts out to always be faithful and operate with integrity before the federal judges. and always, since we were representatives of the united states of america, to make sure that every representation we made to the court was accurate, as a high standard. and most assistant united states attorneys and department of justice lawyers should know that and hear that at the highest levels. other lawyers frequently don't.

private attorneys don't but federal attorneys representing the people of the united states of america have that high duty. well, what happened? judge hannon found really that they were determined to go forward with these unlovely actions, even though he had -- with these unlawful actions even though he ordered them to stop and it appears to have caused some substantial violation of integrity of the immigration law and their department, and they're going to have a further hearing soon, i believe, on whether there will be additional penalties. he's already imposed some penalties on the department of justice lawyers for their improper conduct, which he severely condemned them for. so, the message that this administration is sending to the world is that if you can get here, you can stay here.

according to official statistics from the u.s. customs and border protection, the number of so-called family units that are apprehended at the southern border has already exceeded the number that were apprehended in all of fiscal year 2015, already this year. approximately 12% more so-called family units were apprehended through may than were apprehended through all last year. and total apprehensions of all aliens appears to be on the rise which is an indication of increased illegality into this country. last month the head of the border patrol council testified before the subcommittee on immigration that i chair that for every alien apprehended at the border by the united states border patrol, we could assume at least one evaded detection. he represents the border patrol office. he says they're catching half of

the people that enter and they apprehended more than 300,000 illegally here in the country last year. he further testified -- get this, colleagues. this is important. critically important. and it shows the extremeature of the obama administration's policies with regard to immigration. this officer testified that of the half that are apprehended, at least 80% of those are released into the country and not deported. they are told, okay, come back to court. sometimes they have a bail, sometimes they don't. on one hearing, a federal agency official testified that they take young people to their destination city when they're apprehended. what does that mean? it means that if somebody enters the country and they're 17 years

of age and they don't know what to do with them, instead of deporting them and sending them back at that time, they say where did you intend to go. well, my designation was chicago. the federal government takes them to chicago. turns them over to a cousin, an uncle, or an aunt, whatever. there is no effort to ascertain whether or not the person they are turned over to is legally in the country or not either. so this is the kind of thing that is causing such disturbance within the law enforcement field. and it's so discouraging to them. so to the extent to which the administration has directed its officers not to enforce plain law is one of the most brazen acts of legal disobedience in the history of america, i think. could the next president refuse to enforce tax laws? could the next president say i don't like they tax. i believe this tax is too high?

or i don't believe we should tax these entities, so he tells his subordinate unit, the head of the i.r.s., just like he tells the head of the homeland security, don't enforce this law. i know congress passed it. i don't think it's a fair tax. don't collect it. tell everybody in the country if you don't pay that tax, you can be certain your i.r.s. is not going to spend its time and effort to collect it. so you're home free. so that's the kind of logic we are dealing with. these lawless actions fly in the face of what the american people have asked for, and yet despite having the most radical immigration policies in our nation's history, former secretary of state hillary clinton has promised to go even further. i have just been astounded at some of the things that she has declared. if president, she promises to deport only those who commit

violent felonies or happen to be terrorists. anybody else i guess can come in illegally into the country, sell drugs, get caught for fraud, get caught for fraudulent i.d.'s, get caught for credit card fraud and those kind of things, as long as it's not a violent crime, they don't ever get sent home. they get to stay here. how is this in harmony with the will of the american people to have a lawful system of immigration, one that protects their public safety, protects them from criminal activities, protects them from terrorism and those kind of things? breathtaking to me. moreover, if secretary clinton is provided with the ability as president to appoint a new justice to the supreme court, the outcome of this florida case

might change. who knows? but it's certainly clear that she has been vigorously critical of the decision and says it is correct essentially. she said this in her statement today. quote -- "today's decision by the supreme court is purely procedural, casts no doubt on the fact that dapa and daca, these amnesty programs are entirely within the president's legal authority. she says it's entirely within the president's authority. well, again, let me remind you what the president did. he not only said to four million adults in the issue before the supreme court that you will not be deported. he declared that you are able to work. he's given them work

authorization. when the laws of the united states don't allow people illegally here to take jobs. not only that, he gave them the right to social security and he gave them social security numbers, and they will pay into social security and be able to get social security and medicare and other programs. basically he gave illegal persons established by the laws of the united states legal status to participate as american citizens on virtually every matter of importance. it's pretty exceptional. and former secretary clinton said i will induce comprehensive immigration reform with a path to citizenship for those within my first 100 days. in other words, she would give

legal status citizenship to everybody that came to the country illegally. it's just a very damaging thing and has remarkable consequences and impacts on the legal system and it also incentivizes more people to come to america. the american people have every right to demand that our very generous legal immigration flow be followed according to the law and that it reflect their wishes. the american people are good and decent people. they are not asking for anything extreme. what's extreme is this idea that we systematically refuse to guarantee the laws of the united states be executed. the actions and policies advanced by president obama and apparently even more radical policies by secretary clinton is a radical thing.

it's not traditional in any way. it's directly contrary to our constitutional principles and the clear will of the american people. it must be stopped. mr. president, we have a generous immigration system. we admit 1.1 million at least -- i think it will be now maybe closer to 1.2 million every year, more than any nation in the world. it's a remarkable thing that we do. in addition to that, at any given time, there are 700,000 people in the united states foreign born that take jobs in the united states, and these are supposed to be temporary jobs for the most part. a lot of them are basically permanent jobs, can be re-upped and reextended, and that is going on in the country at a given time. we don't have enough jobs for the american people now.

we don't have enough jobs for the american people now. we have a surplus of labor in this country. that's why -- if you believe in free markets, colleagues, that's why since 1999 until last year median household income in america is down $4,000 per family. a big part of that is excessive labor flow into the united states. it's not disputable, colleagues. look at the great professor on this, professor borhaus at harvard. born in cuba himself, came here as a young person. dr. borhaus shows that excessive labor flow pulls down wages. why would it not? it's just common sense -- commonsense free market principles. but he's documented it through labor reports, a census data, and there's no doubt about that.

we are hammering american working people. their lives are being diminished while some make more money because they have a lower wage. i'm not saying we're going to end immigration. nobody's talking about that. what we have is an extremely high immigration level legally, and on top of that we have this massive illegality. so the first thing the american people have asked us to do is end the illegality pleas. they have been pleading for that for 30 years. and all we have here is some complaint about any bill that actually takes a step toward that end gets blocked. we can't even get votes on amendments. so i just want to say i think the american people are correct. any nation state that sees itself as sovereign, sees itself

as having a loyalty to its own people should protect those people from unfair policies, should defend their legitimate interests. and we are not doing it. we are pulling down wages right now. there are people that don't have jobs today. we have the lowest percentage of americans with a job, those in the working years today, that we have had in 40 years. last month, we created 38,000 jobs. a paltry number, a shockingly low number. sent some shockwaves through the business community. we need to have close to 200,000 a month to stay level. we're bringing in almost 100,000 immigrants a month. from 2000, colleagues, to 2014.

14 years, the native-born population of the united states increased throughout that period by millions. how many jobs were created and did native-born americans get during that period? none. the actual number of workers from 2000-2014 went down. all jobs that were created during that period of time went to foreign born. and is it any surprise that wages have fallen? is it any surprise that we have got going from around low $50,000 a year median income in america for a family to $4,000 less? it's simple. and somebody needs to talk about this and defend the legitimate concerns of families in this center and working americans. so i want to say a couple of

things. the outcome of this court ruling is not going to cause any major change in what's happening today. in fact, we have been living under the policies that the court ordered for some time now. it's not going to change that. we're not going to have any mass roundup, as people have suggested is going to happen. that's ridiculous. the president has ordered basically an end to deportations, except for those who commit crimes, serious crimes. secretary clinton has said the crime has to be a violent crime or terrorism connected before you get deported. so i -- so we're heading in that direction. it's going to not -- we're not going to have a dramatic impact on the changes in america, but they won't get worse.

this dramatic providing of work permits, social security benefits, social security numbers, medicare benefits. the people who entered our country unlawfully presumably could have been entered 12 months ago, have no family here, no connection. they would receive these benefits, too. this is not a sound policy for america. we're going to have to work our way through many of the difficulties in the future, but the simple demand that we have to congress from a majority of the people i believe is in the illegality, do that first -- end the illegality, do that first and then we'll talk about what we will do next with people who have been here a long time. a lot of people just came. do they get to come -- you just used a fraudulent identification or you broke across the border or you were caught and released on bail and you went to los angeles or chicago or somewhere. do you get to demand that you be

given legal status in america? do you get to demand that you be made a citizen, where other people around the world waited their time and may never get into the united states because they don't qualify. that's the question that we are facing. and i truly believe that we are -- we believe in immigration as an american country. we are always going to have immigration. but the level of it and the nature of it should be such that we admit people who are most likely to be successful, most likely to flourish in america, most likely to benefit america, and not people who are going to have a hard time, who don't speak english and don't have skills that we need in this country today. and i believe it's wrong to bring in more workers at predictably low skills who compete directly against americans who are trying to get a job and pull down their wages or make it harder for them to

get a job. i really think that's gone beyond what the responsibility of the government is. our responsibility is to follow the law as it's written and the president's responsibility under his oath and his duties as the chief executive and the chief law enforcement officer in america is to see that our laws are enforced. do you want us to come back again with some other changes in the law? bring it up. let's talk about it. he himself does not get to do that on his own. i'm pleased that the supreme court has stopped him at least with regard to this specific program, so-called dapa program. mr. president, i appreciate the opportunity to share these remarks and would note