quorum call:

a senator: mr. president . the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania. mr. toomey: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. toomey: thank you, mr. president. i want to speak about our immigration debate and my amendment in particular. but first let me say, you know, we're going to find out just how serious our colleagues are about granting not just legal status to the dreamers, people who were

brought here illegally when they were children and shouldn't be held accountable for that action, but the proposal that will be available for a vote later this week, will not just grant legal status but will grant a path to citizenship. it goes well beyond the legal executive order that president obama issued, and it will be available to far more people than those who took up president obama's illegal executive order. it will be an extraordinary moment. i hope we are able to reach an agreement on this because i think this needs to get done. but i want to first address an amendment that i have offered and is now up and pending and we will be voting on it, i think, at some point this week, which is about keeping our communities safer by addressing the issue of sanctuary cities.

this is a problem that one father in particular knows all too well. on july 1, 2015, gym steinly -- jim steinly was walking arm in arm on a peer in san francisco. suddenly a gunman sprang out, opened fire, hitting kate. she pleaded, help me dad as she bled to death in her father's arm. now, any murder is appalling, but one of the things that makes this even more appalling is that the shooter should never have been on the peer that day. the fact is he was an illegal immigrant who had been convicted of seven felonies and had been deported five times, but even more galling, mr. president, is that three months before the day that he murdered katesteinly, -- kate stinly, this murder was in

the custody of the san francisco police department. they had him. he was in custody. they had him from an old warrant from a previous crime. when the dapt of home -- department of homeland security found out they had this guy in custody, they reached out and said, hold this guy until we can get someone to take him into custody. we know he's dangerous, but the san francisco police couldn't provide that minimal cooperation. instead they released this man back on to the streets from which three months later he murdered young kate stinly. why would the police do something like that? why would they refuse to provide this minimal cooperation with the immigration authorities with

respect to a dangerous individual? well, the reason, mr. president, is because san francisco is a sanctuary city. what that means is it has as its explicit legal policy a prohibition that permits the police from cooperating. this is the case even when the local law enforcement authorities believe that the person is dangerous and the local law enforcement folks wish to cooperate with the federal authorities because they know that this person is a threat to the security of their community, but the local politicians override the police and decide that this will be a sanctuary city, such as the case with san francisco, and so the san francisco police had no choice. they were required by the local

laws to release this man on to the streets. you know, one of the many ironies about the sanctuary cities is that if federal officials had called the san francisco police about any number of other crimes, robbery, car theft, violating a trademark, counterfeiting, any number of other federal crimes, then the san francisco police would have been allowed to cooperate. they would have been happy to cooperate. they would have been able to cooperate. but because the crime was committed by an illegal immigrant, the police hands were tied. the police were forced to release kate steinly's killer. mr. president, it is unbelievable to me that we have communities across the country that wish to provide this special privilege, this special protection for even dangerous criminals because they are here illegal.

it's -- illegally, but that was the case. the steinly's are not alone. san francisco is not our nation's only saingt weary city. -- sanctuary city. philadelphia, the largest city in my home state, has an extreme sanctuary city policy, and it has had appalling consequences already. maybe the most heartbreaking of these is a case of raymon. he was in the u.s. illegally, he was deported in 2009, but illegally reentered the u.s. and in 2015 the police arrested him on charges of aggravated salts and other crimes. when the background check went

through, the department of homeland security saw the philadelphia police had this guy. they knew who this guy was. they knew he was here illegally and knew he had been deported and knew him to be the dangerous criminal that he was and so they asked the philadelphia police, could you hold this guy for 24, 48 hours until we can get an agent there to take him into custody and begin deportation proceedings. we know he's a bad guy. we want him out of the country. unfortunately, philadelphia police had to refuse. instead, they released him on to the streets in january of 2015. the philadelphia d.a. didn't feel like he had enough evidence to prosecute the case, and he dropped the charges. rather than cooperating with homeland security, they released him back on to the streets. in july of 2016ochoa was

arrested for raping a child under the age of 13. mr. president, this brutal attack on a child was only possible because philadelphia is a sanctuary city, and it's these appalling cases, like the steinly case or this case in philadelphia, that make it so important that we end these sanctuary cities if it is at all possible to do so. so my amendment is a bipartisan amendment. it is identical to a bill i introduced and the senate voted to consider in 2016, i reintroduced in 2017. it does two things. it tackles a legal liability for localities that wish to cooperate with the department of homeland security, and with that legal liability problem solved, it imposes penalties on communities that choose

nevertheless to be sanctuary cities. we don't have the authority as a federal government to dictate a policy that a local community must follow. there's a constitutional separation that gives them the power to do what they will, but we don't have to subsidize their behavior when it endangers all of us, and that's what my legislation goes after. so let me discuss the first one, this legal liability issue. there are two -- at least two court decisions now that are -- have put pressure on municipalities, localities to be sanctuary cities, over a dozen pennsylvania counties have done so. one is a third circuit decision, the second is a federal court in oregon. they have held if the department of homeland security makes a mistake, such as wrongful identity, they ask a community, a local police force to hold someone who is in fact an american citizen, who is here

illegally and so it is -- legally here and it is erroneous, if that happens, under these court decision, the local municipality can be held for liability. so my bill addresses this problem by simply saying that when a local law enforcement officer complies with an immigration detainer request from d.h.s. that is duly issued and bona fide request, then the local officer has the same authority as a d.h.s. official. in a way the officer would be considered an agent of the department of onlyland security for this -- homeland security for this purpose, and the entity that a person would then sue in the event that a person is wrongly detained and their civil rights were violated, the entity

would be the federal government. the responsibility should be on the federal government since it was, after all, a request that initiated with the federal government. my legislation does not in any way curb an individual's ability to file a suit if their civil rights, if their constitutional rights were violated, whether intentional or accidental, there's no curb on an individual's ability to address that if they were wrongly detained. it transfers the liability to the municipality which would be the department of homeland security. that's the first part. solve the civil liability problem that has some municipalities across america, certainly in my state of pennsylvania, has them choosing to be sanctuary cities even though they would rather not be. now, having addressed that and if our legislation is adopted and we have solved this legal liability problem, if a

community nevertheless decides it is going to endanger all the rest of us by conferring this special protection on somebody just because they came here illegally despite the fact that they may well be a dangerous criminal, why in that case then under my amendment that community will be deemed a sanctuary city and under my amendment several types of federal funding would be withheld from it. specifically, we would withhold from these sanctuary cities community development block grants and certain grants from the economic development administration. mr. president, i think this is eminently reasonable. sanctuary cities impose costs on all of us. it raises the cost to the federal government of enforcing immigration law. but by far outweighing that is the cost to the american people of more crime and the unbelievable, really staggering cost to families like jim steinle, his family.

he and his family who, of course, lost their daughter. i think it's extremely reasonable to have as a policy that if a community chooses to impose those costs on the rest of us, the federal government will not be subsidizing you. now, mr. president, let me debunk some of the misinformation that is occasionally disseminated about my legislation, my amendment. one is that it's somehow antiimmigrant. this is not anti-immigrant at all. this is pro-immigrant. the fact is, the vast, overwhelming majority of immigrants to america, legal or illegal, would never commit these terrible crimes. there's no question about that. but it's also obviously the case that any very large number of people will include some criminals among them. well, there's roughly 11 million people who are here illegally, 11 illegal immigrants in the u.s. some of them are certainly violent criminals. and it makes no sense to

insulate those violent criminals, however few they may be, from capture by law enforcement and it be absurd to -- it would be absurd to allege that this is somehow anti-immigrant where quite likely some of their victims would be other immigrants. immigrants want to live in safe communities, too. i'm positive of that. they don't want dangerous criminals able to walk the streets just because they came here illegally. the second point i want to stress is this amendment does not discourage or punish illegal immigrants from coming forward to report a crime. this is important because folks who want to keep sanctuary cities sometimes charge that if my legislation were passed, victims and witnesses to crimes, if they are here illegally, they wouldn't come forward. not so. what my amendment and this underlying law says, it

explicitly states that a locality will not be labeled a sanctuary jurisdiction for this purpose and, therefore, will not lose any federal funds if the policy of that municipality is that a person who comes forward as a victim or a witness to a crime does -- the local law enforcement does not share that information with d.h.s. let me be clear and explicit about this. we have an explicit carveout in the legislation. if a locality chooses to provide sanctuary status to a victim of a crime or a witness to a crime, that such a community would not lose any federal funds whatsoever. and we think that makes sense because we do want to encourage certainly victims and witnesses of crimes to come forward. so we get it. we don't want to create a worry that that would have deportation consequences for them. a third point that some have

alleged -- and i want to be very clear about -- is the penalties my amendment has for a community that chooses to be a sanctuary city does not include the loss of any funds whatsoever related to law enforcement or security. that's simply not the case. the list of categories that we include in lost funding is economic development in its nature. it is not at all law enforcement. another point that some on the other side have made is that somehow this legislation, my amendment, would impose an unmanageable burden on law enforcement. well, one simple fact to consider is if that's the case, then why has it been endorsed by national law enforcement groups? the national association of police organization has endorsed my amendment. the international union of police association, a division of the afl-cio has endorsed my

amendment. federal law enforcement officers association have endorsed my amendment. now, would these groups endorse a bill that imposed an unworkable burden on their own members? i rather doubt it. i think, actually, they understand this amendment just encourages local law enforcement to share information with the department of homeland security and in some cases to temporarily and briefly hold people in custody until the department of homeland security can get there. so, mr. president, this is a bipartisan amendment. in 2016 when the senate voted on this very same amendment in the form of a free-standing bill, it received a majority and it had bipartisan support. unfortunately, a minority filibustered it and blocked it. but the fact is, it is a bipartisan piece of legislation with majority support. so i don't think it should even

be controversial. i think we'll have a vote on this relatively soon in the coming days. and i hope it will have very broad support. this is just common sense, mr. president. it stands for the principle that the safety of the american people matter, that the lives of kate steinle and other victims of violent crime matter and that all of our communities should be as safe as they can be. thank you, mr. president.

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. blumenthal: thank you, mr. president. watching the pictures today as i came here to the floor was deeply moving, even though there is much that we don't know, a lot of information that we lack about what is happening at marjory stoneham douglas high school in parkland, florida. the images of emergency vehicles and emergency responders of young people and children evacuating a school after another tragic incident of gun

violence. it brings back memories that are searing and harrowing. once again, we feel that churning in our stomach, that sense of gut punch, and a wrenching of hearts that reminds us of how we felt the day of violence in newtown. and yet another school is victimized by gun violence. we're waiting to learn more of the details, but certainly our hearts and prayers go to the victims and their loved ones. our gratitude goes to the courageous first responders who are on the scene now

apprehending the shooter and administering to the victims and survivors. my thoughts and prayers are with those students, emergency responders, parents, loved ones, and the community of parkland. again, gun violence respects no boundaries. it spares no communities. it victimized all of us wherever it happens and whenever, including the gun violence that kills people every day individually, often unpublicized and invisible. my heartbreaks to hear that one more school is facing this unthinkable horror that again, this harrowing scene plays before the people of america, literally unfolding in real

time. i know that i share and all of the members of this chamber share the grief and sympathy and heartbreak that that community experiences today. i want to talk about the connecticut dreamers and share their stories and call for this chamber to take narrow focused action to prevent their draconian mass deportation and protect them from that kind of very unfortunate outcome. the dreamers who would be covered under legislation that i hope will pass in the next 24 hours came here as children. they grew up as americans. this country is the only one

they know. english is the only language. many of them speak. they go to our schools, serve in our military, and support our economy. they believe in the american dream. all of us believe in the american dream but so do they, and they work hard and give back. deporting the dreamers would be cruel and irrational and inhumane, unworthy of a great country breaking our promise to the dreamers who came forward when they were told that they would be given protected status, would be a violation of not only the american dream but of the promise made by a great nation. gabriela iglasies came to the

united states in 2001 from lima, peru. she's lived in connecticut for 17 years. she works for connecticut students for a dream advocating for her fellow dreamers. and she has been working on securing for those undocumented immigrants, their rights to safety, to higher education, to health care, and to live in a country without fear and discrimination. she shared with me some of the difficulty, her family had while she was growing up. she and her five siblings are supported by their parents who work in minimum-wage jobs. she hopes that if the dream act passes, she'll be able to take on some of that economic burden that her parents now carry. and she hopes that she'll be able to make enough money to support herself and her family. she's currently in her first year of college at a community

college where she's faced many financial challenges. not being able to get a job at 18 years old is frustrating and sometimes devastating. if the dream act were to pass, she could finish her two years of community college -- at community college and transfer to a four-year institution, and she could pursue her dream of working as a lawyer or in the field of law. there are countless other stories of connecticut dreamers, some wanting to keep their identities now confidential. there is a young man in bridgeport who was brought to connecticut at the age of 5. he was educated in the bridgeport public schools. he majored in chemistry. and now attends fairfield

university. he has excelled there and finished his first degree when he was accepted at the university of california, berkley's physical chemistry program. he had to live under the threat of deportation because he had no way to apply for permanent, lawful status. while he was continuing his studies here, he lived with the threat of deportation. there is a new britain woman who was born in mexico and brought to america when she was 6 years old. the journey was terrifying. she could barely understand what was happening. she had no idea at 6 years old she was entering america in a way that would affect her for the rest of her life. she made no choice to come here or to come here in that way, but it has affected her. in fact, despite her attending

school and then going to college out of state at bay path college earning a great many leaderships there -- leadership positions there, she remains in the limbo of uncertainty and anguish and anxiety created by the threat of deportation. she dreams about helping people to make sure that families with low income can have access to occupational therapy. indeed, she is pursuing a master's degree in occupational therapy. finally, there is a woman i know who came here from venezuela. she was brought here when she was 11 years old. she remembers her mother that she was coming here so she could learn english and that she would be successful if she were

bilingual. she settled in norwalk. she began school right away. life was difficult at first. by the time she was a junior in high school, she stopped trying to get perfect grades because she feared colleges would not accept her, and even if they accepted her, she would not be eligible for financial assistance because she was undocumented. but she persevered. she attended community college. she went on to western state university and overcame obstacles that for many americans would be -- now she fears that all of those dreams will be for not. these dreamers, in fact, have trusted america.

they believed in america's promise to them. coming forward, providing facts about their residence and their families and their jobs and social security numbers. they believed in america. it wasn't a dream. america is to be trusted. america is the land of opportunity. america is the greatest nation in the history of the world. they have a dream that is american, which is that they will have the opportunity to pursue their full potential as human beings, to give back, to educate themselves, to better their lives. that's the american dream. dr. martin luther king's, i have

a dream speech said, when they wrote the constitution and declaration of independence, they were signing a promissory note, a promise that all men, and he might have added women, would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. end quote. the time has long since come for us to help the dreamers. the time is today. the time is today for us to protect them against mass draconian deportation, a vialing of a -- a violation of a promise that would be unworthy of america, the promissory note of this american dream can be made a reality by this chamber today and tomorrow.

i understand some of my colleagues may want to change the immigration system. it is truly a broken system in need of comprehensive reform. that task is for another day. today we must make sure that we provide these dreamers with legal status and a path to citizenship. that's our moral obligation, that's our job. let's get it done. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor.

mr. lankford: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. lankford: is the senate currently in a quorum call? the presiding officer: no. mr. lankford: mr. president, the senate is probably interested on the debate on immigration. it started in the hallways and in committee rooms and in offices, opportunities to talk about this issue for months. several weeks ago there was a government shutdown demanding that we have a vote on immigration right now or we

don't reopen the government. after three days of the government shutdown, the government was reopened demanding that we move the immigration debate earlier to ensure that we get this done earlier. now it's wednesday of the week that it was supposed to occur and the proposals aren't out on the table. it's been a frustrating journey. i can't even begin to count the number of hours i spent on bipartisan conversations trying to settle a simple set of issues. how do we solve issues related to immigration. i thought this was resolve in some ways. back in january, early january, there was a large meeting, a bipartisan meeting, house and senate, to be able to discuss, it was widely televised, the scope of immigration. what are the key issues we're going to try to address? it came down to four issues and there was agreement among the leaders and those in the room, these are the issues we will

deal with, daca and those daca eligible, how to move them toward citizenship, border security, diversity lottery, and family reunification. all of those had been dealt with before. in fact for decades in one version or another. except for the issue of daca. that was new. that hasn't been done with legislation before. the the others have. gang of eight had border security. construction of walls, technology, legal loopholes. it had diversity lottery. it had chain migration in it. if you want to go back to the immigration study led by the clinton administration in 1995, there was a proposal put out by barbara jordan, the democratic house member from texas who led that particular study during the clinton administration dealing with chain migration, dealing with how do we have transitions on merit-based immigration.

this has been dealt with literally with hearings for decades. but what i've heard for the past several months is, there's no time to do any of those things. the only time that we have is to deal with daca. we can't discuss anything else. meeting after meeting after meeting, since early november i've heard the same thing. there's no time, there's no time, there's no time. now we're getting down to the day and there's still a conversation about how do we deal with these four simple issues we've talked about for months. the house and senate have debated for decades. we've had untold number of hearings on for decades on these issues to try to actually land them, to get legislation ready, and to get this resolved. let me just focus on a few things because a few of us have put out a proposal that covers those four areas. that was a middle-ground proposal. it's certainly not everything that i'd like to have in border security, and it's certainly not everything that democrats would like to have, but it is a middle

ground between all those. it's one the white house has already announced they will certainly sign. it has 1.8 million people moving into naturalization citizenship. these are the individuals that are the kids that came. their parents brought them illegally but they were children at the time. those individuals came into the country. they've now lived here for years. they know no other country on the whole. those individuals are offered an opportunity to become citizens of the united states ten years from now. why ten years from now? that gives ten years of time period that is commonly agreed that it will take to be able to secure the border. in that ten-year time period, the boarder security could be put in place to make sure we have a secure border. it's not an unreasonable thing. the same ten-year time period, about two million people are actually going to move into citizenship. how does that affect the rest of our process? let me tell you first how it affects it. right now we have a 20-year

backlog to be able to come into the united states legally, 20 years to be able to come through that process. once we add another two million people in that process and all the family that would be connected to them, in all likelihood that backlog moves from 20 years to 25 years. it's ridiculous at 20 years. it's even worse at 25. we all know this issue of family migration and broad allowance of people coming in not based on what skills they have but based on being someone's brother-in-law is not the best way to do immigration. we're the only country that does it like that. 70% of the people that do into our country legally -- come into our country legally come through a family connection, being someone's brother, someone's sister, being a relative of someone to come into our country. 63% of the people that come into canada legally through their immigration system come because they're bringing a work skill. i don't want to oppose anyone coming from anywhere in the world. there is a uniqueness to the

united states and how we handle immigration and we allow people from all over the world from every country to come. that should remain the same. but we should have one simple requirement. they come to bring something to the nation. i don't think that's too hard of a hill to cross. it's not a matter of who you're related to. you certainly should be able for bring in your spouse and your children. but brothers and sisters and others, adults and such that would be in your family, maybe they should come based on their own merit as well. and for them to be able to come and be part of a great culture as well. or they're able to come visit and come stay long periods of time but not necessarily come for citizenship unless you're coming to bring them. again, that doesn't seem too difficult. the diversity lottery hasn't been the challenging issue, quite frankly. that was an issue that was in the 2013 gang of eight bill saying why do we have 50,000 visas with individuals from anywhere from around the world that can come that don't necessarily bring a skill at all. why don't we add a skill

requirement or an educational requirement. and to say you're welcome to come from anywhere but at least we should know those that are coming from anywhere and everywhere bring something to the american economy. again, that hasn't been controversial nor partisan in the past. now suddenly it's become that. the border security part of it has been the most confusing part of the debate for me on this, though. months ago some of my democratic colleagues over and over again said the wall will do nothing. there's no benefit of a wall. if you put up a 20-foot wall, there will be a 21-foot ladder. it will do absolutely nothing. now the conversation is, well, we'll give stnship to -- citizenship to daca and give you some money to build a wall and we'll call it even. that's never been the request and everyone knows it. the request has been border security, not just a wall. i'm very aware that the president has talked about a big, beautiful wall a lot. i get that. but it's always been about border security, not just

putting up a wall in certain places. there's never been an emphasis to build 2,000 miles of wall. there's a need for a wall in certain urban areas, but what's really needed is border security and everyone knows it. i don't understand why border security has suddenly become a controversial issue. what we have asked for and we have laid out in a proposal seems to be a very middle-ground proposal. it doesn't do interior enforcement. quite frankly, our democratic colleagues have said absolutely no additional interior enco. we're -- enforcement. we're tomorrow to border security but nothing that secures the country. we said okay, that will be a future bill dealing with interior enforcement but we do feel like border security is very important. so they've said, okay, we'll give you some money to build a wall in sections. can i just say what they're trying to exclude? border security when you lay it out is also the legal loopholes. so here are just a few of the things we've laid out that i don't think should be that controversial that we've included in our language and said if we're going to do border security, let's be serious about

it. for instance, we've asked for additional penalties for people who do human smuggling. right now it's a slap on the wrist if you do human smuggling into the country. so coyotes and others are able to do human smuggling in transit. there are also people, individuals in our country watching out for border patrol agents radioing other people saying hey, border patrol is here. go in a different direction where they're actually helping divert people away. we should increase the penalties. our democratic colleague vs pushed back on -- colleagues have pushed back on that. the same for drug spugling. -- smuggling. to increase the penalties for those that are spying out and redirecting people that are doing drug smuggling doesn't seem too hard to be able to accomplish. allowing an individual state and their national guard to be able to participate with border patrol. the national guard is not law enforcement. what does the national guard bring, though? they bring helicopters, infrared technology, that they're able to fly over sections of the border

and to be able to see the area below and help direct border patrol to it. so participate with the national guard and allow them to bring some of those resources those states already have shouldn't be that difficult. that's just a part of border security. but our democratic colleagues are pushing back for that. we would like to do a initiative to be able to work with mexico and provide mexico some additional funding and support and consultation on their border between guatemala and mexico, the southern border of mexico, what is literally kind of our first border is their first border. we've been pushed back on it. and to say that's not border security slowing down people illegally trafficking through central america into mexico. we think that is part of it. how about this one? all along the rio grande river in texas, there's these large cane that grows in the river in that area. in that area you're able to hide people, drugs, whatever it may be in this tall cane because you just disappear in it.

it's on both sides of the border. we think we should do an eradication of the cane so you can actually see through it. it hasn't been controversial in the past. suddenly it's controversial. no, we don't want to eradicate the cane. the cane is only there because it's hiding people and contraband. we think we should be able to do that. we think that we should be able to add electromagnetic spectrum at our border ports of entry so you can look for a certain chemical, parts of the spectrum and see if we can eradicate drugs that are being trafficked into our country. i don't think it should be that controversial. getting secure communications so our individuals on the border patrol can talk to each other and interact with other law enforcement to make sure no one from a transnational criminal organization is listening in. doing license plate readers at the port of the entry to be able to help track that and speed it up. doing biometrics entry and exit, something required since the 9/11 commission.

to accelerate that process as people come in and out of our country, we know when they come in legally and we know when they depart legally. dealing with what is sometimes called catch and release. vifds that come into the country and cross illegally into the country are held in detention for a short period of time until they get due process. every individual gets due process. this is not trying to remove due process from anyone. as they cross into the country illegally, we're able to pick them up, detain them, make sure they have due process. some may make claims for asylum or fear or other things. instead of doing a hearing on that, we actually give them a piece of paper that is called a notice to appear and release them into the country and say we'll see you in about two years for your hearing date. instead of actually doing the hearing right then. nothing is changed. no facts have changed. no information is exchanged during that time of delay. we just release them because we don't have enough judges or enough courts or enough attorneys or advocates to be

able to accomplish that so they're released for years in the country. you may be surprised to know most of the individuals never show up for that hearing. they're just released into the country. there's also a statement saying well, what about unaccompanied minors? again you might be interested to know that three fourths of the unaccompanied minors that cross into the country are actually 14 years old or up. these are not 6-year-olds that are crossing in and 5-year-olds that are crossing in. most of them are older teenage teenagers. two-thirds of the people that are coming as unaccompanied minors are actually teenage boys. most of them come in to be able to work. so the question is, how do we handle that? i think we do fair detention. i think we go through the due process and make a decision right then. again, you'd be interested to know that when individuals who actually do show up for their court hearing which is a small group, when actually do show up for their court hearing, about 30% of them go through the court

hearing and do get asylum once they finally get to a court hearing. but we're not getting to the court hearing for most of those individuals. that shouldn't be that controversial. we should be able to handle how we go through that process in a quick and fair way. i'd like us to be able to deal with the cost, quite frankly, of detention. we've asked for a simple part of this process on border security and say we won't spend more than $500 a night on housing individuals that we do in detention. now, i think most americans, certainly most oklahomans would like to say in a hotel that costs $500 a night. putting a cap of how much we spend on that per person per night i think is a reasonable thing to be able to put into it. but we've had push-back. we've asked for emergency immigration judges. right now there's almost 700,000 people in a backlog in our immigration courts.

almost 700,000 now. we don't think it's unreasonable to be able to ask for emergency judges to be able to come in to be able to help us with the backlog. we're not talking about untrained judges. we're talking about judges in the federal system that are knowledgeable of these issues but do a surge of judges to help us get caught up. we should be able to do all these things. none of these issues should be controversial. this is what it means when you start talking about real border security, not just adding a wall in some places, not just adding a couple of additional agents, but actually putting the things around them that they need to actually able to enforce the law. i think people lose track of the fact that i.c. effort folks and custom border patrol are not enemies of our state. they're american law enforcement. they work for our country to keep us safe and to enforce the laws of our nation. the way they are spoken of on this floor and treated in

conversations, i'm appalled at. they're american law enforcement enforcing american law. and if there's a problem with what they're enforcing, this body should vote on it and fix the law, not beat up on the people that are enforcing the law and doing what we have asked them to do as a congress. i hope in the days ahead we can actually get this passed. i hope we can actually move towards citizenship for 1.8 million people that the president has asked for and that i think is a reasonable thing to be able to do for those individuals that came into our country as children. but i also hope that we don't this time say we're going to do citizenship and not do border security. i hope we don't just throw some money and pretend we're doing t. i hope we as a body can have a serious conversation and say let's actually do border security and help us as a nation to establish a secure border. i hope we actually deal with some of the biggest issues on immigration and can walk through

this debate in a reasonable way without the emotion and heat but thinking this through because this affects the future of our country for a very long time. with that, mr. president, i would yield back the floor.

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from delaware. mr. coons: mr. president, are we currently in a quorum call? the presiding officer: no. mr. coons: mr. president, i come to the floor today to talk about an issue that has occupied this floor, this body, this congress for some time now, the

challenge of how to fix our broken immigration system. and as many of us have debated and talked and tried to find common ground and a bipartisan path forward, i wanted to speak about why i have optimism that we can find a bipartisan solution to this challenge. i know i'm not alone in my optimism about this. one of my very dearest friends here in the senate, someone i respect and admire deeply, someone who knows more about sacrifice and patriotism than anyone i've ever met believes the same thing. this friend of mine is not just any senator. it's senator john mccain, the senior senator from arizona, who also happens to be an american hero who has literally fought for this country and its values throughout his entire life. he's someone who our mutual friend, former vice president joe biden, calls a man of deep conviction and unmatched character.

mr. president, john mccain is exactly the person the senate and this country needs in times like this, when the way forward is unclear, when our disagreements seem too wide, when our instincts are to argue rather than listen, this chamber and this country needs someone who isable to show us a -- who is able to show us a way forward and lead us out of our sometimes too partisan fights, someone like senator mccain. as this debate has progressed in recent days, i've been reminded of something i heard senator mccain say late last year when he accepted from the national constitution center in philadelphia its liberty medal. in speaking about our country and when speaking about the opportunity he's had here, he said, quote, what a privilege it is, what a privilege it is to serve this big, boisterous, brawling, intemperate, striving, daring, beautiful, bountiful, brave, magnificent country.

with all our flaws and all our mistakes, with all the frailties of human nature, as much on display as our virtues, with all the rancor and anger of our politics, we are blessed. we are living in the land of the free, the land where anything is possible, the land of the immigrants' dream, the land with the story past forgotten in the rush to an imagined future. what a country indeed. beautiful, brave and magnificent, as john said, but also challenged by occasional frailty, rancor, and anger that we've seen too much of in the sustained debate over immigration. the point that senator mccain made that night in philadelphia and the point he's made every day as he served our nation more than six decades is that working through our disagreements, our divisions is worth it not just as senators, but as citizens. the whole point is that we may be boisterous and intemperate,

which john has certainly also been accused of being a time or two, but we don't stop striving for our ideals, believing in our future and respecting one another. that's often difficult, especially here in politics. but it is the challenge that comes with the blessings of liberty and of serving this great country. so i was honored when senator mccain reached out to me a week ago to say let's work together to introduce in the senate legislation that could help solve our most pressing immigration issues and keep our country moving forward. the bipartisan bill that we have introduced, the mccain-coons bill, here in the senate doesn't solve every immigration issue we face and it doesn't try to. what our bill does is focus on two issues right in front of us that i believe we can address and resolve. it's an attempt to break through what have been messy and divisive political debates and to address through a compromise legitimate substantive issues in front of us. our bill would do two things:

secure our border and finally give dreamers the pathway to citizenship that they have long waited for and that they deserve. to address border security, our bill would ensure we gain operational control of the border by 2020 with new technology, new resources for federal, state, and local law enforcement, and new infrastructure. it would reduce the existing immigration case backlogs by funding new judges and new attorneys while also addressing one of the root causes of migration into our country from central america. our legislation would give certainty to 1.8 million dreamers brought here as children through no fault of their own, who are american in every way but on paper. dreamers who continue to play by the rules by going to school, serving in the military or being consistently employed can become lawful permanent residents. and at least five years later u.s. citizens. mr. president, senator mccain and i aren't the only ones who

think this bipartisan solution makes sense. in fact, the reason we filed it here was because of the strength of its development in the other chamber, the people's house, the house of representatives. this bill was crafted by republican kphab -- congressman will herd of el paso, texas whosing district has more than 800 miles of the u.s.-mexico border and congressman pete aguilar who is from southern california, the two of them put this bill together after a lot of of consultations and meetings with their colleagues in the house and it today enjoys 27 republican cosponsors and democratic cosponsors. i often hear we shouldn't take up and consider anything that can't pass the house. but a bill that has # 54 bipartisan cosponsors in the house is certainly on the right track. now i'm clear-eyed about the fact that this mccain-coons

bill is not perfect, and i understand some of my colleagues may want to make changes to it. some of my republican friends i met with and heard from and talked to in recent days have suggested it needs more investments in border security to win their support. and that's fine. because, mr. president, our bill is more than just a set of policies. it's a way to provide a framework for us to agree and not let our agreements prevent us from moving forward. so my message today is simple about this bill. we may not be able to fix our entire immigration system this week. in fact, i'm certain we can't. but we can over the next few days, perhaps even over the next few hours, take important, even historic steps forward. we can lay the groundwork for securing our border with new investments, new technology. we can help dreamers succeed in american schools, serve in our american military, enrich american communities without living in constant fear of

imminent deportation. these are tough issues but the solution can be fairly simple and i think our legislation offers a real solution for right now. mr. president, this have been developments in recent days -- i've been proud to participate in a large bipartisan effort by the commonsense coalition, and as it has as a group tried to hammer out a bipartisan deal, i've been honored to have started this discussion, this debate with senator mccain by filing our bill that we brought over from the house that is a bipartisan bill, that is, i believe, the most bipartisan bill currently before this chamber on this issue. if we can make more progress, if we can attract more bipartisan support through some amendments or revisions, i welcome that. i believe this week, this day, this opening on our senate floor is not only a challenge but an incredible opportunity to do the right thing.

you don't have to agree on everything. we just have to agree on some things. and we can and find a way forward together. mr. president, it is an enormous honor to have the opportunity to partner with senator mccain in this legislative effort. and while he is not with us today, i know he is with us in spirit and watching our deliberations. and as someone who has shown not just courage on the battlefield, but courage in american politics, a determined willingness to compromise and to work tirelessly to advance the interests of the american people, i can only hope that my colleagues, when we get a chance to vote on this bill -- which i hope we will later today -- will join me in supporting it, in recognition of his lifetime of service to our nation and his commitment to bipartisanship. it is my hope that as this day and tomorrow unfold, we will have the open and fair process that's been promised and that all of us together can do what

we were sent here to do. listen to each other, trust each other, work together, and find a path through compromise that can solve these two most important and pressing issues in the field of immigration. thank you, mr. president. with that, i yield the floor.