vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change their

vote? if not, the yeas are 51, the nays are 48, and the nomination is confirmed. under the previous order the motion to reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table and the president will be immediately notified of the senate's action. the clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture. the clerk: cloture motion, we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22, do hereby bring to a close debate on nomination of paul c. ney jr. to be general counsel of the department of defense, signed by 17 senators. the presiding officer: by mandatory consent, the mandatory quorum call has been made. is it it the sense of the senate of paul c. ney jr. to be counsel of the department of defense?

the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change their vote? if not, the yeas are 74, the nays are 25. the motion is agreed to. the clerk will report the nomination. the clerk: nomination, department of defense, paul c. ney jr. of tennessee to be general counsel.

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. blumenthal: thank you, mr. president. i ask that the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: the senate is not in a quorum call. mr. blumenthal: thank you, mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator is recognized. mr. blumenthal: thank you. mr. president, we are at a crossroads, a historic turning point for the united states supreme court and our country.

this body is often called upon to consider court nominations for the district courts and the court of appeals. but we are at an extraordinary decision point for the united states supreme court, the highest court in the land, a branch of government that can shape the law and culture of this country for generations to come. when we are called upon to consider a supreme court nominee, ordinarily we have to read tea leaves. ordinarily we have no way to know with certainty the values and beliefs that someone will bring to the court. ordinarily presidents make every

effort to persuade us that their nominees were picked on the basis of merit, not ideology. and so ordinarily we look forward to hearing what nominees tell us about their beliefs and values since they are unknown when we first hear their name. mr. president, we live in times that are the opposite of ordinary. these are not ordinary times. we live in a time when there is ongoing right before our eyes an extraordinary assault on the rule of law in this country coming from the president of the united states on down. we live at a time when the

courts are so critically important to our democracy because they are a bulwark for fundamental rights and liberty. and when the history of this era is written, i believe that our judiciary and our free press will be the heroes because they stood between the president defining the law and preserving those key freedoms and rights that are foundational to our democracy. what we know about the president's nominee for the highest court in the land, the most important to that effort against this sexual assault on the rule of law is that he will, quote, automatically, end quote, vote to overturn roe v. wade.

we know that he will vote effectively to eliminate the affordable care act and to undermine protections for millions of americans who suffer from diabetes, obesity, alcohol abuse, addiction to opioids, stroke, parkinson's, and many other preexisting conditions. millions of americans suffer from those kinds of sickness, including more than 500,000 connecticut residents. we're a state of about 3.5 million people, so you can do the math. there are a lot of americans who suffer from preexisting conditions. we know these facts because we've heard them from none other

than the president of the united states, who said that his nominee would automatically overturn roe v. wade, who berated chief justice roberts for upholding the affordable care act in his decisive swing vote. and when a president tells you he is trying to eliminate basic legal rights and liberties for the people of the united states, you better take him at his word. and i do. in this case actually we need not take the president at his word because we can review the facts. in fact, the sicker -- circumstantial evidence surrounding this nomination, the president has allowed himself to become a puppet of right-wing fringe groups, "the federalist"

society and the heritage foundation that have been trying to strike down roe v. wade and overturn it for decades. one recent news story put it, if you want a seat on the supreme court, the man to see is not donald trump. it is leonard leo, the executive vice president of the federalist society. leonard leo and "the federalist" society have made clear their desire to overturn roe v. wade for years, and mr. leo's friend, ed whalen, brags about leo's efforts stating, quote, no one has been more dedicated to the enterprise of building a supreme court that will overturn roe v. wade than the federalist society. leonard leo. the president of the united states outsourced this decision to the federalist society and

other groups long intent on overturning roe v. wade. they produced for him a list. he selected from that list, and the rest is an unfortunate deeply tragic chapter in american history. the heritage foundation has been vehement in its desire to overturn and strike down # the affordable care act and deny many americans access to health insurance. it has -- it has fought to end protections to people who suffer from these conditions, and they are not only the ones i mentioned, but also many others that are common throughout our society. its efforts to shape the supreme court are a part of a conscious concerted strategy in a war on the a.c.a.

and perhaps as troubling as any other fact about this nominee to many of us who have seen the horrific, unspeakable effects of gun violence, judge kavanaugh is the degree candidate of the n.r.a. he has taken the view that almost all common sense, sensible measures to stop gun violence violate the constitution. he is the dream pick of the n.r.a. he is a nightmare for the students of parkland, the survivors of orlando, and

columbine, and san bernardino, and all of the mass shootings, including sandy hook, and all of the victims and survivors and their loved ones and families and friends who know the tragic effects of those 90 people gunned down every day in america, those 90 victims every day of gun violence in this country who die as a result of gun violence bear witness as to why we should reject this nominee. just minutes after judge kavanaugh's nomination was announced the, n.r.a. -- announced, the n.r.a. supported him, judge kavanaugh heard the sequel to heller, a case regarding the constitutionality of the district of columbia's

gun registration requirement and semiautomatic assault rifle ban on a panel of all republicans. judge kavanaugh was the only judge to strike down both gun safety measures as unconstitutional. his basic premise is that gun laws have to be similar or identical to laws that you considers traditional, in quotes traditional or long standing. he rejects bans on assault weapons and gun registration requirements. he has no definition of long standing and enables the statute to be upheld. consider the logic. he has, in effect, ruled out any statutes that bear no resemblance or connection to laws of gun violence on the books in 178 the 9.

-- 1789. that is a breathtaking concept of the constitutional test that should be applied to measures against gun violence. the founders almost certainly never considered the possibility of universal background checks at a time when it might have been impossible to do it anyway. and when the kinds of firearms available were very different than they are now. but by judge kavanaugh's logic, congress would seemingly be prohibited from requiring universal background checks even though more than 90% of all americans want them on the books. that is a radical view even for the far right and should judge kavanaugh be confirmed to the

united states supreme court, you can say good-bye to a slew of begun safety measures around the country in states like connecticut and california, new york, or now florida, and many other states that are realizing that they should be on the right side of history and the right side of the american people and adopt common sense, sensible measures. they would be struck down by the logic that judge kavanaugh would bring to the supreme court. so we would have fewer safeguards against the scourge of gun violence. there is now one mass shooting every day, 90 deaths every day in america. this country is in the midst of an epidemic of gun violence, a

public health emergency with judge kavanaugh as a member of the nation's highest court, this epidemic would continue unabated. this nominee is part of an effort to roll back the clock, part of a concerted, coordinated effort to take the nation back to a time, one of our darkest eras when abortion was criminalized, when women died and they were denied access to contraception and the morning-after bill, when americans were denied health care because of those preexisting conditions, and when civil rights, lgbt rights, voters' rights, workers' rights were largely ignored. that prospect is frightening, but for president trump, the

nomination of judge kavanaugh is about more than just undermining or ee vaitsing these -- eviscerating these fundamental rights, it is about undermining the rule of law. judge kavanaugh can refuse a law if he believes it is unconstitutional, if he alone believes it is unconstitutional even if that law was duly passed by congress and upheld by the courts. he has written that special counsels like robert mueller who is investigate the president should be appointed only by the president and should be removable by the president. under that rule, robert mueller never would have been appointed as special counsel and the president would be able to fire

him for no reason at all except that he's investigating the president. and, finally, judge kavanaugh has written that the president should not have to deal with those responsibilities or burdens that the rest of us, ordinary american, fulfill. a president under judge kavanaugh's rule could not be investigated or indicted, could not be held accountable under the law, would not have to respond to a civil suit or a subpoena or a request to be investigated by law enforcement.

he need not be interviewed by the f.b.i. or cooperate with law enforcement because under judge kavanaugh's concept the president is above the law. nothing is more fundamental, no principle more sack sacrosanct n this country, no one is above the law. no president, no one is above the law. a president who has demonstrated unprecedented disdain for the rule of law has nominated a justice who will tell him he can ignore the law, a president who's fought tooth and nail against a special counsel investigating some of the most serious crimes has nominated a justice who would allow him to

fire the special counsel at will for no reason and a president who faces not only the prospect of indictment but an ongoing civil suit brought by nearly 200 members of congress. i'm proud to be leading them. for his violation of the chief anticorruption provision in the constitution would be declared above the law, immune from lawsuit and accountability. we're going to continue with that lawsuit to make sure that the president obeys the constitution and comes to congress for consent before he accepts the payments and benefits in the hundreds of millions of dollars that he is doing every day, but judge kavanaugh would absolve him of

accountability. these are no ordinary times. in coming days i will be speaking out on other areas where judge kavanaugh would undermine the rights of every day americans and put the rights of corporations and special interest above them. judge kavanaugh would prevent congress and the states from passing commonsense gun violence laws that will save lives. he would invalidate a slew of existing laws in states across the country and he would leave powerful corporations free to prey on consumers, workers, anybody who wants to breathe clean air or drink clean water. these prospects are not imaginary or abstract. read his opinion and his writing. in one after -- in one area

after law after another, judge kavanaugh poses a clear and present danger to our fundamental liberties, to effective government, and to the rule of law. and to the people who say to me what can we do? our challenge is a call to action. it is to mobilize and galvanize america just as we did during the health care debate when they said that the affordable care act would be repealed and we mustered american sense of outrage and alarm. so i say to the students of parkland who spoke so eloquently and movingly, your time has come. to the patients who came to my

town halls in connecticut and spoke so powerfully about their fear of what would happen to them and their insurance coverage if preexisting conditions were declared in violation of those insurance policies, your time has come. to all who care about civil rights, civil liberties, workers rights, gay rights, your time has come and we need to hear your voice here just as we did during the helicopter debate as power -- health care debate as powerfully and the power is yours in stopping this nomination as it is our responsibility to demand specific answers that this nominee refuse himself from any consideration of the president's financial dealings or the

special counsel, to reject the phony platitudes and evasive and vague answers that have been accepted before because we know that the old platitude adhering to settle precedent is meaningless. we do not live in ordinary times. we need extraordinary efforts to make sure that the united states supreme court remains faithful to the rule of law. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor.

mr. blunt: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from missouri. mr. blunt: mr. president, i definitely want to agree with one thing my friend from connecticut just said, which is there a long record here on the president's nominee and it's a record that i want to look at. it's a record that i want to be sure that i can talk to the people i work for about as we go through this process and this process will have some time. my guess is it will take about the same amount of time it has taken for the last two nominees, which means sometime in the month of september in all likelihood we'll be on the floor voting, and we'll see where that vote takes us. i would think that a lot of people have jumped to a lot of conclusions here when suggested it was -- it was my friend senator blumenthal and all, but somebody had a news release yesterday at a news conference i was in, one of our fellow

senators that had apparently gotten out a little too quick. the news release was supreme court nominee xxx, and a blank, is the most extreme candidate that the president could have possibly picked. another one of our colleagues said yesterday they didn't care who the president nominated, they wouldn't be for him. and we're going to hear a lot of that over the next few weeks. we've heard since i know at least going back to 1975 that i think every single republican nominee has supposedly been the nominee that would bring an end to so many things that are, try to -- people try to focus on when these nominations come up. gerald ford's nominee of what turned out to be justice stevens in 1975, these exact same things were said then. i don't know that it's what the

president said during the campaign that matters as much as what the nominee will say during the next few days. i do know that the job that the nominee currently has -- and i want to talk to him, i want to look at the record, i want to visit with him about his philosophy personally before i reach a final conclusion. but i do know that the job that judge kavanaugh currently has is often cited as the second-most significant court in the country, the d.c. court of appeals. i do know that his 100 most often cited opinions have been cited by more than 210 judges around the country. i do know that the supreme court has endorsed his opinions of the law at least a dozen times and adopted them as the opinions of the supreme court. remember the way this works. the judge that -- the job that brett kavanaugh currently has is

a job that, like all other circuit judges, the court of appeals before the court. but unlike all others, it is a court that often is the court that has the real jurisdiction over a constitutional case. so lots of cases, 12 years of looking at what he has done as a judge. i know there's some requests we ought to see every piece of paper that brett kavanaugh had in his hands when he was the staff secretary, the assistant to the president when george w. bush was president. well, that would be every piece of paper that came to the white house because the job of the staff secretary is not to have an opinion on those pieces of paper. in fact, he's probably the highest level appointed official by the president in the white house whose job is not to have an opinion but to facilitate the work, to get paper to someone that it needs to be.

i suppose we could get virtually every piece of paper from the national archives and the george w. bush library. that's possible but not necessary and not justified. what is justified is to look at all of these opinions. what is justified is to look at the individual, to look at what he does in, on the court, to look at what he does in the community, to look at his opinions. these are, without any question, important responsibilities not just for the president, but for the senate. and americans are reminded once again that it matters who's in the senate. it matters who composes a majority in the senate. my guess would be that a majority of votes, two and a half months or so from now will be cast for judge kavanaugh and they'll be bipartisan in nature, and he will go to the court

probably before the new term of the court begins october 1. in fact, that should be one of our goals here, to have a judge in place by that time. three of the current judges, by the way, on the court, mr. president, were put on the court in an election year, in an off year. justice kagan, 2010, almost exactly analogous. a democrat president, a democrat senate put a democrat nominee on the court who had, by the way, worked at the white house. the only difference was there wasn't this large body of work to demonstrate a commitment, we would hope, to the constitution and the law. the goal of a judge, in my mind, and i think in the mind of a vast majority of the people i work for, is to judge a case based on, in the case of a federal judge, a supreme court

judge, the law and the constitution. to look and be sure those match up and to be sure that the law is applied as it's written, not as a judge thinks it should have been written. or the constitution is applied as it's written, not as a judge thinks it should be amended. there is a way to pass a new law and there's a way to amend the constitution. but that is not to be done by the court. and it seems to me that in the scalia tradition, the gorsuch nomination tradition, we have a judge here who appears to be committed in every way to look at the law and enforce the law. i think it was judge scalia and others who have said that a good judge is often not happy with the opinion they have to render because the opinion they have to render based on the facts and

the, of the case may not be the way they'd like the case to work out at all but that's not their job to decide how they would like the case to work out. the job of a judge is to judge the application of the law and the application of the constitution. you know, seven justices, including our most recent nominee to the court, judge gorsuch, have served as law clerks on the supreme court. if he happened to be -- if he's confirmed, judge kavanaugh will be the eighth. his background, his training, his work as a circuit judge appear to qualify him in a significant way. he was a supreme court clerk for judge kennedy, and judge kennedy, by the way, this is something we also ought to be sure we're understanding what's happening here, has been on the court for 30 years, filling a vacancy created in 1987, serving

on the court for 15 years after the person that nominated him to the court died. talk about long-term impact of both the president who nominates and the senate who confirms, three decades of impact on one of the branches of government is pretty substantial. now, with -- in addition to being a clerk for judge kennedy, judge kavanaugh was, as i said, he was not only in the private sector, but for five years he served in the bush administration, probably the most important job he had in that administration was just simply seeing that things got done in an orderly way that produced a result. that job in 2006, president bush nominated him to serve on the d.c. court of appeals, and 12 years later we're here today.

judge kavanaugh's opinions are cited by judges around the country. the supreme court has again endorsed his opinion at least a dozen times. he's written that the judge's job is to interpret the law, not to make the law or to make policy. we look at -- he went on to say so read the words of the statute as written. read the text of the constitution as written. mindful of history and traditiot mindful point there, which you would assume you would determine had, were done consistent with the law and the constitution. read the text of the constitution as written, mindful of the history and tradition. don't make up new constitutional rights that are not in the text of the constitution. don't shy away from enforcing constitutional rights that are in the text of the constitution. that ends the quote of one of his many writings. we have lots of things to look at here. since 2009, he's been lecturer

at the law school of harvard. in addition to being a brilliant legal mind, he's a -- he's devoted to his community and as we saw the other night, to his family and to his faith. he spends his time coaching youth basketball, serving as a church volunteer, mentoring in local schools. his mom was a schoolteacher and went to law school while she was a schoolteacher and became eventually a judge. but he brings those qualifications to the court. i think this is an important part of our job to advise and consent, but we have a lot of people who have rushed to a determination that they absolutely would not be for judge kavanaugh. i think a majority are likely to get to the determination that we

should be for judge kavanaugh. i look forward to visiting with him over the next few days. i look forward to learning more about his philosophy as a judge and how he thinks the supreme court would be different and how his job there may or may not vary from being on that second most important court in the country. my guess is he'll say it doesn't vary at all. the job of the supreme court judge just like the job of a court of appeals judge is to apply the constitution, apply the law, and not to try to make the law or rewrite the constitution. i look forward to that opportunity. i look forward to looking at many of the judge's opinions. i noticed two pinocchios in "the washington post" today about one of the cases that's already been brought up, the determination of

this argument about the right way to deal with a president while in office. certainly not a nuisance lawsuit. if the topics of a lawsuit are wrong, if it's the wrong thing for the president to do, there is clearly a way to remove a president. that's the point i think in a, what will be a much discussed law journal article that judge kavanaugh was making. and he didn't suggest that the law now prohibited a president from being indicted. he just said the law -- that there is a constitutional way to return a president to the status of private citizen. and then the president has all of the same vulnerabilities that a private citizen would have. 200 members of congress filed a lawsuit. there's a place in the constitution that says what 200 members of congress should do if they think the president should

be removed. and that place in the constitution does not say, and you should harass the president all you can about everything you can, whenever you can. it's going to be an interesting debate for the american people. but once again, they're going to be reminded as to how important the courts are, the incredible impact of the appointing power, the nominating power to the federal courts, and the partnership responsibility that the united states senate has in that important impact. and i would yield the floor.

a senator: mr. president: the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. lankford: i along with the rest of the senate look forward to going through the process with brett kavanaugh. he is an exceptionally qualified judge, a judge of judges. he is one judges look at around the country to be able to see what he is writing, what his opinions have noted. in fact, the supreme court historically has also looked at his opinions on the circuit court and has taken high notice of those and have quoted several of his opinions verbatim in supreme court opinions. this person has had a lot of

respect for what he has done and how he has done it in the process and enjoyed getting a chance to be able to meet his family and to be ailing to introduce not -- able to introduce not only his personal faith but his passion for people and work with the homeless for many years. this has been an interesting process we'll see, and over the next two months or so this body should do as we have done before, that we did with justice gorsuch. that was done with sotomayor in the past. about 66 days for each of those to be able to work through the nomination process all the way until we actually get to final vote. we'll see how this goes in the days ahead and i look forward to meeting with judge kaw and -- judge kavanaugh and ask him questions and i will reserve my judgment on him until i go through all of the opinions he has written. he seems like an exceptional candidate and look forward to walking through this process

judicially. mr. president, i did want to be able to mention today and to step back a little bit from the immigration conversation. there are a lot of issues with immigration that we deal with on a regular basis, but it is more conversation than it is solution. and it has been -- that we talk about refugees, asylum, temporary protected status, talk about illegal entry, we talk about quotas and diversity lottery, families. we don't ever seem to resolve the issue the we talk about it. and the great frustration is many of the issues ta we deal with right now on immigration are a direct result of congress not fixing the issue. my encouragement to this body is to stop pointing the finger at the president and to ask a very simple question. why is there conversation about

a zero tolerance policy and what does this really mean? well, in it's most simple form, i think we could agree if someone illegally crosses the american border into this country they should at least be stopped and asked, who are you? why are you here? because in the last year 1.1 million people became legal citizens of the united states. they made legal application, worked through that process, received a green card, were evaluated with background checks, and became citizens of the united states. 1.1 million. today on the southern border between mexico and the united states there will be half a million legal crossings into the united states. legal crossings, half a million today. so the question is, for individuals that illegally cross the border, should we stop those individuals and ask, who are

you? what are you doing here? why are you crossing into the country? because not every person crossing into the country is just crossing in for work that we would consider good work. today u.s. customs and border protection released just an announcement -- it was just announced today -- that the officers had a 38-year-old male following a pos tef alert from acanine unit, officers seized 2e vehicle's firewall today. not everyone who's entering into the country is coming in for a legal reason. not everyone who is crossing our border is coming just to work. so the zero tolerance policy is really a question of, should we stop individuals and evaluate someone who is illegally crossing the border, not one of the half million of people that will legally cross the border. but if you're one of those other

individuals not crossing the bore illegally, should we stop you and should we prosecute? several administrations have used prosecutorial discretion. they have taken people in and determined who to prosecute and who to not prosecute. this administration has stepped up and said let's take a moment that we're going to prosecute everyone and try to slow down the process. but there's been a noticeable increase in something a lot of people have not noticed, that is the number of families coming across the border. why would that be? it's not just individuals crossing the border as a family, it's individuals that are bringing children with them to cross the border because their treated differently over the past several years. over the first five months of this fiscal year, over the first five months, there's a 315% crease in apprehensions of groups fraudulently claiming to be families. let me run that past you again.

this year in the last five months there's been a 315% increase in apprehensions of groups that fraudulently claim to be families. not a 315% increase in families. these are smugglers that bring a child with them because they know if you bring a child with you, then you are treated differently in the border. historically you've been released. this administration has said to stop this we're going to start prosecuting and try to figure out who is actually a family, who is not a family, and to be able to figure out how to prosecute this. because there has been such a dramatic change. now, the numbers are just increasing for families, period, that are coming. let me run some of the numbers past you. according to customs around border control, there is a 700% increase in families declined in june 2018 that june 2017.

in may it was a 600% increase. in april it was a 863% increase. we're seeing a dramatic shift in the number of units that are coming at us. no matter your view on immigration reform, increases of this kind of magnitude should cause us to be able to slow down and be able to ask some simple questions. are the loopholes in our law and the prosecutorial discretion to release families to show up later for a hearing, is that causing more individuals to be able to pretend to be families or more families to be able to come? i think it's causing more and more individuals to be able to come that are coming not as a family but that are coming pretending to be a family unit though we also have obviously family units that are coming as well. a key issue that we need to be able to address is pretty straightforward. of the one million plus people that come here illegally, should we have greater respect for

those individuals that have gone through the legal process? i believe that we should. at a small town hall meeting in lawton, oak oaks, -- oklahoma, there were questions about keeping families together. i said as long as we possibly can, the default position should be to keep these families together. but at this meeting in lawton, the question is, what are we doing on immigration, how are we prosecuting and are we treating people humanly? that are good questions as americans. at the town hall meeting, one gentleman asked me what about legal immigration? he asked it in a specific way. are there juries that we should deal -- are there ways that we should deal with that? i ask why he asked that. the reason he asked that is that he is a legal immigrant going through the process. he is in his final stages -- in

fact, just the week before he had received his green card. and he's a little frustrated with people who are treated differently who came into the unt illegally -- into the unt -- into the country illegally. it has been interesting to hear about abolishing i.c.e. and have no immigration and customs enforcement at all. surprisingly the entity created after 9/11 because the 9/11 terrorists were individuals that came into the country and overstayed their visas and they were not stopped. so i.c.e. was created to help us with our immigration enforcement because we had just been pen trade by a group -- ben traitd by a group of -- ben traitd by a group of individuals who were terrorists. now that has created in 2003, now there is this big movement as if we have lost all that we have learned since 2001, now there is a group saying maybe we need to just abolish i.c.e.

entirely. let me run through a few things on that. i.c.e. last year seized 2,370 pounds of fentanyl. 2,370 pounds of phenomenon -- of fentanyl. it may not seem like a lot, but according to the d.e.a. two milligrams of fentanyl is a deadly amount of fentanyl to take in. it is laced into heroin or cocaine to dramatically increase the high. but if you have up to two million grams of it, it will not increase your high, it will kill you. that amount of fentanyl seized last year is a deadly dosage amount for just over 537 million people. 537 million people could have

been killed with just the amount of fentanyl that i.c.e. seized last year. on top of that, i.c.e. agents seized almost 1,000 pounds of heroin and one million pounds of narcotics were seized just in 2017. we also know that i.c.e. freed 904 children from child exploitation. they picked up 800ms-13 gunning members as an arrest and almost 5,000 gang members were taken off the street just by i.c.e. we hear a lot about i.c.e. raids as if i.c.e. is wandering around neighborhoods looking to pick people up. i'd like to remind folks the majority of what i.c.e. does is at the border, detaining individuals. in fact, last year i.c.e. agents

removed 62,913 more people detained at the border that arrested in the united states. i.c.e. agents are law enforcement. they are enforcing the law of our country, and it's quite remarkable to me to hear some people even in this chamber discuss with seriousness abolishing federal law enforcement that's taking human traffickers off the street, taking gang members off the street, taking legal doses of fentanyl off the street, taking tons of narcotics off the street. why don't we show them some respect and if there are things that need to be done to be able to reform it, the i.c.e. agents would be the first ones to step up to this body and say, here are some ideas and some things that can be done to reform it. but abolishing i.c.e. -- abolishing i.c.e. is a tickets to lawlessness in our country.

as a reminder, the president asked congress 21 days ago to enact legislation that would allow families to be able to stay together. 21 days ago the president asked for that. this congress has failed to act on that at all. as we all know over the course of one month roughly 2,000 children were separated from their parents and placed in h.h.s. custody. a great deal of intention has been focused on h.h.s. to ensure those children are reunited with their parents, especially those children unage five. to do this h.h.s. has to first verify that adult is the parent of that child. as i mentioned before, just in the first five months of this fiscal year, 315% increase of families units pretending to be

family units but are not family units. to hear talk of putting that child back with that adult is not that simple because many of the adults that came with that child are not really their parent. they were using them as a vehicle to get easy access into the country. so what does that really look like? well, let me give you a couple of ideas on this. as we walk through the different numbers related to some of these children, yet how many of these children were connected or not connected with the adults that were with them, let me give a few of these stats. of those children four and under, 14 of those are not eligible for reunification base their parents have issues or those people claiming to be their parents. let's take the people we know are parents. eight of those parents had serious criminal history discover when they did the family background check. including cruelty, one had a

warrant for murder and robbery. as, -- so, as americans, we not reconnecting those eight. five adults were found they were not the parent of accompanying child at all, and these are of the children four and unt. -- under. one of those individuals faced a case of child abuse. we're not reconnecting those. hearing a lot on the news about those individuals saying every one of those children need to be reconnected as fa as possible. and i hear criticism that they are doing ndaa test -- d.n.a. testing of the individuals. what they are trying to do is figure out if that adult is the parent of that child or has that adult picked up that child somewhere through mexico or central america to be able to use them as a tool to be able to try to get into the united states? i only wish that wasn't happening, it is.

reconnecting families is a major priority and as i said before, and would say again,