>> the gentlewoman's time has expired. thank you. the gentleman from florida, mr. donald, is now back on and recognized. >> thank you so much, chairwoman. thank you to the witnesses for listening to this, this hearing for, you know, the last several hours in a row. i just have one quick question and it's quite simple. i guess it is for mayor bowser. seen that the layout of the proposed state is essentially the city limits of washington dc as it is today, are there plans to dissolve your city council? if you have essentially a state legislator and a governor of what is the purpose of the dc city council at the point? >> thank you for that question, conquers men. >> we will break away from the closing minutes of this hearing because the senate is about to come in and part of our long-time commitment is to bring

you live gavel to gavel coverage of congress. watch the rest of the syrian or all of it if you would like our website, c-span .org. the senate today will work on white house nominations 5:30 p.m. eastern for boston mayor marty walsh to be secretary of labor. live it senate coverage here on c-span2. the president pro tempore: the senate will come to order. the chaplain, dr. barry black, will open the senate with prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. eternal god, who laid the foundations of the earth, we

worship you. lord, walk with our lawmakers throughout this day, inspiring them to submit to your will. may they treasure your instructions. may these instructions enable them to tune their ears to your wisdom and concentrate on understanding. -- understanding your precepts. give our senators a hunger and thirst for your international as they strive to keep america strong. lord, help them to remember that you give the treasure of good sense to the godly. we pray in your great name, amen.

the president pro tempore: please join me in reciting the pledge of ave lee january 6. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the president pro tempore: under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved.

mr. mcconnell: mr. president, are we in a quorum call in. the president pro tempore: no, the senate is not. mr. mcconnell: on thursday, the biden administration officials had their first person-to-person meeting with representatives from the republic of china. by diplomatic standards, the opening public exchange was tense. the belligerent grandstanding by p.r.c. diplomats was, unfortunately, no surprise. it's what we've come to expect. as china's military and economic

might have grown, beijing has found that the bullying tactics that people call their wolf warrior diplomatic strategy have often work out for them. so i was glad the u.s. team used the opportunity to cut through the c.c.p.'s spin and tell some plain truths about china's regional bullying and disrespect for the rule of law. whether in hong kong or tibet. i'm also glad the administration has sent u.s. personnel to join other diplomats in beijing to protest the secret trial of canadian citizen michael coveric. calling out china rear to cloy is just the first step. an effective u.s. strategy will require more than just tough talk and symbolism. the p.r.c. poses all manner of threats to the united states and to the free world. they want to control crucial sea lanes and the south china sea.

they want to expand their capabilities to menace other countries' forces, including ours, with increasingly accurate long-range weapons. they want to rewrite the rules of the international system to suit their interests instead of ours and our friends'. they are hard and -- these are hard and real challenges. facingthem down will require strength and resolve from the u.s. and from our partners. so, like i said last week, if the administration is serious about staying tough on china and strengthening our hand, they'll have support among senate republicans. but any such serious strategy will need to start with maintaining and building up the backbone of our hard power, the competitive edge of the u.s. military. to defend america, defend america's interests, and deter adversaries, we need to sustain our military edge. and to sustain our edge, we need to modernize our forces and

maintain our capability to project power. defense spending is the single most important policy level available to us in our competition with china. the president's budget submission will tell beijing a lot about whether the biden administration intends to back up tough talk with actual strength. whatever congress may do to step up our game on china, it will be essential that it be bipartisan. the legislative components of national security should not swing wildly every time the gavels change hands. it's a perfect demonstration of why scrapping the 60-vote threshold for legislation would be catastrophic. for important bills to have a lasting impact, they need broad bipartisan buy-in. now, on a completely different matter, this afternoon the senate will vote on the president's nominee to head the dopt of labor -- the department of labor. i'll be voting against confirming mr. walsh, who the

biden administration has already signaled they will ask him to implement a variety of policies that do not serve the long-term interests of a majority of workers. unfortunately, it appears that just won't be the case at the department of labor but throughout the democratic agenda. one of the president's first acts in office was to kill thousands of american jobs, including union jobs, by canceling the keystone x.l. pipeline. both working americans and domestic energy took a back seat to left-wing signaling. we're hearing the next few months might bring a so-called infrastructure proposal that may actually be a trojan horse for massive tax hikes and other job-killing left-wing policies. remember, the house democrats tipped their hand last year. they published a proposal that was why multi-thousand-page cousin of the green new deal.

it would have plowed unbelievable sums of money not into the kinds of big, practical kind of projects that americans think of infrastructure but also into their obsessive focus on climate policies to the exclusion of everything else. look, we know what kinds of policies are actually pro-job and pro-worker. we know what kind of agenda helps american workers build all-american prosperity. up and down the income scale. we know that because just over a year ago before the pandemic, four years of republican policies had built one of the most inclusive and optimistic economies in modern history. wages were growing faster at the bottom than at the top, unemployment was at historic lows, american workers were a hot commodity and were getting compensated accordingly, pro-worker prosperity does not entail having big-government politicians or big-labor bosses micromanage every aspect of the

economy to suit liberal fads. it means remembering what kind of pro-worker, pro-growth, pro-opportunity policies built the best job market in recent history, right before this pandemic. those are the ideas and the solutions that were unlocking more money and more opportunities for american workers before covid-19 took the world by storm. and those are the ideas and solutions the american people elected 50 republican senators to fight for. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding -- the president pro tempore: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. schumer: mr. president. the president pro tempore: the majority leader. and the senate is in a quorum call. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent the quorum be dispensed with. the president pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. the majority leader. mr. schumer: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the consideration of s. res. 127, submitted earlier today. the president pro tempore: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 127, electing karen h. gibson as sergeant at arms and doorkeeper of the senate. the president pro tempore: is there objection to proceeding to the matter? hearing none, proceed. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to and that the motion to be reconsidered be made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the president pro tempore: there being no objection, it is so ordered. mr. schumer: mr. president. i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to senate resolution 128, submitted earlier today.

the president pro tempore: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 128, notifying the house of representatives of the election of the sergeant at arms and doorkeeper of the senate. the president pro tempore: is there objection to proceeding? hearing none, proceed to the amendment. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the president pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. mr. schumer: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the consideration of senate resolution 129, submitted earlier today. the president pro tempore: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 129, notifying the president of the united states of the election of a sergeant at arms and doorkeeper of the senate. the president pro tempore: is there objection to the proceeding? hearing none, so ordered. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening

action or debate. the president pro tempore: without objection, it is so ordered. mr. schumer: mr. president. the president pro tempore: the majority leader. mr. schumer: well, this is a great and historic day. a few weeks ago, i announced that lieutenant general karen gibson would assume the responsibility of the senate sergeant at arms, becoming only the 42nd sergeant at arms in the senate history. i'm very pleased this afternoon to make her appointment official with her family watching on, her father david, her mother rebecca, her sister kathleen, her brother-in-law daniel, her nephew bennett, and her cousin aaron. lieutenant general gibson is taking on a really big job, and i know that her family could not be more proud of her.

the senate sergeant at arms was established more than two centuries ago when the united states senate was still in its infancy. back then, the primary duty of the sergeant at arms was essentially senatorial babysitting. recalcitrant senators made finding a quorum a routine challenge. today the sergeant at arms is the senate's chief administrative officer and chief enforcement officer. they have enormous responsibility of keeping the trains running on time while at the same time keeping everyone, everyone in the capitol safe. suffice it to say lieutenant general gibson has a tall order, but i have every confidence that she will perform her duties at the same exemplary standard she set over the course of her three-decade military career.

as senior intelligence officer in the office of the director of national intelligence, lieutenant general gibson supported u.s. national security objectives in iraq, afghanistan, east africa, korea, the pacific, and across the middle east. since january 6, she has been working with retired army lieutenant general russell onaray on a comprehensive review of the capitol security. so given her background and given what she has done recently, i know she is ready to hit the ground running. lieutenant gibson is ready to go. and her responsibility to ensure a safe working environment for senators, visitors, capitol employees, staff, and reporters she will take with the utmost of gravity and competence. during her -- joining her in office of the sergeant at arms will be kelly fado as deputy sergeant and jennifer hemingway as chief of staff, two capitol

veterans, trusted members of the senate family. this is a historic day in a second way. this will be the first time in history of the senate that the leadership of the sergeant at arms will be comprised entirely of women. another crack in the glass ceiling. and i cannot think of a better team than the one we put together. congratulations to all three of them on officially starting their new roles today. and i know, madam president, you are proud of that as well. it is really a good day next, tonight, another aspect of why this is a good day. tonight the senate will confirm mayor marty walsh of boston to serve as secretary of labor. the son of irish immigrants, mayor walsh followed his father's footsteps in construction and joined the

laborers union local 223 at age 21, eventually serving as its president before being elected mayor of boston. during his testimony here in the senate, mayor walsh said it was by joining a union that his parents were able to climb up into the middle class and give their son a better -- a shot at a better life. we have something in common. my grandfather came to the united states and became very involved with the labor movement. one day when he was 14, it was raining, he was looking for shelter, he was poor, had almost nowhere to live, walked into the labor temple where he heard eugene v. debs give the annual address at that temple established by the afl to teach immigrants about the union movement. we have that in common. our grandfathers are immigrants, one from ireland,

one from eastern europe but both joined the labor movement and h helped their family move up. the department of labor is in desperate need of a leader with mayor walsh's perspective. for the past four years under president trump and secretary scalia, unfortunately, sadly the labor department has too often sided with corporate america, not the working people of america, who it was formed to help. once the senate confirms mayor walsh, american workers will finally have one of their own leading the department of labor, someone from working america who will fight for working america. and i'm proud to say that once mayor walsh is confirmed tonight, the senate will have confirmed all 15 of president biden's cabinet secretaries. under extraordinary circumstances, unusual responsibilities, a later than usual runoff election, an evenly divided chamber, an

insurrection, an impeachment trial, and the passage of historic federal relief, the senate has still stayed on track and confirmed president biden's cabinet faster than both of the last two administrations. let me say that again. with everything else going on, the senate has confirmed president biden's cabinet faster than during both of the prior two administrations, one a democrat, one a republican. and every single member of president biden's cabinet has received a bipartisan vote in favor of confirmation. i anticipate that the vote in favor of mayor walsh will stay true to form, completing an unblemished record of bipartisan confirmations to the cabinet. it's a tribute to president biden and his team that they have chosen such a fine cabinet, and a tribute to the senators here that we have moved in such a quick fashion despite

so many other responsibilities being placed on our shoulders in these early days of this congress. and few cabinets, madam president, in history have begun with their tenures with such daunting tasks. a once in a century pandemic, an economy in the doldrums, global challenges like climate change and democratic decline. thankfully this senate has made sure president biden's cabinet is in place and on the job as quickly as possible. and we will continue the personnel business this week by installing the deputy director at o.m.b., the surgeon general, the assistant secretary of health and human services and deputy secretaries at energy and treasury. p.p.p. in addition to these nominees, the senate has another important matter of legislative business on the agenda this week, an extension of the bipartisan paycheck protection program,

which is set to expire at the end of the month. since its interception, the paycheck protection program has generated more than 7.8 million loans to keep america's businesses afloat during what has been the worst economic crisis in three-quarters of a century, since the great depression. with the help of the american rescue plan, our economy is finally turning the corner, but businesses are not out of the woods yet and are likely to need assistance for another few months as the country continues to recovery. most borrowers are curnlts awaiting loan approvals, many more are working to apply. working with the biden administration we've made important changes to the p.p.p. to expand eligibility and to make it easier for the smallest, most underserved businesses to get relief. particularly micro businesses, sole proprietors, women owned

and minority-owned businesses. there is no reason, no reason to let this program expire while there are still scores of applicants in line and billions of dollars left in the program. the house already passed the extension of the program by an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote. 415-3. a bipartisan group of senators, including senators cardin and collins, shaheen, marshal, sullivan and murkowski, support identical legislation here in the senate. so we're not going to end this week without passing an extension. again, the senate must pass another extension of the paycheck protection program before the end of the week and make sure the nation's small businesses can access this very vital lifeline. i yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. durbin: madam president. the presiding officer: the senior senator from illinois. mr. durbin: madam president, the senate judiciary committee has --. the presiding officer: the senate is in a quorum. mr. durbin: i ask consent to suspend the quorum. the presiding officer: without objection. morning business is closed. the following nomination, which the clerk will report. the clerk: nomination, department of labor, martin joseph walsh of massachusetts to be secretary. the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: madam president, thank you. madam president, the senate judiciary committee has really been in business for a few weeks

now, and i think we have begun this session addressing some of the relevant issues that i expected such a committee to address. first of course was the appointment of the attorney general, merrick garland. i thank senator grassley for his cooperation on a bipartisan basis of bringing that nominee to the floor where he received 70 senate votes, bipartisan support for his leadership at the department of justice. we continue this week with two more of president biden's appointments to the department of justice, lisa monaco and vanita gupta. they will be considered by the full judiciary committee on thursday, and we will continue to fill vacancies in the administration as we are sent nominees and have that opportunity. but in addition to that, we have had hearings on several relevant topics and another one starting tomorrow. christopher wray, the director of the federal bureau of investigation, was called before the committee for an oversight hearing.

it's the first time in more than a calendar year that the head of the f.b.i. was actually brought to testify before the senate judiciary committee, the committee that has the traditional oversight responsibility for his agency. his testimony was important and timely. he talked about the trump-inspired mob that attacked this capitol and the rise of domestic terrorism in the united states. he identified it as one of the major threats to security in our country, and we are considering legislation to empower him and others in the administration to address this threat. that does not take anything away from our efforts to staunch any inspired international terrorism, but we have learned learned, unfortunately, that in addition to looking across the ocean to threats of terrorism, in america today we have to look across the street. unfortunately there are domestic

terrorism groups. we saw them on parade january 6, and they are still at their work. they must be stopped to make sure that america is safe for everyone. that was an important hearing. we followed it up last week with the first ever senate hearing on the equality act. the equality act, which has been enacted by the house of representatives, has been sent to the senate for consideration. senator merkley of oregon is the lead sponsor. simply put, the bill is there to end discrimination against people because of their sexual orientation. i thought it was a very powerful hearing. most americans are surprised to learn that though we now recognize marriage by the people of same gender, that in many states there is no protection against discrimination for those same people. so they could have a marriage in the morning and then be fired from their jobs in the afternoon because of their sexual orientation.

it's a gross disparity of justice in this country, and i thought our witnesses brought that point through very clearly. i hope that we can gather bipartisan support for that measure quickly and bring it to the floor. it's long overdue. tomorrow we're having a hearing which is, unfortunately, very timely. i announced last week at this hearing on commonsense steps to reduce gun violence in america would be held this week. on the same day i announced that hearing last week, a gunman ordered eight people in a string of shootings near atlanta, georgia. one man, seven women. six of the victims were asian americans. he committed these murders with a gun he had bought the same day. that day children lost their parents, husbands lost their wives, and fear and trauma reverberated across america and the asian american community. i know that the presiding officer and i have reached out to people in our home state of illinois to assure them that we

are aware of this and are going to do everything we can to stop this type of discrimination and this terrible violence that followed. according to the gun violence arrest -- archive, there have been 27 mass shootings in america this month. 27 mass shootings this month, with a mass shooting defined as an incident where at least four victims were shot. mass shootings of course make the biggest headlines, but day after day, week after week the deadly toll of gun violence grows. last weekend 20 people were shot in our city of chicago, four of them fatally. and across the nation, every day we lose on average 109 american lives to gunfire, suicide, domestic violence shooting, accidental shooting and homicides. and another 200 americans are injured by guns each day. the numbers are sobering, and that is why tomorrow the senate

judiciary committee is going to address this issue. the subcommittee chairman, dick blumenthal of connecticut, will take over the full committee hearing after i make some opening remarks. i know that he has a special feeling for this issue because of the tragedy in new town, connecticut, just a few years ago when a gun man went in and killed so many innocent children and their teachers in a grade school. it was one horrible event. it was an event that was so horrible that many of us said that can make the difference. politically, that's going to change america. it's going to result in things happening finally. it's commonsense, constitutional gun safety measures that will keep guns out of the hands of people who would misuse them. well, i would have lost that bet, and many others would have too, because we failed to respond in a timely fashion. what stopped us from passing a bill in the united states senate for background checks, to make sure that convicted felons did

not purchase guns legally in america and would be stopped because of roadblocks we put in their paths, people who were mentally unstable would not have access to guns which they could use to hurt innocent people, as we've seen over and over again. what stopped that from happening? a rule in the united states senate. it's called the filibuster. and what it says is it takes more than a majority for the overwhelming majority of the american people to see gun safety in america. it takes 60 votes, and a senate evenly -- in a senate evenly divided, 50-50. we're hoping, just hoping maybe there is a bipartisan sentiment that can reach 60 votes on thoughtful, commonsense gun control that will really say to people, yes, you have your second amendment right to own a gun legally, responsibly, and to store it safely. you can use it for sporting and

target practice and self-defense if you wish. but we want to make certain that we eliminate as much as possible those who would misuse those firearms. it's interesting, the overwhelming majority of firearm owners across the nation believe that same thing. they don't argue with the premise that people will use them responsibly. despite the majority in the senate, we can't get it through the senate for the very reason i mentioned, the filibuster. when senator mcconnell comes to the floor to defend the filibuster, the basic question you have to ask him, if the senate can work with the filibuster, show us. show us. show us that if we bring 45 or 50 votes to the floor, there are ten republicans who will join us and work with us to pass important legislation. that wouldn't be the only thing. there would be many other things. i've heard speeches on the floor by so many republicans about the

situation on our southern border with immigration, and it truly is a challenge. i work on it because it's a matter i paid a lot of attention to in my career, but it's also a subject matter in the senate judiciary committee. why is it that we have not addressed immigration reform in the united states? the filibuster. that's the reason. the filibuster has stopped us from passing measures like the dream act. i introduced the dream act 20 years ago to say if you're brought here to the united states as a child, raised in this country, you ought to have a path to legalization and citizenship so you can stay in the country you call home. simple premise, overwhelmingly supported by the american people. five times i brought the dream act to the floor of the senate for passage. let's make this a law. five times it failed. why? the filibuster rule. each time i had a majority but not the necessary 60 votes. that's another example of where

the filibuster has stepped in and stopped a majority of the senate from passing a measure which was timely, i believe thoughtful, and which the majority of american people overwhelmingly supported. i would say to the defenders of the filibuster, show us it can work. we've had so little legislative activity that was subject to this filibuster rule over the last several years and obviously some senators are very content with that. i'm not. there's work to be done, not just in the areas i mentioned, but in so many others. infrastructure programs for america is important to. let's do what we were elected to do. to deliberate, to legislate, to amend, to express different points of view, but ultimately to enact laws that will benefit this nation. madam president, i ask that the next statement i make be placed in a separate part of the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: thank you, madam president. madam president, i want to

salute a member of my staff before i make this statement. his name is chris holman. he's been with me for a number of years. he has a special passion for people who are languishing in prisons around the world for so-called political crimes, and he has convinced me to make this my cause as well. and time after time we have been successful in seeing the release of these political prisoners simply by speaking on the floor and addressing the embassies of the country where they are in prison and trying to put some political pressure on the leaders of those countries to release those prisoners. you wouldn't believe that would work, would you, in an you aor tearian -- acor tearian regime, but it turns out it does and we have had many political prisoners released. there are political prisoners languishing in jails around the world for nothing more than

advocating for political rights and human freedom. these brave souls are often led to believe they are their efforts to push for freedoms are forgotten. i come to the floor today to tell them that is not the case. let me start with a particularly cruel and troubling set of cases, saudi writer raif and his lawyer, raif has arrested in 2012 for his peaceful writings charged and sentenced to 20 years in 2012 and a thousand lashes, at least 50 of which were carried out despite international uproar. badawi suffers from poor health and his condition has worsened. i had the honor of meeting his

wife some years ago. she is living in exile in canada with their young children after facing threats to her life in saudi arabia. badawi's lawyer, waleed, a civil rights activist, was arrested in 2015 and placed in prison and has a 15-year travel ban. i once again appeal to the government of the saudis to free them. they have suffered enough. i also call for the release of filipino senator lala lomena, who has spent her 14th year

languishing in prison. this is a photo of hers. as a leading human rights advocate, she has criticized the actions of the president of her country and from time to time she writes from her cell. let me shawr a short excerpt of this brave woman who still maintains her sense of humor. she wrote, warm greetings from my detention quarters at the philippine national custodial center, i don't know how long i will remain behind bars, but i do know that my will to fight for what is right remain undeterred. she is not alone. many of us have spoken about his political harassment of filipino journalist maria, who received her ninth arrest warrant in

november and tenth in january. i met with many in the filipino american community in illinois, we have a great, great community of filipinos in the chicagoland area and across the state. i know that they will continue to support efforts to see a more accountable and democratic philippines. lastly, let me turn to the united arab emirates, where one of the nation's top human rights defenders, ahmed unser, also just passed his fourth year in jail. he was arrested under his guise that his social media post threatened the only harmony of the u.a.e. he's considered to be one of the last human rights defenders in the emirates. as peacefully advocates for freedom of expression, fair

trials and the humane treatment of prisoners. since his troubling sentencing in 2017, he has endured sold terry con -- solid terry confinement. despite his incarceration, he remains steadfast in his commitment to human rights, even conducting hunger strikes in protest of jail conditions, the same conditions he spoke against before his detention. it is long overdue that emirates let this man go. america's strength not only comes from its military and its economy, but also from the power of its ideals. i can tell you from the former prisoners who have come to visit me over the years, that the support of this body and this congress and the american people that we may just take for granted as another speech on the floor of the senate can make a

difference. they come to learn that someone actually mentioned their name on the floor of the united states senate in washington, d.c.. it sustains them. it encourages them, it gives them hope, and it puts pressure on the governments that jail them to justify and rationalize the cruel treatment. let me remind, waleed, senator resa, and ms. lima, we have not forgotten. we will continue to back you. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call: the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. brown: i ask to dispense with the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. brown: madam president, this pandemic has made it clear than

ever it's not corporations that drive our economy. it's american workers. with marty welsh for whom we will vote in a moment on confirmation to the department of labor, workers will finally have someone on their side as the department that's supposed to look out for them. the department of labor is supposed to be the voice for workers in our government. it's their job to make sure workers' rights are protected, that people are safe on the job, that everyone can organize a union and get the overtime pay they've earned. but for four years we've had a department of labor full of corporate lawyers. in can't take, the secretary of labor was a corporate lawyer who made millions of dollars in court attacking labor unions and getting very well paid for it. that department was full of people who made their careers fighting for corporate boards and c.e.o.'s trying to squeeze every last penny out of workers and skirting labor laws. and we saw the results.

d.o.l. stopped fighting to raise the overtime pay threshold. in my state tens of thousands of workers and nationally hundreds of hundreds of thousands of workers failed to get a raise as a result. a year into the pandemic the occupational safety health administration osha still has not issued an emergency temporary standard to protect workers from coronavirus. when 13,000 workers last year got sick at a smithfield meatpacking plant, they fined the company a pathetic $10 per worker. excuse me, 1,300 workers. with marty walsh that corporate infiltration with the department of labor ends now. mayor walsh will put the foe causes back where it should be fighting for the people who make this country work. we know that for far too many americans, hard work doesn't pay off. they've seen corporate profits go up. they've seen executive compensation skyrocket. they've become more productive in the workplace yet their wages are flat.

hard work is never paid off for many americans like it should. that's why voters sent a clear message in last year's election. they're tired of corporations running our economy. corporations have had their chance. they failed. if corporations won't deliver for their workers and create an economy where ■everyone's har work pays off with the middle class that's growing instead of shrinking, then we have to step in and fight for workers. that's what marty walsh will do as the secretary of labor. he can work with osha to finally issue the emergency temporary standard forcing corporations to take critical steps to protect their workers on the job. he can crack down on corporations that use the subcontracting and independent contractors and other tricks to pay workers less and deny them benefits. he can get to work on a new overtime rule so that hundreds of thousands more workers will finally get the overtime pay that they've earned. he can defend workers' rights to organize to give them power in the workplace and crack down on

corporate union busting. and as we know, marty walsh has the deep experience in the labor movement to get this done. too many people in this country don't understand what it's like not to have a voice on the job, not to -- to have no power over year schedule, to work hard at a job that didn't pay the bills. they don't understand collective bargaining and the power that a union card gives you over your career and your finances and your future. marty walsh does understand that. the age of 21 he joined the labors union local 223 in massachusetts. he knows what a union means to workers. he knows what workers are up against when they organize. like president biden he's not afraid. he doesn't recoil -- he's not afraid to talk about the labor movement. he doesn't recoil from using the word union. he's not afraid to take on corporations that exploit the workers. we already see the change in action president biden, vice president harris have joined senator booker and me and so many of us in standing in solidarity with amazon workers

organizing in alabama. it comes back to the dignity of work. the idea that hard work should pay off for everyone no matter who you are, where you live, or what kind of work you do. mayor walsh understands when work has dignity, people have power over their lives and their schedules and they are paid a living wage. when work has dignity, everyone can afford health care and housing and child care. they can save for retirement. they can take off time to care for their loves ones. mayor walsh has lived those values. he successfully helped push his state to raise the minimum wage to $15. he cracked down on wage theft. he fought for paid family leave. he knows how important it is for the people in the room making decisions to actually reflect the diverse workers who make our country successful. it's the job of the labor movement. it's the job of d.o.l. to fight for all workers. as we work to build back better with the big investment in american infrastructure, mayor walsh understands all of the

opportunities for workers that come with that. he comes from the building trades. he understands that we put hundreds of thousands of trades people to work building houses and schools and public transit, retrofitting homes and offices and schools. we have a tremendous opportunity to rebuild our economy with workers, not corporations but with workers at the center. if you love your country, if you love this country, you fight for the people who make it work. as secretary of labor, that's what marty walsh will do. i urge my colleagues to support him. i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

ms. collins: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from maine. ms. collins: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the proceedings under the call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. collins: thank you, madam president. madam president, helping students achieve their education and career goals has long been a priority for me.

i come to the floor today to introduce two bipartisan bills. both are aimed at helping students pursue higher education, complete their agrees and -- complete their degrees and have satisfying work lives. prior to my election to the senate, i worked at hudson university in bangor, maine. hudson's students, for the most part, are first-generation college students. they are the first in their families to take that step of pursuing higher education. i saw firsthand the importance of several federal initiatives -- pell grants, work study, trio, programs that are specifically aimed at students whose families have little or no

experience at all with higher education. madam president, the first bill that i'm introducing today is the educational opportunity and success act. it would reauthorize and strengthen the federal trio programs. i've been a longtime champion of trio. it helps students prepare for, succeed in, and graduate from college or other institutions of higher learning. i'd like to thank senators tester, capito, and baldwin for joining me as original cosponsors. congress create the trio programs because it recognized that low-income, first-generation college students often face significant obstacles to accessing and

completing higher education. our bipartisan bill would reauthorize these programs, modestly increase grant sizes, and make it easier for administrators to reach students that would benefit from trio. the bill also updates the way that the programs are evaluated and streamlines the application process. the bill would also increase the small stipend for upward-bound students -- upwardbound is one of the programs. these stipends make their college visits more successful. these are often the first time that these young people have experienced a college campus p and it would create a new stipend for veterans participating in the veterans

upward-bound program. the educational opportunity and success act would also institute a commonsense process for correcting trio applications that have minor errors. now, let me gift you a concrete example, madam president. in 2017, the department of education initially rejected dozens of upwardbound applications based on arbitrary, non-substantive formatting criteria, such as line spacing or font size irregularities. the department lost sight of the goal of serving students and instead focused on whether the formatting criteria were followed exactly correctly. one of these applications was

from the university of maine. it had used 1.5 spacing instead of double spacing in text appearing in graphics in just two of the application's 65 pages. imagine, madam president, that the application was not considered on its merits at all because of a spacing error that accompanied graphics on two pages of a 65-page application. the department's bureaucratic decision would have denied 960 disadvantaged maine high school students from the chance of fulfilling their academic potential.

after many months of advocacy, i worked with the department of education. i kept pressing the department. and i worked with my appropriations colleagues to reverse this ill-conceived policy, but it took federal legislation to move the department from its bureaucratic decision, which affected potentially 960 students in northern maine. it affected students in other -- that were in other high schools as well across this country. i remember montana was one of those that was affected. the university of maine ultimately received its trio grant to serve those students. the bill that we're introducing

today would prevent the department of education from rejecting applications simply on the basis of formatting criteria. this is a commonsense reform that will prevent unnecessary bureaucratic obstacles in the future. we should be making sure that federal funds get out the door efficiently and focus on the students they are meant to serve. madam president, i've met so many maine trio students and have loved learning about their dreams for the future. one of them is a priest who serves in skowhegan, maine. neither of his parents went beyond the eighth grade. he, through the encouragement of the upward-bound program, went

to dartmouth and then on to the seminary and is now a priest. let me tell you about another outstanding individual -- jason judd. jason grew up in athens, maine, a very small community. jason said, i knew that education was the only way i could escape poverty. upward-bound taught me how to be successful in education and encouraged me to pursue my passions. jason is a first-generation college graduate. with the support of upward-bound, he went to the university of maine at farmington and earned his bachelor's degree. he chose to go into school administration. he received his master's degree from the university of southern

maine in educational leadership and earned his doctorate from northeastern university in organizational leadership studies. now, madam president, jason is the executive director of educate maine, where he works to improve education in our state. trio put him on the path to success, and now jason supports students just like himself across the state of maine. a real success story that trio helped make possible. the trio programs have changed the lives of first-generation students across maine and the country, opening the doors to the opportunities of higher education. so i would ask all of my

colleagues to support this important legislation to extend and improve the trio programs. madam president, the second bill i'm introducing today is the success for rural students and communities act. this bill would help students living in rural areas achieve their higher education goals and connect them with economic opportunities in their communities. i want to thank senators hassan, cornyn, and smith for introducing this legislation with me. according to census data, two out of three maine schools are in rural communities, and more than half of maine's students attend these schools. 90% of maine students graduate from high school. that's great, but only 62%

enroll in some kind of higher education right away. unfortunately, an even lower percentage of maine students go on to actually earning a degree or a credential. that the often leads them -- leaves them with student debts but without the credential or degree that they need. maine's experience is not unique. rural students tend to graduate from high school at higher rates than their peers in urban districts and at about the same rate as their suburban peers. but fewer rural graduates enroll in college upon graduation than their urban and suburban counterparts. our bill would authorize $60 million for demonstration grants to create community partnerships

that help rural students access college and career pathways. community stakeholders, such as local school districts, colleges, universities, regional economic development entities and community organizations would join together to help students and their families navigate higher education opportunities and address barriers that too often stand in the way to their achievement. for example, partnerships can work together to expose students to college campuses, courses, programs, and intern ships. they could focus on enrollment and completion rates of rural, nontraditional students when they find that they need additional credentials or who once began but did not finish

postsecondary education. today, madam president, as you well know, many of the employers require something more than a high school diploma. perhaps a college degree, a skilled trade credential, or a professional certificate. our bill would encourage schools and local employers to work together to put students on pathways into the high-demand jobs available where they want to live. several strategies could be developed and tested, including work-based learning opportunities like apprenticeships, intern ships, and a sequence of courses on the path to a certain skill or job. in northern maine, madam president, the arustic

aspirations initiative is using this model successfully to help put students on pathways to academic and career success. the initiative collaborates with local businesses and with colleges and universities to offer seminars that guide students throughout their education. students can team up with employers in the area through internships that give them the experience and the careers they wish to pursue. last year, i met from arustic county a student named kaitlyn amaro who came to washington to talk about her career goals. kaitlyn hopes to pursue a career in medicine. in 2019, kaitlyn participated in the emerging rural leaders program at the university of chicago, which provides

opportunities for rural high school students to enroll in college courses over the summer months. that program has helped put her on the path to becoming a physician. the success for rural students and communities act would support dynamic programs such as the ee ternlging rural leaders program and the arooistook aspirations initiative. it would encourage other communities to innovate in similar ways. madam president, both bills i'm introducing today would provide critical support to students across the country who are seeking to achieve their college and career dreams. i urge my colleagues to support both of these bills. thank you, madam president.

i yield the floor and i suggest the absence of a quorum -- i would withdraw the quorum request. mr. grassley: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: before i speak, i have a unanimous consent request that my judiciary committee detailee joseph ruth be given floor privileges for the remainder of the 117th congress. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. grassley: thank you. civil war legislation called the false claims act has been on the books since that period of time. in 1986, i believe it was, i got some amendments to it that have made it a much more valuable

piece of legislation than it was before that time. it's called the false claims act, and it's brought, i think, something like $64 billion back into the federal treasury of fraudulent taking money since then. the problem today, even though it's been a successful law, is that the courts tend to from time to time neuter its capabilities by interpreting it in a way so it's not quite as effective. from time to time, we have passed legislation to overcome some of those court decisions, so i'm here today to talk about another opportunity this senate has to make the false claims act the effective piece of legislation it was.

so i want to alert my colleagues about the most recent limitations the courts have imposed on the false claims act. the false claims act was signed into law by president abraham lincoln in 1863 for the very same purpose it serves today -- to fight fraud, not just with military matters as was the reason for doing it because the union army was being defrauded at that particular time. but today it fights fraud governmentwide. today it is the government's most powerful antifraud statute. that's because amendments that i offered in 1986 empowered whistle-blowers to sue

fraudsters on the government's behalf with or without the government's help. since then, we have recovered more than $64 billion of taxpayer money lost to fraud. now when we talk about antifraud statutes like the false claims act, we use the word -- the term materiality. and it's that term that the courted have caused dish their interpretation of that term has caused the act to be less effective. the false claims act defines materiality as, quote, having a natural tendency to include or be capable of influencing the payment or receipt of money or property, end of quote.

basically, if the government could have withheld payment, then it was likely material. however, based on a 2016 supreme court opinion, the federal courts are trying to reshape the shapes, the acts materiality requirement. in the supreme court opinion escobar, i quote -- if the government pays a particular claim in full despite its actual knowledge that certain requirements were violated, that is very strong evidence that those requirements are not material, end of quote. citing this language, other courts have made the government's payment decisions in these cases a deciding factor.

consequently, the justice department now shies away from prosecuting these cases. that's the case even when the fraud is very obvious, and then obviously material. recently, the office of special inspector general for the afghanistan reconstruction briefed me on a report about a botched defense department effort to quickly buy cargo planes from an italian manufacturer called alehei neon. 2009, the department of defense bought 20 cargo planes from this company for $549 million.

these planes were intended to move and train afghan pilots. this is the type of plane we're talking about. the contract required the manufacturers to refurbish 20 retired ark and provide enough spare parts for ten years of maintenance. to seal the deal, the company even took department of defense personnel on several warehouse tours to prove they had all these spare parts. when the planes arrived in afghanistan, mechanics quickly noted the planes were very poorly refurbished. worse, they couldn't actually fly. the poor state of the planes and the hazards of the afghan elements made that impossible.

the company also lied about their maintenance commitments. now, remember, i already told you their promise. those warehouses were full of parts for the next ten years. these spare parts that they showed them were not for these planes. in other words, they were for the wrong planes. despite this plate ant fraud, department of defense inspectors kept certifying the planes and the government kept making payments, but here's the catch. the inspectors later admitted that many of the documents and manuals they reviewed were in italian, and none of them spoke

italian. the final count, out of 20 aircraft, four never even made it to afghanistan. it's unclear why the department of defense continued making payments despite these flagrant violations, but by 2013, it became clear that continuing these programs was unfeasible and the government tried to sell the remaining 16 planes. well, you can imagine nobody wanted these planes. so the obama-biden administration sold them all for scrap metal. you can see the scrap metal right here. so to recap. the government bought 20 airplanes for $549 million, and in less than five years sold them for $40,257 worth of scrap

metal. the photos next to me show what we bought compared to what it was actually worth. a literal pile of garbage. it's clear that the actual condition of planes and lack of parts were very material components of this contract, so see that word material. now thanks to the department of defense's poor judgment and also the court's new standard on materiality, the justice department won't bring false claims act charges against that company. materiality is important to protect against parasitic lawsuits, but we can't allow

dependents to get away with -- we can't let defendants get away with scalping the taxpayers because some government bureaucrats failed to do their jobs. government bureaucrats are highly segmented and often unable to make key decisions for their organizations. now, that's not the employee's fault. that's just kind of the way government, i'm sorry to say, operates. also, the government also typically stops payments only when it has fully investigated and corroborated a claim of fraud. and in my many years of investigating the department of defense, it has taught me that a pentagon bureaucrat is rarely

motivated to recognize fraud. that's because the matchup doesn't come out of their pocket. this example rielts how the court's narrow interpretation of materiality fails to take into account how the government really works and why we need to overcome the court's decision on definition of materiality. when the false claims act was originally passed, one boasted, and this is a direct quote, you can sell anything to the government at almost any price if you've got the guts to ask, end of quote. unfortunately that was true in this case as well. i have already made it public that i'm working to patch this hole in the taxpayers' pocket.

this example perfectly illustrates the need for change. i'm working on introducing legislation to address the issue, and i'm in the final stages of negotiating, and look forward to putting forward a bipartisan bill in the coming weeks. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be dispensed with.

the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cornyn: madam president, from el paso to brownsville, my home state shares a 1,200 mile border with mexico. if you were daring enough to attempt to walk that entire stretch, you would trek include deserts, through mountains, big cities, small towns and maybe even stick your big toe in the rio grande. you get to know folks who are proud of the strong bonds that our country has with our southern neighbor, including many who have relatives in both countries. you would meet entrepreneurs whose businesses depend on legitimate trade and travel between our countries. you talk with local, state, and federal law enforcement officials who go above and beyond the call to keep our communities safe. and i have no doubt that along the way you could enjoy some

great tex mex and depending upon the season you'd find the best grapefruit you've ever eaten in the rio grande valley. our border is a beautiful, vibrant region with a rich sense of community that you can't find in any other part of the country. i believe it's truly unique. throughout my time in the the senate, i've had a lot of opportunity to spend time in our border communities and work with their incredible leaders -- mayors, county judges, sheriffs, school superintendents, n.g.o.'s, nongovernmental organizations and countless others. i'm sure you heard the song "god bless texas." it's true, i believe, and the folks i've come to call friends along the border are certainly doing the lord's work. these men and women work around the clock to create safe communities and thriving economies, something that's been especially tough during the hand they have been dealt this

last year with the pandemic. but they've lived through a pandemic, hurricanes, droughts, a winter storm that presented subzero freezing temperatures for a week, and all have hit my state in the last 12 months. folks in these communities, as they have throughout the country, have lost friends and loved ones. they've lost jobs, they've lost businesses and opportunities and so much more. now they are trying to deal with another crisis, one they had no hand in creating, and should not be responsible for managing alone. unfortunately, the administration continues to play a high stakes version of the game taboo as they try to find a word, any word but crisis to what's happening along the southern border. president biden himself has called it a humanitarian challenge.

secretary mayorkas prefers the term situation. and the president's chief of staff referred to it as a mess. the problem here isn't the choice of the word you use to describe it, but the implication of down playing the seriousness of this migration surge. in an attempt to lessen the impact of this dramatic increase in illegal migration, the administration has revoked policies that were helping deter such an influx. it failed to rapidly provide the resources needed to respond to the crisis once it revoked the previous policies, and now our border communities in my state along that 1,200 mile common border with mexico are expected to pick up the slack. regardless of how you want to brand what's happening, here are the facts. last month customs and border protection encountered more than 100,000 individuals along our

border, last month alone 100,000. that's the highest number since 2006. more than 9,000 of these 100,000 people were children, unaccompanied children, separated when their parents sent them along with human smugglers, criminal organizations, to make their dangerous trek from mexico or central america or somewhere else into the united states. another 19,000 were what's euphemistically called family units, usually one parent and one or more children. now we know that this journey to our borders isn't safe or easy, and you can imagine that's especially true for unaccompanied children. many arrive at our border in critical health, having endured days and weeks or evenly months of exposure on the road.

i've heard horrific stories of physical and sexual abuse that occurs in the hands of these criminal organizations who move migrants from place a to place b. but they are nothing more than cartels, human smugglers, criminals who care nothing about the individuals that they are faring from their point a to point b. all they care about is the money that they make, and they make a lot of money. by law, children cannot be in the custody of the customs and border protection for more than 72 hours. within that window, they are required by law to be transferred to the custody and care of the department of health and human services. but right now the system is so overwhelmed that thousands of children have been in custody beyond the legal limit, including hundreds who have been held for more than ten days in border detention facilities.

axios has recently released some pictures taken inside i believe the dona detention facility showing children basically stacked in the end with, trying to stay warm, trying to sleep because the border patrol facilities are simply overwhelmed. the situation has grown so dire, the administration has sent the federal emergency management agency to help, and now they set up a new influx care facility in dallas and midland to provide for these children. the midland facility has experienced so many issues that no additional migrant teams are being sent there. in the first few days of operation more than 10% of the population housed there tested positive for covid-19 and at least one child has been hospitalized. one government official described the process as -- of

setting up the facility as building a plane as it's taking off. there's simply no reason the administration should have been caught flatfooted by this surge of illegal migration. after all, the president campaigned on promises of policies that were sure to lead to this very situation. when you remove the policies that deter illegal border crossings, what do you expect? we know the spring months are typically the busiest for migration because mild temperatures make the journey a little less dangerous, and folks want to come to the u.s. for summer work. we know the cartels and criminal organizations are very knowledgeable about our immigration laws. they know them perhaps better than most americans do, and they know how to navigate them. we know a flawed court ruling on

the settlement agreement means more children will come across our border because now families are subject to the same requirements as unaccompanied children. we know we have an immigration court backlog that's roughly 1.3 million cases deep, and the average time for a case to be presented in court is now two and a half years. nevertheless, the biden administration, by revoking the previous policies without having a plan to replace them, has created a perfect storm that anyone would have, could have told them would end up in this situation. we have experienced migration surges in the past, but never of this magnitude, and especially in the midst of a pandemic. secretary mayorkas has said that we're on track to see the highest number of border crossings in 20 years, and the

administration needs to take action now to keep things from getting any worse. as migrants continue to make their way to our southern border in record numbers, law enforcement, local officials, and nongovernmental organizations, notwithstanding their best efforts, are not equipped to manage the influx, certainly not in these numbers. they don't have the facilities, they don't have the policies, the funding, or the resources to manage the crisis in a fair, efficient, and humane way. that needs to change. for folks who are not from a border state or haven't spent much time at the border, it's difficult to understand just how complex the situation is. they may have learned what they think they know about the border from movies or novels or they may have read news articles and assume border communities are dangerous or lawless places. that assumption could not be further from the truth.

but it is true that our border communities are being asked to carry more than their fair share of the weight during this crisis , when the past year has already been challenging enough with the pandemic. like cities across the country, border communities have had to cover a range of expenses created by the pandemic. but unlike those other communities, they now have the added economic struggle created by limits on nonessential border travel. prepandemic folks from mexico could travel across the border to shop, to eat at restaurants and visit family members. these were huge drivers of the economy during our entire border region. but the pause on legitimate nonessential travel by title 42 has created a serious economic strain on these communities, and leaders are struggling to understand the disconnect between the biden administration

's two very different approaches. at a recent roundtable, my friend, congressman henry cuellar from laredo and i hosted recently, someone said i don't understand how you can catch and release the migrants and not let our neighbors across the border come over and spend money in our communities to help bolster our economy. this confluence of crises is a one-two punch for our border communities, and it's unfair they're expected to carry the burden of this crisis that is the federal government's responsibility. this friday my colleague, senator cruz, and i will welcome a number of our colleagues to the rio grande valley where they can hear and see about these challenges firsthand. i welcome any member of the senate or the congress to join me at the border at a time of their choosing. i know i benefited from the

feedback and advice from the is experts on the ground who are dealing with this crisis firsthand, and i'm glad to bring some of my senate colleagues on friday along for a visit at this critical moment. hopefully that will help us to find a way, along with the administration, in a bipartisan way to reduce some of the pull factors that incentivize people to come and navigate our system. you're never going to deal with the fact that people want a better life or fleeing violence. we get that as human beings why beam would -- people would want to leave that. but we also know that the cartels are getting rich off this business model and they certainly incentivize as many people to come and pay their extortionist fees in the process. but both the push factors and

pull factors, and with the biden administration putting a green light on our border and basically saying all comers are welcomed to enter the country is creating an unreasonable expectation of what people are going to encounter as well as overwhelming the capacity of our border patrol and health and human services and the office of refugee relocation to be able to deal with it. and we know the incentives involved in a catch and release system where people are asked to return perhaps months or years for a court date to consider their asylum claim is an invitation for them not to appear and to melt into the great american landscape and, again, continue to incentivize people to come because they know they can beat the system. they certainly can game the system and unfortunately people beat the system creating the situation we find now at the

southern border. madam president, i yield the floor and i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. burr: mr. president -- madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from north carolina. mr. burr: are we in a quorum call. the presiding officer: yes, we are. mr. burr: i ask to vitiate the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. burr: i'm going to support the nomination of mayor marty walsh to be the united states secretary of labor. now why is a guy from north carolina here to encourage my colleagues to vote for the mayor of boston, massachusetts? well, it's quite simple. mayor walsh has the background, the skills, and the awareness for the need of balance in conversations between labor and management. he's been a mayor. he's been a state representative. and he's also been a union leader. the department of labor serves an immensely important role in our economy and in the lives of the american people.

especially in the midst of a pandemic with unemployment at 6.7% and 12.6 million americans unemployed, this is a job that needs filling. but our nation can't have a labor secretary that will ever be accused of being in cahoots with labor or beholden to management. i've made it clear that labor secretary's job is to play a balanced role and confront both when necessary for the protection of the rank and file workers. mayor walsh emphasized during his nomination hearing that he wanted to work with us collaboratively to help the american workers improve and expand opportunities. he respects the importance of job creators and the need for better coordination of numerous job training programs. mayor walsh is committed to making sure commerce and labor work cooperatively. he stated the workers in a

representation election have the right to listen to both sides. mayor walsh agreed to be responsive to your oversight requests and keep us updated on his plans and departmental actions. now, we won't agree on everything. but we should be able to find places that we can agree in a bipartisan way to move forward. i support the nomination of mayor marty walsh, and i look forward to working with him. i encourage my colleagues to support this nomination as well. i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

the presiding officer: under the previous order, all postcloture time has expired. the question is on the nomination. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change his or her vote? if not, the yeas are 68, the nays are 29, 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 actions. mr. schumer: mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to legislative session and be in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: mr. president, i have one request for a committee to meet during today's session of the senate. it has the approval of the majority and minority leaders.

the presiding officer: duly noted. mr. schumer: mr. president, i understand there's a joint resolution at the desk and i ask for its first reading. the presiding officer: the clerk will read the title of the bill for the first time. the clerk: h.j. res. 17, removing the deadline of the ratification of the equal rights amendment. mr. schumer: i now ask for a second reading and in order to place the joint resolution on the calendar under the provisions of rule 14, i object to my own request. the presiding officer: objection having been heard, the joint resolution will be heard for the second time on the next legislative day. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10:00 a.m., tuesday, march 23, following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed moirn -- the morning hour be deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day and morning business be closed. that upon the conclusion of morning business, the senate

proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the nomination of shalanda d. young, to be the deputy director of o.m.b. and that the cloture motion filed ripen at 11:45 a.m.; that all postcloture time expire at 2:15. the senate recess until 2:15 to allow for the weekly caucus meetings. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: for the information of senators, mr. president, we expect to have four roll call votes during tuesday's session of the senate in relation to the young and murthy nominations, if there's no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order following the remarks of the senator from ohio. the presiding officer: without objection. the senator from ohio. mr. portman: i thank the majority leader and i thank the

presiding officer for allowing me to speak. i just returned from the southern border and want to give a brief report and talk about some potential ways forward to deal with what is happening on the mexican border. i went with the secretary of homeland security mayorkas and also with the chair of the committee, my colleague from michigan and with my colleague from west virginia and my colleague from connecticut, who are the chairs and ranking members of the house -- the senate homeland security appropriations committees. so we had a bipartisan group and those of us who were involved on the authorizing side and on the appropriations side. you probably heard that the situation is bad and it is. there's a record numbered of unaccompanied children coming to our border today being let in and ending up in border patrol

detention facilities. yesterday cbs reported that there were 15,900 kids in custody. that's a record. more than 1,000 migrants were apprehended in february alone. that is a 28% crises since january. all the numbers from march look even higher. we won't know the final numbers for a couple of weeks, but the point is it's getting worse, not better. these numbers, are worse than the previous two surges. both the 2019 surge and the 2017 surge. we have yet to reach the predicted peak because that would normally happen in april and may. in fact, the director of homeland security, mr. mayorkas, says he believes this will be

the worst in 20 years for unlawful entry into the united states. this is also a humanitarian crisis. migrants face violence and tough terrain, and predominately from guatemala and honduras. and many are abused by the smugglers that charge them large amounts of money and bring them. unfortunately, this is a crisis that could have been avoided. on day one the biden administration issued five executive orders to overturn trump policies and have since taken more than a half dozen additional actions to dismantle policies from with the previous administration. these included a 100-day pause on all deportations, norg longer using the health care mooj under the u.s. code to turn away unaccompanied children and some families. suspending the construction of

the border fence and technology such as censors and scanners used by the trump administration to help the overworked border administration to patrol key stretches of the border and abandoning the mi grant protocols which required some asylum seekers to remain in mexico rather than wait in the united states. and, of course, proposing an amnesty bill on day one. the administration has every right to do that. but it creates a disincentive to push back on new migrants coming in who are trying to get into the united states before that amnesty might become law. it certainly does unless you make it clear that you don't qualify for amnesty unless you're already here. that is an important message that i hope will be a part of future discussions about any kind of amnesty bill so it

doesn't encourage most people to come. the biden administration took these and other actions that incentivized people to head north but then said, please don't come yet. we're not ready for you. it was no surprise that didn't work. an unprecedented number of children and families came to take advantage of the new policies as i heard on the southern border over the last few days, actions speak louder than words and the actions of the new administration was clear. these abrupt moves to dismantle the immigration policies gave the green light to a lot of people seeking a better life, but it also gave the smugglers and the human trafficking groups in the northern triangle and in mexico, the ability to convince more families and more children to take the dangerous trip north. it gave them a narrative. and, of course, they used it to their full advantage. that has overwhelmed border

patrol and the immigration system in general, unequipped to handle the surge. i heard from border patrol agents how the current -- surge of unaccompanied kids is straining resources and the security of our own border. it was stunning to see people who unlawfully crossed the border during a ride-a-long patrol. people just kept coming. the border patrol told me they were seeing an increase of 150% to 200% of illegal entries in the el paso sector with many escaping into the united states because they have not apprehended them. they told me unaccompanied children and families are being used by the smugglers as a distraction so the smugglers can move illicit substances across the border into our communities. while the border patrol is

processing families, which takes a while, the smugglers moved. there is a report of an increase of 360% in seizures of the deadly opioid fentanyl which is deadlier than heroin. there is no question more of this is coming across the border it is resulting in a surge of overdose threats during the covid-19. in my home state of ohio and around the country it looks like, sadly, we're in for a record year of overdose deaths primarily from fentanyl and it being mixed with other drugs. fentanyl used to come from china directly through the mail system and now it's coming from mexico since we passed legislation here to stop it from coming through our mail system. i had an opportunity to visit facilities where they are holding unaccompanied kids. these children are being kept in tightly packed facilities,

supervised by overworked border patrol agents, law enforcement who should be out on the field. due to a lack of space for children in the department of health and human services facilities, border patrol is having to detain unaccompanied kids for an average of about 137 hours, nearly double the 72-hour limit required by law. i'm concerned about the well-being of these kids, as we all are, because when the system gets overwhelmed, people and especially kids, suffer. and the processing system right now is overdose whemed. it's overcrowded, it's irresponsible, it's a situation you would never want your own children to be in. not only are these children crammed into facilities that are by their own rules and regulations overcrowded, there's no testing for covid-19 in these facilities. current policy is going to result in tens of thousands more children being released to our communities waiting for their

immigration court cases. during previous surges at the border, it overwhelmed our immigration system, h.h.s. stopped doing becerra and many -- background checks. in 2014, h.h.s. placed guatemalan children with criminals who put the children into forced labor on an egg farm in my home state of ohio where they were forced to work in terrible conditions. between 2015 and 2020 i led three bipartisan reports and hearings that found repeated failures by the federal government to ensure the well-being of these vulnerable children once they were handed off to sponsors as well as the fundamental refusal by h.h.s. to refuse they were responsible for the welfare of these kids. we're going to see a lot more pressure to get these kids out

to as many sponsors as possible and, again, i believe we're going to have some of these problems. last week i introduced bipartisan legislation called the responsibility for unaccompanied minors act it will direct the federal government to meet the stringent requirements necessary to ensure children are not abused or exploited by their sponsors, that they show up to their asylum hearings. these are necessary steps to address the current crisis at our border and safeguard these children. by the way, on the debate as to whether to call the chaos at the border a crisis or not, when i was on the border talking to border patrol agents, one of them told me although he believes it is a crisis, that he's fine not calling it a crisis now because he knows it's going to get much worse and he wants to have something to call it then. he wants to see, like all americans, concrete actions and a change of course at the border, much more than having a debate about words.

by the way, we should all sympathize with those migrants who want a better life for their family. i sympathize with them. i'm sure we all do. there are millions of people around the world who would like to come to our country the we have a legal immigration system that accepts about a million people a year and in addition we accept refugees and those who apply for asylum. at the end of the day, these individuals who come to the southern border now are coming to the border based on policy decisions by the biden administration. what we need is a legal orderly and proper system to be sure that people follow the rules. the bottom line is what i saw at the border is unsustainable. and unfortunately, it's going to get worse. we're working against the clock to try to find a way forward. when the biden administration changed the rules, and

dismantled the existing provisions which were keeping people from coming across the border, they could have put their own policies in place to try to deal with what everybody predicted was a surge that was coming. they didn't. more to the point, even if they weren't going to put their own policies in place, they should surely have waited until they had the facilities ready to handle a surge. they didn't. and that's why you see this terrible overcrowding at the border patrol detention facilities that are holding these kids much longer than they should and why you see h.h.s. not having the beds prepared that they should have. by the way, some have said the trump administration dismantled the asylum system. well, because of the rules they have in place, there were very few people coming to apply for asylum but the facility that i saw which was a modern facility built just last year with $48 million of our taxpayer money was built to try to deal with the next surge.

unfortunately, it's not big enough. and again it's overcrowded so you have kids sleeping on the floor, on thin foam mattresses with only a space blanket. none of them have been checked for covid. they're living not 6 feet apart as we're required to do here with social distancing but inches apart and together. so it's one thing to say we're going to change all these policies. it's another thing to say we're not going to put anything in its place or because that's okay, we want -- we're okay to have a surge come, at least be prepared for that surge. and that's not what's happened. i believe there is a path forward for the biden administration and the congress to address this crisis. in the short term. then work on medium and long-term solutions to lower the risk of future surges. here's what i would propose. first, and foremost, the biden administration should recommit to enforcing our immigration laws by providing overwhelmed

border patrol agents and our immigration and customs the help they need to be able to ensure that they can get what they need to be able to enforce the law. that means better pay for our border patrol. it also means better overtime provisions. we've got legislation to do that. it also means ensuring that they have the tools they need to be able to protect our country. that means not stopping construction of the fence which by the way, is almost done. in the el paso sector, i think there's 150 miles of fence totally -- in total, 124 miles is already done. the part that's not done unfortunately is some of the gates. so you have gaps. boarder patrol are very frustrated about i this because they literally have to have people at the gaps. they can't monitor it as they can with the fence because with the fence, it takes people a while to get over the fence.

and with the monitoring devices which are, to me, more important even than the fence itself, they're able to do their job. they're also being told they can't continue the technology so although there's 124 miles of fences, there's much less technology than that and yet they've been stopped from doing that as well. so let's give them what they need to be able to do their job. they're in an impossible situation. i'm not talking about new fence or a new wall but at least for the part that's already been appropriated by congress, let's complete it. let's not leave these gaps. i literally saw the supplies, the construction material on the ground and the border patrol agents told me, these are rank and file border patrol agents, this is bad for morale. we see the stuff right there. if that could be put up to take the place of the temporary fencing that migrants are able to simply push over or to walk through, that would make our jobs much easier. number two, the asylum system

needs to be changed immediately. now with a backlog of 1.2 million asylum seekers, they're waiting several years before their court hearings to find out if they qualify. and during that time, they're living in the united states and often vanishing into the united states. we know from the data that we have -- by the way, the data is not very good on this -- that only about half of them, maybe more or maybe less are even showing up for their court cases. we know this because for about 48% of those who are seeking asylum, there are now removal orders out for them for not showing up for their hearings. so about half of them have removal orders to be removed from the country because they haven't shown up for their hearings. remember, 1.2 million person backlog so it may be three, four, five, six years before they get to their court case. is it any wonder some of these people aren't showing up. finally, at the very end of the process, after you go through

all these add jiewt indication -- adjudication, guess what the percent would be for someone to achieve asylum status? only 15%, 15%, have a successful claim. so people are being told go into the country and await your court case, 1.2 million people are doing that. it takes several years for that to happen. at the end of the day only 15% are getting asylum. and yet again, many are not being removed, even though there's a removal order out on them because the immigration system is overwhelmed. so they're focusing on those who have a criminal record which i understand. but this means that if you have a criminal record and you're in the united states, you know that it's unlikely you actually will be removed even if there's a removal order for you. so one policy change would be to simply resume a practice that was started in the last

administration as a pilot and ended in november of 2020. it's called the prompt asylum claim review process. an efficient and timely determination of who's eligible for asylum and who's not would really help. it would enable us to start reducing the number of migrants being held in custody and it would also deter migrants who do not have a valid claim. now, you might say well why not start with the 1.2 million backlog? that would be great and we should do that as well. we need more immigration junls but we need more -- judges but we need more lawyers involved on the process on both sides those representing the claim and the government. that would be good. but in the meantime the rapid ajudications on the border with due process would have the effect of deterring the next migrant. think about it. if you're just dealing with the last person on the list, the

person that comes in most recently, it's more of a deterrent thatten if you're dealing with the -- than if you're dealing with the person who came in five years ago. but if you make your claim, go out to one of the communities, it will be five years before my court case comes up. perhaps it will be amnesty during that period or perhaps i'll just stay. if you come total border and seek amnesty and you seek asylum, you -- your claim will be adjudicated immediately. and you may receive asylum or you may not. again, 15% is the number now. that's the best number we have. that's from 2019. we don't have the numbers from 2020 yet but most think that's about what it will be. so i think this is a good system. i don't know why it was ended and the trump administration back in november, it shouldn't have been. i hope the new administration will take it up. as part of this, my colleagues from texas and arizona, senator cornyn and senator sinema, have suggested we stand up multiple

regional processing centers to rapidly and fairly conduct asylum cases in one location. i support that. i think this idea is consistent with what i'm talking about to discourage illegal immigration and to ensure we have a quick decision with regard to asylum. have all the federal agencies together. border patrol, customs and border protection, i.c.e., the justice department, everybody together in one place. h.h.s. and quickly make these decisions so that people aren't held for a long period of time and so they can have the decision made. i think it's worth the funding because it will be expensive. it will be expensive. to hire the new immigration judges, to have the system set up, but it's well worth it in my view. third, to deal with the asylum process, the biden administration should look at the new migrant protection protocol or remain in mexico policy. remain in mexico allowed us to

keep our detention center populations down in the united states and asylum seekers close to the immigration courts while officials sorted out the claims. getting rid of the policy only served to overcrowd our temporary housing and sent a lot more people into the interior awaiting a hearing by an immigration judge. there are concerns about remain in mexico in terms of the conditions at some of the camps in mexico. and although nongovernmental organizations play a substantial role, they're already prapt for those who are still in that -- perhaps for those who are still in that process and there are probably 45,000 people who are still in that process, there are initially -- or maybe less but initially there were about 75,000 people. a lot of people had just gone home because they don't want to remain in mexico for the asylum claim. they'd rather go back to their home in the northern triangle countries, el salvador, but those who are there perhaps there should be more oversight in those camps and more funding

providing to ensure that those conditions are better. but with the biden administration doing now is saying we're going to stop the program and they're bringing people over the border. i saw this at the processing center. about 350 or 400 people a day are leaving the remain in mexico, the migrant protection protocol program and coming into the united states. those people are given the ability to come into the interior so they're coming into communities in the united states. one thing you would hope that they would get would be a notice as they go through the processing that says here's your court date. you have to show up at this court date. what we've learned in the last several days and what i learned down at the border is they're not being given those court dates. they're given a piece of paper that has 24 i.c.e. offices in the major metropolitan areas of america and they're told we don't know where you're going to end up. we don't know where you're going. you're welcome to the united

states but wherever you're going, please check into the i.c.e. office in your region. so my hope is we can at least get a system together where we don't again dismantle a program until we have something in its place and ensure people are going to their courts -- their court dates to been to have the asylum -- to be able to have the asylum claim dealt with. so on my trip to the border, i asked a reporter to come with me to the border wall. because i believe it's important that the public know what's going on. i was surprised to learn that was the first time this reporter or other reporters had been able to kind of see what was going on for quite a while. they haven't been able to come into any of the detention facilities, including the processing center i talked about earlier where the kids are crammed into -- a hundred kids crammed into one room. i think the press should be able to see that because i think that will provide more transparency for all of us. my constituents don't know what's going on at the border in part because the media haven't

had that level of access. so i know we have to protect the confidentiality of individual migrants and i get that. i think that should be done, but i think it can be done but also by letting the media have that access to be able to have more transparency about the realities of what's going on along the border. so fourth, i think the biden administration should invest in finishing the work on the fence as i said, but they should also work to enact something that's even more important than a fence. and that is to relieve the magnet. this is going to involve congress. we did pass the immigration bill in this body with a strong provision called e-verify several years ago. it basically says that for employers, there will be a sanction if you hire somebody who is not legal. and the difference with e-verify and some of the earlier programs that attempted to do that

unsuccessfully is that e-verify let's us use the new technologies we now have to ensure the fraudulent documents that are often used can be determined to be fraudulent. in other words, you can use technology, facial recognition and so on to ensure that the employer knows for sure whether the person is legal or not. again, this requires some federal funding. because some of that software for small businesses in particular may be expensive. but to have an e-verify program that says you mandatorily -- by the way, it's not mandatory right now either so it does not have the technology. it's not mandatory. you have to make it mandatory and to say if you want to hire somebody, you've got to run them through the system. make it as easy as possible. use the technology. you know, in talking to the migrants i met and my colleagues have spoken to many people who have come to this country and i'm sure they have the same experience, when i asked why they're coming here, they all had the same answer basically with slight variations, which is

-- as one guy told me from guatemala, he can make ten times as much money here. he cares about his family and their future. the economy is much better here. that's because he knows he can get a job probably with a document, either a driver's license or social security card. it will be fraudulent but he can buy it for 25 bucks. so we need a system here to stop the magnet, right? don't put the border patrol and all those involved in immigration in such an impossible position that we have a wide-open system here where anybody can come and work. let's do e-verify. that's more important to me than any other enforcement tool that we have. federal reserve economists found that states that mandate the use of ye-verify reduce the number of likely unauthorized immigrants that stay in that state. of course it does. sixth, -- and this is the final

one -- the biden administration should work with our central american partners, including the governments of mexico, guatemala, honduras, and el salvador, to discourage unlawful migration. they can do that by incentivizing migrants to apply for asylum in their countries of origin. some have said this should be mandatory. to me, that seems to make sense. but maybe there is a reason it shouldn't be mandatory, but it certainly should be encouraged, and these countries should certainly offer this. we should provide more aid to the countries of central america because there is a push factor. everybody i have talked about so far is the pull factors, bringing them in. but if we do that, that aid ought to be conditioned on them helping us to provide people the ability to seek asylum in their own country. and where they have such a fear of persecution that they can't do it in their own country, they should be able to do it in a third country. there was a program started in the trump administration, never really got off the ground, it was called safe third country. the program with guatemala was

starting to work. honduras and he el salvador had signed up but it hadn't started to work yet. mexico didn't provide it. but what it says basically is if you cross through a third country, you have to seek asylum in that third country. and specifically with guatemala, as you know, you have to go through guatemala coming from el salvador or ecuador or elsewhere, why not have the asylum claims done there? again, due process, yes, but don't make people make this long and treacherous journey up to the southern border of the united states. don't make them go through this process of the detention facilities and so on. have them seek asylum in their own countries or in other countries. that to me seems like it makes a lot of sense. the biden administration suspended the safe third country program on february 6 shortly after the inauguration. one program that they would like to restart that i think makes sense is called the central american minor program. they're going to restart that

program now, starting in march. this is a program where during the obama administration if you had a family member, a parent -- it had to be a parent or a guardian in the united states legally, then you could come through this program called c.a.m., central american minors program. i'm glad they have restarted that program. that makes sense. i will tell you over five years, only 3,500 kids were processed in that program. again, your parent has to be in the united states legally. 3,500 kids are coming across our border every nine days right now. so the program is not going to solve all our problems, but it will help, and that's a good idea. we need to take a hard look at all of this. all these pull factors we talked about, certainly the push factors. i will say the biden administration has proposed $4 billion to go to these three countries, guatemala, el salvador, honduras. as a congress, we have appropriated and $3.6 billion has been spent in the last five

years in these three countries. so we have done almost that much in the last five years. and yet, because of the corruption, because of the lack of transparency, because of a lack of rule of law, the money has not been as effectively spent as it should be. so we have to be sure that the money is conditioned upon reforms to actually improve the lives of the individuals in those countries despite the corruption, we need to cut through that and say if you take this money, you have got to commit to the reforms. and second, again, it should be contingent upon helping with our asylum system, to be sure that we can deal with this surge that we're now facing. if the biden administration takes these six recommended actions i have laid out today, i believe we would move towards bringing a quicker end to this crisis on the border, and we would be able to secure our southern border with regard to the drugs that are coming over and other contraband, and be able to say that we together worked on this. i know this is a time where everybody is in their corners,

republicans and democrats, and it's impossible, it seems like, to make progress. but i think these are pretty sensible ideas. and the alternative is a bad one, that this is going to get worse. you will have more and more kids in detention centers. you will have more and more families released to communities in the united states where they don't come forward for their hearings. it's something that discourages people about our immigration system. it doesn't seem to work. it's certainly not working on the border today. so my hope is that these ideas or others -- maybe others in this chamber have better ideas, but hopefully they can be bipartisan. we can get some of this stuff done and actually deal with the crisis we all know exists and we have a responsibility to face. i yield back my time. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senate stands adjourned until stands adjourned until

as a public service. michael tonight, on the communicator's, california democratic congressman jerry magner he talks about legislation on data privacy and social media regulations. >> the american people feel like their privacy has been invaded. they are not wrong about that.

not just the big tech companies, but a lot of people have access to your data. that means they know what sort of activities you do when you are not working. where you might frequent. what kind of things you buy at the stores. that's a lot of very private information that should not be at the hands of whoever wants to buy it. i think that is the reason we need to look at privacy. >> watch the communicators tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on cspan2. subject cyber security officials on the fbi and other agencies testified recently about the solar winds attack and what is being done to protect federal cyber infrastructure. watch the senate homeland security hearing tonight beginning at 8:00 p.m. eastern here on cspan2. >> joining us next is president for americans for tax reform. here with us to