mr. tillis: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from north carolina. mr. tillis: thank you, mr. president. i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of house con. res. 102, which was received from the house. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: house on current resolution 102, authorizing the use of emancipation hall to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of frederick douglass. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding? without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. tillis: i ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. tillis: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate recess until 12:0001:00 a.m., on -- 12:0001:00 a.m. on friday february 9. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. under the previous order, the senate stands

mr. tillis: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from north carolina. mr. tillis: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that not withstanding rule 22 at 9:30 p.m. the senate vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to concur in the house amendment to the senate amendment to h.r. 1892 with further amendment. further, that if cloture is invoked, all postcloture time be yielded back and the senate vote on the motion to concur. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. paul: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from kentucky. mr. paul: reserving the right to object, i think it's interesting as we followed the debate this evening and people watching at home may be interested because it kind of turns on inside baseball things and you're not sure what to know or believe. one side says they're ready to vote and the other side says we're ready to vote. that's the way it's kind of been except for one side wants to vote only on what they want to vote on and they have agreed to beforehand. the other side wants an open debate where we would have amendme

mr. tillis: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. tillis: mr. president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk should call the roll. quorum call: quorum call: quorum call: quorum call: mr. mcconnell: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: i ask consent that further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: well, mr. president, i think it's safe to say it's been a disappointing week. i kept my commitment and set aside the entire week for a broad, productive debate over daca, border security, and other important immigration issues. everyone, my friend, the democratic leader, the assistant democratic leader, the congressional hispanic caucus, everyone agrees that i held up my end of the bargain. back in december

mr. tillis: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate recess until 12:0001:00 a.m., on -- 12:0001:00 a.m. on friday february 9. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. under the previous order, the under the previous order, the has recessed will be back at 12 oh 1:00 eastern time. they are was expected to turn to start a new legislative day. at approximately 1:00 a.m. the senators will vote on moving forward the continuing resolution and to your budget agreement. while we wait for the senate to turn it will take a look at some of the debate from earlier this evening starting with leaders mitch mcconnell and chuck schumer. for to call for the vote in senator rand paul objected. president. >> majority leader. >> i asked consent toce further proceedings on the form call be dispensed without objection. >> madam president, here we are at a quarter to 6:00 and funding for the government expires in just a few hours. the bipartisan agreement forqu s and our troops at the le

mr. tillis: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from north carolina. mr. tillis: thank you, madam president. i want to thank my friend and colleague, the senior senator from north carolina, and his words about reverend billy graham. i will only add a few comments. mine at one level are very personal. i was telling someone just yesterday that i have two very distinct memories of times with my father. one of them was watching walter cronkite and the other one was watching billy graham. i was talking to my morale earlier this week and she -- it to my mother earlier this week and she talked about how much she liked billy graham. i remember sitting on the floor with the console on watching him preach the word of tkpwotd. when you lose somebody precious like billy graham, it is a very sad time. but in his case, america's pastor brought so much joy to everyone's lives that he it really is a celebration. earlier senator burr and i got an opportunity to offer our condolences to the graham family. what was remarkable in the faces of every one of them was maybe a hint

mr. tillis: thank you, mr. president. in a moment i'm going to talk about the immigration debate that we're going to have here and probably before i do that though, i want to recognize that this is valentine's day. i happen to be several hundred miles away from my sweetheart, but i want to wish my wife, mr. president, a happy valentine's day. i made her a little card. i don't think anybody can fire me, and i want my wife to know i love her and i wish i was with her. now i want to talk about immigration reform. we heard a discussion, and sometimes i think i teleport from this chamber to the kennedy center because there's more theatrics going on here than you can find there on nip given day. -- there on nip given day. let me give you an example. the democrat made a point of saying that we came up with this term. people on the other side of the aisle have referenced chain migration in bills they proposed. now let's talk about the president's framework. i heard -- i was presiding just before i got up here and i heard the word

visit clearly coincides with so many escalating tensions across the region the in-tray very full mr tillis. well yes no doubt just a few days ago we saw a very serious confrontation between syria israel and iran and lebanon and israel are facing a dispute over its maritime border is eleven on wants to drill for oil and gas and israel is saying well some of the areas that you have tendered to the international consortium well they belong to us so heightening tensions between israel and lebanon what we understand is that the u.s. is trying to mediate in this dispute the u.s. envoy was in lebanon a few days ago but the lebanese are not happy with the american proposal what we understand is that america wants seven on to give up three hundred square kilometers of its waters and what happened this morning at the presidential palace really was a message from lebanon to washington the secretary of state arrived at the presidential palace and he was not greeted by anyone he waited a few minutes before the foreign minister showed up ahead of his meeting with the president now sources at the palace

mr. tillis: thank you, mr. president. i want to personally thank you for the work you've done to come up with what i believe is the right framework for fulfilling the problem to solve, create a viable solution for the daca population and to deal with the other things that are critically important as we take this first major step in immigration reform after decades of failure. senator lankford, who will be speaking after me, and i last year decided that we really wanted to get a discussion around a legal path to citizenship for a significant population of the illegally present, or a significant portion of the population of the illegally present. the deferred action program that was implemented by president obama is what we used as a kind of a baseline for determining how we can actually define that population and set terms so that we could ultimately accept them into this country and they could ultimately get citizenship. the proposal that we've outlined today, i should also thank senator grassley for his leadership -- cha

tillis spoke about the life and legacy of reverend graham. he is laid in honor at the u.s. capitol today and tomorrow. >> mr. president, i rise with my colleagues from north carolina and my colleagues in the senate and the american people today to honor the life of the north carolinian tillie graham, a man who has reached millions around the globe. reverend graham grave marker will be described this way, preacher of the gospel of the lord jesus christ. as the son of a minister myself, i am uniquely aware of the sacrifices and the responsibility that come with this calling and indeed this is a calling that he fulfilled honorably andri nobly, bringing hope and comfort around the globe. roots on a north carolina dairy farm. he committed his life to jesus christ at the age of 15 and lived the commitment with face for the next 84 years. he was married for 64 years to ruth bell graham. he was a father of three daughters, two sons and now 19 grandchildren. as his casket was laid in honor in the rotunda, i realized that one of those grandchildren is a graduate of west point, one of my nominees soon to be lieutenant c

tillis. >> thank you, mr. chairman. secretary, thank you for being here. i want to go back there we are ten years past financial crisis. we now have a bipartisan bill that is intended to provide regulatory relief for community banks and regional banks. can you tell me a little bit about why you think that's important and what benefits are ultimately accrued to businesses and customers to those banks? >> sure. first of all i believe that to be at the banking assets are held in the large banks, and one of the waste to distribute risk is to allow the smaller banks to continue to grow effectively and not have the burden to buy unnecessary regulations. so i think this accomplishes more diversification in banking and i also think that lending is very important in terms to growing the economy. and in many cases a local bank, the community bank and regional bank as those relationships. they know how to land and want to encourage them. >> do you think that people wanting to start up a bank, we've got a very unhealthy, i think, situation in the banking ecosystem tod

tillis joins us now. he says this is the only plan that will become law. welcome, mr. senator.ms balanced, the "dreamers" get in and we'll get border security. will you get any democrat support for it? >> we'll move through the process this week. we'll take up amendments. we have the president's support. we have his support to the got house to embrace a bill that addresses the four pillars. one thing i will say, we are ending the visa lottery but we're not ending the granting of green cards of people to draw down the backlog. when you start peeling back the provisions of the president's proposed bill, it is balanced, it makes a lot of sense ends the crisis for the daca population that is looking ad a deadline. senator mcconnell says he supports the trump plan that is the plan most likely to get passed. what is the difference between the trump plan and your plan? >> our plan really embraces the president's four pillars. when we all met in the white house and agreed on bipartisan basis we should pull together a policy, a well-rounded policy that covers the four pillars we looked

mr. tillis: thank you, mr. president. i don't believe the gentleman from kentucky -- he did object to the motion? well, mr. president, thank you. just one brief comment. thank you for presiding. i was supposed to be up there 30 minutes ago, and i will be up there in a couple of minutes. i also want to take a moment to talk about the great opportunity we have next week to pass immigration reform. the great opportunity that we have to fulfill the promise to the daca population of some 1.8 million that the president has proposed we provide a path to citizenship. it's a proposal that has $25 billion allocated over ten years, with maybe $2.5 billion to $5 billion appropriated in the bill that we will take up or various amendments that we will take up next week. the first pillar is daca. we have satisfied that, and i believe we have it pretty close to done. on border security, we're done. because the president himself has said it's not a monolithic wall over 2,300 miles. it's not even a wall over half that territory. it's about

mr. tillis: thank you, mr. president. i don't believe the gentleman from kentucky -- he did object to the motion? well, mr. president, thank you. just one brief comment. thank you for presiding. i was supposed to be up there 30 minutes ago, and i will be up there in a couple of minutes. i also want to take a moment to talk about the great opportunity we have next week to pass immigration reform. the great opportunity that we have to fulfill the promise to the daca population of some 1.8 million that the president has proposed we provide a path to citizenship. it's a proposal that has $25 billion allocated over ten years, with maybe $2.5 billion to $5 billion appropriated in the bill that we will take up or various amendments that we will take up next week. the first pillar is daca. we have satisfied that, and i believe we have it pretty close to done. on border security, we're done. because the president himself has said it's not a monolithic wall over 2,300 miles. it's not even a wall over half that territory. it's about