Richard Blumenthal

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. Res. 531 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I am honored to be joined with my distinguished friend and extraordinary colleague Senator Harkin of Iowa to support continued funding of the Prevention and Public Health Fund. He has been a leader in this area, so I am particularly privileged to stand with him on behalf of a fund that is absolutely necessary to address prevention of serious and chronic diseases. It is fiscally and morally and absolutely essential that we approach health care in this way. I am going to ask for permission to continue to speak. I am not sure what the allotted time is. If there is no objection, I ask unanimous consent for the time through 5 o'clock for myself, Senator Harkin, and others who may join us in this colloquy.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. I want, again, to thank my great friend, Senator Harkin, for the legacy of public health advocacy that he will leave for all of us. I pledge to him that I will carry on, among many others, I am sure, that legacy and advocacy. The Senator mentioned that it is easy to be unhealthy and harder to be healthy. Part of the reason is lack of awareness and education, and perhaps, in some instances, even a lack of income and wherewithal. Just let me pose the question to him of whether that impression is true.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. I ask unanimous consent for 1 additional minute.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. These families are not flight risks and they are not dangerous. We owe it to them to do better. I am proud of standing with my colleagues on calling on the President to keep families together, target resources effectively, and run an immigration system that reflects America's values and builds a stronger future. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I am grateful for the strong and eloquent words that were said by my colleague Senator Boxer. I am grateful to so many of my colleagues on this side of the aisle for supporting the President as he considers Executive action that would essentially enforce the law on immigration more rationally and effectively, which is what prosecutorial discretion means. As a former U.S. attorney as well as the State attorney general in my own State for 20 years, I know about prosecutorial discretion. I know that in exercising his discretion, the President is aware that there is simply no way every undocumented person in the United States of America can be deported tomorrow, let alone this year--probably ever. There are 11.5 million undocumented people who live in the shadows, and the question is, How do we use the resources of the Federal Government most rationally and effectively to serve the public interest and uphold the rule of law? The question is, essentially, How should law enforcement use its resources? That question arises every day in the United States when there is a Federal or State prosecution. It arises every day on our borders when the agents of our Federal administrative law enforcement apparatus make decisions about law enforcement. As I have learned from my experience in law enforcement, it best serves citizens when it uses those resources efficiently, effectively, and humanely in a concerted effort to address a direct threat to public safety. Law enforcement has a job to do, and it can't do everything all the time everywhere. Decisions are necessary in the real world in practical circumstances to preserve public order and protect public safety, and that is what the President is doing by issuing an Executive order which, in effect, directs Federal resources to deport undocumented immigrants who represent a threat to this country by virtue of their criminal activity or criminal background or other circumstances that justify that rational and selective approach to law enforcement. This approach is hardly novel, and it is highly unoriginal. In fact, President Obama's authority to direct how Federal immigration resources will be marshaled in the service of protecting public safety is very much in the tradition and history of this office. Every President since Dwight Eisenhower, whether Democratic or Republican, has done exactly what President Obama is doing in this Executive order. In 1990 President George H.W. Bush took Executive action to defer removal and grant work permits to roughly 1.5 million undocumented individuals--nearly half the undocumented population at the time. Think about that for a moment. Out of 3 million people, President Bush decided that 1.5 million of them should, in effect, not be prosecuted. He set law enforcement priorities. That was his job, and that is President Obama's job. Many of us--and I am very much in this camp--would prefer to address this situation through legislation. I worked hard, along with the distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee and Members on both sides of the aisle of the Judiciary Committee and of this body, to approve legislation. It was resolved and written up after several days of detailed and painstaking markup. I was told that is the way legislation used to be routinely done in this body--Members trading ideas, exchanging views and perspectives, drilling down on facts, and arriving at a bipartisan solution that eventually was approved by 68 Members of this body from both sides of the aisle. That is a matter of history. My hope was and still is that we have legislation along the lines of what was approved by the Senate. That legislation was far from perfect. In my view, it was way short of the ideal immigration reform I would favor, but the good cannot be the enemy of the perfect and the perfect cannot be the enemy of the good. What we need now is a practical approach to this problem through legislation. The House refused to take up the Senate bill. It didn't even consider it and never voted on it. The President has a responsibility, and his job is to take actions that are within his legal authority to address a system that is broken and takes a toll on human lives that is intolerable. It threatens to divide families, to put people out of work--not just undocumented immigrants out of work but citizens of this country because they work for businesses that are owned and operated by those immigrants who might be deported. I have seen that firsthand in Connecticut, and I know it is true around the country. This measure is not only good for human lives, it is good for our economy. It is essential to make sure our immigration system--a broken, failed system--is at least prepared in the short term while we work toward legislation that is absolutely necessary to comprehensively revise and reform that system. Every day that the Federal Government fails to act on immigration reform, people in this country are forced to live in fear and the anxiety and apprehension that children suffer when they are afraid they will lose their parents and siblings. Connecticut citizens live in fear of losing their neighbors and their employers, their congregates in church, and members of their immediate and extended families. Millions of immigrants who have lived in this country for years--5 or 10 years or longer--and are working hard, paying taxes, abiding by the law, and contributing and giving back to their communities are forced to live in fear that they will have to leave everything they have worked so hard to build and everything that means so much to them--their families, their homes, and the country they have come to love. They appreciate the freedoms of this country and the opportunities it offers in ways we routinely take for granted. For them, this country is a beacon of hope and opportunity which they appreciate so deeply and fervently that they are willing to lay down their lives for it and, in fact, sometimes do as members of our armed services. The lack of action on immigration reform hurts everyone. When businesses employ workers under the table, our economy and our Nation are deprived of their taxes. They are often ducking regulations and taxes, which in turn drives down wages for every working American. Immigrants should be able to come out of the shadows not just for their sake but for the Nation's sake. They are a resource that can be used so much more fully to the benefit of our Nation. When they come out of the shadows, they should be forced to undergo background checks, obtain work permits and proof that they are abiding by the law. That is necessary to show they are not a threat to public safety. When immigrants live in fear, law enforcement can't know who lives in the communities they police. Immigrants who live in fear are simply not going to be as willing to report individuals living near them and represent a real threat to public safety because they feel uncomfortable reporting crimes and cooperating with authority when they feel they may then be the object of enforcement. Getting more people who are already living in this country into the system will allow law enforcement to go after the truly bad actors--serious criminals, serious national security threats, and people who seriously should not be in this country. As the American people wait for legislative action and wait for the House to act on the Senate bill and perhaps wait on the Senate to act again, President Obama has both the authority and the moral responsibility to institute these reforms. These reforms are crucial. He has the authority under law to exercise his discretion. He has the moral responsibility to fix this broken system as long and as well as he can using that responsibility. I am encouraged to hear that the President intends to focus his authority on serious criminals, not law-abiding individuals. At a minimum, my hope is that he will ease the minds of children and put to rest the anxiety children feel when they fear they may lose their parents. Whether they are DREAMers or U.S. citizens, they should be spared that apprehension and anxiety that interferes with everything they do in school or work. My hope is that he will exercise that authority on behalf of the parents of those children--U.S. citizens, permanent residents, and DREAMers. My hope is that he will ease some of the arbitrary restrictions that prevent the DOCA program from achieving its full purpose--restrictions like the cutoff age. As he acts to exercise his prosecutorial discretion with respect to deportation, he should also consider his administration's policies with respect to detention. As I wrote to the President earlier this year, along with my colleague and friend Chairman Leahy, I believe the administration's decision to dramatically expand the detention of whole families, many of whom have shown a credible fear of being returned to dangerous situations in their home countries, is counterproductive and harmful. Migrants must be given an adequate opportunity to show they have a valid claim as refugees. The policy of indiscriminately holding families in enormous, privately run facilities leads to inhumane living conditions. Violence against women and children and simply inefficient use of resources are more the rule than the exception. Warehousing young children in complexes that are little more than jails is deeply incompatible with our national values and it serves none of the goals of an effective immigration system. Tomorrow marks the 25th anniversary of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. Faith leaders and community members from around the country will be doing vigils and telling the stories of children and mothers who are spending this holiday season behind bars. Yes, in the greatest country in the history of the world, children and their moms will be spending Thanksgiving behind bars.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. I ask unanimous consent all time be yielded back.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in recess subject to the call of the Chair.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I wish to begin by thanking our very esteemed colleague, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Leahy, for his leadership on this issue and my colleagues whom he has named who have helped in drafting and crafting this very important piece of legislation. I also wish to thank my friends and colleagues across the aisle, such as the Senator from Utah, who have supported and helped to make clear that this bill advances the cause of safeguarding our Nation without in any way detracting from its essential operational intelligence capabilities. In fact, National Intelligence Director Clapper said: The bill will retain the essential operational capabilities of the existing bulk telephone metadata program while eliminating bulk collection. This bill increases trust and confidence and credibility of our intelligence system. It advances that trust and confidence in the capability of government surveillance to do its job but at the same time protect our vital privacy interests. It advances the cause of constitutional liberty and the appearance and perception of trust in that system. It does so by making the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court look and function like the courts we are accustomed to seeing issue search warrants in the criminal process and protect essential liberties. It does it by strengthening and, in fact, installing an adversarial process so that more than just the government's version of the facts and law are presented to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. It does it by providing for appellate review, just as we have in normal civilian court. It does it by increasing the transparency and accountability of the FISA Court system. Our Founders would have been astonished and appalled to learn that we permit warrants to be issued by a court that is operating in secret, issuing secret opinions, and making secret law much like the Star Chamber did, and that is why this reform is so profoundly and historically important--because we made the FISA Court one that we can more aptly and abundantly trust and one that will have credibility and confidence. I support this bill. I thank my colleagues for showing that we can work together in a bipartisan way to safeguard the essential rights of Americans at the same time we protect and preserve our national security. I thank the Presiding Officer.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I wish to remember Jack Chatfield, a longtime resident of Hartford, CT, who passed away on September 18, 2014. Although Jack was not well known outside Connecticut, he helped create a better history for our Nation. Born in Baltimore, MD, in 1942, he first came to Connecticut to attend Trinity College. Later, he returned to teach, first at the Watkinson School and then at Trinity. Jack Chatfield was an incomparable individual who lived a full life. He interrupted his undergraduate career at Trinity in 1962 to volunteer with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, SNCC. An article in the New York Times detailed how southern sheriffs had beaten his college roommate Ralph Allen, and without looking back Jack went down to join him in rural southwest Georgia. At the time, SNCC workers faced great personal danger, both from local law enforcement and from vigilantes known as ``nightriders.'' Immediately after arriving, Jack was wounded by shotgun blasts fired by nightriders while he was eating dinner in the house where he was staying. Despite this, Jack's spirit never wavered, and he kept working to register African Americans to vote. He later said that it was during this time that he became ``a true student of American history.'' Jack returned to Trinity in the fall of 1963 and graduated in 1965. He went on to earn his master's and doctorate from Columbia University. During this time, he turned his attention to teaching, which he found to be his true calling. He returned to Trinity in 1987. In the classroom, Jack absolutely excelled. He had an exceptional ability to teach history as if it were happening today. He drew his students in, immersing them in history texts that would make them think and question, building knowledge and skills that they would never forget. His love of the subject was equaled by his unwavering dedication to his students. Whether they were interested or not, brilliant or not, Jack wanted to reach them all. He was honored for his ability with Trinity's Hughes Teaching Prize for junior faculty in 1993 and its Brownell Prize for senior faculty in 2002. Jack was equally concerned with how his students were faring outside the classroom, and he saw part of his job as facilitating their moral development and understanding of life. With another colleague, he started what became known as the ``Friday Table.'' This informal gathering of students and faculty for Friday lunch became a tradition that endured for over 15 years. Around the table, the participants would talk about history and politics, life at Trinity, and other issues of importance. For many of the students who were fortunate enough to participate, this remains one of their most cherished memories. The world is a little bit emptier today without Jack Chatfield, but his spirit and vision live on. Robert Kennedy once remarked that our actions could send out ripples of hope and that those ripples together can make a significant difference. Everyone who knew Jack Chatfield came away a little better for the experience, and each of these people are one of his ripples of hope. Whether consciously or unconsciously, they will continue to carry on his vision, maintaining his legacy and his spirit for many years to come.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, recently the Nation has been shocked and horrified by a video showing Ray Rice, a professional football player, knocking out his then fiancee who is now his wife, Janay Rice, and dragging her like a sack of potatoes out of an elevator as it almost closed on her. The Nation was shocked by the callous indifference and disregard for the issue of domestic violence not only by Ray Rice but by the NFL itself, which has fumbled and failed in its reaction from the very beginning. Indeed, I wrote to the NFL asking for stronger measures after it suspended Ray Rice for a mere two games. Since then it has received the now infamous and notorious video, and he has been suspended indefinitely. Ray Rice is only 1 of 85 players since the year 2000 who has been charged or cited for domestic violence, and many more were arrested for sexual assault, drunk driving, and other crimes. This poster shows how the league could field an entire lineup of players who have been arrested for domestic violence and who remain active in the NFL. There are others who are not shown here. Ray Rice is on the field, though he may be suspended indefinitely. These incidents, and literally thousands of others, are the ugly, brutal, bloody face of domestic violence in this Nation. Not only is it bigger and broader and more painful and serious than Ray and Janay Rice, it affects our entire society. Its victims are throughout the country, and what they need most desperately are more services to bolster their courage and strength to come forward and break the cycle. I know domestic violence is an issue in Connecticut because I worked to fight child abuse and neglect and related kinds of domestic violence when I served as attorney general. Not only have I worked in courts but also in schools to speak to young men and women. I have worked with shelters such as Interval House, the largest shelter in Connecticut, which helped to form an organization called Men Make a Difference, Men Against Domestic Violence, which is composed of men as role models. Coaches, former athletes, successful businesspeople, law enforcement types, and broadcasters provide role models and take a stand and speak out against this scourge. I know the brutal and terrible toll taken by domestic violence in Connecticut and in this country. The economic consequences run into the billions and the searing pain, savage emotional harm, and physical wounds are incalculable. The tentacles of domestic violence reach into every aspect of American life--homes, workplaces, hospitals, and athletic fields. In Connecticut, the demand for victim support services has steadily increased over the years, and in Connecticut and around the country the need for services has spiked as a result of the Ray Rice video because more women and men have gained the courage and strength to come forward as a result of the national conversation that video has spurred. As I have continued my work in Congress as a Member of the Senate, I have been deeply troubled, in fact, outraged on occasion, that we authorized barely a pittance of what is necessary to deal with that problem and support those services that are so vital to providing counseling, support, and advocacy. Just in the past couple of days, I have learned that 30 percent of calls to the National Domestic Violence Hotline go unanswered. Congress bears a majority of the responsibility for this lack of resources. There are heroes in this fight against domestic violence. Some of the advocates, service providers, and people such as Karen Jarmoc, CEO of the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and Kim Gandy, president and CEO of the National Network to End Domestic Violence, and most important, the survivors and victims who have come forward and are telling their stories and speaking truth to the power and brutality they faced and confronted and conquered. In fact, one of the challenges on this issue has always been the secrecy that surrounds it. The video of Ray Rice assaulting and knocking out his wife is the exception that proves the rule. It is the exception because most instances of domestic violence occur behind closed doors in secrecy and often at night and they go unrecorded because in most instances of domestic violence, women are disbelieved, embarrassed, shamed, and stigmatized when they come forward. The Ray Rice video is the exception that proves the rule. It is the exception of this brutality being shown, but it is the rule that the response is almost always slow and inadequate. Even after Ray Rice was indicted for third-degree assault, Janay virtually apologized for her role in a stage-managed press conference orchestrated by the team--the Ravens--for whom Ray Rice played. Only after the second video was circulated did the league even approach real action. The prosecutor in this instance said he would not treat Ray Rice more leniently or harshly simply because of his celebrity, which is understandable. The routine in most courts in America is failure to treat domestic violence as seriously and severely as the crime it is and provide the punishment it deserves. The Ray Rice case was routine and it was done routinely, but that doesn't make it right. So the courts bear a measure of responsibility, along with the Congress. The NFL is not alone here, but the NFL has a special position of trust. It is one of the most massively influential organizations in America. It employs players who have a massive impact on the attitudes and feelings of young men and women--in fact, Americans of all ages. The NFL has a position of public trust because of its prominence and power, but it also has a position of public trust because of the special benefits it is accorded under the law. And it is like the NBA, the MLB, and the NHL, which all receive tremendous assistance in putting their brands and their messages before the American people. So it is our responsibility to call on these leagues to ensure that their messages which they can spread so widely because of the benefits they are accorded under our law--to ensure and require them to keep faith with their public trust and public obligation. The public assistance these leagues receive take a number of very exceptional forms: tax benefits, public subsidies, and local assistance. But chief among them is the antitrust exemption enjoyed by the four major sports leagues. Although large corporations and similar organizations that have the potential to dominate a particular marketplace are generally prevented from coordinating their activities under our antitrust laws, Congress permits this kind of coordination by professional sports teams, particularly in the area of pooling their broadcast rights and television contracts--the very means that enable them to spread their message and create that public image. Teams in smaller media markets are able to remain competitive with their larger counterparts because of those benefits and the fact that the governing national leagues can evenly distribute resources--again, through coordination, agreements, combinations that would violate the law for any other corporation. This exemption was the product of significant debate and analysis in Congress and around the country when it was granted. It was first established in 1961, and the Judiciary Committee noted even then that it was not intended to be absolute and that it was not to be used for unfair competition and that there was a public trust and obligation. In 1976 the House of Representatives convened what it called a ``Select Committee on Professional Sports'' which prepared detailed reports on ``the large number of off-the-field problems that affected all four of the professional sports,'' including ``both violence that involves participants in the sports as well as violence involving spectators of the sports.'' We know the problems in these leagues include not only domestic violence but also the failure to address injuries such as concussions, drug abuse, and other problems that have been reported. If anything, in the more than 50 years since the exemption was first granted, the prominence of the four professional sporting leagues in the American media landscape has only increased. The leagues have a tremendous effect, again, reaching into every aspect of American life, on programming, pricing, advertising, and more. A lot has changed over the past 50 years, not least of which is our understanding of the harms of domestic violence and the importance of workplace policies that protect women, minorities, and other members of society. Yet the NFL's response to the Ray Rice incident came right out of the 1960s--right out of an episode of ``Mad Men.'' Our laws and our practices and our culture must change. Most leagues, most athletes, most managers, and most teams play by the rules on and off the field. But, unfortunately, these deep-seated problems are not new. This special status can no longer be a blank check. It can no longer be granted permanently. It must be reviewable and the teams and the league held accountable. The era of the blank check for sports teams must end. The special benefits must be dependent on the leagues' fulfilling their positions of trust and special responsibility. I will be proposing legislation to sunset the leagues' special antitrust treatment, ending the blanket antitrust exemption and making it renewable every 5 years. The exemption should depend on the leagues' acting consistently with their public trust and complying with ethical and legal standards that both protect and oversee players and that keep the teams accountable to their fans. Their fans deserve better. To ensure that Congress has accurate information, my legislation will establish a commission, like many that have existed in the past, to monitor the leagues' record of corporate citizenship. The commission would include representatives with special knowledge of issues that were proven to be a problem for the leagues, such as the heads of the Department of Justice's Office of Violence Against Women, the Federal Communications Commission, and the Surgeon General, and the commission would be responsible for submitting a report to Congress in advance of the vote to reauthorize and renew the antitrust exemption. Other groups would have an opportunity to be heard and to submit their views, and there would be hearings, meetings, and other exchanges that would give all an opportunity to be heard on this vital topic. I hope the Congress will have hearings as soon as possible on this issue. I believe the professional sports leagues, and in particular the NFL, have an obligation to adopt policies that train players on domestic violence--more than lip service, more than check-the-box orientation settings--and, most important, to punish acts of abuse and promote awareness of this terrible crime. They have an obligation to act in accordance with due process and establish rules that treat more stringently and strictly this crime of domestic violence, in accordance with standards that give the players the right and opportunity to be heard. But maybe more importantly than all else, these leagues should be accountable to help the survivors and victims, to provide funds out of the tens of billions in their profits to support these services that are more necessary than ever. They should support the survivors--most of them women--who come forward and have the incredible courage, bravery, and strength to break with a situation of domestic violence. It is at that point of maximum danger and turmoil in their lives that they most need to reach someone and have someone reach them to provide the counseling and advocacy they need and deserve at that moment of turmoil and pain. Congress, the courts, all of us, have a responsibility to do more and to do better and to demand of professional sports leagues that they do more and do better. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, we gather here today in this remarkable place--a symbol of freedom and democracy for the whole world--to remember the tragic, horrific, unspeakable attacks of September 11, 2001, and we remember the innocent lives that were lost, the people of many different ages who worked to help the injured, brave heroes who have fought terrorism and extremism around the globe in the years since 9/11, and, of course, the victims themselves, many of them from Connecticut. This day has special meaning in Connecticut because it affects so directly and sadly the loved ones and families of people who sacrificed their lives as a result of that unimaginably cruel and brutal terrorist act. We remember them with pride. We remember their grace, civility, humanity, dedication to the public good, and their love for their families. We have been striving since that terrible day to strengthen our Nation, to live proudly and unashamedly, consistently with our national values of peace, tolerance, and service. This effort requires commitment and sacrifice. It has required service at home and abroad from countless men and women who have served in uniform--our police, our firefighters, our first responders--believing that the best way we can honor the men and women who died on that day is to make America the best place it can possibly be. It is the greatest and strongest Nation in the history of the world, and it is so because people have always believed it can be made better, freer, stronger, braver. And that is what we have tried to do. Today in the Senate, in the Committee on the Judiciary, I was proud to cosponsor and vote for a measure that will give those victims and their families some additional justice. The Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act will hold foreign sponsors of terrorism that target America accountable in U.S. courts. Obstacles have been raised in our Federal courts, obstacles on procedural grounds and technical issues, most recently in a Second Circuit case, In re Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001, which, in my view, misread Federal law to provide immunity to the Saudi Government and entities that claim to be associated with the Saudi Government against the 9/11 victims' claims alleging its support for those attacks. This new legislation will make clear that terrorism is unsupportable and must be held accountable in our U.S. courts. It will erase the immunity and the procedural obstacles that can be raised and make sure that sovereign immunity as a doctrine provides no safe harbor, no haven for terrorism when victims and their families seek to hold those terrorist sponsors as well as terrorist groups accountable for their horrific actions. That measure was passed with the tremendous leadership and support of its two main cosponsors, Senators Cornyn and Schumer. I thank them for their work, as well as our chairman, Senator Leahy, and ranking member, Senator Grassley, for their willingness to move this matter on September 11, and say to the victims and their loved ones: We will hold accountable the wrongdoers, and we will make sure the courts of the United States are places where justice is provided against terrorism. We can also make America a better place by giving more Americans a fair shot. A fair shot is what America promises to men and women who live here now and men and women who come here. A fair shot is part of our basic principled existence. The terrorists struck the World Trade Center and they hit the Pentagon, but they missed America. What makes America great is those principled values. As we gather today, we should say thank you to the brave men and women in uniform. The Acting President pro tempore is one of them, and I thank him. I thank my two sons who have served, one in the Marine Corps Reserve, deployed to Afghanistan, another now in the Navy. The fact is that the burden of this longest war in our history has been borne by less than 1 percent of our population. We owe all of them and their families our thanks, and we can best say thanks by giving them and all Americans a fair shot at the American dream. A Fair Shot I have just returned from 5 weeks in Connecticut, where I had the opportunity to listen to concerns of my constituents. The people of Connecticut are proud of this country, but they are also concerned about the great disparities that exist. No one is looking for a free lunch. Nobody in Connecticut thinks there is a free lunch. But people believe in a fair shot and the chance to make a better life for themselves and their families. The present disparities are stark and dispiriting and daunting and, at the end of the day, unacceptable and deeply disturbing. Our country has made important strides toward recovering from the economic crisis of 2008, but we are far from done. We are still very much a work in progress economically and socially. Unfortunately, as the Federal Reserve noted just last week, economic burdens continue to fall hardest on Americans who can least afford them. The disparities in this country have a particularly severe effect on women. Today women make up 50 percent of college graduates, but in order to do so they take on an average $30,000 in debt, and they go on to work at places where they earn only 77 cents or 82 cents for every $1 paid to men. When women are treated fairly, we are all treated fairly. When women are treated unfairly, we all suffer. When college graduates struggle under crushing loads of debt, our whole economy suffers and we are all poorer. These problems affect real people. There are real, attainable solutions available to us all. I have participated in more than a dozen roundtables across the State of Connecticut, roundtables at colleges and universities where I have heard story after story from them--and also roundtables in high schools--about their struggles to stay on top of their debt. They understood, every one of them, that they were taking on a significant burden but not one that is insurmountable, not one that will cripple them financially for the rest of their lives. I heard from Gillon, an honorably discharged Army veteran who is now studying law. He wrote to me to say: Despite having done everything that society tells us while growing up is the right thing to do, I'm still saddled with over $132,000 in federal school loan debt. My total monthly payments amount to nearly a third of my take-home salary each month, with no end in sight. Dean, who has three children, earned a master's degree to try to move ahead in his career. A year after graduating, he is $55,000 in debt, and he is struggling to support his family even though he and his wife work four jobs between them--four jobs and he is struggling to make ends meet, to put a roof over his family's head. Along with my friend and colleague Senator Murphy, I met last week with Susan Herbst, the president of the University of Connecticut, and with a number of UConn students and recent graduates, on the campus. They shared with me how excited they are about the vast and limitless opportunities afforded them by this great university. I sensed the excitement while I was there of this great campus, making me envious for the time they are spending there in studying and exploring the tremendous reaches of human knowledge, both practical and theoretical, and yet the difficulty of how affording a college education has constrained and constricted the professional climate beyond that campus. As heady and glorious as the days on campus may be, there is an overhang of doubt and debt that restricts the reach of their lives. It restricts the reach of our economy because it constricts consumer demand, it restricts the reach of their ambitions to start businesses, and families to buy homes, and to move ahead with their lives. And that is a problem for all of us. There are ways for Congress to address this problem. We can pass the legislation I am pleased to cosponsor with Senator Warren of Massachusetts which would allow borrowers to refinance student loan debt. We can pass Senator Franken's legislation to ensure that debt obligations are explained in clear, comprehensible terms so students know what they are taking on. I am developing a proposal to improve the flexibility of loan forgiveness for students who pursue careers in public service such as teaching, public safety, or firefighting. The current program requires students to work a full 10 years in these professions for any debt forgiveness. Any debt forgiveness hinges on those full 10 years. I believe shorter periods of work should allow for loan forgiveness in proportion to the time they spend on the job. There are ways to make public service a quicker and easier means for loan forgiveness. There are other methods as well that we should pursue to enable college affordability. Paycheck fairness is basic to America. There is no reason that American women make only 77 cents per every dollar made by men. Male health care workers in Connecticut earn on average almost twice as much as women performing the same job. Men working in finance earn 61 percent more than women with the same position. This shocking gap persists when controlled for education, experience, and other job-related factors. The data demonstrates unavoidably and inescapably that women make less than men in 97 percent of professions. The event I attended in Connecticut, which was a meeting of the Connecticut Permanent Commission on the Status of Women, chaired by Antonia Moran, highlighted the shameful lag in women's compensation. Many women with college degrees told me about their personal struggles. Lori Pelletier, the executive secretary-treasurer of the Connecticut AFL-CIO, explained how carefully crafted union contracts can often make a difference, but everyone agreed that better laws to address the problem are needed. Fortunately, my distinguished colleague Senator Mikulski, who is here on the floor today, has introduced the Paycheck Fairness Act. It will bring into the 21st century, more than 50 years after the Equal Pay Act was signed by President Kennedy, the gap of full equality. It will improve the remedies available to victims of discrimination. It will prohibit employers from punishing workers who share salary information. It will require any differences in pay to be determined only by job- related factors. It will improve training and education regarding how to take action against discrimination. Pay equity is good for families, it is good for the economy, it is good for America, and it is a matter of fundamental fairness. I thank my colleague Senator Mikulski for her great work on this issue. I am proud to stand here with her today and with so many other colleagues, because it is basic to a fair shot in the United States of America. I know American people are counting on all of us to help make America better, to keep faith with the great men and women who have served in our military around the world, who have served and sacrificed--the loved ones of 9/11 victims, of all the victims of terrorism who have perished since and before 9/11. To make America better is what we can do to keep faith with them. To give Americans a fair shot should be our mission today and every day. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, thank you very much for recognizing me. I also wish to thank the Presiding Officer for his leadership on environmental issues which are so immensely pressing and important for our country, and I am proud and honored to join with him in that cause, which he has helped to lead so often on the floor, but also privately amongst our colleagues and in so many ways across the country. I hope to continue our work together on that issue, and I thank him for presiding now and for continuing that leadership. Mr. President, I am speaking today, after listening to the people of my State, on an issue that perplexes and challenges us in so many ways. The situation on our southern border perplexes us because it is a problem without easy or ready solutions. It is a challenge to America in the resources that it requires and the spirit that it evokes. Our resources are scarce. Our spirit and our inner strength are boundless. Many have expressed to me in my State of Connecticut concerns about those resources, about the limits on those resources, in facing a seemingly endless challenge, as children come to our borders and stretch the capacity of this Nation to accept them. I am sympathetic with the folks who wonder whether we are capable, very simply, of caring for these children--but I know we can--the children who are coming here because of the humanitarian crisis they face in their countries. Our supplemental legislation, so ably guided by Senator Mikulski, provides a path for providing the resources that are necessary. This supplemental is a thoughtful and significant document that addresses this situation without either breaking the bank or sacrificing American values. I am immensely impressed and inspired by the spirit that has been evoked, again, among citizens of Connecticut in saying: We must care for those individual children who need asylum because returning them to the countries of Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala would be a death sentence for many of them. And we must respect our law which provides for individual consideration and assessment of those children in whether they deserve and need asylum and that status of fleeing persecution and death that many of them, in fact, have faced in those lands. We must place those individuals, according to law, with their families, if possible. Many of them have parents here, and the vast majority have some family, moms and dads, aunts and uncles. They need to be screened under the law. Their placement has to be in a safe and secure home with people, in my view, who are here legally. That screening has to be, as the law requires, to assure their safety and security as children. The United States has a responsibility to follow the law, and so do we as citizens and as lawmakers. As torn as we may be, as conflicted as we may feel, as vehement as those conflicting feelings may be felt and expressed by fellow citizens, let us uphold the law and afford due process and individual consideration to those children who, under the law, deserve that individual assessment, individual treatment, individual consideration for the status of asylum in this Nation. People speak about these children as if they were a mass, indistinguishable, a single societal challenge or problem. A Member of the House of Representatives even referred to them as an ``invasion.'' What I saw at the border when I visited there with two of my colleagues, Senator Hirono and Senator Murkowski, joined by a third, Senator Cornyn, all friends and distinguished colleagues, hammered home for me that these children are individuals and they should be treated as such. The vast outpouring of spirit and generosity in this country is mirrored by countless organizations--we heard about them during our visit--that want to help these children, want to volunteer and give of themselves, their time, money, goods and services, everything from blankets, to furniture, to pizza, to you name it. America is pouring out its heart for these children. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter to Secretary Johnson and Commissioner Kerlikowske from Save the Children, a Connecticut organization that has offered, very generously, its help and support in very specific and concrete ways, along with a briefing note that outlines what it perceives the children's needs at the border to be. Let's end one doubt: the need for and the urgent justification for individual due process consideration and the full and adequate screening of these children and a fair judicial proceeding. I would describe just a few stories. Girls are fleeing sexual violence at the hands of gangs in Honduras and El Salvador. I will give just a few examples. Ms. L was raped by more than a dozen gang members in Honduras. After reporting the gang rape to police, her family began to receive death threats. There are only three shelters in Honduras for rape survivors, and two of them actually operate as brothels. The one remaining shelter declined to take Ms. L because it could not protect her or the other shelter residents from gang violence. She had no choice but to flee Honduras. Carlita is a 13-year-old who fled gang violence in El Salvador. She was kidnapped by the Zetas in Mexico, used for sex, and forced to be a drug mule for them before escaping and ultimately reaching the United States. Ms. H survived multiple rapes in Honduras. After she fled she was kidnapped by a Mexican gang and raped and tortured. She eventually reached the United States. Ms. N and Ms. O, ages 15 and 8, fled El Salvador. Their older female cousins had been forced to work as sex slaves for gang leaders. The gangs threatened to kill Ms. N and were placed in removal proceedings. Ms. E fled El Salvador when she was 8 years old. Gang members had kidnapped her and two older sisters. The girl's mother did not want her 8-year-old daughter to suffer the same fate, so she arranged for her daughter to be brought to the United States. Many gangs use sexual violence as a part of the price or rent demanded of girls. Ms. X fled an area of El Salvador controlled by gangs. Her brother was killed for refusing to join a gang that forcibly tried to recruit him. She was raped by two men, became pregnant as a result, and then was required to pay ``renta'' to the rapists, which increased over time. She fled El Salvador and was attacked by Mexican robbers during her journey, before arriving in the United States. Many of these girls are victims of forced prostitution and human trafficking. I have other stories that will be printed in the Record. These stories come from personal experiences of advocates and others who have interviewed them at length as well as our own officials. Many of these girls are sexually assaulted during the treacherous journey northward. Those stories are not imagined or fictionalize; they are graphic and dramatic. Rape is so prevalent that many girls begin the journey by taking birth control injections before they leave home from Central America as a precaution against pregnancy. I refer to these stories because they illustrate and illuminate the need for a thoughtful humanitarian approach, especially to these young girls whose stories are so real and so inspiring, not just in the treacherous journey they overcome, not just in the torture and abuse they suffer, but in the dignity and self-worth and strength and resoluteness they continue to have. A thoughtful humanitarian approach is what is required. It is the approach that this supplemental exemplifies in providing resources. There is an oath that doctors take: ``First do no harm.'' Let that be the approach of this body in approving basic amounts of money, reduced by the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, so that it meets appropriately and frugally the needs of these children to be placed in humane circumstances with families who are screened for their safety and security and their being here legally. I will close with one last experience. In one interview I watched at the border, I saw a 7-year-old girl crying quietly as she tried to answer the questions of an armed border guard. The border guard did his best. He was obviously caring in his approach. But neither his training nor the experience of any border guard equips them really to play this role with a 7-year-old-girl. They are in uniform, a police uniform, which for this girl's whole life has meant fear, potential rape, bodily harm. These children have learned from hard experience that that fear is often justified. They are distrustful of adults generally and authority figures in particular. Nobody could watch this scene without feeling a sense of compassion for those guards and, of course, most especially the girl, separated from her family, sitting on a bench, her legs swinging free because she was not big enough to reach the floor. The look on her face revealed not just terror but a fervent desire to please, inspired by fear. She could not communicate openly with the border guard. What she needed was someone trained and equipped to elicit the facts of her background, the reason she had fled, the motivation for her escape, the facts and her feelings about it. That kind of individual assessment is the reason we have the law passed by Congress in 2008, unanimously. This Trafficking Victims Protection Act was designed for these girls and boys coming from noncontiguous countries facing those fears, those threatening conditions if they were to be returned. They face a near certain death, many of them, if they are returned without the individual assessment and consideration. Call it due process, call it judicial, call it humane questioning--the title matters less than what happens. I know this Nation cannot be expected to rescue all of the children of the world from all of the harsh and inhumane conditions they may face. We are not limitless in our capacity to do good. But I know and I believe we have the resources to do what is just and right under the law considering every one of those children and every one of the potential threats they face if they are returned to their countries. It is an American value that we follow the rule of law, that we grant asylum under the law to people who deserve it and need it. That much we can do. I know we have the resources to do it. I believe we have the will to do it. The heart of America and its citizens is big. We are a big country. We are not limitless in our resources, but we are boundless in our capacity for generosity and doing what is right.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, July 24, 2014; that following the prayer and pledge, 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; that following any leader remarks, the Senate resume consideration of the motion to proceed to Calendar No. 453, S. 2569, postcloture; and that at 1:45 p.m., all postcloture debate time be considered expired and the Senate proceed to vote on adoption of the motion to proceed.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, while presiding for a couple of hours just now I listened to some very powerful and eloquent debate organized by the Presiding Officer--I thank him for doing so--regarding the migrant unaccompanied children who are coming across our border. Those remarks moved and inspired me. They were followed afterward by an effort by Senators Shaheen and others to bring to the floor a measure on energy efficiency. The connection between the two may not seem immediately apparent. But, in fact, I was struck by the irony of an effort by some of our colleagues to eliminate and repeal, in effect, a measure called the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008. It is actually named the Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008, very symbolically and significantly named after a leader who sought to abolish the slave trade. Our colleagues who seek to repeal, in effect, that measure are calling its provisions a ``loophole'' because it provides for screening of migrant children, such as those who are reaching our border, who are not from the immediate bordering countries. They are from other Central American countries. They are seeking to apply to them the same procedures or lack of procedures, lack of screening, lack of individual consideration that apply to migrant children from Canada and Mexico on the theory that those provisions are a ``loophole'' in our law. In fact, those screening procedures are the very intent and substance of our law. They are meant to provide individual, careful, fair consideration of each child. On a day when consideration of the energy efficiency bill named for Senators Shaheen and Portman was blocked from consideration, colleagues are considering a measure and advocating a measure that is completely unnecessary. The Shaheen-Portman energy efficiency bill is vitally necessary. The repeal of the Trafficking Victims Protection and Reauthorization Act of 2008 is entirely unnecessary, in fact unhelpful and downright harmful. The question of what to do about the flow of migrant children to our border is one of profound importance for our Chamber and our country to face in the coming days and weeks. I recently visited the border in a trip organized, thankfully, by Senator Hirono and joined by Senator Murkowski. We met Senator Cornyn while we were there. We went to various of the facilities to see for ourselves and speak with the children who were coming to our borders, the professionals who were seeking to care for them, the Border Patrol agents endeavoring to enforce the law, all of whom are involved in this situation on the ground. That experience has formed--I hesitate to say transformed, but it has certainly changed my view of this problem, because we speak in this body about these unaccompanied minors, as they are called, as though they are an interchangeable mass. They are massive in numbers, but each is an individual. Each has a story to tell. Each is different. They have in common, most of them, stories of horror and terror, vicious persecution, cruelty and brutality, rape, murder, and forced prostitution in the countries they are seeking to escape. This brutality is spawned by gang warfare, the result of conflict among gangs trading in drugs; cartels and organized crime that have put children in the middle of their murderous activities. As others during that eloquent colloquy organized by the Presiding Officer observed, much of that drug trade has moved from Colombia to Central America. It is fueled by demand, the same demand that fuels the Colombian gang warfare, from the United States. The demand comes from this country, the demand for those illicit drugs. Those children, caught in the horrific violence plaguing their home, have fled to this country seeking safety and security. Many of them are also seeking their parents, because the majority have one or more parent in this country already. The vast majority have a close relative, if not a parent, an aunt or uncle. So their journey seeks to reunify them with their families, as well as to escape the grisly, grinding horror of their existence in those homelands they have left. Those journeys are plagued by the harshest, most inhumane of conditions: deserts, swamps and, most dangerously, the traffickers. The smugglers who exploit them put them in stash houses, take them hostage, hold them for ransom, threaten their lives, and often rape and murder them, preventing them from reaching this country. These faces are of the children I saw, with fear in their eyes, fear of all adults, because most of the adults in their lives have been a threat, not a protector; fear in their eyes about the Border Patrol agents who are there when they arrive at the loading dock at the McAllen border facility. It is a loading dock where produce or goods might be dumped or left to be shipped elsewhere. They arrive at the loading dock and sit on a bench, fear in their eyes, apprehension in their voices. They are then interviewed by the Border Patrol, who are wearing uniforms, looking like the authoritarian figures they are. In the lives of these children, the police are not a source of comfort, they are a source of danger because in their country the police are corrupt and a threat, not a protector. They are not apprehended by the Border Patrol; they surrender to them. Border security is not the issue. Again, as some of my colleagues remarked earlier, these children are coming in to give themselves up in the hope of being taken into custody, fed, housed, and given some basic security and safety. Their numbers are down--anywhere from 30 to 50 percent down in July as compared to June, so we were told by the Border Patrol agent. Whether that is a temporary phenomenon or a trend remains to be seen, but the numbers are down. After this holding detention center, where they are kept in cement- floor cellblocks, segregated by age and gender, so densely packed that they can barely sit let alone lie down, and provided with foil blankets, they are sent to more permanent facilities, such as the Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, where we also visited. That facility has a dormitory, a health clinic, a school. Classes are conducted in tents, and the treatment is far more humane. They are given classes in English. They are eager--intensely eager--to learn English, and they are taught in classrooms in these tents where there is a blackboard and an American flag outside an artificial turf soccer field, where they are intensely eager to play soccer. They stay there about 7 days to 3 weeks until they are moved to a home because many of them have relatives. Most of them have some family members in this country or another facility. They move from one temporary facility to a better one and then to a home. In the second facility, they are in the custody of the HHS or the Office of Refugee Settlement, not the Border Patrol. It is a better facility, no question, but still rudimentary. One of the most powerful moments of this trip was to watch these students--I would say about 20 of them in a class--show how they were learning English, show the words they have learned and tell us where they were from--Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador--and then to rise to show us Senators how they could recite the Pledge of Allegiance. We joined with them in reciting that pledge. I wish my colleagues--I wish every American could have been there at that moment. There was something basic, fundamental about us as Americans in that moment, about what we offer--hope, opportunity, freedom, and protection--to people who come here with that aspiration, that those children epitomized at that moment. Whether you agree or disagree on what should be done, whether you feel we ought to do something differently with these children, that moment evoked a fundamental value in our society. Another moment did as well--when a busload arrived. As we were about to leave, the staff of that facility lined up on both sides of the children coming off the bus into the facility, clapping for them. The staff was clapping and cheering for these children arriving at the facility, after leaving the border crossing where they were under the custody of the Border Patrol agents. They were clapping and cheering for children who recently arrived in this country, and the children were beaming. The staff and the professionals who care for these children are truly to be thanked. They are dedicated professionals--the Border Patrol agents who do their very best to make these kids feel at home under very adverse conditions; the HHS counselors and teachers who seek to interview them, give them some basic hope and comfort; all of the professionals in the Office of Refugee Resettlement who seek against the odds to provide them with a future. The mayor of McAllen, who runs a small town on the border--which is where that border crossing is, where the McAllen facility is housed--I think many of us expected him to complain to us about the burden of this flood of children coming into his town, the expenditure of resources necessary to support the infrastructure, the burden on him and his fellow townspeople. To the contrary, the mayor of McAllen, Jim Darling, said to us that they welcome these children. They regard the border as part of their home. They have an interchange in culture and family. He said to us, in effect--I don't remember whether they were his exact words--about welcoming these children: This is what we do. We are Americans. This is what we do. We are Americans--not asking for reimbursement for the expenses for his town, although it is a significant part of his budget. Comparable to the Federal Government, it would be in the billions. His budget is much smaller, so the proportion, obviously, is much less, but it is a major fiscal burden on McAllen. Mayor Jim Darling impressed us and inspired us with his willingness to welcome these children--at least to care for them while the law is enforced. That is the point I want to emphasize to my colleagues tonight. What is needed is not a repeal of the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008. What is needed is not to send these children back without screening or consideration. What is needed is not a wholesale closing of due process. It is enforcement of that law, resources to enforce that law, resources to provide the immigration judges and the advocates who are so desperately needed for these children. After all, they look at any authoritarian figure with fear, even the teachers, many of them, as well as the border agents who seek to elicit from them those stories about why they fled their home. They fear retaliation from anyone who might learn they are talking about the reasons they left. They need spokespeople for this process, and they need the individual consideration, child by child by child. That is what the law requires. That law should be enforced, not repealed. Enforcement also means border security. It means better facilities while they are under care of the Department of HHS as well as the Border Patrol. It means that we support State officials if they provide State facilities. Those decisions about where, when, and how many should be made by State officials, but the Federal Government can support them. That is why I thank Senator Mikulski for her leadership on the supplemental, as well as the Presiding Officer for his leadership in organizing the colloquy earlier today because raising awareness, as well as resources, is what is necessary to make sure we reunite these children with their families when, in fact, their request for asylum is justified child by child, justified by the facts and the evidence, upheld by due process, by justice and by fairness--not demonizing, as may be done by calling out the National Guard or denouncing children who are doing nothing more--6-, 7-, 8-, 9- , 10-year-olds--than seeking safety and security. Their courage, as well as their resilience, finally, was inspiring as well. Having crossed so many miles, against so many obstacles, in the face of so many threats, their smiles as they recited the Pledge of Allegiance to the United States of America is the picture I will have in advocating a bipartisan solution, long-term immigration reform, and a fair and just resolution to their fight as they seek freedom and security in our great Nation, the greatest country in the history of the world.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, at 1:45 p.m. there will be a voice vote on the motion to proceed to the Bring Jobs Home Act. There will then be an immediate rollcall vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the nomination of Pamela Harris to be a circuit judge for the Fourth Circuit.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it adjourn under the previous order.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I am very honored to follow my colleague from Hawaii and her eloquent and powerful remarks, as well as the Presiding Officer from New Mexico, who knows much firsthand about this issue and has really been a leader in this body for me and others. I thank the Presiding Officer for that leadership. My view of this issue concerning the tens of thousands of young children making the difficult and dangerous journey to the United States from lands where they face violence and oppression is shaped by my meeting with some of them in my home State of Connecticut. I had the opportunity to do so recently on a number of occasions, and it has deeply affected my own approach because what I have seen in them really inspires me. It inspires me because I understand better the reasons they have come here. The reasons they have come relate to the violence, the threat of torture, and the oppression they see in the lands they are leaving. They are coming here, many of them, for family reunification. What struck me in speaking with these young children is they are coming here to reunify with relatives: their moms and dads, their aunts and uncles. They have come to be with members of their family and, of course, to seek education. They desperately want to go to school, and they want the opportunity simply for the freedom they see this country as epitomizing and embodying, the beacon of opportunity that drew so many of our forebears to this country, the lamp that is lit above the harbor of New York symbolically for all Americans, and the ideals this country embodies for the world. That is the reason people come and why our relatives, our own families came--one generation ago for me and perhaps more generations ago for others here. So what we face is, in fact, a humanitarian crisis. It is a refugee crisis of children seeking asylum, family reunification, and escape from oppression, torture, and death in intolerable conditions in their home countries. There is gang warfare that is a result of drug trading, pushed from Colombia to Central America to service better their customers in the United States. Their markets are here. This country provides the demand that fuels the trade--not only this country, of course, but all around the world. But these children are the innocent victims of the warfare--gang warfare, market warfare that is fueled by a drug trade they have nothing to do with inciting or spurring. They are truly innocent victims. The values this country embodies that drew them and drew our ancestors and our forebears to come are the values we must now remain true to serving. Among them is the ideal of due process and fairness to justice. To say simply that we will deport all of them en masse, ask no questions, and put them on a bus really is a disservice to those values and ideals that this Nation embodies for the world--a source of our power in dealing with the world. Our power is not the result only of our air superiority, our great naval fleet, our brave warriors on the ground. It is truly the ideal that our military service and our military might serves to safeguard around the world. Speaking of security, safety, and safeguarding our Nation, our border is secure, more secure than ever before--perhaps not perfectly secure-- and more has to be done for border security, which immigration reform would help to accomplish. The President has utilized an unprecedented level of resources in terms of both boots on the ground and advanced technology. There is no evidence to indicate any breakdown in border security. What we have on our border is not a situation involving huge numbers of immigrants slipping into this country surreptitiously; they are coming here openly, surrendering themselves to authorities or being immediately apprehended by law enforcement. This situation is entirely consistent with a fully effective border security apparatus. If the current situation were caused by lack of policies in the United States, we would expect to see a large number of immigrant children only in this country. After all, the United States' policies apply only to the United States' borders but, in fact, that is not what we see. There are children seeking asylum and refugee status in many other Western Hemisphere countries--including some of the poorest in the world--a documented 712 percent increase in asylum seekers from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala since 2009. We have seen no increase in illegal immigration from Mexico, which also would be happening if it were simply lax border security. Any way you look at the situation, the facts simply do not support the theory that America's border is in crisis. It is Central America that is in crisis--El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras are the sources of this humanitarian crisis. Rolling back the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act will not solve a border problem and it will not uphold the values and ideals of this Nation. The protections of this law in fact are central to ensuring the United States of America does not send innocent children into situations where they would be harmed and killed. So I would oppose a wholesale rollback of this law. We have to make sure that we do what is right and get this situation right, because the stakes are so very high. No one in this Chamber wants to be responsible for sending one child to their death because we failed to consider the complexity and provide the humanity this situation demands. Not only would rolling back the Trafficking Victim Protection Reauthorization Act do harm--and we must first do no harm--but it would also hurt law enforcement. This act helps enforcement and our law enforcement authorities to gain crucial actionable intelligence about trafficking. This law reflects the fact that I learned during my law enforcement career, one of the keys to putting criminals behind bars is working closely with victims. In fact, victims are essential, their cooperation is vital to making the law enforceable and making sure it is enforced. The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act encourages victims of trafficking to turn themselves in and cooperate with Border Patrol agents, and provide U.S. law enforcement with the information they need. They are not interested in arresting children. They want to arrest the traffickers, the drug lords, the top of the chain. That is so very important for our colleagues to understand. The surge in drug trafficking and drug-related violence that has turned so many communities into war zones is driven by those gangs in Central America that are in turn driving also the flood of young children to this country. We have this crisis in common with them. It is a humanitarian crisis and a law enforcement challenge. Let us move toward immigration reform which will help to address that crisis by increasing border security, by enabling millions of people now in the shadows to have a path to earned citizenship, to make sure our values and ideals are upheld by the greatest Nation in the history of the world. I thank all my colleagues who spoke today, and most especially thank Senator Leahy and Senator Feinstein for their decades of committed work on this issue. I look forward to working with them, the Presiding Officer, and the majority leader, who has led this Chamber and this Nation so well on this issue. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the committee-reported substitute amendment be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 461, S. 517.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period of morning business with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.