John Cornyn

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Blunt), the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Coats), the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Isakson), the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Roberts), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio), and the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey).

Mr. CORNYN

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 Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, this morning I will be joining--at the President's invitation--a bipartisan group of Congressmen and Senators to discuss the need for criminal justice reform in the country. I am actually very glad the President has shown such an interest in this topic, one we have been working on in the Congress for a number of years. I have said it before and I will say it again, I don't agree with the President on a lot of things, perhaps most things, but I am glad to know he is making this issue a priority. I think it is one of those rare, magical moments where you see things coming together on a bipartisan basis across the political spectrum, where we can actually make some real progress that will benefit the American people and make our criminal justice system fairer and more effective. Of course, in the Senate, a diverse bipartisan group has shared this concern for a very long time. While I appreciate the President's vocal support and for convening the group to discuss it this morning, I want to make it clear that this legislation has been years in the making. Actually, the impetus for the part I contributed to the bill emanated from a 2007 experiment in Texas in prison reform. That legislation has manifested itself in the Senate and is now called the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2015. It is a result of a lot of hard work and some compromise, which is the only way things actually get done around here in order to build a bipartisan consensus, and it brings targeted and much needed reforms to the Federal justice system. I am very glad to be able to join with the junior Senator from Rhode Island, somebody, again, who is probably at the opposite end of the political spectrum from me in terms of ideology, but we have found common ground on this important prison reform component. Most prisoners will eventually be released into society, which is something we have forgotten. Unfortunately, our prisons have too often become warehouses for human beings, and we have forgotten the reality that many of them will be released back into society. Yet we have done very little to help prepare them to successfully reenter society rather than get into that turnstile that sometimes characterizes our criminal justice system and many end up right back in prison again. We can't save everybody, but I believe we can offer an opportunity for some who want to save themselves to improve themselves and be better prepared to reenter society as productive individuals. As I said, this reform was based on an experiment in Texas starting back in 2007. People perhaps think of Texas as being tough on crime, and indeed we are, but we finally realized we also have to be smart on crime. Prisons cost money. Every time somebody reoffends and ends up back in the prison system, we have to pay the salaries of prosecutors, public defenders, judges, and others, and that is expensive. If we can find a way to be fiscally more responsible and actually be more effective when it comes to the results, we ought to grab that opportunity. I happen to think it represents the way we ought to legislate here in Washington, DC, that is based on successful experiments in the States. It is no coincidence that Louis Brandeis once called the States the laboratories of democracy, but it represents the opposite of what we have seen here in Washington, DC, when, for example, in ObamaCare the President decides we are going to take over one-sixth of the U.S. economy and we are going to mandate from Washington a one-size-fits-all approach for 320 million or so Americans. It just doesn't work, as we have documented time and time again on the floor. I am optimistic we have found an area where we can work with the President and move this legislation forward. I ask that the President roll up his sleeves and work with us, along with the Democrats and both Houses of Congress, so we can make this criminal justice reform a reality. Mr. President, I mentioned ObamaCare. That is my second topic for today. This afternoon we will keep a promise we made to the American people that we will vote to repeal ObamaCare. ObamaCare--were this legislation signed into law--could not sustain this mortal wound that is going to be inflicted this afternoon. Are we doing this for partisan reasons? I would say, no, absolutely not. What we are doing is listening to our constituents who told us that they have had one bad experience after another with ObamaCare. They have been forced by the Federal Government to buy coverage that they don't want, don't need, and can't afford. So we proposed to send a bill to the President that would repeal ObamaCare and then replace it with affordable coverage that people actually want. We made it clear to the American people that if they gave us the privilege of leading in the Congress, we would keep this promise, and we will fulfill that promise in the Senate today. I remember voting at 7 a.m. on Christmas Eve in 2009, when 60 Democrats voted to jam ObamaCare down the throats of the American people. They made promise after promise. The President himself said: If you like what you have, you can keep it. That proved not to be true. The President said a family of four would see an average reduction in their premium cost by $2,500, and that wasn't true. So as somebody who has spent a little bit of time in law enforcement as a former attorney general in my State, I would call this a deceptive trade practice. This is defrauding the American people, selling them a product based on a set of promises that ends up not being true. I believe it is time to repeal this bad law and to replace it with something that people want and that they can afford. My State has been hit hard, as all States have been, including the State of the Presiding Officer, by the effects of ObamaCare. Almost every day we read news accounts of escalating health care costs, including premiums and fewer choices and options and less access for our constituents. Just recently, the Houston Chronicle reported that next year the Houston-area patients won't have access to any plans on the ObamaCare exchange that cover costs at MD Anderson, the premier cancer-treating facility in America. If we can't buy insurance to cover catastrophic events like cancer at the hospital of our choice, what good is it? As a matter of fact, I remember our former colleague, Senator Tom Coburn from Oklahoma, who has used up most of his nine lives, but he has experienced cancer at least three times, to my recollection, and he actually was seeking treatment at MD Anderson. He said that as a result of ObamaCare, he could no longer get coverage from the insurance policy he had because MD Anderson wasn't an acceptable provider under the ObamaCare policy. So today I will provide a very quick snapshot of the thousands of letters I have received, and I am sure they are typical of the letters we have all received from our constituents about the problems they have encountered with ObamaCare. One of my constituents recently wrote to me to tell me her story, and it is similar to the narrative I have heard from many others. Her insurance plan was canceled last fall because it didn't meet the mandates of ObamaCare. As a result, she had to switch to a more expensive policy, one with a higher monthly payment and an $11,000 deductible. What good is it to have an insurance policy with an $11,000 deductible? How many Americans can self-insure and pay that bill so that they can take advantage of what limited coverage they actually have under such a policy? She went on to say that she was notified that her plan would once again be terminated for the next year, and her monthly costs would go up again as a result. To top it off, she would end up losing her primary care provider. In other words, the doctor she preferred would no longer be available to her under this new policy that she would be forced to buy at a higher price. She is like a lot of folks around the country--full of questions and frustrations and seemingly nowhere to turn to find any relief for her spouse, for her children, or for their small business. This particular constituent implored me and Congress to do something about it. She said: ``Senator Cornyn, this has caused turmoil throughout Texas . . . we are terrorized in our own country by the so- called benefit of the Affordable Care Act.'' Those are her words, not mine. She said her family was terrorized by ObamaCare. The strong message she conveyed is not all that different from what I have heard from other people. Another constituent raised a similar issue. He is now, for the third time in as many years, searching for yet another health insurance plan after his was canceled. He went on to highlight another theme that is impossible to miss when I talk to folks back home about this topic. He said: I seem to remember the President saying something about liking your insurance and being able to keep it? For myself and my family it's been just the opposite. We loved our insurance prior to the passage of the act and have since been forced to purchase much more expensive insurance with much higher deductibles. Well, he is right. And in just a few hours we are going to have a chance to vote on the Johnson amendment to this legislation we are considering, which is an ``If you like it, you can keep it'' amendment, to keep that guarantee. We will see how our friends on the other side of the aisle vote, who forced this flawed legislation down the throats of the American people, based on this experience. Just like many other Texans, the people I have talked about back home have seen their premiums and their deductibles skyrocket to unaffordable levels. Along with this anemic economy and flat wages, people have found themselves with less and less money in their pockets and found themselves with a decreased and diminished standard of living, which has caused a lot of frustration. This particular constituent ended his letter to me by asking the Members of Congress to ``do anything within your power to reverse this terrible healthcare trend. . . . I need relief,'' he said. We have reached a pretty scary time in our Nation's history when we have Americans writing and calling their elected representatives saying they need relief from their own government. The threat is not outside; people are being threatened by their own government and the overreach they see and the negative impact it has on their quality of life and their standard of living. So we have a duty now--we have a mandate, I believe--to repeal this terrible law and to make it a relic of the past, and we are going to do our duty. We are going to keep our promise to the American people today. There was an outcry from my constituents back home on another topic that gripped our attention--the horrific videos released showing Planned Parenthood executives callously discussing the harvesting of organs from unborn children. We seem to have forgotten those terrible videos and what they have depicted. This bill will also do something to defund Planned Parenthood and redirect those funds to the many community health centers that exist in Texas and across the country that day in and day out diligently provide health care to people in my State and around the country. There will be no less money directed toward public health care; it will be redirected away from Planned Parenthood and to the community health centers. By the way, there are a whole lot more community health centers, so there will actually be improved access for most Americans at community health centers. By repealing ObamaCare, we are doing more than just delivering on a promise; we are providing a way forward for millions of Americans around this country who have been hurt--not helped but hurt--by ObamaCare. We will do our best to help them find some relief, as one of my constituents whom I just quoted implored. We look forward to passing this legislation to scrap ObamaCare and to bring this country one step closer to making it history. Again, this isn't just about repealing ObamaCare; this is about replacing it with coverage that people want and that suits their personal needs at a price they can afford. One would have thought that health care reform would be about making health care more affordable, but, in fact, ObamaCare was just the opposite. It made it more expensive and less affordable, as we have seen and as I have tried to point out in my remarks. I don't see any other Senator seeking recognition, so I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 2912.

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

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, to accept the argument of the Democratic leader, you would have to believe that the Federal Government is always right and is all-knowing and can deprive you of valuable constitutional rights without giving notice and an opportunity to be heard in front of an impartial tribunal--a judge. That is what the Democratic leader is suggesting. I think it is wrong and it is un-American. It violates the very core constitutional protections afforded to all Americans. I urge Senators to vote for my alternative to the Feinstein amendment and against the Feinstein amendment, which would deprive people of their due process rights under the Constitution.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 10 seconds.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, this is an alternative to the Feinstein amendment we will be voting on next. Under the Feinstein amendment, the government without due process can take away from you valuable constitutional rights. They happen to be Second Amendment rights without notice and the opportunity to be heard. If you believe that the Federal Government is omniscient and all competent, vote for the Feinstein amendment, but I wish to point out that even our former colleague Teddy Kennedy was on this terror watch list at one point. Despite numerous efforts to try to get off of it, he never could--as well as our friend Catherine Stevens, former Ted Stevens' spouse. My amendment would provide that due process, notice, and an opportunity to be heard, and provide new tools and increased authorities to prevent terrorism and prevent violence by blocking the transfer of firearms following that notice and opportunity to be heard, which would also give the judicial authority an opportunity to grant an emergency terrorism order which would actually detain the person who is identified and proven to be a terrorist. I encourage my colleagues to support this amendment, to give law enforcement the ability to take terrorists off the streets and prevent them from obtaining firearms while preserving important constitutional rights of law-abiding Americans.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. CORNYN. Pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 and the waiver provisions of the applicable budget resolutions, I move to waive all applicable sections of that act and applicable budget resolutions for purposes of amendment No. 2912, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, if you believe the Federal Government should be able to deprive an American citizen of one of their core constitutional rights without notice and an opportunity to be heard, then you should vote for the Senator's amendment. This is not the way we are supposed to do things in this country. If you think that the Federal Government never makes a mistake and that presumptively the decisions the Federal Government makes about putting you on a list because of some suspicions, then you should vote for the Senator's amendment. But we all know better than that. I have used the example of Teddy Kennedy, Captain Stevens, and others who were placed on these lists. At the very least we ought to provide those individuals with an opportunity to be notified, and they should have a right to be heard by an impartial judicial tribunal to make those decisions. I urge my colleagues to vote against the Senator's amendment. I have one other reason. The whole purpose of this amendment is to destroy the privileged status of this reconciliation bill. If this bill passes, it will destroy our ability to pass this reconciliation bill with 51 votes. Again, I urge all of my colleagues to vote against it.

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Wisconsin (Mr. Johnson).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I congratulate the Senator from Wisconsin for his amendment. I look forward to voting on it, this afternoon, I understand. This is actually the promise that President Obama made: If you like the coverage you have, if you like your health insurance, you can keep it. But, in fact, we know that has not proven to be true. I know when the Senator from Wisconsin ran for the Senate, one of the primary motivating factors was his own experience with his own daughter. I have heard him tell that story time and again. I know he feels strongly about it, as well as he feels strongly about his constituents who have been harmed as a result of this law, which has not performed as advertised.

Mr. CORNYN. I will.

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I appreciate getting to hear that story again. I have heard that story a number of times from the Senator from Wisconsin. I think it shows how special this effort is to try to get people the health care they want at a price they can afford and how ObamaCare has done just the opposite. Rather than being part of this false narrative about a war on women, there are a lot of women and young girls who have been harmed by ObamaCare, which has been a disaster. Of course, I remember being here on Christmas Eve, 7 a.m., 2009, when our Democratic colleagues, then in the majority, had 60 votes and they passed ObamaCare without a single Republican vote. I think that was a terrible mistake. It was a terrible mistake to take something as important to most Americans or virtually to every American--their health care--and totally reform the health care system in a partisan way and one that could not be sustained. Indeed, we have seen in the 5 years since that time that our country's health care system is in complete disarray. We have all read the headlines that describe the double-digit premium increases and the skyrocketing deductibles that make people wonder why they should buy health insurance in the first place. I guess the answer to that is this: If you don't, under ObamaCare you are going to get penalized. That is the individual mandate that President Obama at one point said he was opposed to when he ran for President in 2008, although I guess he came to love it. But that is the way the government operates when it mandates what you do. It takes away from your freedom, as the Senator from Wisconsin said, but it also uses coercion and financial penalties to force you to do something you wouldn't naturally do because it is not good for you or your family. You are being forced to buy coverage you don't need at a price you can't afford. So the only way the government makes this function--to the extent it has functioned--is out of coercion, out of penalizing the American people and forcing them to buy something they don't want. So it is no surprise that such a massive program of Federal overreach comes with a major pricetag. This is something that we haven't talked about enough. In order to pay for ObamaCare, the Congressional Budget Office estimates it will cost taxpayers more than $116 billion a year--$116 billion. Over the next 10 years, that pricetag totals more than $1 trillion in new taxes. Now, I know for most of us we can't even conceive of what that number must be, but that is big. That is huge. It is a huge burden on American taxpayers and hard-working families. One reason people are struggling to pay the premiums for their ObamaCare coverage is because over the last 7 years wages have been basically stagnant. Our economy has been bouncing along the bottom, just barely out of range of a recession. So people are finding their cost of living going up--their price for food, their price for health care. Perhaps the only good news in the last few years has been that the price of gasoline has come down because of unrelated reasons. But people are struggling to make ends meet, hard-working middle-class families who previously had been thriving in this economy. The bottom line is that ObamaCare has left the American people paying more for their medical needs while reducing access and weakening coverage. The people I work for back home are adamant they want this to stop. So that is the vote we will have tomorrow--to stop this huge government overreach that does not serve the interests of the people whom presumably it was designed to protect and to provide access for. The phone calls and letters and social media posts and face-to-face meetings that I have had in Texas over the last 5 years tell me how ObamaCare has hurt, not helped, hard-working Texans. Last month I received even more letters from my constituents who are exasperated about their health care plans. I heard from Texans who have lost their doctors and their insurance plans for the same reason that the Senator from Wisconsin mentioned. They no longer covered certain specialties that are outside the network, and that is because they have had to try to find a way to economize. What they have done is they have restricted access to doctors and hospitals. Then there are the rising premiums. Because of the mandates, you are being forced to buy coverage that you don't need. For example, healthy men are being forced to purchase maternity care. It makes no sense. Young, healthy individuals are being forced to buy coverage to subsidize older Americans. Then there is the matter of the deductibles. If there is one story that I have heard after another, it is from hospitals in Texas, saying that people are admitted to our hospital but they have such a high deductible, it is as if they are self-insured. Many of them can't afford to the pay the deductibles, so we have to eat it. We have to find a way to provide them health care because we know they won't able to pay their bill, particularly if it is not within the deductible. One constituent wrote: We were happy with our insurance, but we didn't get to keep it. We were happy with our doctors, but we didn't keep them. The same constituent said, ``Our plans to retire early have been sidetracked by the unaffordable cost of healthcare.'' I have also heard from folks who have lost their employer-provided health insurance and are now forced to pay double their previous rate. One of my constituents wrote: Like many other companies [mine] dumped its retired employee medical benefits and said go get your own health care insurance. . . . [Before, it] was only $150 a month. Now, under ObamaCare our [insurance] will cost us $366 a month! That may not seem like a lot of money to a lot of people, but if you are a retired person and you are on fixed income and if you made plans for your future--including your health care--to see your health care premiums more than double is a big deal. The same person continued: ``I know where you stand on this issue, but wanted you to see another example of how terrible the problem is.'' That is a good word for it: ``terrible.'' I have also heard from other folks back home who are forced to spend countless hours of time and energy researching new plans because their previous insurance was canceled. The President and his allies in this takeover of America's health care system have said to some people who liked their health coverage that it wasn't good enough, so they basically made it illegal to continue to sell it. One of my constituents wrote and said: I have to spend my valuable time researching yet again, a plan that meets my healthcare needs and possibly stays within my budget. . . . where is the affordable in the Affordable Care Act? That is another good question. I think it is useful to understand that ObamaCare is not a topic that Texans or most Americans are simply indifferent about. People care strongly about making this law a thing of the past. My constituents overwhelmingly want this law repealed and replaced with more choices where people can buy the health care they need at a price they can afford. That does not seem like a lot to ask. With the increasing reports from across the country about how ObamaCare is hurting American families, there should be no doubt about this vote. Although, I predict this will be a party-line vote where all of our Democratic friends who supported ObamaCare are sticking with it to the very end. But it is unsustainable. It will not work. What we would be more productive in doing is trying to work together to come up with what the alternative would be that would provide people more affordable care and the coverage they need. The American people have made crystal clear--last November, in particular, when they put Republican majorities in both Chambers of Congress--that they want us to do something about this ill-advised, misguided law. I look forward to delivering on our promise to vote to repeal ObamaCare tomorrow evening before we adjourn for the week. This legislation we are currently considering would eliminate more than $1 trillion in tax increases and will likely save the American people hundreds of billions of dollars in future spending. This is a time when our national debt is $18 trillion plus. All we are doing is adding more and more debt to future generations who someday are going to have to pay it back. Maybe my generation will not be around long enough to have to pay that bill, but the next generation and beyond will. By repealing ObamaCare, we can craft a better way to provide health care options that actually work for every American at an affordable price. I look forward to getting this bill passed and hopefully providing relief to millions of Americans who are burdened by ObamaCare. I wish to close by saying a good word about the chairman of the Budget Committee who has been a counselor, adviser, and navigator of sorts to many of us in this challenging procedural exercise known as budget reconciliation. I am incredibly grateful, not only for the good work he did in assisting us in passing the first budget that we have passed since 2009--that is pretty important--but now shepherding us through this very difficult process and helping us as the new majority to keep our promise to the American people to repeal ObamaCare. When we do that and we vote to pass this repeal of ObamaCare tomorrow evening, it will be in large part because of the invaluable contributions made by the chairman of the Budget Committee, the Senator from Wyoming, and his able staff. This has been a team effort. There is no doubt about it, but he has been a leader of that team effort. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, this week the Republican-led Senate will keep a promise we made to the American people. If they entrusted us with the leadership and the majority in the last election, we told them we would vote to repeal ObamaCare--the largest Federal overreach in recent history. It has been disastrous to thousands, if not millions, of people. Unfortunately, the President's ill-advised health care law and the partisan push that made it law came with a lot of burdensome regulations. Both the law and those regulations have hobbled the American economy because they simply added additional burdens onto the small businesses that we depend upon to create the jobs so people can find work and provide for their families. It has hobbled those small businesses by burdening them with unmanageable costs, and it has failed the American people at every turn. When the President said ``If you like what you have you can keep it,'' that was not true. Millions of Americans lost their preferred health insurance providers and the doctors who accepted that coverage. Instead of providing people with more affordable access to health care, millions of people faced higher premiums and higher deductibles. For all practical matters, the higher deductibles that come along with most ObamaCare health care policies make millions of Americans effectively self-insured. More than 5 years after it became law, it is no surprise that a recent poll found that only 37 percent of the respondents approved of ObamaCare. ObamaCare is a textbook example of how bigger government does not necessarily lead to more choices or real solutions. Indeed, what it demonstrates is that it can lead to higher costs, inefficient health care delivery, and millions of Americans being let down by a system that was a partisan vote here in the Senate. I remember being here on Christmas Eve in 2009 at 7 o'clock in the morning when Senate Democrats pushed through the ObamaCare legislation in the Senate. Again, without any sort of bipartisan commitment to actually improve health care choices and make health care more affordable for the American people, it was purely a partisan undertaking. This bill that we are voting on to repeal ObamaCare will not only provide relief and more choices and the opportunity for the market to give people the health care they want at a price they can afford, but it also represents keeping a promise we made to the American people that we would deliver on if they gave us the majority. We will do that this week.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 20 minutes.

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

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, there is another subject I want to raise because it is a matter of great concern. It is not only because I come from Texas and we see thousands and thousands of unaccompanied minor children continuing to cross our border, but you will recall in the summer of 2014, I believe the President himself talked about the humanitarian crisis as a result of the thousands and thousands of unaccompanied children--some with a single parent--who were streaming across the border in an overload of the capacity of local communities in the Rio Grande Valley and elsewhere to be able to deal with these children in a humane and acceptable sort of way. While the memory here in Washington, DC, may have faded about this humanitarian crisis, I can tell you that most Texans remember it vividly. The picture was stark: tens of thousands of unaccompanied children coming from Central American countries that had set out to cross Mexico and to cross the border into the United States. Virtually all of these children had seen their lives placed in the hands of violent criminals to get here. To say the journey was a perilous one is a gross understatement. We recently had a hearing of the international drug enforcement caucus in the Senate. I asked one of the witnesses: Isn't it the case that the same criminal organizations that smuggle people into the United States for economic reasons are the same people who smuggle children for human trafficking purposes, that these are the same people and the same organizations that smuggle illegal drugs and perhaps dangerous and other hazardous materials into the United States? Without hesitation, the witness said yes. It may have been some bygone era when an individual coyote, as we call them in South Texas, smuggled people in for the fee they could charge, but now this is big business. This is a business model that is being exploited day in and day out by the transnational criminal organizations, but that all seems to be lost on the administration. I saw how this tragedy was unfolding firsthand in McAllen where I visited these children who made the journey--sometimes alone--only to end up here in this country by themselves, looking for a friendly face or somebody who might help them. It was heartbreaking to see young children without their parents and extremely heartbreaking to hear the horrific stories about the trips they made. Again, coming from Central America, across Mexico, perhaps on the back of a train they called The Beast, physically assaulted, some murdered and many robbed and otherwise mistreated. The pressing question in that summer of 2014 was, Why now and why here? Why was all of this happening? How could we stem the tide of this seemingly endless migration of unaccompanied children from Central America? You don't have to look much further than the President's own Department of Homeland Security. One internal memo analyzing the surge of child and female migrants flooding the southwest border stated: ``The main reason the subjects chose this particular time to migrate to the United States was to take advantage of the `new' U.S. `Law' that grants a `free pass' or permit.'' I think they call them permisos in Spanish. In other words, they came here because of the widespread perception that these unaccompanied children and women traveling with children would be allowed to stay here in defiance of our immigration laws, even after they crossed the border illegally. A similar study by the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Science and Technology Directorate concluded that the unaccompanied minors ``are aware of the relative lack of consequences they will receive when apprehended at the U.S. border.'' Apparently, at the time, these minors and their parents believed there would be no or little consequence to illegally coming into the United States, and tragically, sadly, they were right. In the wake of that crisis last summer, it became clear that the President's failed immigration policies, including his deferred action program and his overall lack of seriousness when it came to immigration enforcement, played a role in inducing thousands of families to risk their lives to travel to the United States. Until recently, we had perhaps been lulled into the misconception that this flood of migrants had stopped. But over the weekend, I was startled by news reports--perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised but I was--that suggest this downward trend has started to reverse and in a big way. According to these reports, smugglers were again bringing hundreds of women and children into the United States across the Rio Grande. One from the New York Times noted that according to official data, ``border Patrol apprehensions of migrant families . . . have increased 150 percent'' from last year. The number of unaccompanied children has more than doubled. The bottom line is that, clearly, there is virtually nothing being done to deter these children and their families from illegally crossing the border and little or no consequences when they do. I have to point out that the administration has done virtually nothing to make sure these children are not exposed to the same criminal organizations operating in this country. In fact, current law requires these children to be released by the Department of Health and Human Services to sponsors without any assurance or systemic protections that they are being sent to a safe environment. There are no criminal background checks. They are not required to be actual family members, and they could well be some extension of the same criminal organizations that smuggled them into the United States in the first place. It is shocking to me that the Senate would not be moved to act on this because, of course, we passed a large anti-human trafficking law this last spring with a 99-to-0 vote. But to sit quietly while these children continue to stream across our border and are placed in the hands of potentially dangerous individuals is unacceptable. Earlier this year, four individuals were indicted for their involvement in a trafficking ring that smuggled unaccompanied Guatemalan children into the country and forced them into slave labor at a farm in Ohio. These children were not only forced to work long hours, but they were abused and threatened and exploited. Many of them could have been spared if the Federal Government and Health and Human Services had an adequate system for screening and vetting the sponsors of these unaccompanied minors. We have to do a better job of protecting these children, which is why I recently joined a letter with the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee demanding answers from the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services. It is clear that the Federal Government needs to step up and create a more effective review process before releasing these children to strangers and perhaps criminals. Our government has a duty to protect them once they are here and to ensure that they are no longer preyed upon by criminals and human traffickers. Given the administration's inability to deter illegal immigration and the Federal Government's failure to deal with them reasonably, rationally, and humanely when they get here, we have every reason to believe that illegal immigration surges of this nature will continue and will grow until we reform this system. That is why I intend to introduce a piece of legislation called the HUMANE Act, which will reform the system to end the practice of automatic catch-and-release to nongovernmental sponsors. It would enhance the screening of these children to determine if they are victims of crime or in need of some specialized care. It will make sure they get a swift and fair court determination on whether or not they are eligible for any protected status under our immigration laws. The HUMANE Act would also help ensure that if these children are in need of humanitarian assistance, they will never be released to sex offenders, criminals, or others who will seek to harm them. Of course, preventing these surges is not just a humanitarian issue; it is a national security issue as well. By tying up our law enforcement, customs, and other security officials with humanitarian care obligations, the cartels and other transnational criminal organizations create an environment where it is much easier to traffic drugs, weapons, and other contraband. We know there are increasing ties between terrorist organizations and drug cartels, so the threat that they will work together to exploit another humanitarian crisis is very real. For instance, last year before the Senate Armed Services Committee, SOUTHCOM's commander, John Kelly, stated that he was ``troubled by the financial and operational overlap between criminal and terrorist networks in the [Central American] region.'' He went on to say: ``Although the extent of criminal-terrorist cooperation is unclear, what is clear is that terrorists and militant organizations easily tap into the international illicit marketplace to underwrite their activities and obtain arms and funding to conduct operations.'' I am not just talking about economic migrants. I am talking about immigrants from around the world who can potentially get through our southern border virtually at will. I am talking about transnational criminal organizations determined to spread violence and import narcotics into the United States. I hope the administration will take these most recent reports seriously, before we experience once again the horrifying humanitarian disaster we experienced in 2014. But nothing short of real improvements to border security and our laws will work. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from New Hampshire (Ms. Ayotte), the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Flake), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Wisconsin (Mr. Johnson), the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain), the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Portman), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio), the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Shelby), the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Tillis), and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from New Hampshire (Ms. Ayotte) would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment in order to call up my amendment No. 2844.

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

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I agree with the senior Senator from Maine and the bill manager that the concerns Senator Paul has raised, which are shared by many of us as far as the adequacy of the screening process for the refugees coming to our country, is a serious matter. It is a matter, as the Senator from Maine has said, that will be voted on today, and my prediction is that there will be broad bipartisan support for the additional security measures contained in that bill. This is a transportation bill, and it is very important for us to get our work done, and unfortunately that is appearing more and more difficult. If I could say a word about my amendment because this is an important matter to me and to my State, as well as to other States. My amendment would direct the Secretary of Transportation to conduct cost-benefit determinations for new airports which are seeking entry into the federal tower program but have been unnecessarily prohibited by the Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA's current moratorium on accepting new airports negatively impacts airport sponsors that have already submitted their applications to the FAA, including the North Texas Regional Airport in Grayson County, TX. I know there are airports like that around the country, which is why this amendment has such broad bipartisan support. This amendment would simply require the Secretary of Transportation to process applications that have already been submitted--in some cases years ago--but have been punished by this arbitrary administrative delay. It would not have any negative impact on any current contract tower airports and would only allow new airports to be admitted to the program if funds are available. I am grateful to Senator Collins and Senator Reed for their favorable consideration of this amendment, and I hope we can work through the objection raised by the Senator from Kentucky so we can process this legislation and pass it in the near future. National Adoption Month Madam President, on another note, I wanted to say a few words about National Adoption Month. Yesterday, Senator Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, convened a very important hearing on the subject of international adoptions; specifically, ensuring that the process--which at times can be bogged down in bureaucratic redtape and take an excruciatingly long time to complete--remains a priority for this administration. Last year, if my recollection serves me correctly, there were about 22,000 intercountry adoptions. In other words, there were families here in the United States who wanted to adopt these children who, in many circumstances, have very poor prospects in the countries where they were born. As I said, this is National Adoption Month. I am glad Senator Grassley enabled us to highlight the challenges of people who are trying to adopt children from, for example, the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There are about 400 adopted children the government of the Congo will not release. Yesterday, many of us, on a bipartisan basis, met with the ambassador and asked: What is the way forward for these families and these children, many of whom are in pretty poor circumstances back in their home country. Americans, of course, adopt not only children from their local communities or their State, but from literally around the world. It is something we ought to encourage. Devoted parents who make the decision to adopt ought to be commended for providing an opportunity for a better life for a child in need and for providing support and the love that all children need and deserve. One of the things that struck me yesterday during the hearing, as we heard from the State Department, are the numerous protections that are embedded within the adoption process to ensure that these internationally adopted children are placed in safe homes and how important they are for protection of these children. These measures include commonsense safeguards such as thorough background checks, intensive interviews with potential parents, multiple visits to the child's future home, and, of course, proper vetting of other people who will be living under the same roof. This is important for the protection of this adopted child. This is a process that puts safety and the interests of the child first, and I think we would all agree that is exactly where that priority should stand: the best interests of the child first. So while it was reassuring to me to hear about these rigorous requirements that our government has put in place to protect these adopted children, I was reminded that protecting children during the placement process should not be just limited to when we are talking about adoptions. Over the last two fiscal years, more than 95,000 unaccompanied children have crossed our southern border without legal permit, the large majority of them making a perilous and deadly journey across thousands of miles from Central America. We can only imagine the horrible circumstances that parents must see and the poor prospects for their own children's future for them to turn them over to essentially criminal organizations that will then ferry them, if they are lucky, from their country of origin through Mexico and into the United States. But the surge of which we are all familiar--again, 95,000 unaccompanied children in just the last 2 years--has exposed the vulnerability of our southern border to human smugglers and transnational criminal networks. As a matter of fact, I asked one of the witnesses at the hearing yesterday: Are the same criminal organizations that engage in human trafficking and illegal immigration and illegal importation of drugs-- are they all the same people? He said: Absolutely. I don't know how we can turn a blind eye to some of the illegal immigration issues and to say we are completely outraged at the drug trafficking going on between our countries or the human trafficking going on between our countries when, in fact, that activity is being conducted by exactly the same criminal organizations that have one interest in mind, and it is not the best interest of the child. It is money. They view children as a commodity just as they view drugs as a commodity. Yesterday's hearing showed us that the lack of border security can cause a humanitarian crisis that endangers the lives of children who were turned over by their parents and then smuggled into the United States. We know from numerous reports and testimony that children on this journey are preyed upon in the form of human trafficking, rape, and even murder. Many of them don't even make it here because they are killed along the way, held hostage, perhaps for ransom, or otherwise assaulted. To this day, we still have no idea how many children and parents have perished during this unprecedented surge across our border. Once these children arrive here in the United States, I think-- I would hope--we would all agree that it is our joint and collective responsibility to do what we can to protect them and ensure that they are no longer preyed upon by criminals and human traffickers. Current law requires that within 72 hours of being located by law enforcement officials, a child be placed in the protective custody of the Department of Health and Human Services so they can be protected from the danger of abuse and exposure to forms of violence. Unfortunately, current law also requires that these children be released, sometimes even to nonfamily members, sometimes even to noncitizens, without any assurance or systematic protections that they are being sent into a safe environment--certainly nothing even remotely approaching the sort of care and precautions that we use when it comes to international adoptions. As I heard yesterday, the administration is capable of making these assurances in the context of international adoptions, so why would we not take steps to ensure that the same level of protection is there for these unaccompanied children? During the surge of these children across our border in 2014, I stood right here and I posed two very important questions: Could anyone in the administration say with certainty that the children being released from U.S. custody were leaving with an actual family member? Believe it or not, there is no legal requirement that these children be turned over to an actual family member. Also, could the administration say with certainty that none of these children have been handed over to an adult with a criminal record? The answer to both of these questions was and continues to be no, and that ought to shock our collective conscience. Sadly, we don't know how many of these children have fallen into the wrong hands. Earlier this year, four individuals were indicted for their involvement in a trafficking ring that smuggled unaccompanied Guatemalan children into the United States and forced them into slave labor at egg farms in Ohio. These children faced horrific conditions, including long work hours, abuse, threats, and exploitation. But even more shockingly, many of these children could have been spared if the Federal Government and the Department of Health and Human Services had an adequate system for screening and vetting the nongovernmental sponsors for these unaccompanied children. None of the protections--none of the protections--that are available for international adoptions have been applied here to protect these children. The human traffickers in this case that I mentioned were able to gain custody of these children by simply showing up at an HHS shelter, telling the U.S. Government that they were family friends, and submitting a fake family reunification application. This is unacceptable, and it is our duty to these children to make sure that we do a better job of protecting them, just as we do in cases of international adoption. I know that our colleague from Ohio, Senator Portman, in his oversight role in the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs is taking a hard look at this process through which we move unaccompanied children out of protective custody and into the hands of potential danger--not even family members, not even citizens, no criminal background check, and absolutely no way to know what the government is turning these children over to. I look forward to reviewing the findings of his forthcoming report, and I hope we can make efforts to implement his recommendations. Last Congress, I was proud to be the author and sponsor of a piece of legislation that we called Helping Unaccompanied Alien Minors and Alleviating National Emergency Act--or the HUMANE Act--which would require all potential sponsors of unaccompanied children to undergo a rigorous biometric background and criminal history check. This is bipartisan legislation. Though there is certainly more we can do to ensure an acceptable screening process, I believe that the protections in my legislation are a good start and would make a difference. So I urge my colleagues, or anybody else who may be listening, as we reflect on National Adoption Month and the appropriate protections we put in place for international adoptions, to think about these almost 100,000 other children who have crossed our borders over the last few years and who were afforded none of the protections that we afford adopted children. I truly hope we will take a comprehensive look at the concerns I have raised here today. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio), and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.