John Cornyn

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) and the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Roberts). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) and the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Roberts). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) and the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Roberts). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) and the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Roberts). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) and the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Roberts). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) and the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Roberts). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), the Senator from Alaska (Ms. Murkowski), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio), and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, there is no question that immigration is one of the toughest, most divisive issues we talk about in Washington, DC, perhaps because it is an economic issue, it involves cultural considerations, and it also includes security concerns. It is not just any one of those things; it is basically all of those wrapped into one. At the same time, I have been impressed by the fact that the ongoing border crisis that is now occurring in South Texas has produced a moment of bipartisan consensus and clarity, which are rare when we talk about immigration. For example, we all agree that the United States must continue to uphold the rule of law, with which all of us are better off--including the people who want to come to the United States as immigrants, if they can come through a legal system in an orderly way and not as a flood of humanity who have surrendered themselves to the tender mercies of the criminal organizations that funnel children and other immigrants from Central America through Mexico into South Texas. We all agree that our policies should be one of not encouraging Central American children, and particularly their parents putting their lives at risk in the hands of these criminal organizations. We all agree that the present levels of chaos and confusion on our southern border are totally unacceptable. No one is arguing for the status quo, to my knowledge. They are unacceptable from both a security perspective and from a humanitarian perspective. I said just a moment ago that no one is arguing that the status quo is acceptable, but I fear that unless we sit down and reason together, we are going to end with a status quo before we leave for the August recess. Unless we are successful in passing the needed policy changes that will actually address some of the causes of the current crisis--as well as appropriate money that is needed on an emergency basis to help build capacity to deal with it--the status quo is what we are going to get. That would be disappointing and it would be tragic. So people may have good ideas, and I would love to hear them. But working together with my colleague Henry Cuellar from the House--Henry likes to call himself a Blue Dog Democrat, but he is from Laredo, TX, lives on the border and understands it very well--he and I have come up with a bipartisan, bicameral proposal that would discourage illegal immigration from Central America and elsewhere by ending the de facto policy of catch-and-release. What I mean by that is when people are coming into the country illegally, they are detained by the Border Patrol. But we know there is a policy of de facto release once they are detained because many of them are given a notice to appear for a future court hearing and they never show up. I had one former head of the Drug Enforcement Administration who said: Everybody knows that a notice to appear should really be retitled a ``notice to disappear'' because that is what happens. If people are successful in navigating this glitch in our enforcement system, then they are going to keep coming and the cartels and the people who make money off of transporting people through this perilous journey will continue--as I have spoken about numerous times--from Central America through Mexico--a journey in which women are routinely sexually assaulted, the migrants are routinely kidnapped and held for ransom, and some never make it because they die of injuries or exposure. If we don't fix that by the time we leave for our August recess, we will have failed in some of our more basic responsibilities. But more specifically, our bill would reform a 2008 human trafficking law that actually passed, essentially, by unanimous consent. Nobody dreamed that it would be exploited as it has been in a way that weakened U.S. immigration enforcement and incentivized Central American children to risk everything they have to make this perilous journey from Central America to Mexico. I have said earlier what I believe to be the fact--the cartels are smart. I mean, these are rich, wealthy criminal organizations with a lot of shrewd and inventive people. What they have figured out is a business model to exploit this vulnerability in the 2008 law that we need to address before we leave. I will give one sense of the problem. On Tuesday of this week, 20 unaccompanied minors from Central America had hearings scheduled before a Federal immigration court in Dallas--20 scheduled; 18 failed to show up. So roughly 10 percent showed up, and the other 18 didn't show up. We currently don't have the resources through Immigration and Customs Enforcement to locate those children and make sure they actually do appear. What happens is they are part of that 40 percent of illegal immigration, people who enter the country, just simply melt into the landscape, and we don't hear from them again, but they are still here. Given how few unaccompanied minors actually appear for their hearings, Members of both parties have expressed their view that the 2008 law needs to be changed. The Secretary of Homeland Security, whom I talked to as recently as yesterday, said on Tuesday: The administration has asked for a change in the law, and we are in active discussions with Congress right now about doing that. That is a little bit mysterious to me because the majority leader has said the border is secure and he is not interested in taking up any reforms such as the HUMANE Act Congressman Cuellar and I have sponsored. I would say to the majority leader, if you don't think that is the right solution, then where is yours? Are there other ideas that people have that are better ideas? I am game. I think we ought to have that discussion, and we ought to be focused on trying to fix it as Secretary Johnson said is needed. I am sure there will be some differences, but that is what this place is for, to work out those differences and come up with the 80 percent solution, hopefully, and then get the job done. But the irony of what Secretary Johnson has said is that the administration acknowledges that change is needed. But is any change forthcoming from the majority leader? Well, apparently it is not, because he is in the process of having us vote on a so-called clean emergency appropriations bill without any reforms attached to it. I have called this a blank check, and indeed I believe it is, because it is not responsible just to spend the money without trying to fix the problem. Indeed, if history is any guide--and I think it is--we are seeing these numbers go up every year. In other words, it is estimated that of the 57,000 unaccompanied minors that have been detained at our southwestern border since August, that number could grow as high as 90,000 this year. Next year, the estimate is it could be as many as 145,000. I know the Presiding Officer has read, as I have, stories in the Washington Post, the New York Times, and elsewhere about the backlash that is occurring around the country as these children are being transported and warehoused in different locations around the country. This is going to do nothing but get worse, in my view, as the numbers continue to escalate and as we don't deal with the source of the problem. This is a very dangerous situation where the American people are demanding we act on our best judgment, trying to work together in a bicameral, bipartisan way. But so far at least, the majority leader, the Democratic leader has rejected any changes in the 2008 law--even along the lines that Secretary Johnson, Secretary of Homeland Security, has suggested. I have actually heard there are proposals, legislative language that has been floated among our Democratic colleagues in the Senate. But under orders of the White House, none of that has been shared with anyone on this side of the aisle. I hope that changes because we need to be sharing ideas. We need to be working toward a consensus here because we have basically the rest of this week and next week, then we are out of here, and the problem is not going to get better. It is only going to get worse. We could use some help from the President, using some of his political capital--the power and the authority that only the resident of the White House has--to try to work together with Congress to get something done. Seven weeks ago he called this an urgent, humanitarian crisis, but for some reason unknown to me, the President has still refused to go to the border himself to witness what is happening there. I worry he is living in a bubble--which I think all Presidents are prone to do unless they are careful and fight against it--that does not allow him to appreciate the seriousness of this situation and how bad it will continue to grow. I was in McAllen, TX, last Friday, and I was pleased to see a number of our colleagues had traveled down to the border: Senator Murkowski of Alaska, Senator Hirono of Hawaii, Senator Blumenthal of Connecticut, and other Members of the House--from California, Colorado, and Texas. I am grateful to them for coming down to the site of this huge crisis and trying to help work with us to try to figure out what needs to be done in order to resolve it. I wish the President would take the same opportunity to see with his own eyes what his fellow Democrats saw. When I was in McAllen and then in Mission, TX--which is close to McAllen--last Friday, they made crystal clear to me and Congressman Cuellar that they didn't care if we were Republicans or Democrats. As a matter of fact, that part of our State is heavily Democratic. What they cared about is whether we were serious about offering a meaningful solution to this crisis. Can you imagine what impact there is on the local communities and on the State of Texas? I mean, this isn't broadly spread along the entire border, this is concentrated on the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas. It is overwhelming the capacity of those local communities and of our State to deal with it. This is why our Governor, in the absence of any Federal response, thought it was important to get more boots on the ground in the form of the National Guard. That is not a permanent solution by any means, but at least Governor Perry is willing to do something when the President is apparently not willing to use any political capital to get a meaningful response from Washington, DC. I would say that it is obvious to any fairminded observer that the status quo along the border is unacceptable and unsustainable. But the response of the majority leader appears to be: Let's just spend some more money on an emergency basis. But I dare to say that if the majority leader wants us to spend $2.7 billion on an emergency basis now, we are going to be back at the end of the year doing it again. We are going to be back in 6 months doing it again. We are going to be back in another 6 months doing it again. In other words, unless you are dealing with the source of the problem, we are going to continue to hemorrhage money to try to deal with this crisis when we should be all about deterring people from coming into our country when they have no realistic hope of being able to stay under our current laws. As former Border Patrol Deputy Chief Ron Coburn recently reported: Not only has the Border Patrol's morale been lower than ever--we have Border Patrol who are being diverted from their law enforcement responsibilities in order to change diapers and to feed children. You can imagine what advantage the cartels and drug are taking when the Border Patrol is being relieved of their duties at the border and is busy trying to process these immigrant children through these various centers. Well, they are having a field day. They are laughing at the Federal Government's ineptitude. Our current policies are emboldening transnational gangs, jeopardizing public safety, and making a mockery of United States sovereignty. By contrast, the HUMANE Act that Congressman Cuellar and I have offered would accelerate the removal process for unaccompanied minors who have no valid basis for staying. It would give those who have a valid basis for staying a timely hearing in front of an immigration judge so they can make their case. And if they can make their case under current law, then they will be able to stay. But it would strongly deter and discourage illegal migration, and it would help restore something that is sorely needed, which is some order in the rule of law in a situation that is characterized now by sheer chaos. Just to clarify, this isn't about comprehensive immigration reform. We still have a lot of work we need to do beyond this. This is what we can do now together on a bipartisan basis that needs to be done on a timely basis. It is a narrowly targeted measure designed to alleviate a national crisis--nothing more, nothing less. I would think that would be something we would all agree is worth doing. I would point out that some of the cosponsors of the HUMANE Act include Members who voted for the Gang of 8 immigration bill coming out of the Senate and Members who voted against it. So this is one of those rare points of bipartisanship and clarity as to what the problem is and what we need to do to fix it that is bringing people together on a bipartisan basis. Our legislation transcends the typical left-right, Democratic- Republican immigration debate. It is a genuine bipartisan solution to a genuine emergency, and it deserves a vote. I hope the majority leader will reconsider his earlier position that all he wants us to do is write a blank check without any real reform. The majority leader may not particularly like the legislation Congressman Cuellar and I have introduced, but if he doesn't like it, doesn't it make sense that he would offer something different, something he thinks maybe would be a better solution? I would be glad to take a look at it. If you don't like our plan, fine. But I would ask, Where is your plan? Because if you don't offer one and if you block a vote on sensible reforms, all you are doing is guaranteeing that the current border crisis will continue. Again, I urge the President and the majority leader to come down to South Texas, like so many of our other colleagues have done, and take a look for themselves. The very least they could do is say thank you to the Border Patrol and other Federal officers, such as FEMA, who are trying to deal with this crisis. Unless we take action here in Washington, the problems are only going to get worse. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Chambliss), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran), and the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Roberts).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I object.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I would propose to the Senator from New Hampshire an alternative. Before I do that, I would say the biggest problem we have is the inability of the Senate to process amendments in the normal order. I believe the Senator from New Hampshire is sympathetic to that. If we could just have an opportunity to offer and vote on amendments, I have every confidence this piece of legislation would have been long passed. But somehow we are stuck. And it is not just the minority party that is limited on opportunities to offer ideas to help improve legislation and to get votes. It is even our friends who are in the majority. I can only imagine what it is like to feel like: I am in the majority, and I can't even get votes on my amendments or my legislation passed. So I ask unanimous consent that the only amendments in order to S. 2262 be five amendments from the Republican side related to energy policy, each with a 60-vote threshold on adoption of each amendment. I further ask that following the disposition of these five amendments, the bill be read a third time and the Senate proceed to vote on passage of the bill, as amended, if amended.

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

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, in recent days I have come to the floor several times to talk about the humanitarian crisis on our southwestern border where a veritable flood of unaccompanied children, from Central America mainly, is appearing on our border and turning themselves in to the Border Patrol because they realize that ultimately they will be released to a relative in the United States with a notice to appear at a future court date. The vast majority of them will fail to appear for that court date and successfully end up staying in the United States, notwithstanding the fact that it does not comply with our law. But in recent days a curious division has emerged from our colleagues on the other side of the aisle on a fundamental issue that I want to highlight. On the one hand, more and more Democrats are calling on Congress to reform this 2008 law that inadvertently has become a magnet for illegal immigration by Central American minors. On the other hand, Senate Democratic leadership is refusing to consider any such reforms. They just want the cash. They wanted the money the President has asked for. So they are asking Congress to simply throw more money at the problem. The figure they have now settled on is $2.7 billion. The Associated Press has called this ``problematic.'' If you have a humanitarian crisis and you need more money to deal with it, we all understand that. But if you are unwilling to take the step to fix the basic problem that has created the crisis, that strikes me as problematic, as the Associated Press says. What is President Obama's position? Well, I am afraid the President has shown a complete lack of leadership on something that he himself has called a humanitarian crisis. But there have been prominent members of his administration who have publicly expressed support for the type of reforms contained in the HUMANE Act, which is a bipartisan, bicameral piece of legislation I have introduced with my colleague Henry Cuellar from Laredo, TX. For example, you will see on this chart Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson has said the administration wants to change the 2008 law at the center of the crisis so that U.S. authorities can ``treat unaccompanied kids from Central America the same way as it does from a contiguous country''--in other words, from Mexico. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, you can see on this next chart, has confirmed that the administration would support ``changing the 2008 law'' if it is necessary to resolve the crisis, as Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson says it is. As tens of thousands of children continue to flood across our border, such changes are absolutely necessary. In fact, the cartels, the criminal organizations that are smuggling children into the United States, discovered this flaw and they have changed their business model to exploit it, because they are making money off of it. The HUMANE Act, which we have offered as a solution is not the only solution. If other people have good ideas, we would love to hear them, but doing nothing is not an option. The HUMANE Act would equalize the treatment of all unaccompanied minor children, regardless of where they come from. Treat them all the same. If it is good enough for children coming from Mexico unattended by parents, then it ought to be good enough for others. All of our colleagues essentially voted for that proposition in 2008 with that law. This proposal we have would also expedite the removal process for those without a valid claim for legal status. In other words, there are claims for legal status in the United States that some of these children might qualify for. We do not touch any of those preexisting laws. In other words, if you are a victim of human trafficking, for example, you can qualify for something called a T visa while you cooperate with a law enforcement investigation. If you have a credible fear of persecution in your home country based on certain other criteria, you could qualify for asylum or as a refugee. But finally, we would end the policy of catch and release by which these children or other immigrants are not detained pending a hearing in front of a judge. We know from experience, given the surge of Brazilians who came in 2005 and 2006, that additional detention and speedy hearings and reprocessing back to the home country are essential to deter people from coming in the first place. The HUMANE ACT would bring order and clarity to a situation currently marked by chaos and confusion. You would think that Members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, would want to bring some clarity and end the chaos and confusion. But so far we have not seen that sort of bipartisan desire to embrace a solution. So I am happy to note that a number of Democrats do agree with us about the need to reform the 2008 law and establish an expedited removal process. For example, Senator McCaskill, the senior Senator from Missouri, has reportedly said: I think we should have the same law on the books for Central America as we have for Canada and Mexico. That is precisely the point. She and I agree with each other 100 percent on that. That is what the HUMANE Act would do. Meanwhile, the senior Senator from Delaware, Mr. Carper--the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, someone with a lot of knowledge about this, and somebody who I know has been in close consultation with Secretary Johnson--has argued that any supplemental funding should be paired with significant policy changes, saying, ``the two should go together.'' I agree with Senator Carper. So if the administration agrees with prominent Senate Democrats, as Jeh Johnson has said they do, and as Josh Earnest has said they do, if the administration agrees with these prominent Senate Democrats about the urgency of passing something like the HUMANE Act, and if plenty of Senate Republicans agree as well, why are we not having a vote? What is the holdup? Well, as usual, the majority leader seems to be more concerned about good politics than good policy. He, incredibly to most ears, certainly to mine, declared that the border was ``secure'' a couple of days ago. I was shocked to hear him say that. In the midst of a humanitarian crisis, he says the border is ``secure.'' With 414,000 detained coming across the border last year alone from 100 different countries, the majority leader says the border is ``secure.'' Here is what he said on Monday. He said: We need to get resources to our Border Patrol agents and others who are caring for these children. This is at the same time he said the border is ``secure.'' I do not quite understand that tension between his positions. But this is what he said. He said: ``We need judges to hear those kids' cases and decide whether they need protection or need to be sent back home.'' So here is my confusion. The majority leader has said he understands what needs to happen. The press secretary for the President says he understands what needs to happen. Secretary Johnson, the Secretary of Homeland Security, says he knows what needs to happen. Prominent Democrats such as the Senator from Missouri and the Senator from Delaware say they understand what needs to happen. Yet nothing is happening. The HUMANE Act, which would do everything the majority leader mentioned, is a bipartisan, bicameral piece of legislation that would alleviate a national emergency and a humanitarian crisis. It has received support across the political and ideological spectrum. I would add that some on the left and some on the right have criticized it. Some have not bothered to read it or understand it. But if you are being criticized on both sides of the extremes, then you must be doing something that is actually doable and may be at least 80 percent part of the solution. So I would urge the majority leader, the majority whip, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, to heed the message conveyed by Secretary Johnson. I would urge all of us, particularly at a time of humanitarian crisis, to forget the politics and let's solve the problem. We have an opportunity to address a genuine crisis. I urge them to remember, as Mr. Charles Lane of the Washington Post has written recently: The rule of law is one of the benefits immigrants seek in the United States. Step one in dealing with the border crisis should be to reestablish it. Those are wise words. In contrast, if we simply write the administration a blank check for $2.7 billion without fixing the problem, we will find ourselves back here again and again as the numbers escalate from the 57,000 so far since October to the projected 90,000 the administration says could come across this year alone to the 145,000 who are projected to come next year. I am, frankly, flabbergasted. Why can't we do this? Why can't we do it? Democrats agree with the need. Republicans agree there is a need. There is an escalating crisis on the border that is not going to go away with the change of the news cycle. We have the ability to deal with it so we should. I actually agree with this statement by Senator Reid: We need to get the resources to our Border Patrol agents and others who are caring for these children. We need judges to hear these kids' cases and decide whether they need protection or need to be sent back home. I agree with the majority leader when he said that. So let's do it. I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CORNYN

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

Mr. CORNYN

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

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Wyoming (Mr. Enzi), the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Heller), and the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Isakson).

Mr. CORNYN

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

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, from the beginning of our Nation we have had our challenges. We have had big challenges and little challenges, and somehow, some way, America has always risen to those challenges and addressed those in a way that was in the best interest not only of the present generation but future generations as well. During those times, it was not true that our leaders always saw things the same way or agreed with each other 100 percent, but they saw greater value in trying to solve the Nation's problems rather than just saying: This is too hard; we can't agree, so we quit. That is not our tradition. That is not our heritage. But looking at the present situation here in Washington, DC--and in particular the Senate--I find myself sometimes wondering whether those days have passed us by. I hope not, but I sometimes wonder whether the youth of America will witness in their lives some of the great attempts to address our Nation's challenges they read about in their history books. Right now we know we have an urgent humanitarian crisis on the U.S.- Mexico border, more specifically in the State of Texas. I was back in McAllen, TX, on Friday, and I was grateful to see a number of our colleagues who were there: Senator Hirono, Senator Blumenthal, Senator Murkowski, as well as a number of House Members, seeing for themselves what the crisis consists of and exploring what might be some of the possible solutions. I was meeting with Congressman Cuellar, who is from Laredo, TX, and with a number of local officials in the Rio Grande Valley. Many of them have expressed the same wish that I had expressed and Congressman Cuellar had expressed. They wished the President would come down to the Rio Grande Valley and see for himself what we have seen. We know he had an opportunity to do that a couple weeks ago and chose not to do so, but they said the invitation is still outstanding. They would love to see him. The least you think the President might consider doing is congratulating the professional efforts of our Border Patrol and other law enforcement specialists who were down there doing an amazing job. Of course, FEMA and other Federal agencies are on the ground as well. That invitation is still outstanding, and I think the President would benefit from seeing this crisis for himself. What I saw were children packed into detention facilities that were filled to overflowing, some with only a single toilet in the room, and conditions you would not want your children to be in. We learned even more about the horrific journey from Central America through Mexico up to South Texas that many of these children had endured, and the truth is some of them didn't make it. Some of them who started this horrific journey from Central America simply died in the process. Those who did not die were subjected to horrific abuse, kidnapped, being held for ransom, women and girls being sexually assaulted enroute, because these corridors are controlled by transnational criminal organizations is what we call them--in other words, gangs, cartels--that view these children and migrants as commodities. For a long time they have been selling drugs because drugs make them a lot of money. Now they realize they can transport children and adults because they make them a lot of money too. And if you just figure it out, if they can figure a way to move tens of thousands--or so far 57,000 children since October of last year--at $5,000 each, that is a lot of money. So these criminal organizations are reaping riches as a result of this sordid trafficking of human beings, and communities are being overrun and government resources are being strained. The administration has said there is a humanitarian crisis, and I agree. They have also said--and this is Secretary Johnson among others--that a loophole in a law passed in 2008 is one source of the problem. Is it the only source of the problem? No, I don't think that is true. I think there is also an impression that somehow the United States and this administration are less than fully committed to enforcing our immigration laws. If you read the intelligence gathered by the Department of Homeland Security from many of the migrants, including children who have been detained, many of them report being told there would be a permiso or basically a permission slip or visa issued to them if they were able to make it to the United States. So there is the combination of lack of detention facilities and the requirement of the Department of Homeland Security to turn these children and others over to Health and Human Services, but then they would be released based upon their promise to return at a future court date. This is what has been interpreted as permission to enter the country and stay. So I know Secretary Johnson of the Department of Homeland Security understands the problem, although the President has a political problem. Many of the President's most ardent supporters are saying: We hope the President will just request money, but in the end we hope he will go even further with the deferred action Executive order that he issued in 2012 for the so-called DREAMers. Those are kids who obviously came into the United States at a young age with their parents but are boxed in; while they can get an education, they cannot get a job. Rather than asking for a solution to this problem, the President has indeed asked for a blank check, and I for one am not for giving it to him. I am for doing what is compassionate. I am for treating these children and all immigrants and all human beings, for that matter, with the dignity and respect they deserve by virtue of their status as human beings. But we also need to realize that America cannot endlessly accept a flood of humanity from countries around the world who want to come to the United States, especially through an illegal smuggling system that does not respect their dignity as human beings or our laws. We simply cannot absorb or assimilate into America an uncontrolled flow of people from around the world. Americans are the most generous people in the world when it comes to our immigration policies. We naturalize about 800,000 people a year, accept them into this great country and accept them as American citizens. But we simply cannot allow this sort of uncontrolled wave of humanity and expect to be able to deal with them in a dignified and appropriate way. We simply cannot continue to feed this business model of transnational criminal organizations and cartels that profit from their own criminality and for exploiting these children and other migrants. I know in this political environment putting forth a solution is tough because usually what happens is you get attacked from the right and the left, which usually tells you that you are probably doing the right thing. But it is worth the effort to try to find a solution to this problem. It requires all of us to take our responsibilities when it comes to serving the public seriously; and it requires us to put forward solutions knowing that we are not going to come up with a perfect solution, but if we can come up with one that moves the ball 80 percent down the field, that is not bad. That is not a bad day's work. Certainly if we can help make somebody's life a little bit better or protect them from some of the horrific consequences of inaction, it is worth it. I have--as the Presiding Officer knows--partnered with one of my colleagues in the House who happens to be a Democrat, Henry Cuellar, in a bipartisan, bicameral solution to this human crisis. If somebody has a better idea, we are all ears. But all I can hear is crickets. I don't hear a lot of other ideas. There are some and we ought to consider those, but mainly I haven't heard anybody come up with another solution to this loophole that is being exploited by these transnational criminal cartels other than the one that Congressman Cuellar and I have proposed. There have been some who have expressed concerns about the legislation. On the right there are some who have said this bill would make it easier for unaccompanied minors to achieve legal and asylum status. That is wrong. The HUMANE Act, which is what we call this legislation, would not change current law at all with regard to either a claim for asylum or achieving legal status. It would, however, make sure that current law is actually enforced by speeding up court dates and the removal process for unaccompanied children who don't satisfy some of these exceptions. It is also worth reminding the American people that there are a number of fraud prevention measures in our current asylum laws that the HUMANE Act would not change, and--and this is important--more than 70 percent of those seeking asylum in the United States last year--more than 70 percent of those seeking asylum last year in the United States were ultimately not awarded that status. In other words, this is a rather narrow provision. Some have also argued that the HUMANE Act would somehow expunge the removal orders that were issued to minors who came to the country illegally during the current surge and have already been released to State-based family members or sponsors. What our bill would actually do is allow the U.S. Government to replace those removal orders with new nonappealable orders that would allow for an expedited repatriation process for the children who were not qualified for asylum status or were not a victim of human trafficking. On the left we have heard the claim that many of these children will not obtain the necessary legal representation they need. Wrong again. The HUMANE Act would not change current law which requires Health and Human Services to ensure to the greatest extent practicable that legal representation is provided for unaccompanied children. I have not heard many of my friends on the other side of the aisle who actually supported the 2008 law unanimously complain about this aspect; in other words, what they are complaining about now in terms of inadequate legal representation they actually voted for in 2008. Some worry that this bill would be a vehicle for comprehensive immigration reform, to which I would ask: Have you witnessed the dysfunction in the U.S. Senate? Do you actually think there is any real chance we will pass comprehensive immigration reform through both Houses of Congress this year? Well, some have said there is also concern there are not enough protections in the bill for children. Yet we have added protections that don't already exist under current law, such as an expedited court hearing before a judge and for those credible claims, stronger safeguards to ensure children are not released in the hands of dangerous criminals or those who would abuse them. So after identifying a problem and a cause, one would think it would be easy for Republicans and Democrats, Congress and the White House, to come together on a solution. You would think that would be something we would do at a minimum in fulfilling our job description. Sadly, the President has not seen fit to come forward to embrace the solution that is in front of him. Indeed, from press accounts we have learned that while he understands the nature of the problem, as does Secretary Johnson, and what would be necessary to fix it, the President simply does not want to disappoint some of the more radical activists who essentially say we ought to open the floodgates to people from anywhere around the world and let them come in at their will. Well, I am discouraged to hear the remarks of the majority leader where he said he is not optimistic that we will be able to address this issue constructively and find a solution before we recess in August. I would think that would be a matter of some urgency because as we have seen since 2011, these numbers seem to double every year. In other words, they start out relatively low. They doubled from 2011 to 2012, from 2012 to 2013, and from 2013 to 2014. It is estimated there could be as many as 90,000 unaccompanied children detained at our southern border this year. So if it is 90,000 this year and we don't do anything about it, what will it be next year--180,000? This is a bad situation that we have within our capacity to address if we can find a way somehow to do so, but it is going to take a President, it is going to take a majority leader, and it is going to take all of us who choose not to just take the easy way but to take the hard way, one that will lead to a solution to this humanitarian crisis. It won't happen just by throwing money at it without offering any real reforms that will actually fix what is broken in the 2008 law. I close on this note, again, to plead with my colleagues: If you have a better idea, please come and tell us about it. We may want to embrace it. Is this perfect? No. Does this solve all that is broken in our immigration laws? No, it does not. This is a narrowly targeted solution to a national crisis and one that will, hopefully, positively impact thousands of children. For those who want to see more, I would say this is a moment to do what we can, when we can and to show we are serious about the job of governing and coming up with responsible solutions. If we can demonstrate to the American people we can actually do that on a bipartisan basis and fix this, relatively speaking, smaller but nevertheless urgent problem, maybe we can earn their trust enough to tackle some bigger problems in the future. I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran), the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Paul), and the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Roberts). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, over the past several weeks, I have spoken about the ongoing crisis on our southern border--the President has acknowledged as a humanitarian crisis--with tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors making a perilous journey from Central America and ending on our doorstep, most often in my State, the State of Texas. In this year, the numbers are skyrocketing again. Starting in 2011 we saw the numbers, roughly, about 6,000 unaccompanied minors. They doubled from 2011 to 2012, they doubled again from 2012 to 2013, and they look as though they are going to double again from 2013 to 2014. We can only wonder at what might happen thereafter unless we come up with a solution to the problem. A majority of these children, as I indicated, come from Central America--El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Under current law when these children are detained by the Border Patrol, they are processed by the Border Patrol and then given a notice to appear at a future court hearing and turned over to the Department of Health and Human Services for safekeeping. Health and Human Services tries to identify a guardian to pick up the child and, not surprisingly, most of them are never heard from again. Certainly they don't show up for this court hearing in response to the notice to appear. Thus, the transnational criminal organizations, the cartels--the people who make money from transporting these children and other migrants across Mexico and the United States--have discovered an effective business model. In other words, they are able to deliver these children to their families--at least the ones who survive--from Central America through Mexico and into Texas. The majority of them will make it, because they will be placed with a family member or some other relative, and never appear at the court hearing for which they have been notified to appear. For children detained from bordering nations such as Mexico or Canada, the process is different than it is from noncontiguous countries such as Central America. Border Patrol, under the current law, can determine whether the children are eligible to stay in the United States or give these children the choice to be safely transferred to officials from their home countries. Our country simply does not have the current capacity to deal with 50,000, much less 90,000 or 100,000, unaccompanied minors appearing on our Nation's doorstep. As a result, these children are being kept at Border Patrol facilities, such as I witnessed in McAllen, TX, that have capacity for a few hundred people, but they are currently holding well over double, many times triple and beyond, their current capacity. I and other Members of Congress, unlike the President, have seen these facilities firsthand and talked to some of the children. The conditions they are kept in are unacceptable by any standard: babies in diapers sleeping on cement floors and dozens of children crammed into one cell with a single toilet. In addition to these overcrowded detention facilities, there is an overburdened judicial system. Minors in custody of the Department of Health and Human Services are released to family members or guardians or sponsors in the United States, but they are given a notice to appear before an immigration judge if they wish to make a claim for relief under our immigration laws. Those who show up will not see a judge, on average, for more than 1 year--leaving, as I said, plenty of incentive to simply disappear and never return for a court date. As the law is currently written, in 2008, there are few other options available. For that reason I have, along with my friend and colleague from Texas, Henry Cuellar from the House of Representatives, introduced a clear, commonsense change to the 2008 law to address the immediate crisis. This is, I hasten to add, not a complete fix to our broken immigration system, but it does target this particular crisis and offers a commonsense solution. We call this the Helping Unaccompanied Minors and Alleviating National Emergency Act, or the HUMANE Act. It would amend the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008. That law had good intentions, because it was focused on the victims of human trafficking, and we preserve those protections for the victims of human trafficking, but it needs to be improved so that thousands of children who now make this perilous journey in the hands of these criminal organizations up these smuggling corridors from Central America to the United States--we must make sure they are deterred from making this life-threatening journey. Our changes to the law maintain all of the safeguards built into the 2008 law, and so there should be no objection on that basis. But what we would go further to do is the HUMANE Act would treat all unaccompanied minors the same and ensure an orderly legal process. A majority of these children would be reunited with their parents in their home countries. Those who choose to appear in front of an immigration judge will have every opportunity to do so on an expedited basis. In those cases where they qualify for removal under our current laws, they would be placed in safekeeping with federally screened sponsors while additional hearings are scheduled. This expedited process would alleviate overburdened Border Patrol and HHS facilities, as well as the local officials who have been disproportionately affected--although I would add that I read newspaper stories about officials in places such as Massachusetts, Arizona, California, and others expressing concern about these large numbers of unaccompanied children who are being warehoused in their States. Most importantly, this legislation would send a message to people in Central America that the dangerous journey to the United States in the hands of ruthless smugglers and cartel operatives is simply not worth it. Central American families would hear loudly and clearly that not only will the journey place their children at risk of sexual assault and even death, they will by and large not be permitted to stay in the United States once they arrive under current law. Some will. If you are a victim of human trafficking, you may be eligible for a T-visa. If you have a colorable claim to asylum, you can make that claim to an immigration judge under our legislation. But if you don't have a claim to relief under our current immigration laws, you will be returned safely to your home country. Tackling this crisis is a significant challenge that requires Presidential leadership. But, in the meantime, these children are sleeping in overcrowded cells, Texas communities are reeling from the impact, and we need action. With this legislation we try to target a commonsense solution that will take immediate steps to help stem the tide of the growing crisis. I hope my colleagues will join us in cosponsoring this legislation. It sounds as if the House of Representatives is probably going to be moving next week. I know there is a lot of controversy anytime we talk about circumstances such as this. Some people think it should be tougher, others think it is too tough to enforce current law. But the fact is, the drug cartels, the transnational criminal organizations, have created a business model based on a loophole they found in the 2008 law. Our bipartisan, bicameral legislation seeks to fix that and to give these children the benefit of the law if they qualify under the law as currently written. But to continue to leave the law as it exists now with this loophole in it, and continue to see it exploited by the Zetas and other cartels that traffic in human beings, is simply an invitation to continue to see these numbers double year after year and our capacity to deal with these children on a humane basis further diminished. We need to have immigration laws that protect these children and all of us, and it does not mean that anybody and everybody under every circumstance can qualify to come to the United States and stay. That is simply an invitation to chaos. We can treat these children humanely, we can give them the benefit that the law allows as written, but if they don't qualify, we need to return them home. I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN

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

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), and the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Corker). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) would have voted ``yea'' and the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Corker) would have voted ``nay.''