John Cornyn

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Cochran), and the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I would respond to my friend from Illinois and say I would have them enforce the law, which is as the Senator has just described. Once the Border Patrol processes the child or migrant, then they turn them over to Health and Human Services, where they can be placed in humanitarian and hopefully clean conditions so their interests can be looked after while their legal case proceeds. The problem is not just the fact that there are no consequences once these children or others are released on a notice to appear, which is never enforced, it is also the perception that people--for example, this morning Congressman Luis Gutieerrez said that he was so frustrated by our inability to pass immigration reform, that the President needs to withhold any deportations or radically, essentially, refuse to enforce the law even further. America is the most generous country in the world when it comes to our legal immigration system. We naturalize about 800,000 people a year. It has been up to as many as 1 million people. We are very generous. But it is not too much to insist that people do it through legal means for their protection and ours. The statements the President has been making and the unilateral actions he continues to take give the perception he doesn't care what Congress says; he is going to go it alone. As a matter of fact, this morning the Supreme Court rebuked the President on an illegal recess appointment--unconstitutional recess appointment. I think it is not just the law as it is written on the books, it is also how the law is actually implemented. It is also the further perception that the President is going to continue to basically refuse to repatriate people who enter the country illegally. I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN. I will.

Mr. CORNYN. I say to the Senator from Illinois, here is how it works--I don't think we disagree about the law or the origin of the law but how it works in application. These children are now being placed with family members who may not be documented. They may have entered the country in violation of the immigration law, but because it is perceived as a relatively safe place for them to temporarily reside pending further court proceedings, they place the children with a family member in the United States. Absent a family member, I presume they will be placed with a legal guardian or foster family or the like while the legal proceedings go forward. Here is the practical problem: Once they make it here to the United States, if they never return to the court in response to their notice to appear, then they are lost forever to the immigration enforcement system and they become a part of the great American melting pot, never to be heard from or seen again unless they commit some other crime. That is how the press reports it in Central America and elsewhere. At least that is the report we hear from migrants themselves. They refer to it as a permiso, which is a notice to appear. At that point they think they are home free and never have to show up for their court hearing, and that it is as good as permission to enter the country. I believe that is what actually is happening.

Mr. CORNYN. I say to the distinguished Senator through the Chair that I don't know who introduced the bill, but I do know who signed it into law, and that was President George W. Bush.

Mr. CORNYN. Sure.

Mr. CORNYN. I say to my friend from Illinois that I tried to make clear that the current law bars the entry of these children and people across the border because they would not even meet the terms of the President's Executive order, that is, if you believe the President's Executive order has the effect of law, which I don't. There are a couple of issues. It is both the impression that the President is not committed to enforcing the law and the fact that now when these adults are detained and children are placed with relatives in the country, virtually none of them show up for their hearing. So the perception--because we don't have a comprehensive system to enforce our immigration laws even after people come to our country--and reality of how that works tells them that if they make it here, they will never have to leave.

Mr. CORNYN. I will yield in a moment. That has to be embarrassing. It shows a lack of confidence in the President's commitment to enforce the rule of law. I think it is a problem. I think the President can help mitigate that problem and help restore the impression that you are not going to get a free pass if you make it to our southern border. I will gladly turn the floor over to my colleague.

Mr. CORNYN. I say to the senior Senator from Arizona and the senior Senator from Illinois--and I will turn the floor over to Senator Durbin in a moment--that there are two big problems: This wave of children is coming and not allowed to legally stay in the United States and thus subject to being returned to their country of origin. Both Vice President Biden and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that is the law of the land. If the President doesn't step up and use his bully pulpit to send this message in a way that none of us can because people pay attention to him and not as much to us--I think that is a fair statement--then this wave is going to continue, and it is going to get worse and worse. I ask through the Chair to the senior Senator from Arizona and the senior Senator from Illinois--both of whom I know care passionately and are committed to fixing our broken immigration laws, although we have had our differences--how will the American people let us do this if they have lost confidence in the executive branch's willingness to enforce the current law? I think it makes it much, much harder. In fact, as I alluded to a moment ago, the majority leader and the senior Senator from New York said: Let's pass immigration reform but delay its implementation until after President Obama leaves office. That sounds like an embarrassing proposal.

Mr. CORNYN. I appreciate the question. I would say there is nobody in this Chamber who has been more involved in trying to fix our broken immigration laws than the senior Senator from Arizona. And certainly the senior Senator from Illinois has been very much involved. Both of them are members of the so-called Gang of 8 who were the primary authors of the Senate-passed immigration bill. But I would point out that not even under that bill would these children be covered, because they wouldn't qualify for the so-called DREAM Act provisions authored by the senior Senator from Illinois. That is the point the Secretary of Homeland Security has been trying to make--this is not a green light to anybody and everybody who wants to come to the United States. For their protection, for the protection and safety of the American people, and in the interest of an orderly immigration flow and the rule of law, we need people to play by the rules, and it is the perception that there are no rules and that if you make it here, you will be able to stay regardless of whether you qualify under the law that created this flood of humanity. The second thing I would say, the Senator is exactly right. I think people underestimate the horror inflicted on migrants who are transported from Central America through Mexico up into the United States at the hands of transnational criminal organizations. The ``coyotes'' as we always called them are the human smugglers. They now have to pay the cartels for protection or they cannot travel through the corridors up through Mexico and the United States. These migrants in the process of being transported here, riding on the train the Senator alluded to called The Beast, are prone to accidents. They could lose their life, leg or limb, be kidnapped, held for ransom. Women will be raped and assaulted. It is horrific. Who in their right mind would subject their family to those sorts of horrors only to end up in the United States when our laws do not permit their entry into this country? Somehow the President or the Secretary of Homeland Security are the only ones who have the bully pulpit who can send that message in a way none of us can to convince them we are going to enforce our law.

Mr. CORNYN. It is 1200 miles.

Mr. CORNYN. I will.

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I wish to spend a few moments this morning talking about realistic solutions to the ongoing crisis along American's southern border. Obviously, I come from a border State where we have 1,200 miles of common border with the nation of Mexico--which, of course, has been the gateway now to this humanitarian wave of unaccompanied children coming from Central America into the United States. I will talk more about that in detail, but I first want to comment on something the majority leader said this morning in his opening remarks. With what has now become his trademark hyperbole and frequent disregard for the facts, the majority leader suggested that the Republican platform was: Deport first, find solutions later--or never. I find that offensive, and it is certainly not true. I can just assume that the majority leader has had other things that have taken his attention and he has ignored completely the concrete solutions I and others have been promoting, some of which I will talk about here in a moment. The last thing I would say specifically to this offensive and untrue comment of the majority leader this morning is: If you are truly concerned about this issue, Senator Reid, you might want to focus on Members of your own party. After all, no less than Vice President Joe Biden has said of the unaccompanied minors flooding across from the U.S.-Mexican border: It is necessary to put them back in the hands of a parent in the country from which they came. He went on to say: Once an individual's case is fully heard, and if he or she does not qualify for asylum, he or she will be removed from the United States and returned home. That is Vice President Biden. Perhaps the majority leader should talk to him or he could talk to our former Senate colleague Hillary Clinton, former Secretary of State, who said this about these unaccompanied children: [They] should be sent back as soon as it can be determined who the responsible adults in their families are. That is former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and, in all likelihood, the Democratic Party's nominee for the President of the United States in 2016. Perhaps the majority leader should talk to her or he could talk to the Secretary of Homeland Security under whose purview this issue falls most directly, who said that: Under current U.S. laws and policies, anyone who is apprehended crossing our border illegally is a priority for deportation, regardless of age. Perhaps the majority leader should pick up the phone and talk to him. So rather than make offensive, politically motivated allegations, perhaps the majority leader should get his facts straight, talk to leaders of his own political party, and then work with us on this side of the aisle to try to find some realistic solutions. As the insurgency rages in Iraq and the border between Syria and Iraq has collapsed and attention here in Washington has turned to other parts of the globe, I can say, without a doubt, the attention of my constituents in Texas is still very much focused on what is happening on our southwestern border and this surge of unaccompanied minor children who are making a dangerous and treacherous journey from Central America through Mexico and ending up on our doorstep. First of all, though, when the facts began to unfold the administration said that human smuggling operations are responsible for creating a misinformation campaign, and that is why we are seeing this surge of unaccompanied minors. There may actually be an element of truth to that if we think about it, because if the human smuggling operations--the drug cartels, organizations such as the Zetas and the associated gangs that work with them--make money on each and every migrant who passes through these corridors of human trafficking and human smuggling, then they probably are making money--more money the more people who come. They probably make more money with children and women and other migrants whom they kidnap and hold for ransom. So there is some element of that. But then we have been told by the administration that the surge is entirely the result of gang violence and poverty in Central America, and that it has nothing to do with President Obama's policies or his perceived commitment to our immigration laws, including the enforcement that only the executive branch can do. A few days ago, however, Secretary of Homeland Security Johnson published what he called ``an open letter to the parents of children crossing our Southwest border,'' in which he implicitly acknowledged that the President's immigration policies or the perception that he was less than committed to enforcing those policies has indeed become a magnet for illegal border crossings. Referring to the so-called deferred action program President Obama announced in June of 2012--remember the President said, ``I have a pen and I have a phone''? Basically saying: I am going to go it alone, I am not going to work with Congress anymore? That was a product of the mentality and approach by the President. But referring to the so-called deferred action program that President Obama announced in June of 2012, Secretary Johnson felt compelled in this open letter to inform his readers that: The U.S. Government's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, also called ``DACA,'' does not apply to a child who crosses the U.S. border illegally today, tomorrow or yesterday. It doesn't apply. Secretary Johnson reiterated this point in the very next paragraph when he said: There is no path to deferred action or citizenship, or one being contemplated by Congress, for a child who crosses our border illegally today. If the sole driver of the border crisis was in fact Central American violence and poverty, or smuggling organizations, then there is no reason to believe that Secretary Johnson needed to clarify the details of U.S. immigration policy. After all, if the migrant surge has nothing to do with U.S. policy, as the White House initially insisted, then clarifying what that policy is won't affect it at all. But it has become simply undeniable that President Obama's policies--including his unilateral deferred action program, as well as the perception that he less than seriously committed to enforcing current law and in fact has ordered Secretary Johnson to investigate and recommend a further relaxation of his enforcement policies--all of this has played a huge role in creating the perception to tens of thousands of unaccompanied children that you should risk your life and travel unaccompanied in the hands of the cartels to the United States, because there won't be any consequences associated with it. It is that perception that the President continues to create by his silence that is the magnet for this illegal immigration. Don't take my word for it. According to an internal Department of Homeland Security memo: 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 . . . In other words, they came because of a widespread perception that unaccompanied minors and women traveling with children would be allowed to stay, even after crossing the border illegally. I think there is more to this story. In fact, what we have learned is that women traveling with children are frequently given a notice to appear once they are processed by the Border Patrol--a notice to appear for a hearing in a court that would then determine any claims of asylum or then determine whether they can stay in the United States or they would have to return to their country of origin. This is called a notice to appear. Strangely enough, the vast majority of immigrants who get a notice to appear never show up. It makes one wonder about the ones who do show up, because there is absolutely no followthrough. This is what is perceived, has been this ``permission'' or ``free pass'' or ``permiso'' in Spanish. Meanwhile, a 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. Relative lack of consequences. In other words, nothing happens to them. If you make it here, you will be able to stay. That is the perception. Again, it is puzzling to me that even though the administration's own documents show a clear reason for the surge, they initially continue to offer the public a shifting narrative. There is no doubt that drug- and gang-related violence in Central America is bad. It is a matter of tremendous concern for U.S. policymakers. It is terrible, it is heartbreaking, and it is something I propose we try to address. I had a great conversation, for example, on the floor a couple days ago with the senior Senator from California, Mrs. Feinstein, who said: Maybe there is something we can do, as we have done in the past, in countries such as Colombia, countries such as Mexico, and elsewhere, where we have worked with our partners there to try to help them restore security and the rule of law. That certainly is a conversation I look forward to continuing. But the fact is the violence in Central America didn't just begin a couple years ago. As a matter of fact, the murder rates in Guatemala and El Salvador were higher in 2009 than they were in 2012 and 2013. But the massive spike in illegal immigration by unaccompanied minors didn't start until 2012--the very same year, not coincidentally, when the President announced his unilateral deferred action program, again creating the perception that if you came here, you would be able to stay. Thus, there is no wonder that people felt as though the floodgates had opened, creating the humanitarian crisis and overwhelming the capacity of local, State, and Federal authorities to deal with all of these children. By fiscal year 2013, the number of unaccompanied minors detained on our southern border had grown to nearly 25,000--up from 6,500 2 years earlier. From 6,500 to 25,000 in 2 years' time. According to the New York Times: From October to June 15th, 52,000 unaccompanied minors were caught at the American border with Mexico, twice the number for the same period in the previous year. There are estimates that could turn out to be 60,000 or more this year and could double next year. One begins to wonder: Where does this end? How does this end? So between the President's refusal to enforce our immigration laws and his ever-shifting explanation as to the source of the ongoing crisis, it is no wonder that the President has lost so much credibility on this issue. Indeed, if the President wants to know why he hasn't been able to pass immigration reform in the House and the Senate, all he has to do is look at the fact that people have lost confidence in his willingness to enforce the law. I know the senior Senator from New York has suggested: Well, we should pass an immigration law and postpone its effective date until after President Obama leaves office. I would say that is a shocking statement, it seems to me, which has been reiterated by the majority leader Senator Reid. There is an enormous amount of distrust about the Federal Government's commitment to enforce the law. So I don't care what the law might ultimately be; if the American people don't believe the President and the Attorney General and the executive branch will enforce the law, we have lost their confidence entirely, and we will never be able to improve and fix our broken immigration system, something I am committed to do. Given all the different narratives coming out of the White House concerning the surge of unaccompanied minors, I think it would be good for the President to directly address the issue. He has sent Vice President Biden to Central America. That is a positive step. I know Secretary Johnson has visited the Rio Grande Valley and some of these detention centers for unaccompanied minors. That is a positive step. And he has written this open letter to the parents of children in Central America discouraging them from sending their children on this long, perilous journey from Central America to the United States through these drug-smuggling and human-smuggling corridors controlled by the Zetas and other cartels. Yesterday I submitted a resolution with my friend the junior Senator from Florida, Mr. Rubio, that calls on the President to do five things: No. 1, it calls on the President to publicly declare that the deferred action program he unilaterally announced in June 2012 will not apply to the recent waves of children who have been illegally crossing our southwestern border. That is the same thing that Secretary Johnson and others have been saying, but it is different coming from the President of the United States. It will be covered by the press. It will be communicated to parents in Central America: Don't send your children to the United States, making them an additional part of this humanitarian crisis, and subject them to all the perils I have talked about repeatedly of that treacherous trip from Central America to the United States. Secondly, this resolution calls on the President to publicly discourage parents in Central America and Mexico and elsewhere from sending their kids on one of the most dangerous migration journeys in the world. Third, it calls on the President to fully and faithfully enforce U.S. immigration laws. I don't know what the facts are, but I do know some of the Members of the House of Representatives--Luis Gutieerrez has very recently said that if we can't pass immigration reform that suits him, he wants the President to take further unilateral action declining to enforce our immigration laws. That just contributes to the impression that is causing this wave of humanity to come to the United States and creating the humanitarian crisis. It doesn't fix it. It makes it worse. I hope the President is watching and listening and decides that he needs to be the one to make the statement, because only the President has the bully pulpit necessary to deal with this. Fourth, our resolution calls on the President to ensure that States such as Texas--and I see my colleague from Arizona; I would include Arizona, California, and other border States--have the resources we need to handle the crisis and to guarantee humane treatment of unaccompanied migrant children. Some of my colleagues from Texas visited the facility in Lackland Air Force Base on Monday, including Senator Cruz and others, and they reported back conditions which, frankly, are very disturbing. Fifth, this resolution calls on the President to work closely with Mexico and Central American officials to improve security at Mexico's southern border. Mexico has a 500-mile southern border with Guatemala which is insecure and porous, through which all of the unaccompanied minors from Central America come. I realize how controversial and polarizing the whole discussion about immigration can be, but I suggest we need to try to work together on a bipartisan basis to deal with it. Hopefully, by making this above partisan politics and doing our job, we can help resolve this immediate crisis, but then we can help regain the public's confidence so they will allow us to take the reasonable steps we know we need to take moving forward to fix our broken immigration laws. I believe passing this resolution would send a powerful message about our commitment and the President's commitment to the rule of law, our commitment to resolving the current border crisis, and our commitment to saving these young children from unimaginably treacherous journeys through Mexico which I previously described. I urge all of our colleagues to work together with us to send that message, and encourage the President to use the bully pulpit to send the message I have outlined.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn) and the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Cochran).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, before I came to the Senate, I read in the history and civics books that the Senate was called the world's greatest deliberative body, where anybody with a good idea or even a bad idea at least had an opportunity to talk about it, offer an amendment or legislation, and get a vote. That is what was meant by ``the world's greatest deliberative body.'' Unfortunately, the Senate has become virtually unrecognizable to those of us who began our tenure under the previous leadership of the Senate. Simply put, we have gone from an institution that legislates, that debates the great ideas to solve the problems and challenges of this great democracy to one that has become a killing floor for good ideas. We have had at least three bipartisan bills in the last few weeks the majority leader has stopped because he has refused the opportunity for Republicans in the minority and the Democrats in the majority to offer any amendments and to get votes. I think about the Shaheen-Portman bill, the energy conservation bill, the tax extenders bill for the expiring 50 or so tax provisions, and the appropriations bill that recently was on the Senate floor. All of these pieces of legislation enjoy bipartisan support. So one would think, in a dysfunctional Senate, at least those kinds of bills would have the opportunity to get debate, amendment, and passage. That is not the case because the majority leader insists on a ``my way or the highway'' mentality. In essence, he wants to be the traffic cop who decides whose ideas get to be debated, what amendments get to be offered, and what votes get to occur. As one Senator from a State that represents 26 million constituents, I refuse to participate in a process where the majority leader from Nevada gets to tell my constituents what kind of amendments I get to offer on their behalf. It is unacceptable. This is not the Senate I joined when I got here nor a Senate any of us should be proud of. Shortly after I got to the Senate, Republicans became the majority party. I always tell my friends and constituents back home, being in the majority is a lot more fun than being in the minority. But back then it was understood by both parties that the price of being in the majority, and recognizing and respecting the minority did have rights, is that you had to take some tough votes on amendments, but after all that is why we are here. That is part of the price we pay for serving in the Senate--to vote sometimes on things we would prefer not to vote on and sometimes we have to take tough votes. Like it or not, that is how the Senate used to operate. Both Republicans and Democrats alike recognized that allowing an open amendment process was about guaranteeing that all Americans--all Americans--those represented by Senators in the majority and those represented by Senators in the minority--that all Americans acting through their elected representatives had a voice and a vote on the Senate floor. Sadly, under the current majority leader, the amendment process has become a distant memory. Again, this is not just about a Senator's prerogative. This isn't about just the process or procedure. This is about our constitutional form of governance, where every State has two Senators and every Senator has the prerogative to represent their constituents to the best of their ability. Here is a sad statistic: Since last July, nearly 1 year ago, we have had rollcall votes on a mere nine minority amendments; that is, among the 45 of us who sit on this side of the Chamber, we have only had a chance for nine rollcall votes on amendments. Meanwhile, in the House of Representatives, our friends in the House held rollcall votes on more than 160 minority amendments. In other words, Republicans control the House; Democrats control the Senate. But in the Democratic-controlled Senate, the minority had nine votes on amendments. In the Republican-controlled House, the minority got 160 votes on amendments. So this isn't just about our being denied amendments. The fact is and what I can't understand is why majority party Democrats are willing to stand by and allow the majority leader to deny their rights and to deny their constituents a voice and a vote on the important work done in the Senate. Since July, we have actually had fewer rollcall votes on Democratic amendments than on Republican amendments. Imagine. I understand being in the minority--and being in the minority means not often getting your way, but if I was in the majority and the majority leader was shutting me out and my constituents out and denying us a chance to have votes on amendments--and I am a Member of the majority party--I think I would have some tough explanations to give to my constituents about why I was not allowed to be effective as their representative in the Senate. But here is an even more shocking scenario. For freshman Democrats-- people newly elected to the Senate--this is what Politico said yesterday: Since joining the Senate in January 2013, the 12 freshmen Democrats have not had a single vote on the floor on any amendment bearing any of their names as the lead sponsor. That is shocking to me. So none of the 12 freshman Democrats--Members of the majority party--have had a single vote on any of their amendments that bear their name as the lead sponsor since 2013--not a single vote. Their constituents, the majority party, completely shut out of the process because of the dictatorship on the floor of the Senate of the majority leader. Over that same period, during the 113th Congress, for example, the junior the Senator from Alaska, the senior Senator from Arkansas, the senior Senator from Colorado, the senior Senator from New Mexico, and the junior Senator from Montana have not had a single rollcall vote on an amendment that bears their name as the lead sponsor. For that matter, according to The Hill, the junior Senator from Alaska ``has never received a roll-call vote on an amendment he's offered on the Senate floor ever.'' Shocking. So not one time in his Senate career has the junior Senator from Alaska received a rollcall vote on the Senate floor because of the way the majority leader has run the Senate. He has been denied the opportunity to be effective on behalf of the people he represents in the Senate--and he is a Member of the majority party. It has gotten so bad, according to the same Politico article I cited a moment ago, that the junior Senator from New Jersey recently asked one of his Democratic colleagues whether voting on Presidential nominees was all the Senate did. He could be forgiven for thinking that because that seems like all we do these days. In addition, the junior Senator from Connecticut said: ``I got more substance on the floor of the House in the minority than I've gotten as a member of the Senate majority.'' Again--I repeat myself--these are Democrats, Members of the majority party who have been shut out of the process. Their party controls the Chamber, yet this debate is obviously not about party control or individual Members, but it is about making sure that millions upon millions of Americans should have their voices heard in the Senate. It is about giving us a chance on their behalf to represent them in this body. I am encouraged to read that some of my colleagues across the aisle are starting to push back against the majority leader's tyranny. I would urge them to continue pushing back and to continue to remind the majority leader that putting up a legislative blockade is not only bad for the minority party and the Republicans, it is bad for the majority party and the people they represent, too. In conclusion, I would say that in addition to the amendment issue I have spoken about for the last 10 minutes or so, there are no fewer than 284--284--House-passed bills that are awaiting consideration here in the Senate--284. Do you not think that among those 284 bills there is just one or two or three decent ideas that might be debated, perhaps improved upon, by an open amendment process in the Senate that we should take up and consider? Many of these are jobs bills, the type of legislation that would help promote economic growth and, boy, we sure could use some economic growth because the economy is contracting, not growing, which means that jobs are scarce and people are hurting. There are bills that would expand opportunity and increase family income. At a time of mass unemployment and stagnant wages, where the median household income has gone down by nearly $2,300 since June of 2009, it is simply outrageous that the majority leader has refused to take up any one of those 284 bills that have passed the House, most of which had bipartisan support. It is outrageous he has refused to let us take up those bills, many of which would help the millions of Americans who are currently looking for a job who cannot find a job. The American people, after all, are the reason why we are here, and they are the ones who are suffering the most from the majority leader's autocratic rule. They deserve better, and it is time all of us, Republicans and Democrats alike, demanded that. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Cochran) and the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Johanns).

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Cochran) and the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Johanns).

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Cochran) and the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Johanns).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Cochran) and the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Johanns).

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee is exactly right to say we can't just look at the border in dealing with this crisis. My friend Henry Cuellar from Laredo, TX, a Member of the House of Representatives, likened this to a football game. He said: You can't only do goal line defense. We need to find ways of deterring people from leaving their homes in the first place and coming to the United States. I know Vice President Biden was in Guatemala this last week and Secretary Johnson was in the Rio Grande Valley, and I know they are looking at all of this. There is no simple, single-shot answer to it. But the fact is there are a lot of people who want to come to the United States, for obvious reasons. But I look at it as even though we are a nation of immigrants, we are a nation of legal immigration, one of the most generous in the world. I think we naturalize roughly 800,000 people a year now because they want to become American citizens through the legal system. But to have this mass of humanity come at such a great flood and in such a short period of time, particularly as unaccompanied minors, threatens to capsize the boat. It creates a lot of hardship in local communities, States, and places around the country we wouldn't expect to be dealing with this, because they are going to have to be taken care of. We are committed to making sure these children are taken care of, but we have to send a message very clearly that if you are a parent contemplating this circumstance, you should not send your children, particularly on the perilous and dangerous journey leading from Central America. I have mentioned in recent days a book written in 2013 called ``The Beast'' by a courageous Salvadoran writer named Oscar Martinez. Mr. Martinez, a journalist, traveled I think eight different times with the migrants from Central America and wrote in this book about their experiences and, unfortunately, the unspeakable brutalities these migrants encounter on a daily basis--again, because they are traveling through a smuggling corridor controlled by the cartels, in this instance the Zetas. The Zetas are a spinoff of the Sinaloa cartel. They used to traffic in drugs, but now they realize they can make money off these migrants--and they do, in terrible sorts of ways. Of course they are lawless, and the brutalities they exact on these migrants are shocking. For example, Mr. Martinez in his book ``The Beast'' tells a story of one migrant woman who was raped on the dirt-and-straw floor of a cardboard shack before being strangled to death in a Mexican town along the Guatemalan border. This woman's picture was subsequently published in a local newspaper on a half page, with two other pictures of tortured bodies. In the meantime, an epitaph was written on a small cross that read: The young mother and her twins died November 2008. I realize this is shocking and really horrible, and we prefer not to even think about it. But I think we need to acknowledge--and certainly the parents who send their young children unaccompanied on this long, perilous journey need to understand--what they are vulnerable to. The dangers of the trans-Mexican migration journey have become far worse over the past decade as powerful drug cartels have effectively taken over the human trafficking business. As Caitlin Dickson in the Daily Beast reported yesterday: While the journey north was always treacherous and costly, in the hands of the cartels it has become deadlier than ever. The entire border, and the routes leading up to it, are controlled by some combination of Los Zetas, Sinaloa, and Knights of Templar cartels, along with a few smaller groups-- making it impossible to cross without their permission. What they have to pay to exact their permission is a tax or a fee-- basically, protection money--to allow them to pass more or less safely through their territory. As I have said many times, there is nothing at all humane about encouraging mothers, daughters, fathers, and sons to put their lives in the hands of such vicious criminals. Yet when the President has talked as he has over the years about dealing humanely with migrants, he acts as if the decision to demonstrate more and more leniency or deferred action when it comes to our enforcement or immigration laws is itself a humanitarian act. Yet perversely what it does is it encourages this sort of illegal immigration and encourages mothers and fathers to subject their children to these tremendous brutalities. I can only hope the ongoing crisis we are seeing now along the southwestern border will dispel any illusions that somehow by saying, well, we will not enforce our immigration laws as to this class of individuals, we are going to pick and choose or we have deported too many people, so we are going to quit deporting people-- these actions and inactions have consequences, and this is the sort of consequence that sort of action produces. I hope it will dissuade the President from announcing yet another unilateral suspension of immigration enforcement later this summer. There are various stories written and rumors told that the President, if immigration reform doesn't pass this year in Congress, will take action unilaterally through an Executive order. He has encouraged that perception, saying, ``I have a pen and I have a phone,'' and he has issued a number of Executive orders in a number of different areas, but I hope the President doesn't compound the problem by further sending the message that he is going to unilaterally suspend enforcement of our immigration laws because the consequences will be big and they will further jeopardize the health, welfare, and well-being of the people he thinks he is trying to help. I would ask the President: What is more important, is it political posturing--trying to show to an important constituency that you are sympathetic to their concerns--or are we going to focus primarily on people's lives and their welfare? Given all that has happened in this humanitarian crisis, how on Earth could the President possibly justify another unilateral change in immigration enforcement that will likely lead to another surge like we have seen on the border. It is pretty simple. Unless we send a clear message that our borders are being enforced and that our laws are being upheld, we will continue to face crisis after crisis after crisis. Meanwhile, untold numbers of migrants will continue suffering and dying in Central America and Mexico just trying to get here or get here--showing up on our doorstep--and overwhelm our capacity to deal with them in a responsible way. I yield the floor, and I would suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, there are two things I wish to address here briefly on the floor of the Senate. The first, strangely enough, has to do with an editorial that appeared in the New York Times this weekend. I remember one of the people who was influential to me when I was coming up through the political system in Bexar County, TX, and in Austin, and now working here in Washington and back home in Texas. One of my mentors said: Don't ever get into a fight with somebody who buys ink by the barrel. That seemed like pretty sage advice, but maybe it is a little dated these days because so much of what we see in the news is not in written newsprint itself. The point is, the editorial in the New York Times this weekend I am referring to was talking about criminal justice reform, a topic that in recent months has produced some genuine bipartisan legislation. I am proud to be a cosponsor of one of those reform bills, along with my colleague, the junior Senator from Rhode Island, Sheldon Whitehouse. Our bill would allow low-risk Federal prisoners to earn credit toward completing a portion of their sentence outside of prison walls--for example, through home confinement, through halfway houses or community supervision. Strangely enough, the Times editorial praises our bill as an example ``of significant progress toward a legislative solution.'' Unfortunately, it then proceeds to blame Senate Republicans, including me, for stalling progress on the bill and preventing a vote on the sentencing bill introduced by the distinguished majority whip, Dick Durbin of Illinois. The strange thing about it is, as every Senator and everybody within the sound of my voice knows, it is Majority Leader Reid who determines what legislation comes up on the Senate floor, and this editorial didn't mention him at all. An amazing oversight. The last time I checked, the majority leader was the only person in the Chamber with the power to schedule a vote on any legislation he wants, and he can do so whenever he wants. So for the record, I wish to correct the error in the New York Times editorial. I strongly support criminal justice reform, including sentencing reform. My concerns about the sentencing reform bill cosponsored by Senator Durbin and Senator Lee are that I believe the criteria it uses are excessively broad in deciding whose prison terms to shorten. But I think those are the sorts of things that could be worked out through an open amendment process on the Senate floor. And-- I am sure we all agree on this--we don't want to prematurely release dangerous, higher level drug traffickers. That is my concern, that the bill is overly broad and would include them. Those kinds of concerns should not be taken lightly--and I am sure they are not--and I look forward to working with my colleagues to address them. To reiterate, my opinions about the sentencing bill have nothing to do with the majority leader's prerogative to schedule a vote. He could schedule that vote anytime he wants. I would like to think the New York Times editorial board is knowledgeable enough to know that, but apparently they need a reminder. Immigration Policy In the last week I have come to the floor a number of times to talk about the humanitarian crisis in South Texas. This of course is caused in large part by 52,000 unaccompanied minors, mostly from Central America, who have shown up on America's doorstep, on our border, saying they want to live in the United States. It is estimated those numbers could rise to as many as 60,000 to 90,000 this year alone and maybe double next year unless something is done. I have to say I am somewhat encouraged because the Obama administration is finally acknowledging--somewhat belatedly, but finally they are acknowledging their policies may have contributed to this crisis in the first place. This past weekend Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson published what he called an open letter to the parents of children crossing our Southwest border. This letter ran as an op-ed in Spanish language media outlets, and it warned parents of the extraordinary dangers facing Central American migrants who travel through Mexico, including the danger of kidnapping, sexual assault, torture, and murder. Secretary of Homeland Security Johnson also made clear that the children who have been pouring into South Texas will not be eligible for the Obama administration's so-called deferred action programs. This is what he said: There is no path to deferred action or citizenship, or one being contemplated by Congress, for a child who crosses our border illegally today. In other words, Secretary Johnson's op-ed implicitly acknowledged that President Obama's policies have created a perception that children who make it across the border will be allowed to stay. I must say it is a very dangerous perception and one that simply has to be corrected, not only for the sake of U.S. border security and for the rule of law but for the sake of the very children who now constitute the humanitarian crisis on our southwestern border. In discussing this matter with a number of our colleagues on a bipartisan basis, it has been observed that the drug cartels, which used to just traffic in drugs, now traffic in people. They have changed their business model. Essentially, they control the corridors by which drugs, people, and weapons traverse Mexico and, in this instance, come from Central America. The fact is there should be a lot of concern on our part that this flood of unaccompanied children will prove to be a distraction from the interdiction of dangerous drugs coming across the same borders. In fact, in the Rio Grande sector of the Border Patrol, in the Rio Grande Valley, as the distinguished chairman of the Homeland Security Committee knows, there has actually been a drop in the number of drug interdictions coming across the southwestern border in part because the Border Patrol and other law enforcement have been diverted to deal with this humanitarian crisis. I see the chairman on the floor, and it looks as though he has a question on his mind. I yield to him for a question if he has one.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Cochran) and the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Johanns).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Cochran) and the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Johanns).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Cochran) and the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Johanns).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Cochran) and the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Johanns).