John Cornyn

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Cochran), the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Johanns), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran), and the Senator from South Dakota (Mr. Thune).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Now this border between Iran and Syria has basically been wiped away. We see all of these places where the ISIS, a horrific terrorist group that is even worse than Al Qaeda, has basically taken charge. So this is what happens with a failure of leadership. Unfortunately, this is where we are in so many places around the world. In short: President Obama simply cannot keep asking America's military to shoulder such a disproportionate share of the spending cuts while our biggest entitlement programs remain virtually untouched. DoD spending did not cause our long-term budget problem, so slashing it to the bone would not solve that problem. Moreover, seemingly every week brings fresh reminders of the challenges our country will face in the years to come. At this very moment, we have Russia's ongoing aggression against democratic Ukraine. We have an Iranian theocracy that shows no signs of abandoning its quest for a nuclear weapon. We have a persistent terrorist challenge in Afghanistan. We have a potential failed state in Libya. We have growing Al Qaeda activity in many parts of Africa. We have a Chinese dictatorship that is increasing its annual military budget by more than 12 percent while continuing to bully its neighbors on the high seas. Most notably, we have a burgeoning terror state in the heart of the Middle East, where a ruthless band of jihadist killers--a group that is even more radical and murderous than Al Qaeda, if you can believe it-- now controls a massive piece of territory spanning both Syria and Iraq. Calling their movement the ``Islamic State of Iraq and Syria,'' or ISIS, members of this organization have taken over major Iraqi cities, including Fallujah, Mosul, Tikrit, and Tal Afar, leaving a trail of blood and medieval terror in their wake. The map to my left shows just how much territory ISIS has conquered. To make matters worse, they have seized a tremendous amount of weaponry and money--almost half a billion dollars--making them perhaps the most well-resourced terrorist group on earth. And again, just to reiterate: This group is considered more radical, and more vicious, than even Al Qaeda. Amazingly, even after ISIS took control of Mosul, Iraq's second- largest city, a National Security Council spokeswoman stuck to the White House's 3-year-old talking points and said, ``President Obama promised to responsibly end the war in Iraq and he did.'' Of course, the President did no such thing. By the time he assumed office in January 2009, Iraq had largely been stabilized. All the President had to do was convince the Iraqi government to sign a new Status of Forces Agreement, SOFA. Unfortunately, he was more interested in keeping a misguided campaign promise from 2008. As a result of his failure to maintain a significant U.S. troop presence in Iraq, America emboldened the Iranians, the Shiite militias, and the Sunni terrorist groups to become more aggressive. We also emboldened Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to behave in a more sectarian and dictatorial manner. Meanwhile, amid the fallout from America's Iraq withdrawal, President Obama's failure to take early, decisive action in Syria made it much easier for Sunni terrorists to increase their territory, weapons, and manpower. As you can see from this map, the jihadists have effectively been using their bases in Syria as a launching pad for attacks in western Iraq. The path forward in Iraq is highly uncertain, but I would urge President Obama to explain to the American people what is at stake, and to formulate a robust strategy for defending U.S. interests and preventing the creation of a new terror state. The President may well believe--as a recent New York Times article suggested--that ``he is managing an era of American retrenchment.'' But with bloodthirsty jihadists marauding through Iraq and approaching the gates of Baghdad, now is not a time for U.S. retrenchment. Instead, now is a time for clear thinking, clear decisions, and clear action.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I wish to talk about the intersection of national security and our mounting debt. Over the last 5 years, President Obama has had multiple occasions to embrace real structural entitlement reform that would help solve our long-term debt problem. One might wonder why am I talking about debt when the subject we are generally talking about is national security, including what is happening in Iraq and Syria. It is because as the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, ADM Mike Mullen, when asked what the single biggest threat to our national security was, he said: It is our debt. The President had an opportunity, when the Simpson-Bowles Commission released its recommendations in late 2010. As you will recall, this is a bipartisan commission the President himself appointed to help come up with a formula to deal with our fiscal problems. Unfortunately, once they made their recommendations in December of 2010, the President walked away from them and nothing came of it, even though we are facing, in addition to $17 trillion in debt, more than $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities. Perhaps it is because those numbers are so big that we have a hard time getting our head around it, that people have become desensitized to the urgency of dealing with our debt and these unfunded liabilities. But the President has never once endorsed any sort of reform necessary to deal with this challenge or to prevent a future crisis. The fact is, somebody someday--probably these young men and women who are working as pages and others their age, is going to have to be the ones to pay this back because our generation will have failed them unless we meet the challenges this presents. It seems as though the only part of the Federal budget the President is eager to cut is national defense. Under his latest budget plan, defense spending would drop from 3.4 percent to 2.3 percent of GDP by 2023. At the same time, we are told the U.S. Army might be shrunk to the smallest size since pre-World War II. President Obama needs to realize that even America's current military capabilities are proving inadequate to meet global challenges. For example, one former Assistant Secretary of Defense has declared that because of Pentagon budget cuts, President Obama's highly touted pivot to Asia cannot happen. In other words, despite promoting the Asia pivot as a crucial element of American foreign policy, the President has failed to take the necessary fiscal steps to make sure that happens or could happen. This of course makes it a hollow policy, one where the promises are extravagant, but the delivery is anemic, and one that will do major damage to U.S. credibility among our allies and adversaries. The prospect of bringing DOD spending back down to sequestration levels has alarmed our senior military officials in all branches of government. Chief of Naval Operations ADM Jonathan Greenert has said that reverting to sequester levels in 2016 ``would lead to a Navy that is too small and lacking the advanced capabilities needed to execute the missions that nation expects of its Navy.'' The Secretary of the Air Force has said that going back to those spending levels ``would compromise our national security.'' Ray Odierno, Chief of Staff of the Army, said it would put ``our young men and women [in uniform] at much higher risk.'' In other words, the President cannot simply keep cutting defense spending and the military in order to fund his other priorities and at the same time ignore the 70 percent of spending that is on autopilot, so-called entitlement spending. That is where the big money is. That is where the reforms need to take place, but it will not happen without a leader. We all know what is happening in Iraq. I know time is short. I do not want to take away any more time than necessary from my colleague from Alabama, but this map reflects what is happening now in Iraq. The civil war in Syria, the President had drawn a red line which once crossed-- there were no consequences associated with that.

Mr. CORNYN. I know we perhaps have another Member coming to speak. Would the Chair please advise me after I have used 5 minutes of that 8 minutes?

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, how much time remains in the allocation of this side's time?

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator and look forward to that.

Mr. CORNYN. I appreciate the Senator's leadership and big heart. This is not a political issue. The first and most important thing we need to do is to pursue the best interests of these children, but we cannot simply deal with our immigration problem, illegal immigration problem, at the border. It has to start back in Central America. That is one reason I am glad Vice President Joe Biden is traveling to Guatemala, as I know Jeh Johnson, the Secretary of Homeland Security has, to try to see what they can do. We then need to try to persuade our friends in Mexico to commit more resources. Perhaps we can persuade them to deal with the 500-mile southern border that is basically controlled by the cartels. But the cartels are making money. So this is a governance issue in Central America and Mexico as well. I might point out that perhaps with the same reservations the distinguished Senator from Maryland made about not agreeing with everything I said, but much of what I said, what I have said has I think pretty much been echoed by my friend Representative Henry Cuellar from Laredo, TX, who obviously by virtue of where he lives and was raised is very knowledgeable about the border around Laredo and Mexico and Central America. I saw an interview with our former First Lady Hillary Clinton, that unless we send a very clear and loud message to people in Central America that you should not come, you should not risk your children making this long, harrowing journey because they will not be able to stay, then they are going to keep coming, because right now when these children come here, as the Senator knows, our capacity to deal with them is overwhelmed at the local level, at the State level, and at the Federal level, and they are essentially being treated like refugees and warehoused in places such as Lackland Air Force Base and other places around the country. You can imagine the impact in the long run not only on the health care system, on education, and other services that would be required to take care of these children until they can be repatriated. But I would align myself with what former Senator Clinton, the former Secretary of State, said: The President and the administration need to send a very clear and loud message that anyone who comes to the United States will be returned to their country of origin once a safe family member can be identified to repatriate these children. But right now the system is so overwhelmed that we don't even know who these children are being placed with in America. They may be some claimed family member, but I am not sure whether there are background checks being done for criminal history or perhaps sex offense. This is overwhelming the whole system. I am sure working together we can come up with an improvement over where we are now, and I would point out this is not a partisan issue, but it is a very harsh reality and my concern is it is being overwhelmed by the news out of the Middle East and other concerns here in Washington when it is very much front and center back home in Texas.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, if I may respond to the distinguished Senator's question.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, with what is happening in Iraq, what is happening with the claim of lost IRS emails from Lois Lerner, what is happening in the developments of the Benghazi investigation, what is happening in Ukraine, and what could happen in Afghanistan, it is easy--perhaps too easy--to overlook a crisis occurring right here in America on our southern border. That crisis is easily described as a wave of humanity coming across our southern border from Central America. Tragically, tens of thousands of the people coming across our borders seeking refuge in the United States are children--unaccompanied minors--from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. The question we should ask ourselves is, Why are we seeing this unprecedented increase in the number of unaccompanied minors coming across our southwestern border? As we can see, in 2011 there were 6,560 detained. But that number has grown steadily, from 2012, 2013, and now 2014. So far 47,000 minors-- unaccompanied children--have been detained coming across our border, primarily from Central America. It is estimated that this 60,000 number will likely double next year unless something is done. These children--and their parents are enabling this--are crossing the border because of a widespread perception that they will be allowed to stay here. The reason for that perception is a series of events--a series of stated changes in policy--which have given the impression that President Obama does not have a commitment to enforce our immigration laws. None of us denies that Central America's Northern Triangle is plagued by drug cartels, street gangs, rampant violence, and deeply entrenched poverty. There is no doubt about it. The fact is that the majority of people coming across the southwestern border these days are not from Mexico; they are from Central America. They are coming through a 500- mile strip of border between Guatemala and Mexico, making their way up the Mexican coast in areas largely controlled by the Zetas--a criminal organization, a drug cartel which has basically figured this is another way to make money. In other words, they not only traffic in drugs, they traffic in people, and now, quite honestly, they are trafficking in tens of thousands of children. The massive spike in unaccompanied minors, of course, seemed to start to take off when President Obama announced in 2012 his so-called deferred action plan. To be clear and to be fair, this deferred action announcement where the President said he would not deport certain categories or classes of children would not apply to the children coming across the border today. So we might wonder, why in the world do they keep coming? Well, that was not an isolated event in 2012. Just to remind my colleagues, this deferred action announcement came 2 years after John Morton, who was the Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, circulated a memo declaring that the enforcement of U.S. immigration laws against most illegal aliens was now a lower priority. That memo went out in June of 2010. A few months later several colleagues and I sent a letter to then- Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano expressing our concern that the administration's selective enforcement of our immigration statutes was jeopardizing public safety and breeding contempt for the rule of law. That letter read, in part: Numerous criminal aliens are being released into society and are having proceedings terminated simply because ICE has decided that such cases do not fit within the Department's chosen enforcement priorities. It appears that ICE is enforcing the law based on criteria it arbitrarily chose with complete disregard for the enforcement laws created by Congress. Then, in the second Morton memo the following June, then-Director Morton sent around another memo which further advised U.S. immigration authorities to systemically reconsider hundreds of thousands of immigration cases and to make them low priorities to enforce immigration laws against millions of people illegally present in the United States. That second Morton memo went even further than the first in looking at everyone--all the undocumented population here in the United States--and saying: We are going to reconsider our priorities in terms of repatriation of those individuals should they be detained by ICE. That June 2011 memo laid the groundwork for the deferred action program the President announced a year later, which was 2012, and these programs were extended earlier this month. The average was about 6,500; then it doubled in 2012; and then it doubled again in 2013; and then it is scheduled to double again in 2014. The administration has continued to treat the vast majority of illegal immigrants as low-priority offenders, thereby creating perverse incentives for people to cross the border. If people don't believe there is any consequence associated with entering the country in violation of our immigration laws, they are going to continue to do it. As the distinguished Presiding Officer knows, law enforcement has more than just what I would call a goal-line defense priority. In other words, deterrence is very important. Obviously, people are not being deterred. Perversely, people are being encouraged by this series of events to show up at the border--and, of course, in huge numbers--overwhelming Border Patrol, which is now no longer looking uniformly at drug dealers and human smuggling operations. Now they are trying to take care of children and trying to get them to a safe place to live and to take care of them. John Sandweg, who served as the ICE Director from 2013 to 2014, recently told the Los Angeles Times: If you are a run-of-the-mill immigrant here illegally, your odds of getting deported are close to zero. It is just unlikely to happen. That message has obviously gotten through to folks in Central America, who, admittedly, are living in a very tough neighborhood, and it has encouraged many of them to risk their lives and their children's lives on an extremely dangerous journey through this region of Mexico covered by the drug cartels. Actually, it is part of the business model of the drug cartels to encourage this flow of illegal migration from Central America through Mexico because they effectively get paid a tax by the coyotes and human smugglers who smuggle people through this dangerous region. One of the ways they come is on the top of one of these trains. This is a shot of a train they call The Beast. It has been well documented and written about by a Salvadoran journalist, Oscar Martinez, in a book he wrote in 2013 which is chilling, but it describes the journey from Central America through Mexico on the top of one of these trains and the risk of accident, the likelihood of sexual assault--6 to 8 out of 10 migrant women are sexually assaulted--people who are kidnapped for ransom, and people who are killed who don't comply with the dictates of the drug cartels. Don't take just my word for it. Last week the Washington Post confirmed that the influx of unaccompanied minors: . . . is being driven in large part by the perception that they will be allowed to stay under the Obama administration's immigration policies. The New York Times recently told the story of a 13-year-old Honduran boy who was detained in Mexico while trying to reach the United States. Like so many others across Central America, the Times reported this boy . . . said his mother believed that the Obama administration had quietly changed its policy regarding unaccompanied minors and that if he made it across he would have a better shot at staying. The distinguished Senator from Maryland is here. Not only is this affecting States such as Texas, but these children, 1,000 of them, are being effectively warehoused in Lackland Air Force base in San Antonio, TX, some are being shipped to Arizona and California, and some are being sent--or at least the plan is to send them--to Virginia and Maryland, because these 47,000 children who have been detained since October of last year are overwhelming the capacity of local communities and State and Federal authorities to deal with them. As I said, The Beast, which transports people 1,000 miles or so on a trip from southern Mexico up to the southern border of Texas, is a horrific way to transit that huge expanse. Migrant women are preyed upon by drug cartels such as the Zetas. Officials from the mayor's office in Ciudad Hidalgo told Oscar Martinez, the author of the book ``The Beast,'' in Ciudad Hidalgo the Zetas control all trafficking, sending men to recruit women in Central America, and sometimes even kidnapping migrant women riding the buses. They sell the women to truckdrivers for a night, and then throw them away like unwanted scraps. My point is, there is nothing humane about encouraging people to travel through cartel-dominated smuggling routes in the hopes of reaching the United States. Yet that has been the effect of the perception that the President and his administration are not committed to enforcing our immigration laws. I know that wasn't their intention but that has been the consequence. Even before the ongoing border crisis erupted, people were taking notice of the President's disregard for the rule of law. Last December, for example, a Federal district court judge in Brownsville, TX, absolutely excoriated the Obama administration for making a mockery of enforcement, noting that the President's policies were incentivizing human traffickers and endangering the lives of children. Here is what Federal Judge Andrew Hanen said: By fostering an atmosphere whereby illegal aliens are encouraged to pay human smugglers for further services, the government is not only allowing them to fund the illegal and evil activities of these cartels, but is also inspiring them to do so. That is a Federal district judge in Brownsville, TX. One final point. Some of my friends across the aisle have argued that if only Congress would pass President Obama's preferred immigration reforms, the current border crisis would never have happened. That ignores the fact that none of these children qualify for any of the deferred action policies either ordered in 2012 or any of the others I mentioned. But there is the perception caused by the first Morton memo, the second Morton memo, then the deferred action announcement, and now the widely publicized news that the President has instructed Jeh Johnson, the Secretary of Homeland Security, to reconsider the entire repatriation and deportation policy, and it is clear this is related to the upcoming midterm election and the President's desire to try to make a point. The problem is his point is backfiring. It is victimizing the very same people the President believes, I think, that he is trying to help. That is what happens when the rule of law is no longer your priority-- unintended consequences. As I explained today, the President's actions have helped cause this humanitarian crisis. I know the Finance Committee has in subcommittee appropriated I think roughly $2 billion to help the Federal authorities to deal with this humanitarian crisis. Unfortunately, unless we are able to process appropriations bills across the floor of the Senate, I don't know when that money is going to be available, and that is another problem. But the most fundamental problem is the American people's confidence that the Federal Government will enforce the laws, until such time as those laws are changed, has been undermined. Passing new legislation will do nothing to fix that unless the President is willing to enforce laws that have already been passed by Congress. This isn't a problem of passing some more laws; this is a problem of the President and his administration effectively conveying the message that they are not going to enforce the laws they don't want to enforce. Unless we send a clear, unambiguous message that our border is secure and our immigration laws are being enforced, we can expect more and more Central American migrants to embark on the harrowing journey from Central America up through Mexico, which means more of them will be robbed, kidnapped, raped, and killed. We don't know how many start out on this journey. All we know is how many show up on the border. We ought to be concerned about that. To be clear, I remain personally committed to fixing all aspects of our broken immigration system, but I cannot and will not support any policy that effectively empowers human traffickers and endangers the lives of these children. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Cochran).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Cochran).

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I am returning to the Senate floor to talk once again about the wave of migrant children who are coming across the U.S.-Mexican border unaccompanied by adults. So far this year, since October, 47,000 unaccompanied minors have been detained at the border, most of them coming not from Mexico, which obviously is closer to the United States, but from as far away as Central America and beyond. To put this in some context, from Guatemala City, Guatemala, to McAllen, TX, is roughly a trip of 1200 miles. I have spoken many times and I will continue to speak to anyone who will listen about the horrific and dangerous conditions these children and other migrants travel just to get to the United States. Thousands of migrant children, almost all of whom come from Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Mexico are currently being held in U.S. military facilities such as Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, TX. While Federal, State, and local officials try to figure out, No. 1, who they are--find out what their identity is, because many of them show up without any identification--they try to figure out, well, do they have any relatives here in the United States or possible legal guardians? Then they have to decide what to do with them while their cases are being processed. Obviously since the majority of them come from countries other than Mexico, they cannot just be turned back, particularly in the case of minor children, some of whom have been reported to be as young as 5 years old. The average age is roughly 14 years old, but still when I describe, as I will today and will continue to do, the horrific conditions under which these migrant children travel from Mexico and up from Central America, no one in their right mind would want to have their child subjected to that sort of potential and reality of abuse and mistreatment. I am glad the President has asked Vice President Joe Biden to travel to Central America, but I worry that so far I haven't heard any plan whatsoever that would stop the flow of these unaccompanied children from Central America and Mexico. As you can imagine, this is a bureaucratic nightmare, trying to figure out how to deal with this mass of humanity coming across the border. In fact, the Border Patrol is spending so much time trying to take care of the humanitarian crisis that they are neglecting some of their principal responsibilities, which are to stem the flow of illegal immigration and drugs across the border. So this is diverting law enforcement from its assigned role just to deal with the temporary crisis. At least I hope it is temporary. The authorities in South Texas and the Rio Grande Valley do not have the resources or the manpower to handle such a massive influx of unaccompanied children. In terms of the children who have been released from U.S. custody, we still don't know how many of their ``temporary guardians'' are themselves illegal immigrants. We don't know because I assume there is not a background check conducted on them. I hope I am wrong. But I hope we don't find out that some of these unaccompanied minors are being turned over to relatives who are themselves perhaps criminals or sex offenders. In other words, we have no idea, because the President has not spoken out, what kind of plan there is to make sure of the conditions these children are living in or what sort of potential abuse they might suffer. It is an awful situation any way you look at it. What makes it even more outrageous is it is directly the result of the impression that President Obama is uninterested in enforcing our immigration laws, specifically his refusal to enforce and his granting of so-called deferred action programs he announced in the Rose Garden 2 years ago. To be fair to the President and the Senators who voted for the Senate immigration bill, it would have, if signed into law, granted a deferred action for a certain class of minors, so-called DREAM Act kids. But none of these children entering the country currently qualify or would qualify for either the President's deferred action order that he issued unilaterally or the Senate-passed DREAM Act provisions. So we know they are entering in violation of American law, but there are no negative consequences associated with it as long as they are basically accommodated in the United States. As a result, the number of children entering the country, together with the number of adults, is simply skyrocketing. As I said previously, to start with, it was estimated that 47,000 have been detained so far this year, and that this entire calendar year there will be as many as 60,000. Next year the numbers are expected to double to 120,000 children. The fact is this is not just affecting States such as Texas, a border State, or even Arizona or California. This is affecting States such as Virginia, Maryland, Oklahoma, and other places where the Federal Government is simply looking for a place to warehouse these children while it figures out what to do with them. Of course, the ensuing crisis has prompted a fresh debate over security conditions at the U.S.-Mexican border. As the debate goes forward, it is worth considering exactly what we mean when we talk about border security, because I fear it is a term that is often misunderstood. Border security is not just about catching people along the Rio Grande or checkpoints in places such as Falfurrias or Sarita, it is also about deterring potential illegal immigrants from starting out from their home country on such a dangerous journey in the first place. My friend Congressman Henry Cuellar from Laredo said, for example, when you play football you don't just defend at the goal line; you start 20 yards from the goal line, you start at midfield and on the other team's turf. So we need to make sure we have a comprehensive approach and a plan to deal with illegal immigration into the country, as I said, hopefully with the goal in large part of deterring parents from turning their children over to the hands of the drug cartels and other transnational criminal gangs and sending them on this perilous and horrific journey north to the United States. This journey from Central America to southern Mexico to the U.S. border is one of the most dangerous journeys anywhere in the world. Indeed, every single corridor is controlled by transnational criminal drug organizations, including drug smugglers and cartels. They prey on the weakest and most vulnerable people they find. They will rob them, they will sexually assault them, they will kill them if need be in order to suit their purposes. Not surprisingly, the ongoing surge of Central American migrants has been an absolute gift to the Mexican drug cartels and their gangland affiliates. As an Austin-based immigration lawyer told the L.A. Times recently: ``The smugglers are milking this situation for all it's worth.'' This is money in the bank for the drug cartels and the human smugglers, the people who prey on the most vulnerable people who are smuggled in from Central America and Mexico to the United States. That is how they make their money. That is their business model, so to speak. President Obama has often defended his immigration policies as a humane response to a broken system. I would be among the first to acknowledge that America's immigration system is indeed broken, but there is nothing humane about incentivizing people who risk their lives and their children's lives by traveling through the most dangerous smuggling corridors in the Western Hemisphere. There is nothing humane about incentivizing people to pay human traffickers for transportation through Mexico. Yet when the administration deliberately refuses to enforce our immigration laws and talks daily about its investigation into changing repatriation policies, it effectively tells people in Mexico and Central America that if they make it across to the U.S. border they will almost certainly be allowed to stay. When the administration does those things, it is effectively encouraging poor, vulnerable immigrants to embark on a treacherous and often deadly journey. As I said, the journey is especially treacherous for young migrant women and children. The migrant women are frequently raped, kidnapped, and sold to sex traffickers. Some experts believe that 6 out of 10 of the migrant women who traverse this dangerous territory are sexually assaulted. It is truly appalling and without question one of the worst human rights nightmares anywhere in our hemisphere. For that matter, it is likely getting worse. A new Congressional Research Service memo indicates that girls and children below the age of 13 represent a growing number of unaccompanied minors who are being apprehended at the southern border. Needless to say, as more and more migrant children travel through Mexico, more will be forced into sex slavery and prostitution. I think we all agree that the status quo is simply intolerable and unacceptable. So what is the solution? Well, I spent the past couple of days urging the President to take a few basic steps that would help curtail the seemingly endless flow of unaccompanied minors up through this dangerous smuggling corridor. The steps I have outlined I think reflect common sense. For starters, the President of the United States must make it abundantly clear to everyone that his deferred action program on deportation does not apply to the children who are now streaming across our border in floodlike proportions. If the President himself were to make such an announcement, it would get noticed. Right now Central American newspapers as well as the criminal cartels are actively spreading the word that if you turn yourselves over to us and pay our price to get smuggled into the United States, you can get free passage and stay, because they are saying you will not be repatriated. If the President also worked with the Mexican Government to help secure its southern border with Guatemala--that border is about 500 miles long and it is currently the place the migrants come from Central America into Mexico to begin that long, perilous journey, many on a train system that has become known as The Beast or The Beast of Death, which has been written about a lot. If the President were to help provide Mexico, in consultation with our Mexican friends, a way to help secure that border, it would help stem more than half the flow of migrants including these unaccompanied children from Central America. And if the President sent the message, contrary to what he has done recently, that he is committed to enforcing all of our immigration laws until Congress and the President can engage in our constitutionally required process of amending those laws, then the tide of children flooding across South Texas might soon be reversed. I wish I had confidence that President Obama would take the actions I have described. His record on immigration and border security, unfortunately, inspires no confidence that he will. To reiterate, once again, solving this crisis isn't simply about securing America's southern border. It is not just about goal-line defense, in the words of Congressman Cuellar, it is about enforcing our immigration laws. It is about saving mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, from contact with some of the most brutal criminal organizations on the planet. I hope the President is listening. I am encouraged that Vice President Biden is traveling to the region, but, of course, we know that Central America, the government there, has deteriorated to the point that it has become an increasingly dangerous place. That is another one of the arguments that is made, that people are simply fleeing from violence in those Central American countries. I certainly am sympathetic, but the fact is the United States cannot absorb people from every part of the globe who want to come to the United States without imperiling our way of life. So what we need to do is find a way to control immigration through legal channels, and we need to send the message to other countries that you cannot come here with impunity and simply overwhelm our ability in the United States to take care of legal immigrants. The President can do a lot. Sending Vice President Biden to Central America is a start, but what we need is a plan along the lines I have outlined in order to stem this humanitarian crisis that is occurring not just in South Texas but is being spread to Virginia, Maryland, Oklahoma, Arizona, and California, because that is where these children are being sent in the custody of the Federal Government--basically in warehouses or it occurs to me that this is more like a refugee camp on American soil. This is not the way we would want our children to live, and this is not the way we should want other parents' children to live. We will take care of them to the best of our ability while they are here, but what we need is an unequivocal message that says America does not have an open border and that parents should not turn their children over to these dangerous drug cartels and human smugglers in order to come to the United States. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Cochran).

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. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Cochran) and the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Sessions).

Mr. CORNYN

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

Mr. CORNYN

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

Mr. CORNYN

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

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 Mississippi (Mr. Cochran), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Ariona (Mr. McCain), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran), and the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey).

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Chambliss), the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Cochran), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran), and the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey).

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

Mr. CORNYN

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

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Cochran), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran), and the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Scott).