John Cornyn

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Utah (Mr. Lee) and the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Blunt). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Utah (Mr. Lee) would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, we have been on this bill for about 2\1/ 2\ weeks. We find ourselves in a very strange position where we have had votes on 10 amendments, and now Senators are talking about clearing another 45 amendments 2 days before the majority leader has basically set a deadline and said we are going to be through with this bill one way or the other. This strikes me as a strange way to do business, but here we are. I have always believed that even though you want something--and in this case I believe virtually every Senator in this Chamber wants an immigration bill--that you can want something so bad and be so desperate that you will get a bad deal. I think we are beginning to see some elements in this bill, which I want to talk about briefly, that I think ought to give all of us pause and cause us to wonder whether this is the way we should be doing business. One of the things my constituents in Texas found so infuriating about the process of passing the Affordable Care Act--all 2,700 pages--was the way there were backroom deals and various special interest boondoggles that helped garner the 60 votes necessary to pass ObamaCare back in 2010. Some of them became somewhat famous. There was the ``Cornhusker kickback,'' ``Gator aid,'' and the ``Louisiana purchase.'' They became symbols of Congress's irresponsibility when it came to discharging our duties as Members of the Senate. It is suggested that if, in fact, individual Members got sweeteners that were sufficient to get their vote, that was the way we ought to be doing business. Unfortunately, we are starting to see similar tactics break out here on this immigration issue, suggesting that some Members are so desperate to get a deal, any deal, they are willing to take a bad deal, one in which none of these standing alone would pass muster or scrutiny. Immigration reform is a nationwide challenge, and immigration reform should promote the national interests, not the special interests of individual Senators or any region or State or lobbying group. Yet when we look at the underlying bill, I see a litany of de facto earmarks, carve-outs, and pet spending initiatives. Because we have been in such a rush since last Friday to move to the designated deadline the majority leader has set for this bill, there may be many Members who are unfamiliar with these special carve-outs, de facto earmarks, and pet spending initiatives. I want to talk about a few of them. The bill directs $250 million from the comprehensive immigration reform trust fund to boost immigration-related prosecutions in a single sector. There are nine Border Patrol sectors, but the Tucson sector is the surprise beneficiary of $250 million in a special earmark in this bill. I have a simple question: Don't all of the border sectors need increased funding for prosecutions? Well, I believe the answer is yes. So I believe carving out the Tucson sector for special treatment is entirely inappropriate. So we see that even longtime opponents of earmarks are now cosponsoring legislation that is filled with de facto earmarks, including one that benefits their State alone. We wouldn't see this sort of thing, I believe, if we had a stand-alone bill. But they have jammed that in here in order to get the maximum number of votes. We have seen strange things happen. This bill also creates a bureaucracy to determine which occupational category should be prioritized under the new guest worker program. However, it requires a new bureaucracy to automatically designate Alaska seafood processing as a shortage occupation that receives special treatment. We might as well call this the Alaska Seafood Special. I will mention one more boondoggle, and that is the jobs for youth pet program, which authorizes $1.5 billion to expand an Obama stimulus program that could conceivably be used to give free cars, motorcycles, scooters, and other vehicles to young people who participate. I am referring to page 1,182 of the jobs for youth amendment. It is title V under the bill, which says: The funds made available under this section may be used to provide supportive services, such as transportation or childcare, that is necessary to enable the participation of such youth in the opportunities. So I believe this is an open-ended invitation to take this $1.5 billion and use it for purposes that many of us would cringe at if we really understood it. I want to make two final points about the spending in the bill. First, we are going to be asked to waive all 11 budget points of order under the bill at a time when there is bipartisan concern about our fiscal standing, at a time when our debt is $17 trillion. I think we have been pretty good recently in not waiving budget points of order. I believe we are recognizing on a bipartisan basis that it is important we hold the line against increased deficit spending and increased debt. But we are going to be asked to vote to essentially violate our own pay-go rules in waiving the budget points of order, busting the Judiciary Committee's spending limit, and to designate certain spending as emergency spending even though it is obviously not emergency spending. So much for fiscal responsibility. Supporters of the underlying bill continue to argue that this legislation will actually reduce the Federal deficit. It is a bizarre situation where we can spend almost $50 billion and claim that it actually reduces the deficit, but that is the argument. Yet, as I explained on Monday, the only way we can transform this bill into a deficit reduction bill is by double counting more than $211 billion worth of Social Security revenue. In other words, the money paid in in terms of Social Security taxes is eventually going to have to be paid out in benefits, and they can't say we will pay it out in benefits and then also use that surplus to fund the underlying bill because that is double counting. Indeed, the bill assumes the very same pot of money can be used to fund new spending initiatives and fund these future Social Security benefits, but only in Washington can we get away with such magical accounting techniques. In the real world this bill actually increases the Federal Government's on-budget deficit over the next 10 years. I am just suggesting that in our rush to get a bill we are making concessions we ordinarily would not make on stand-alone legislation, whether it is in these sweetener provisions, the de facto earmarks, special carve-outs, or by double counting revenue. But to add it all up, we are left with a bill that is chock-full of de facto earmarks, porkbarrel spending, and special interest sweeteners. This is a bill that increases the on-budget deficit but fails to guarantee a border that is secure and offers only promises, which historically Congress has been very bad about keeping. Does that sound like real immigration reform? I know we can do better, and I know we must do better if we are ever going to solve our biggest immigration problems. Again, I would love to support an immigration reform bill. Unfortunately, the way this bill is shaping up, I cannot and will not. My hope is that the House of Representatives will take up this issue on a step-by-step basis and in smaller increments so people can actually read and understand it. By working through this issue in the House, eventually they will be able to come up with a conference committee that will produce a responsible immigration reform bill, one that doesn't offer de facto earmarks and various sweeteners to people who support it, but one which will stand on its own merits and will not bust the budget by double counting Social Security funds paid into the bill in the future. I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Utah (Mr. Lee) and the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Blunt). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Utah (Mr. Lee) would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Utah (Mr. Lee) and the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Blunt). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Utah (Mr. Lee) would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Utah (Mr. Lee).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Now that cloture was invoked on the underlying Leahy amendment, I think it is very important the American people and Members of Congress look more closely at what actually is in the immigration bill we will be voting on during the course of this week and, presumably, if the majority leader has his way, will see pass this Chamber and head over to the House of Representatives. It was three years ago when the Democratic House leader and the former head of that Chamber Nancy Pelosi famously said we would have to pass ObamaCare in order to find out what was in it. We have all said things we regret, and I bet if she had it to say over again, she would not have said it that way. Indeed, it seemed to strike such a responsive chord in people because the public realizes what we should acknowledge, which is when it comes to 2,700 pages of legislation passed through without adequate deliberation and an understanding of what is in it, purely on a partisan vote, we are bound to make mistakes. Unfortunately, we know how ObamaCare turned out. We have now seen bipartisan votes to repeal certain portions of it such as the 1099 requirement. We have seen an overwhelming bipartisan vote that would suggest sooner or later we will repeal the medical device tax, which is a gross receipts tax on the people who are innovating and creating jobs right here in America and creating access to high-quality health care, which makes us second to none. We saw how it turned out with ObamaCare. Now, once again, we are being urged to enact a massive piece of legislation before the American people are fully aware of what is in it. Indeed, some supporters of the immigration bill are hoping some of its more outrageous elements will go unnoticed. Well, that is not going to happen. We are going to be spending the next few days, until this bill passes this Chamber, to point out some of the more indefensible provisions in the underlying bill. Today I wish to talk about what I think is arguably the most indefensible portion of the bill--the part that grants immediate legal status to immigrants with multiple drunk driving or domestic violence convictions. As we know, in the underlying bill, those who apply for and qualify for registered provisional immigrant status can stay in the United States and work for up to 5 years, providing they meet the terms of that probationary status, and they can actually reapply for another 5 years and then eventually, after 10 years, they can qualify for legal permanent residency, which is the pathway to American citizenship as early as 3 years from that time. But under the provisions of this bill, immigrants who are out of status--undocumented immigrants--can get access to probationary status and get on a pathway to legal permanent residency and citizenship, even though they have committed multiple incidents of driving while intoxicated or domestic violence. Most Americans aren't aware of these provisions, but I can assure my colleagues everyone will suffer the consequences if this ill-considered provision becomes the law of the land. In fiscal year 2011, Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported 36,000 individuals with DUI convictions; that is, driving under the influence convictions--nearly 36,000 people. That gives us an idea of how big this problem is and what the consequences are of turning a blind eye to this provision in the underlying bill and what impact it might have on the public. Last week I shared a few stories from my State of Texas, including the story of the sheriff's deputy in Harris County named Dwayne Polk, who was killed last month by an illegal immigrant drunk driver who had previously been arrested for, No. 1, driving under the influence and, No. 2, carrying an illegal weapon. Today I wish to share two more stories. In August 2011, an illegal immigrant drunk driver crashed his car in Brenham, TX, killing four other people, all of whom were under the age of 23 years old. We subsequently learned the driver of the car had been arrested just weeks before that deadly accident for--you guessed it--drunk driving. Yet because his initial offense was technically a class C misdemeanor, he was not taken into Federal custody and deported. In March 2012, an illegal immigrant drunk driver crashed his vehicle into an apartment building in Houston, killing a 7-year-old boy and leaving a 4-year-old boy with severe burns on nearly half of his body. Not surprisingly, the drunk driver had been arrested for DUI once before in 2008, and in 2011, he had been charged with attacking his wife by punching her in the face. We know drunk drivers and domestic abusers tend to be serial or repeat offenders. In other words, it is rare that people who have engaged in domestic violence only do it once and people who drive while intoxicated only do it once. By offering registered provisional immigrant status to illegal immigrants with multiple DUI convictions or domestic violence convictions, we are virtually guaranteeing more innocent people will lose their lives or become victims of violent crime. That is unconscionable and it is indefensible. Last week I challenged any Member of this Chamber to come down to the floor and defend these provisions, and I repeat that challenge today. I don't think we will find any takers, because we cannot defend the indefensible, and granting legal status to drunk drivers and violent criminals is just that: an indefensible policy that will inevitably have tragic circumstances. Provisions such as this one are one more reason why this bill is dead on arrival in the House of Representatives. One final point. Many critics of my border security amendment called it a poison pill which, of course, was ridiculous because it used the same criteria used in the underlying framework written by the Gang of 8. But leave that aside. Here is what I would say to those critics: If we want to know what a real poison pill is, all we have to do is read through these provisions with regard to criminal justice in the Gang of 8 bill. We should not be supporting legislation that grants immediate legal status to drunk drivers and domestic abusers. I can understand why the American people are asked to extend an act of uncommon generosity for people who enter our country in order to work and provide for their families, but for those who have demonstrated their contempt for the rule of law and for the legal standards which govern all Americans, I don't think they deserve this sort of extraordinary treatment. I hope there is somebody who will come to the floor and explain why these provisions are in the bill. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I wish to start by thanking the Senator from Wyoming for his comments this morning. I think they are right on the mark. Throughout world history we have tried the appeasement of those who would seek to use their power to bully other people into submission, and I worry the President is taking a naive approach here and unilaterally disarming the United States in the face of a rising threat from Russia and other parts around the world. So I thank the Senator for his very important comments on a very important topic.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, there is first a matter of fairness when it comes to offering suggestions to amend legislation that is on the Senate floor. Under the ordinary practices and procedures of the Senate, the majority and the minority have an opportunity to offer amendments to modify the underlying bill. On a subject as important and as fundamental to who we are as a country and to our country's future as immigration reform, there have been nine amendments voted on in this bill in the last 2 weeks--nine amendments. To listen to my colleagues in the majority who are happy with the underlying bill because they wrote it, they act as if we have had a fulsome opportunity to offer amendments. We have been willing to have votes as long as we get votes on our amendments. It is not just the majority that has the opportunity to modify the underlying legislation and to debate it, the minority has rights too. Our side wants a right to choose our own amendments, not to have the majority leader choose which of our amendments he is going to deign to allow debate and votes on. That is not democracy. That is not the Senate. That is a dictatorship. We will not allow the majority to tell us which of our amendments will be allowed to be considered. We can have votes on any amendments the other side wants a vote on. We are ready, and we have been all along. It is not true to say that the minority has been blocking amendments to this bill. That makes no sense whatsoever. The majority wrote the bill. The minority has all the incentives to offer amendments. Why in the world would we block our own amendments, but for the fact that the majority leader wants to choose which of those amendments he will somehow allow us to offer. It makes no sense whatsoever. I have heard some suggest that this is a minor vote we are going to have at 5:30, that there are just modifications to the underlying bill. This is the amendment we will vote on. It was released late Friday evening, and we have been poring over line by detail ever since. This is not a minor matter; this is a serious amendment. The Schumer-Corker- Hoeven amendment makes enormous changes in the underlying bill. I wish to talk about some of those changes. Back when this underlying bill was proffered, the framework for it was proffered by the so-called Gang of 8, Senator Durbin, the distinguished minority whip from Illinois, said in 2013 a pathway to citizenship needs to be ``contingent upon securing the border.'' That was the bipartisan framework for comprehensive immigration reform in January 2013. Six months later we find a different story. He says: ``We have de- linked a pathway to citizenship and border enforcement.'' He was quoted in the National Journal on June 11, 2013. He has not suggested since that time that it was taken out of context or a misquote. What it demonstrates is how far we have come from what was promised 6 months ago and is now being delivered. I believe the American people are enormously generous and compassionate. There are circumstances under which the majority of Americans would say we believe people who have entered our country without complying with our immigration laws or who have entered legally and overstayed, the so-called visa overstays, we believe they should get a second chance--but not by demanding a pathway to citizenship and delinking it from border security and other important measures that will make sure we don't repeat the mistakes of 1996. When Ronald Reagan signed an amnesty for 3 million people, the American people were told this will never happen again because we are going to enforce the law this time. It didn't happen, and the American people were justifiably skeptical as to whether it will happen again, particularly when this sort of sleight of hand takes place where we are told in January the pathway to citizenship is ``contingent upon securing the border,'' only to find out 6 months later it has been delinked. If Congress can't keep a 6-month-old promise, it is never going to be able to keep any of the promises contained in this amendment. For starters, this underlying bill relies upon the same sort of budgetary gimmicks that were used to pass the Affordable Care Act, now known colloquially as ObamaCare. We have been told in the underlying bill that it reduces the Federal deficit by $197 billion over 10 years. I have even heard some of my Republican colleagues cite that as if this is somehow free money: Hey, we can spend this money because the underlying bill reduces the Federal deficit by $197 billion. The Congressional Budget Office has pointed out that the only way we can view that as free money--which is an oxymoron if there ever was one--is by double counting the $211 billion in off-budget revenue that will be needed to fund Social Security for the newly legalized immigrants. In other words, this is money they are going to pay into Social Security that they are going to eventually take out. To act like you can use it to pay their Social Security benefits and at the same time use it to fund this bill is double counting. That is a budget gimmick. That is the same sort of gimmickry that has gotten us $17 trillion in debt, and it is perpetuated under this bill. If we were to use real-world accounting, the same sort of accounting every family, every small business in America has to use, they can't double count the money. They have to use real hard numbers. If we use the same sort of accounting that families and small businesses across America have to use day in and day out, we will find that the underlying bill actually increases the budget deficit by more than $14 billion over the next decade. This is spending more money we don't have, adding to our annual deficit, adding to our national debt, putting us further and further in the hole when it comes to our fiscal condition. One of the other problems is that even since the Congressional Budget Office looked at the underlying bill, we don't yet have an official cost estimate from the Congressional Budget Office for this bill that basically rewrote the entire underlying bill. We still don't have an official budget estimate from the Congressional Budget Office, and we don't know when that is likely to come. Yet we are going to be required by the majority leader, because he is the one who sets the schedule here by virtue of his being the majority leader, we are going to be required to vote on a cloture motion at 5:30 this evening, in about an hour--before we even know from the official scorekeeper for the Congress and the Federal Government exactly how much this costs, what the assumptions are, and whether we are still going to be looking at double counting the revenue that is coming in and looking to that to pay for the costs of this bill at the same time we are going to have to pay it out in benefits--double counting. We don't know if that continues under this bill, but I dare guess that it will. Some of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle previously expressed real consternation at double counting back when ObamaCare was passed and back during the 2009 stimulus package. Some of them issued press releases saying: You can't spend the same money twice. Yet today here we go again. This is another reason I am so concerned about where we find ourselves: being jammed into voting on this piece of legislation without an official score of the Congressional Budget Office, before, I daresay, every Member has had a chance to read it and understand it, and when it relies on double counting and other gimmicks that have gotten us $17 trillion in debt. I also worry that my colleagues who support this particular amendment, while I stipulate to their good intentions, their approach is one based solely on throwing more money at the problem without having any plan, strategy, or any real mechanism for ensuring that money is spent sensibly, and it accomplishes the stated goal. Last week some of my colleagues gave me a hard time because I offered an amendment which would raise the number of the Border Patrol agents by 5,000. They said: We can't afford it. The underlying bill has zero new Border Patrol. My amendment offered 5,000 additional boots on the ground. They said: We can't afford it. That is a ridiculous suggestion. Imagine my surprise when this amendment that was filed so recently calls for 20,000 Border Patrol agents. This is a fourfold increase, even though experts across the political spectrum have said that doubling the size of the Border Patrol in and of itself, while it may provide some political figleaf for voting for this bill, does not and will not solve the problem. I wish to know, for example, where that number came from. How did my colleagues turn on a dime from saying we needed zero additional Border Patrol, to saying 5,000 was a ridiculous suggestion, and are now saying 20,000 is exactly right? What expert, at what hearing was the testimony offered to support that sort of expense and that sort of approach? Don't just take my word for it. There was a story in the Arizona Republic, dated June 22, quoting a number of experts on immigration and border security. Doris Meissner, who used to be the head of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the predecessor to the Department of Homeland Security, called the approach in this amendment ``detached from the reality on the ground.'' She said it is ``detached from the reality on the ground'' and said it would make more sense to invest in creating ``a modern 21st century border, which includes enforcement but also trade and travel and facilitating crossing and reducing waiting time.'' This makes more sense to me because part of the underlying premise for the bill was to create a legal way for people to come, work, immigrate to the United States, and then allow law enforcement focus on the criminality, the drug traffickers, the human traffickers, and other people engaged in illegal conduct. Ms. Meissner appears to be saying that makes a lot of sense when it comes to ``a modern 21st century border.'' Other experts have said and quoted in the same article in the Arizona Republic, June 20, Adam Isacson: ``There may be some room for more agents, but not for 20,000.'' John Whitley said: ``We should look at what we are trying to achieve--at the outputs instead of the inputs.'' In other words, what this approach does is say we are going to look at all the equipment we can buy, the technology we can deploy, the boots on the ground, but we are going to turn a blind eye to the outputs or the goals that we are presumably trying to achieve. Mr. Whitley agreed with that. He said: We should look at what we are trying to achieve--at the outputs instead of the inputs. Otherwise, seven years from now we'll be sitting around saying we don't know which bits work and which bits are wasteful. I know some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle--Senator Leahy, for example, who is managing the bill for the majority, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said it looks like a laundry list for defense contractors. I think I am paraphrasing correctly. Then he said: If that is what it is going to take to get them to vote for the bill, then I am for it. I am going to support it. Once again, the underlying bill puts symbolism over substance, and they are hoping the American people will not notice. As I have said repeatedly, the so-called border security triggers in the underlying bill are sheer fantasy and wishful thinking because they are activated by promises of more money and more promises than they are on actual results. I am afraid the underlying Schumer-Hoeven-Corker amendment does nothing to change that. Here is a comparison of the approach under the underlying Gang of 8 proposal, the Corker-Hoeven-Schumer amendment, and an amendment I offered last week which was tabled. We have the question, Is operational control of the border required? Under the Gang of 8 bill? No. This amendment? There is no requirement. Under the amendment I offered last week, an individual would not be able to transition from probationary status to legal permanent residency until that happened. That is not to punish anybody, but what it does is it realigns all the incentives for everybody involved in this discussion, whether Democratic or Republican or Independent, whether conservative or liberal or whatever. It would have realigned all the incentives to make sure we would have hit this target of operational control of the border. Is 100 percent situational awareness required? Not under the Gang of 8 bill. Not under this amendment. There would have been under my amendment of last week. A biometric exit trigger. There is none under the Gang of 8 bill and none under this amendment. Here is perhaps one of the best and most obvious reasons why people don't trust promises of future performance when it comes to Congress-- because 17 years ago Bill Clinton signed into law a requirement for a biometric entry-exit system. Now, ``biometric'' is a big word. It could mean just fingerprints or an iris scan or facial recognition, but it is something you can't cheat on because it depends on a bodily characteristic that is immutable and cannot be changed, such as fingerprints. So it was 17 years ago when President Clinton signed the law which Congress passed, a biometric entry-exit requirement, and it still hasn't been implemented. And while people think that mainly illegal immigration is caused by people entering the country across our borders, such as the 1,200-mile Texas-Mexico border, the fact is that 40 percent of illegal immigration occurs because people come in legally and overstay their visa, and they simply melt into the great American landscape. Unless they commit a crime or otherwise come in contact with law enforcement, we never find them again. Here is the other problem in the underlying bill. Even if these requirements required results rather than promises of performance, unfortunately, under the underlying bill and now again in this amendment we are going to vote on at 5:30 today, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security has the unilateral discretion and authority to waive all of those requirements. This is the same person who said the border is secure even though the General Accounting Office said in 2011 only 45 percent of the border was under operational control. She may well be the only person in America--the only person in America--who believes the border is under control because it demonstrably is not. Yet she is given the authority to waive these requirements in this amendment we will vote on at 5:30. Then there is this: Under the underlying bill an individual can beat their spouse or their partner, they can drive drunk and threaten the lives and livelihoods of American citizens, and they can still qualify for RPI status and get on a pathway to citizenship. As a matter of fact, under this underlying bill they could actually have already been deported, having committed a misdemeanor, and still be eligible to reenter the country and become the beneficiary of RPI status and put eventually on a pathway to citizenship. That is a terrible mistake. I don't know anybody who believes we ought to be taking people who have shown such contempt for the rule of law and the health and safety and welfare of the American people and say: You know what, out of the generosity of our hearts, we are going to give you one of the greatest gifts anyone could ever get; that is, an opportunity to become an American citizen. I would hope most of us in this Chamber would agree that immigrants with multiple drunk driving or domestic violence convictions should never be eligible for legalization, especially after they have already been deported. Yet the underlying bill, the so-called Gang of 8 bill, and the Schumer-Hoeven-Corker amendment will grant immediate legal status to criminals, including those already deported, as I said, and including people who have committed domestic violence, even with a deadly weapon. I still can't quite get my mind around that, but it is true. Our standards when it comes to granting legal status to people who have come into our country in violation of our immigration laws and/or who have come in legally and overstayed should be crystal clear. We should differentiate between people who have made a mistake and are willing to pay for it--pay a fine, be put on probation, and successfully complete that probation--and people who have come in and shown such contempt for our laws and the rule of law as to have engaged in a history of drunk driving or domestic violence. They should be automatically disqualified from receiving probationary status. I find it remarkable that we are even debating this issue in the first place. A few final points. We are going to be asked to vote on legislation that was crafted behind closed doors, with no chance for amendments. As a matter of fact, I believe that once the majority leader gets cloture on this amendment, we will have virtually no other opportunities to offer any additional amendments and get votes on those amendments after only having votes on nine amendments so far. That is an outrage. We are going to be asked to vote on legislation filled with special interest goodies, with earmarks and pet spending projects, and we still don't have an official cost estimate by the Congressional Budget Office. We are being asked to vote for legislation that will continue the three- decade pattern of broken promises on border security. In short, we are being asked to vote for more of the same. I know my good friend from Tennessee Senator Corker has been one of the best new additions to the Senate. He has remarkable knowledge and experience and great enthusiasm. He asked me: What more do you want than 20,000 Border Patrol agents and a commitment to spend all these billions of dollars on new equipment? What more could you possibly want? My answer to that is this: I would like to know that the promises we are making in terms of border security, interior enforcement, and visa overstays are going to be kept; otherwise, all we will have is 11 million people granted probationary status, with the potential eventually to earn legal permanent residency and American citizenship. And those people who might be willing to consider that sort of arrangement if they had a guarantee that we would not be back here doing this same thing again in 5 or 10 years are going to have nothing but a bunch of broken promises to show for it. For me, it is a very sad episode in a very important Senate debate that has huge ramifications for the future of our country. At the start of this debate, I had high hopes that the Gang of 8 was serious about keeping promises and delivering real bipartisan immigration reform that could pass the House of Representatives. But now I see it is just the same old beltway song and dance. What a shame. What a lost opportunity that is. Now I believe all eyes and attention will turn to the House of Representatives, where I hope the House of Representatives will take a more careful, step-by-step approach in addressing our broken immigration system. My hope is that ultimately we will get to a conference committee that will fix the underlying approach and problems in this amendment and in this bill and will allow us to successfully address our broken immigration system that serves no one's best interests. I am not one who believes ``no'' should be the final answer when it comes to our broken immigration system. I actually believe we need to fix it, and we need an immigration system that reflects our values and reflects the needs of our growing economy in a globally competitive environment, but this bill is not it. There will be no way to enforce the promises that are so readily made today in the future. Notwithstanding the best intentions of the people who offer this amendment, many of us won't be here 10 years from now. No Congress can bind a future Congress. No President can bind a future President. And if we are depending for the next 3\1/2\ years on Janet Napolitano, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and President Obama to enforce the mechanisms in this bill, I am afraid we are going to be sorely disappointed. And how can we possibly know what the next President and future Congresses will ultimately do? That is why it is so critical, if we are going to keep faith with the American people, to have a mechanism in this bill that will force all of us across the political spectrum to do everything we possibly can to make sure those promises are kept. And it is not in this amendment. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Chambliss), the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Isakson), the Senator from Wyoming (Mr. Enzi), and the Senator from Utah (Mr. Lee). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Utah (Mr. Lee) would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Let me express my appreciation to the Senators for their answer to the question.

Mr. CORNYN. I would repeat my question: How much is it going to cost?

Mr. CORNYN. I have one last question, because I know there are others who want to talk and it is not my intention to interfere with their colloquy here. The 20,000 additional Border Patrol agents, here is an area where the movement has been pretty dramatic, because we started with zero additional Border Patrol agents. My amendment was disparaged by the distinguished senior Senator from Arizona and the distinguished senior Senator from New York as being a budget amendment buster, 5,000 Border Patrol agents. I was told we don't need more boots, we need technology. Now I find, to my shock and amazement, the distinguished senior Senator from Arizona saying we need 20,000 more Border Patrol agents. How much is it going to cost? That is the question.

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I honestly respect and value the work the so-called Gang of 8 has done on this legislation, as well as the contributions made by my colleagues from North Dakota and from Tennessee. I think they have moved this bill in a constructive direction to give people more confidence that we are actually serious about dealing with border security. But I want to ask them to distinguish, if they will, between the provision I know they both supported in my amendment that was tabled earlier which makes the progress from probationary status to green card contingent upon 100-percent situational awareness of the border and a 90-percent apprehension rate which is defined as operational control. How does their amendment differ from that? I know it hasn't been completed yet, but my understanding is Senator Schumer and the Democrats would not agree to that. I know they object to it. Senator Schumer has been quite clear in his telling me that. But my impression is this is a promise of future performance, and there is no contingency in the same sense that there was a trigger that prohibited the transition from probationary status to legal permanent residence. Could the Senator please clarify?

Mr. CORNYN. Would the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Risch).

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, the majority leader has moved to table my amendment which provides a guarantee of actual results rather than false promises, which have been the sad litany of most of our history when it comes to immigration reform and border security. Starting in 1986, when Ronald Reagan signed an amnesty for 3 million people premised on enforcement, the American people, in their typical generosity and compassion, accepted that based on the representation it would never happen again. In 1996, 17 years ago, President Bill Clinton signed into law the requirement for a biometric entry-exit system, which would address the 40 percent of illegal immigration that occurs because people enter legally, simply stay, and melt into the great American landscape, unless they happen to commit a crime or are otherwise caught by law enforcement. We cannot ask the American people to trust us because of this litany and sad story of broken promises when it comes to immigration reform. That is why we need real enforcement, why my amendment needs to pass and not be tabled.

Mr. CORNYN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CORNYN. May I ask, Mr. President, how much of my time remains?

Mr. CORNYN. We are saying, in essence, on border security: We are from the government. Trust us. We have an aspirational goal to actually secure the border, but you have no guarantee that it will be done. That is why my amendment is so important, because what it does is not create any sort of punitive effect, but it realigns all of the incentives for people across the political spectrum--Republicans and Democrats alike--to make sure the executive branch and the bureaucracy keep their commitments when it comes to border security. Then I believe the American people, demonstrating their typical generosity and compassion, will say: Yes, we need to find a humane way to deal with the 11 million people who are here. Mr. President, I have a sheet in front of me entitled ``What They Are Saying About Border Security Metrics.'' This sheet has excerpts from a number of experts in the border security area who talk about the importance not just of measuring inputs--how many Border Patrol agents, how many drones, how many radar; I call those inputs--what they say is that we actually need outputs, we need results, and we need metrics or measuring sticks to be able to show we are making progress toward the intended goal. I ask unanimous consent that this document citing these experts be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks. I hope my colleagues will vote to take up my amendment. I understand the majority leader will likely move to table it in short order. I hope my colleagues will vote no on that motion to table because I think this is an important building block in terms of restoring Congress's and the Federal Government's credibility when it comes to our broken immigration system. Mr. President, I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I have been here numerous times over the last couple of weeks to talk about why the essential bargain that needs to underlie this bill has to be one that is not based on phony promises such as the ones made in the past about restoring legality and order to our broken immigration system. It actually needs a mechanism that will compel results and realign all of the incentives for people across the political spectrum, Republicans and Democrats alike, to make sure Congress, and the executive branch in particular, keep their promises when it comes to border security. That is what my amendment is about and that is what we will be voting on perhaps in the next half-hour. The underlying metrics contained in my amendment are derived from those in the underlying bill: 100-percent situational awareness and 90- percent apprehension. Some people may question that and say, How can we have 100-percent situational awareness? The fact is by using the technology currently deployed in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq. Technology such as that was featured in a Los Angeles Times article a few weeks ago called the VADER, a type of radar pilot that was being tested on the western part of the border. With it we can do a comprehensive job of seeing the border. I am not talking about a Border Patrol agent seeing three people coming across the border and not seeing a handful of others who scamper across in some other place. I am not talking about that sort of imprecision. I am talking about using available technology such as that, for example, demonstrated by AT&T. AT&T recently came in and demonstrated in my office the use of fiberoptic cable to create, in essence, an acoustic system which will identify people crossing the border and which then will trigger cameras to focus on the individual coming across to make sure it is not a deer or a javelina, that it is actually what the Border Patrol should be focused on; that is, people crossing the border illegally. They could basically lay that cable down the entire U.S.-Mexican border for, I think they told me, somewhere on the order of $80 million. It is a lot of money, but it is not too much when it comes to securing our border. Likewise, I mentioned the VADER technology. I know there are fixed towers and radar systems and camera systems that are being used by the military that need to be used by the Department of Homeland Security when it comes to protecting our border and keeping our commitments to keeping America safe. There are dirigibles, I will call them, blimps that are used successfully in places such as Afghanistan and which should provide an ability to see a huge stretch of the border, using, again, radar and cameras. So this idea of situational awareness--that that is somehow not possible--simply ignores the technological advances that have been made and deployed by our U.S. military in Afghanistan and Iraq and which could be deployed if we had the political will to make it happen along the southwestern border. I do not think it is too much to ask that of the people you actually see, that the Border Patrol ought to detain 90 percent. Right now, according to the Government Accountability Office--in 2011--our border is only 45 percent under operational control--45 percent. So that means, if you do the rough arithmetic, out of the 350,000 people who were detained coming across our border last year maybe the Border Patrol seizes and detains half of the people. Who knows what it is. We are guessing. We know the enumerator, but we do not know the denominator. So we need to deploy the technology and assets we have in order to meet that goal. Again, I would refer to the New York Times article I talked about a moment ago of June 19. The headline: ``Two G.O.P. Senators Are Close to a Deal on Border Security.'' This refers to the efforts of our colleagues Senator Corker and Senator Hoeven. I have applauded them publicly, and I will do so again in making sure under their agreement-- which we have not yet seen, and we understand we will see language maybe tonight--they have helped make sure that we focus more assets on the border security issue. I think they have added very constructively to this process, but I think the problem is--and we will have to wait until we see the language--under this pending agreement it says they have agreed to make the 90-percent apprehension rate a goal rather than a requirement--a goal. Well, the American people will not be fooled. When Congress says to the American people, on something as important as border security: Trust us, it reminds me of the old sort of lame joke that the most feared words in the English language are: I am from the government, and I am here to help.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I know things seem like they are speeding by us at the speed of light on this bill. We received an announcement of a breakthrough on the part of some of our colleagues that is going to give this bill the momentum to pass and come out of here with a bunch of votes. But I think there are some questions we need to ask. First of all, I see the distinguished chairman of the Finance Committee. I know he has probably looked at this. The underlying bill provides that $8.3 billion is immediately appropriated as emergency spending to fund the trust fund that will fund at least some of the operations in this immigration reform bill. But when I started to look at it a little more closely and consider the fact that even though the underlying bill had zero funds for new Border Patrol personnel, this new bill--this new proposal, I should say, that we have yet to see-- supposedly it is going to come around 6 o'clock--has an additional 20,000 Border Patrol. That is doubling the size of the Border Patrol. Senator Hoeven, the distinguished Senator from North Dakota, said earlier in response to a question I asked him, that would cost an additional $30 billion. So we have $8.3 billion, if my arithmetic is correct, and $30 billion. That is $38 billion. I noticed on page 48 of the Congressional Budget Office cost estimate, the CBO estimates that implementing this bill, the underlying bill, would result in net discretionary costs of about $22 billion more. That is starting to be real money, it seems to me, $60 billion. I know we have been having some spirited debates about whether the 85 or so billion dollars that was sequestered under the Budget Control Act was something we could live without or not, or whether it had to be made up through additional revenue. But this strikes me as very significant that we are talking about $60 billion of additional deficit spending--or additional spending, adding to the deficit, which has not been paid for, if my numbers are correct. I would welcome anyone else to come help me figure that out. Now, one of the rationale, as I was talking to our colleagues--they looked at the original score and said this actually generates additional revenue because people who come out of the shadows and are working will begin to pay Social Security taxes. But the $211 billion in the score is Social Security trust fund money, which, of course, must someday be paid in terms of benefits to these very same people. So it appears that there is double counting going on here. Our colleagues are saying: Hey, we have additional revenue because of the negative score. But that is money that is going to require an IOU to the Social Security trust fund and will have to be paid back at some point in the future. So, as Senator Sessions, the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee pointed out, the on-budget deficit will increase by $14.2 billion. That is before you add the additional $30 billion for 20,000 Border Patrol and $22 billion in additional spending to fund this underlying bill. So my only point is I think we need to take a deep breath. First, we need to read the proposal that is coming out supposedly at 6 o'clock. But already there is talk about what the end game in the Senate is. Potentially, the majority leader will file cloture on this Corker-Hoeven amendment. Then we will have a vote on Monday or maybe Tuesday. I think it is extraordinarily important when you are talking about numbers like this, and a bill this big, that we take our time and are careful and we know exactly what the impact of this bill is because if, in fact, what is happening is double counting, which is my suspicion based on my review of this CBO documentation, that is a serious matter, indeed, because that money is going to need to be paid back. On another but related note, I would say we have been told this surge that is going to be funded under the Corker-Hoeven amendment, and the additional 20,000 Border Patrol agents and a whole bunch of new technology and other assets, that this will be sufficient to secure our borders and make illegal immigration a thing of the past. We have been told that supporters of the bill welcome a robust and extensive debate over its provisions. Yet when we look at the way this is happening, where people are announcing breakthroughs, people are saying, well, I am going to cosponsor that, only to find out the bill itself has not even been written or released, it seems to me we have the cart ahead of the horse. We better be careful about what we are doing. We have Members of the Chamber calling for a vote this weekend on an as yet unreleased amendment. I know, I, for one, and others, I suspect, would like to read it and know what is in it. I commend our colleagues--I mean this in all sincerity--for trying to do their best to improve this bill. But I worry their solution amounts to throwing more money at the problem without any real system of accountability. We have talked about how important it is to have inputs into the bill. But really what we all want are results or outputs. And what we have under this amendment, as I understand it and as I asked the distinguished Senators from Tennessee and North Dakota, they conceded that because our colleagues on the other side of the aisle object to any sort of contingency between the probationary status and legal permanent residency based on accomplishing the situational awareness requirements in the underlying bill or operational control, because they object to that, then all we have are more promises about future performance. I must say our record of keeping our promises when it comes to immigration reform are beyond pathetic, starting back in 1986 with the amnesty and promise of enforcement, then in 1996 where, as I mentioned earlier, President Clinton signed a requirement of a biometric entry- exit system which has still not been deployed at the exits, at airports and seaports even though the 9/11 Commission noted that some of the terrorists who killed 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001, included people who came into the country legally but simply overstayed their visas, and we lost track of them because we had no effective entry-exit system. The 9/11 Commission said this is something we need to fix. That was 2001. Still it has not been done. Until today, our colleagues on the so-called Gang of 8 argued that it was too expensive and too impractical to add even 5,000 Border Patrol agents, to say nothing of 20,000 agents. As I pointed out earlier in asking some questions of our distinguished colleagues, Senator McCain from Arizona, and Senator Schumer, the senior Senator from New York, it is amazing how quickly their tune changed. Their underlying bill had zero Border Patrol agents. When my amendment had 5,000 Border Patrol agents, they said that was a budget buster. Imagine my surprise when their amendment comes out with 20,000 Border Patrol agents, doubling the Border Patrol, $30 billion. I wish to know whether the proposals that have been made here are being sufficiently vetted. I don't know exactly what all the new border patrol is going to be doing. While I think it is important we get the advice of the experts in terms of what sorts of new technology can be deployed here, I worry that by being overly prescriptive about both the number of the boots on the ground and the technology they are going to use that we are going to freeze in place legislatively a solution that will quickly become antiquated and become inefficient. That is why I prefer, and why I think it is much better, an output for a result metric we could look at. Let the experts--let the Border Patrol, let the Department of Homeland Security, let the technology experts who developed great technology we have already paid for and deployed in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan through the Department of Defense--advise us and the Border Patrol what they need in order to accomplish the goals in order to meet the mark. Let's not let a bunch of generalists such as ourselves, who are not expert in this field, prescribe this solution for a 10-year period of time when it will become quickly outdated. From everything I have heard and everything I have read--and I think it was confirmed by the Senators this afternoon--the Hoeven-Corker amendment creates a border security trigger based on inputs rather than outputs. It is, I think it is accurate to say, aspirational. In other words, they promise to try to meet those goals. Ten years from now, I daresay half the Members of this Chamber will not even be here. Since 2007 we have had 43 new Senators. The promises we make today in exchange for the extraordinary generosity toward the 11 million people--to provide them an opportunity to gain probationary status and then potentially earn legal permanent residency and citizenship--that extraordinary offer made in the underlying bill--we have no idea whether the border security, whether the entry-exit system or the E-Verify will actually work and accomplish the goals we all hope they will accomplish. Once again, Washington is saying trust me, trust us. We mean well. We are going to try. Do you know what. We have no means to compel the bureaucracy and the executive branch to actually do what we say they should do here. This is why we need a trigger, a hard trigger, to realign the incentives so that all of us, from the left to the right, Republicans and Democrats, join together in putting the focus on the problem like a laser and making the bureaucracy hit those objectives. We have promised a lot of things. We have had 27 years of inputs into our immigration system since the 1986 amnesty, and we still don't have secure borders. There were 350,000-plus people detained at the southwestern border last year. GAO says we have about 45-percent operational control of the border. Who knows how many people actually made their way across--although we do know that among those who made it across who were detained, they came from 100 different countries, including state sponsors of international terrorism. I am not suggesting there are massive incursions of terrorists coming from other countries, although I am saying the same porous borders that will allow people to come into this country from other countries around the world can be exploited by our enemies. It is a national security issue. When I go home to Texas, people tell me they simply don't trust the Federal Government when it comes to securing our borders. Why would they? Based on the historical experience, there is no reason for them to do so. Three decades of broken promises have destroyed Washington's credibility. The only way to regain that credibility is to demand real results on border security and create a mechanism that incentivizes all of us to make sure it happens. I am afraid this amendment, the Corker-Hoeven amendment, no matter how well-intentioned--and I do believe it is well-intentioned; everyone is eager to find a solution to the broken immigration system, including me. The status quo is unacceptable, and it benefits no one. In the rush to try to come up with something that seems good at the moment, in failing to take the care to look at the detail, whether it is financial or whether it will actually produce results, and based on text we haven't even seen yet, I think we are rushing to judgment here. I think it is something we ought to reconsider. Looking beyond border security, I am eager to know whether the proposed amendment includes other issues that were contained in my amendment that was tabled earlier today. I know, speaking to Senator Hoeven and Senator Corker, they did include a border security component. As I understand it, there are other Senators who are coming to them and saying we want to be included in your amendment, so we don't know what subjects are also included in that amendment. I wish to know whether it includes things such as does it prohibit illegal immigrants with multiple drunk driving convictions from receiving legal status? What about people who have been guilty of multiple instances of domestic violence? What about immigrants who fall into one of those categories and have already been deported? Believe it or not, under the underlying bill, people could have actually been deported for committing a misdemeanor and be eligible to reenter the country and register for RPI status. I think that would be shocking to most people if they think about it, if they knew about it. Under the Gang of 8 bill, all of the people I have just described are available for immediate registered provisional immigrant status. Earlier this year, I mentioned a remarkable statistic, at least it is to me. In fiscal year 2011, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, deported nearly 6,000 people with DUI convictions, driving under the influence. I challenge any Member of this Chamber to come down to the floor and explain why drunk drivers and people who committed domestic violence should be eligible for immediate probationary status. I doubt anyone will take me up on that challenge, because who would want to defend the indefensible? As I have said before--and I will conclude my comments with this because I see other Senators on the floor who want to speak. As I said before, the American people are generous, they are compassionate, but they don't want to--it is the old adage: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. They don't want to be fooled again when it comes to unkept promises in fixing our broken immigration system. I know we are committed to finding a reasonable, responsible, and humane way to solve the problem of illegal immigration, but we should never ever grant legal status to people with multiple drunk driving or domestic violence convictions. I don't know, but I will certainly be careful to read and learn whether the proposed alternative to the amendment that was tabled earlier today contains some of these provisions that were in the tabled amendment. If they don't, we will be filing--we have filed separate amendments, on which we will urge an up- or-down vote. I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I would ask notice from the Chair after I have expended 10 minutes of my 12-minute time so I know I have a couple of minutes remaining, please.

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

Mr. CORNYN. Again, Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time during the quorum calls be equally divided among the Democrats and Republicans in the Chamber.