Richard Durbin

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), the Senator from Massachusetts (Ms. Warren), and the Senator from Rhode Island (Mr. Whitehouse) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), the Senator from Massachusetts (Ms. Warren), and the Senator from Rhode Island (Mr. Whitehouse) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 258, S.J. Res. 50.

Mr. DURBIN. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. DURBIN

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

Mr. DURBIN

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

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Bennet), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from New Hampshire (Ms. Hassan), the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Klobuchar), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Schatz), the Senator from Michigan (Ms. Stabenow), the Senator from Massachusetts (Ms. Warren), and the Senator from Rhode Island (Mr. Whitehouse) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

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

Mr. DURBIN

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

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, in reserving the right to object, as I understand it, we have only 6 minutes until the rollcall vote, and I don't want to inconvenience my colleagues. I would like to ask permission from the Senator of Utah to make my unanimous consent request the first item of business after the rollcall vote is announced.

Mr. DURBIN. That is correct.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, in reserving the right to object, I would say the following: I have been on the floor of the Senate more often than any other Senator to ask for immigration reform. Our system is broken. As we debate this important issue, the Galleries are filled with people who are following this debate personally because it literally affects their lives and their families and their futures. This Senator has been willing to move forward on comprehensive immigration reform. Sadly, the Senator on the other side has not supported that. I hope he will consider doing it. In the meantime, though, what are we going to do about the current issue of an annual quota of no more than 140,000 EB immigrant visas and more than 500,000 applicants of Indian descent who are asking for permission to move forward with EB-2 green cards and their lives? What the Senator from Utah has suggested is that we shouldn't increase the 140,000 annual cap. I think that is wrong. If you follow Senator Lee's proposal and do exactly what he says--give these visas only to those who are waiting in line who are of Indian descent and give no visas to the rest of the world--in 10 years, there will still be over 165,000 people of Indian descent waiting in line, and the rest of the world will have been excluded. This is unfair. It doesn't make sense. I will offer a unanimous consent request to lift that 140,000 cap, and within 5 years, all who are waiting in line will get their chances for green cards--5 years--but not at the expense of the rest of the world. Let's do this in a fair fashion. While we are at it, it is unfair that your spouses and children are being counted when it comes to the 140,000. My bill exempts that. They are no longer going to be bound by any quota. Secondly, if your children are aging out, if they are reaching the age of 21--a new legal status and new worries for you and your family-- I eliminate that problem completely. My approach is one that will solve the problem by lifting the legal immigration for talented people like many who have gathered here today. The Senator from Utah says he can't support that. I hope he will reconsider. Lifting that cap is what we need to do--lifting the country quotas, making certain that those in line finally get their chances. This is all within 5 years, which is something the underlying bill does not do. So I hope the Senator from Utah will agree to my bill that I will be offering as an alternative after this rollcall vote. I object to this bill.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, is there any time remaining?

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I asked unanimous consent before the rollcall to be recognized to make a unanimous consent request. I would like to take that opportunity now, unless there is some other item of business before the Senate.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, let's start with math, basic math, Andrew Yang math. Here is what it boils down to. Each year, we have 140,000 employment-based visas issued in the United States--140,000. A decision was made several years ago that politicians were playing favorites, picking countries that would get more of one and more of another, and so they put in country quotas, country caps--7 percent. I will do the math, being a liberal arts lawyer. It is about 10,000 per year, per country--no more than 10,000 per country, per year, if 7 percent of the total is our cap. The problem is obvious. There are some 520,000 people of Indian descent in the United States who came here legally on H-1B visas, for example, who have worked here for a period of time, and who now want to stay in the United States. From this Senator's point of view, you are welcome. We need you. You brought extraordinary skills that we need to our country. I want you to stay. But many have found that they get into a queue that is so long, and because of the limitations of the cap, they can't even imagine living long enough to ever get the green card they are waiting for, the green card that can ultimately lead to citizenship. Senator Lee comes to the floor with a bill, and his bill says as follows: We are going to take care of those waiting in line, which is primarily over half a million of Indian descent, and we will close down immigration from other countries during this period of time, EB-2 visas. So it would be to the benefit of those of Indian descent, who are the vast majority of those waiting in line, but at the cost of every other country in the world that has anyone who can come in and qualify for an EB-2 visa. Even his approach that I just described--if you follow it through, at the end of 10 years, there would still be 165,000 people of Indian descent still waiting in line in 10 years. That is not fair. It is not right. Last Sunday, I had a meeting in Schaumburg, IL. As I came to the meeting--it was a Democratic Party breakfast--there were about 200 people standing with signs with my name on them. That will wake you up on a Sunday morning. They were there to say: Durbin, don't stop Lee's bill. I met with many of them afterward. I would have met with all of them. I am prepared to. One of them told me a story. He is a physician from my hometown of Springfield, IL. He brought his 12-year-old daughter along with him, a beautiful young girl. He said: Senator, I am waiting in line. I don't know if I will ever get a green card. What is going to happen with my daughter when she reaches age 21? She can no longer be my dependent and stay in the United States. What is going to happen to her? Is she supposed to go back to India? In the meantime, how is she going to go to college? What is her status in this country? These are perfectly legitimate questions. I have an answer for all of these questions, and I will tell you what it is. First, we lift the 140,000 cap. That is what is holding us back here. Why is 140,000 of these EB visas a year a magic number? It is not. We are a nation of 350 million people. We have at least a million legal immigrants coming in each year. To expand the cap for those who are seeking the EB visas beyond 140,000 to people with skills who are already living in the United States and who want to stay here and continue to work is perfectly reasonable to me. That is what my bill proposes, and it does two other things. This bill also says that we are not going to count your dependents when it comes to the annual quotas. So if it is 140,000, we are talking about the actual breadwinners--140,000. If you are married, have a spouse and two children, you are not seeking four of these visas--only one--and your spouse and dependents automatically come along with you, in my bill. They are not counted against the 140,000. The third point: When you make application, it freezes in place, for legal reasons, the status of your dependents. So if it takes 2 or 3 years, and that daughter of yours becomes 21 years of age, it is no different--she is still going to come in with you based on your application. To me, that is a reasonable way of approaching it. I have said to my friends in the Indian-American community, in the Indian community in Illinois: I am not against your being here. I want you to be here. I have an approach that will allow you to be a part of our future. You have been an important part of America to this point. I want you to continue to be, and my approach will allow it. Senator Lee of Utah comes to the floor and says: Durbin, if you lift that 140,000 cap, you will doom this bill. I have just spoken to him, and I have several times. I will not doom this bill if he will support it. If he, as a Republican, will gather support for this bill, we can lift the number of people who will be eligible under these skilled immigrant visas to be part of America's future. We can do that together. I am finding, even as I talk to Republican colleagues here, that they feel we should be opening up the skilled visa opportunities for legal immigration. The sentiment is growing, and it should. I want people who have real skills that they either learned in the United States or earned in the United States to be part of the growth of our economy and the future and part of America. When it comes to diversity, count me in. My mother was an immigrant to this country, brought here at the age of 2. Her son stands right here with a full-time government job. That is the American dream, right? I basically believe in immigration, and I believe in the diversity of America. But what will not work and what will not succeed is the notion that we can somehow favor just one group from one country at the expense of every other country. We found that what has happened since Senator Lee started moving forward with this is we have people from a variety of different countries around the world saying: You mean you are going to cut us off entirely? We can't have any EB-2 visas for 10 years? You are saying that is going to apply to Canada, Mexico, the European nations, and all of Asia as well? That is unfair. Why would you cut us off to give opportunity to those from India? That isn't fair. We have to have a more balanced approach. I think my approach resolves that and will solve that. I ask Senator Lee to consider it. I would also say to him--in the course of bringing this measure to the floor, Senator Lee has been negotiating with Members of his own political party. That is all right. I understand that. I have been in this business for a while. But he should be talking to people on both sides of the aisle. What he has given are so-called carve-outs to the 140,000. I probably wouldn't argue with any single carve-out in substance if he wants to give them to nurses or medical professions, but each time he makes a carve-out to the 140,000, he lengthens the long waiting period for those of Indian descent. As far as I am concerned, the real answer is to increase legal immigration to the United States. My bill would do that. It will take the country caps off, take the 140,000 cap off. It would open the door for those who have been waiting in line--and many have for years, if not decades. Stop discriminating against their children. Through no fault of their own, they have been stuck in the line with them. Their legal status shouldn't change. And don't count the dependents--the spouses and children--against the quota, whatever the number might be in the future. I think that is a reasonable way to do this, but to do that, you have to accept one premise: that immigration is good for America. I believe it is. I believe it always has been. I think the diversity of this country is its strength. People come from every corner of the Earth, ready to make great personal and family sacrifices so that they and certainly their children will have a chance they never would have had where they were born. That is the key to what is different about this country and why we should honor it. Let's not apologize for increasing legal immigration, particularly of people with proven skills. Let's celebrate that they want to be part of America's future. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary Committee be discharged from S. 2603 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I would like to make two points regarding the comments from my friend from Utah. I know he has to leave for another appointment. The first point I want to make is that what I support today is what I introduced and voted for when 68 Senators, Democrats and Republicans, passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill, which he opposed. I hope that shows my good faith and intent when it comes to this issue. I am not just thinking of something today that has never been considered on the Senate floor. It has passed on the Senate floor in a previous Senate, and I think it can pass again with your active support. The second point I want to make is this. For us to have dueling unanimous consent requests and both to object in this debate is really unfair to the people who have gathered in this Gallery today, as well as those who are following this debate on television with literally the fate of their family and future again in our hands. I would like to ask you a favor to consider the following. When Senator Kennedy objected on your behalf yesterday, or the day before, in a similar manner, he suggested that we push this issue forward for a hearing in the Subcommittee on Border Security and Immigration of the Committee on the Judiciary where we both serve. That committee is not overworked. It considered one bill this year and no amendments. So let us try to prevail on the chairman of that subcommittee to have a hearing on this subject and to bring out all the facts before the subcommittee and the full committee in the hopes that we can find some sort of reasonable, bipartisan compromise. If you will join me in that request, I hope we can prevail on Senator Graham and Senator Cornyn.

Mr. DURBIN. The Senator from Utah is my friend, and we have worked closely together on important legislation. I trust him and respect him, though we disagree on some of the merits on this issue. What I think I heard was an offer, which I am going to accept, of a good-faith, bipartisan request of the Committee on the Judiciary to have a hearing on this measure. It will be the first hearing on it, and I think it is long overdue. In terms of the comprehensive immigration reform, I don't want to dwell on history, but we went through hundreds of amendments in Judiciary and scores of amendments on the floor. Everyone had their day in court and their opportunity to come up with a good idea, and, yes, it did come down to one bill at the end. You had to vote yes or no. I voted yes, and he voted the other way. This bill is not even close to it in terms of deliberation and in terms of amendments and that process. So let's start the right way. Let's have a hearing. You have the majority party on the committee, so I am not going to pull anything over on you, but let's do it. For the people who are following this and saying: Well, how did that end? Let us say to them it ended by both of us agreeing to pursue a committee hearing on this important subject as soon as possible and appealing to the chair of the Committee on the Judiciary to ask for that hearing.

Mr. DURBIN

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

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I rise today on the Senate floor to address an issue that is really fundamental to who we are as Americans. It is the issue of immigration. We just celebrated, this past week, a day dedicated to Christopher Columbus, who, supposedly, discovered America. Of course, we know better. Native Americans were here and discovered it before him, but he was the first European to discover America and really triggered an immigration to this part of the world that has really changed America and the world forever. This immigration from all over the world has created one of the most diverse nations on Earth. I am a beneficiary of that immigration. My mother was an immigrant to America in 1911, coming here from Lithuania to East St. Louis, IL, where she was raised and where I had the chance to grow up, as well. Today, her son--this immigrant mother's son--has been serving as a U.S. Senator from Illinois with humility and pride. It is an indication of our family's story, but it is also America's story--how immigrants came from far and wide to America and made lives and great futures and built families that continue to serve this Nation to this day. You would think, since immigration is such a central part of who we are as Americans, that there would be a general consensus about the issue, but it turns out to be one of the most hotly contested and debated issues almost since the arrival of the Mayflower. How many people should be allowed to come to this country? Where are they going to come from? What will they do when they come here? What impact will they have on those of us who are already here? All of these questions of national security have led us into an ongoing national debate about immigration. Today, this morning, I come to the floor to discuss one aspect of it. This last Sunday morning, I was back in Illinois and was invited to a Democratic Party event in Schaumburg, IL. It was a fairly routine breakfast meeting of the Democratic township organization. I have been to many of them. It is great to see old friends. When I arrived at the event, I was surprised to see demonstrators, protesters--perhaps 200 of them--holding signs with my name on them. It is not exactly the way you want to start a Sunday morning, greeting 200 people with signs about this fellow named Durbin. I had a chance to talk to them. I didn't run away from them because I wanted to find out who they were and why they were there. By and large, they were people from India who are currently living in the United States and want to become legal citizens here. Most of them came to the United States bringing special skills that were needed. Many of them are in the Silicon Valley high-tech industries--engineers who came to the United States once companies certified that they couldn't find an American to fill the job, which is a requirement. Having been unable to find an American, these companies asked permission to bring in these highly skilled people from India to serve as engineers in the United States. They come in on what is known as H-1B visas, by and large, and that allows them to work in the United States for several years and to renew that work status on a recurring basis. But there reached a point where they wanted to stay here. They have lived here awhile. They bring their families and raise their families here, and they want to become part of America's future. They apply for what is known as an employment-based immigrant visa, which leads to a green card. A green card is the ticket to legal, permanent residency, which can lead to citizenship. So these people from India, who were waiting to see me and say a few words to me, stated the fact that the waiting list for those in this category from India has now passed 520,000. There are 520,000 who are seeking permanent status in our country. I met one of them from my hometown of Springfield, IL, a young Indian physician who is serving at one of our hospitals in Springfield. He brought with him his daughter. His daughter is 12 years old. He is worried because if he, the physician who came here to work from India, is not allowed to legally stay in this country and his daughter reaches the age of 21, her status changes. She is no longer his dependent. She now has her own immigration status, and she is not technically, legally, beyond the age of 21, allowed to stay in this country. So he says to me: Here is my daughter, who has been here for 10 years. This is the country she knows and loves and wants to be a part of, and if I don't get approval to stay as a doctor in this country, she is technically undocumented at that point, and we run into problems with the future. For example, it is no surprise that this doctor wants to see his daughter go to college. Well, his daughter, undocumented, will not qualify for any assistance in the United States by way of Pell grants or loans. How is she going to pay for college? Where would she go? Our immigration system says, at that point, if her father doesn't reach this green card status, she would return to India, a place she maybe never remembers and that was part of her infancy in her early time here on Earth. So it is a complicated situation. There is a debate under way here about how to stop this backlog of people who are waiting in line 10 years, 20 years, and more to reach green card status. You can imagine the uncertainty in their lives, the uncertainty for their children, and why they are looking for some relief. I came to this issue never dreaming that I would end up being in the middle of most debates in the Senate on immigration, but I welcome it because it is such an important issue and because I have strong feelings myself about America's immigration policy. I serve as the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Border Security and Immigration for the Senate Judiciary Committee. As I have said, my own personal family and life experience have really made me warm to the subject, and I try to learn as much as I can about a complex field. Make no mistake, the immigration system of the United States of America is badly, badly broken. How to fix it is hotly debated here in the Senate and in the House and across the Nation. Last night, when I was watching the Presidential debates, groups were running ads on a regular basis on the issue of immigration. Many believe that it is going to be a hot topic in the 2020 election. It is quite possible that it will be. We know that in State legislatures and city halls, on cable news and social media, and almost everywhere, there is a debate under way about immigration. But there is one place where there is no debate about immigration--here in the U.S. Senate. This year, we had one hearing in the Border Security and Immigration Subcommittee. And the Senate Judiciary Committee voted on only one immigration bill. The chairman limited debate to only one hour and didn't allow any amendments, and we have not had any debates on the floor of the Senate. I look to the Galleries and the people who come to the Senate and expect to see a debate on an issue--an important issue. Here is one: immigration. But all they have is a speech from this Senator and a few others, instead of addressing the issue of immigration. Senator Kennedy has come to the floor, and I am going to make a unanimous consent request in just a few minutes. He is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, too, and I think he appreciates, as I do, what a great honor it is to serve on this storied committee. But the fact is that to have the titles of Judiciary Committee and Border Security and Immigration Subcommittee and to do nothing, I think, is a dereliction of duty. We are supposed to step up and debate these things and come to the best bipartisan conclusion we can to solve problems in this country. Here is a problem we are not solving: how to deal with a backlog of people, highly skilled and important people, like the doctor from my hometown of Springfield, from India, who wants to have a green card, giving him an opportunity to become an American citizen. Do you know what? I want that doctor to become an American citizen. I want him to get a green card. We need him in my hometown and many more just like him, and I want his family to be there with him so that his life is complete as he pursues his professional responsibilities. Now, in recent weeks, there has been an effort to pass a bill to address this issue. The bill is S. 386. It is known as the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act. Unfortunately, there was an effort to pass it without any debate or a chance to even offer an amendment. Now, this bill makes significant changes in our immigration laws, but there has never been a hearing on the bill or a vote in the committee. The lead sponsor of the legislation is Mike Lee, who is the senior Senator from Utah and a personal friend. He has negotiated several amendments in private with his Republican Senators, but there has been no conversation with myself or any other Democratic Senators about these negotiations. That is not how the Senate should work. I believe I have seen the Senate at its best, and, unfortunately, it was 7 years ago. We decided--eight of us in the Senate, four Democrats and four Republicans--to actually sit down and try to fix the immigration system. It is a pretty ambitious task, but we had some pretty talented people engaged in it. Leading on the Republican side was John McCain from Arizona. Next to him was Lindsey Graham from South Carolina, Jeff Flake from Arizona, and Marco Rubio from Florida. On our side, I was engaged with Senator Chuck Schumer, who is now the Democrat Senate leader, as well as Bob Menendez, of course, a Hispanic Senator from the State of New Jersey, and Michael Bennet from Colorado. So the eight of us came together. We did what I think the Senate is supposed to do. We sat down and took our time and spent months, every single week, sometimes several evenings each week, going through a different section of our immigration law and trying to make it work, reform it, and change it. It took us months--some 6 months of meetings. That is what we are elected to do. We produced a comprehensive immigration reform bill that was supported by virtually everyone. Groups of business leaders, as well as groups of labor leaders, the church community, and all sorts of people from the conservative side of politics to the liberal side of politics said that this was a good, fair, bipartisan compromise. So in 2013, we reported this bill to the floor, after our Democratic Judiciary Committee chairman at that time, Patrick Leahy from Vermont, had a lengthy hearing. We considered over 100 amendments--amendments offered by those who were voting against the bill, like Jeff Sessions from Alabama, and amendments offered by those supporting the bill, like Mazie Hirono from Hawaii. Each person offered an amendment, debated it, and we voted. It sounded like the U.S. Senate; didn't it? We were actually voting on amendments on a critically important bill. Thanks to Chairman Leahy's skill and patience, I might add, after hundreds of amendments were considered, the bill was reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, came to the floor of the Senate in 2013, and we called for a vote. It passed 68 to 32. After all that work, on a bipartisan basis, we finally got it right. I thought we did, and I voted for it. Sadly, that bill was sent across the Rotunda, over to the House of Representatives, as the Constitution requires, and, unfortunately, the Republican Speaker, John Boehner, refused to call the bill or debate an alternative to it. It literally died from lack of any effort to deal with the issue in the U.S. House of Representatives. So one would ask--that was more than 6 years ago--what has happened since? The answer is nothing--virtually nothing--except decisions by the Trump administration, for example, to eliminate some aspects of our immigration law, like the DACA provision. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent for 3 additional minutes.

Mr. DURBIN. In light of an attempt to pass the Fairness for High- Skilled Immigrants Act without hearings or debate, I come to the floor today to present an alternative. I am introducing the Resolving Extended Limbo for Immigrant Employees and Families Act, known as the RELIEF Act, which will treat all immigrants fairly by eliminating immigrant visa backlogs. One of the most serious problems of our immigration system is that there are not enough immigrant visas, known as green cards. As a result, immigrants are stuck in crippling backlogs for decades. Close to 4 million future Americans, many of whom already live and work in the United States, are on the State Department's immigrant visa waiting list. However, under current law, only 226,000 family green cards and 140,000 employee green cards are available each year. Children and spouses of lawful permanent residents, known as LPRs, count against these caps, which further limit the number of available green cards. The backlogs are a tremendous hardship on families caught in this situation. Children of parents waiting to become LPRs often age out, as I described earlier, because they are no longer children by the time the green cards are available for them. The solution is clear: increase the number of green cards. Let's be clear. Lifting green card country caps alone, without increasing green cards, as the bill that Senator Lee is sponsoring would do, will not eliminate the backlog for Indian immigrants, the nationality with the most people in the employment backlog, and it will dramatically increase backlogs for the rest of the world. Mr. Ira Kurzban, who is the Nation's expert on immigration laws, has said that we are virtually trying to solve the problem with Senator Lee's bill for Indian immigrants at the expense of everyone else in the world. He says: From 2023 until well into the 2030s, there will be zero EB- 2 visas for the rest of the world. None for China, South Korea, Philippines, Britain, Canada, Mexico, every country in the [European Union] and all of Africa. Zero. It would also choke off green cards for every important profession that isn't in the information technology field. More than 20 national organizations have now rallied against the Lee legislation and have said things such as that the bill offers a ``zero- sum approach,'' pitting one group of immigrants against another to fight the broken immigration system. The RELIEF Act, which I am introducing today, is a solution.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Bennet), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from Hawaii (Ms. Hirono), the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Klobuchar), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and the Senator from Massachusetts (Ms. Warren) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, as in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration--

Mr. DURBIN. I am making a unanimous consent request. As in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 2603, introduced earlier today; further, that the bill be considered read three times and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. DURBIN. I thank my colleague from Louisiana. We have worked on things together, and I hope we will continue to do so in the future. This is controversial, but it is so timely and important. The hundreds of people who demonstrated against this Senator last Sunday were people I welcomed into this country and believe will be an important part of our future. I am willing to find a solution to the problem, and I am willing to work on a bipartisan basis to do it. Your help will be invaluable.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Bennet), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from Hawaii (Ms. Hirono), the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Klobuchar), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and the Senator from Massachusetts (Ms. Warren) are necessarily absent.