Richard Durbin

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, on Monday, in my office in Chicago, I met a woman and her daughter. The story they had to tell me was heartbreaking. This woman was from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kinshasa. Something had occurred at her home while she was gone, where a child of hers left an iron on. Another child came in, grabbed the wire of that iron, was electrocuted, and died. It was a horrible accident that claimed the life of a child. That child who died was the nephew of a general in the Army of the Democratic Republic of Congo. When he heard about his nephew dying in this accident, he said he would take care of the situation and that family would pay a price for the life of his nephew. This woman, a mother of three, went into a panic because her daughter was going to be killed by this general--such a panic that she fled the country. Her journey is almost indescribable: From Africa to South America, up through Central America, finally arriving on a bus at the border, the port of entry in Southern California. She came there and asked for asylum. She was in fear of not only her life but the life of her daughter. What happened next is what I want to speak to, because what happened next is something that I didn't think would ever happen in America. What happened next was a decision by the Federal Government to take her 6-year-old daughter away from her in California. They said initially that her request for assistance was a valid enough request to go forward to a hearing. But even having said that, they snatched this girl from her mother's arms and removed her screaming to another room. Then, they deported her daughter from Southern California to the city of Chicago--our government. Was this mother abusing this child? Of course not. Was there any evidence of trafficking involved here? Of course not. Was this woman a terrorist? Of course not. Why did they do it? When I heard about it, I called the head of the Department of Homeland Security, Secretary Nielsen, and said: Why would you remove that child from that mother's arms and transport her 2,000 miles away? She said: Oh, I will look into that. That is not our policy. We don't do that. Well, historically, our government didn't do it, but it turned out that Secretary Nielsen was wrong. It is our policy--a policy that has been announced by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. He says it is basically going to be a hard approach to those who try to come to this country and ask for asylum, ask for refuge. So in the first two weeks of the month of May, with this new policy of Jeff Sessions--Attorney General Sessions' policy--658 children were removed from their families and taken to separate places. Can you imagine the trauma on that child, let alone the mother? The American Academy of Pediatrics tells us that you don't do that to children without leaving some scar, some problem, but we are doing it as official government policy--official government policy of this administration. Well, I met with the mother and the child. What happened to the mother after the child was removed is just a succession of horror stories. The mother was called in for a hearing while the child was sitting in Chicago. The mother has no attorney. She was not represented. She speaks limited English. She went through a hearing where they denied her request for refuge and asylum. They then said she could appeal the ruling if she wished. She said: How long would that take? They said: 3 to 6 months. She said: I could not stand to be separated from my daughter for 3 to 6 months. I waive all of my rights. I am finished. I am finished with this effort. Well, she was released--the mother was--on another appeal, I might add, by the ACLU. She was reunited with her daughter, and I happened to see them both in my office in Chicago. When I walked in the room, this woman, who had traveled this great distance to protect her little girl, clearly tensed up when she saw this White man in a suit and tie walk in, and then it was explained through her interpreter that I was not there to hurt her or separate her from her daughter. Her daughter was running around the office while we were talking but never lost sight of her mom the whole time. This is not an isolated instance. This is not just a little accident that happened on the border near Southern California. This is now the policy of the United States of America, the policy of the Trump administration, the policy of Attorney General Jeff Sessions--to remove children from their mothers. Of course, it is not cheap. Transporting a child 2,000 miles and putting them in some care facility--even a good one--is not cheap. When my colleague, Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, recently went to Arizona to see the children who had been separated from their parents, he was denied access. They wouldn't let him see it. He has gone back, and others will go back too. It is unthinkable that we are holding these children in some situation where we don't want anyone to see them once they have been taken away. In the southwest part of the United States, reportedly some mothers have been told: Oh, we are going to give your child a bath, and then the child was snatched away. That is the official government policy of Attorney General Sessions and the Trump administration. It is hard to imagine that we have reached this point in the history of this country that this is acceptable conduct by our government. It is hard to believe that the rest of the world will look at this and say: Well, that is how Americans treat people who come asking for help. They take their kids away from them. Family separation is now the policy of this administration, not family unity. I am hoping--just hoping--that perhaps some of my Republican colleagues will think this is an outrage as well. Maybe they will step up and speak out. I hope they do. On a bipartisan basis, we should all be standing up for these children who are being separated from their parents. They say: Well, it is a new approach, a hard approach for dealing with those who come to our border. We have used hard approaches in the past in the United States. Let me explain two examples. There was a hard approach that was used in this Chamber, in the Senate, in the 1940s, during World War II. Senator Bob Wagner of New York came to the floor and said: I want to give permission for 10,000 Jewish children who are currently in England--safe and away from Nazism and Hitler in Europe--to come to the United States. He called for a vote in this Chamber and he lost. It was defeated--the notion of allowing 10,000 Jewish children to come here for safety was defeated on the floor of this Senate. The same thing happened during that period of time when the ship the MS St. Louis came over from Germany with 900 Jewish people who had heard about the Holocaust, feared it, and wanted refuge in the United States, and they were turned away--turned away and forced to return to Europe, where several hundred died in the Holocaust. Those are specific examples of things that happened here, in this town, by this government, in one of the most embarrassing chapters in our Nation's history. That was the time when we were also taking Japanese Americans--Japanese Americans--and interning them in camps despite no evidence of sabotage, treason, or wrongdoing. After that war, America reflected on those incidents I have just described and said: We are going to be a different nation from this point forward. After World War II, the United States said: We are going to set the example where we are a caring, compassionate nation that is there to help when people are in desperate circumstances. We did it over and over again. Look at the Cuban-American population in the United States. Look at three of my Senate colleagues who are Cuban Americans and tell me that accepting refugees from Cuba was a bad idea for the United States. Of course it was not a bad idea. It was the right thing to do for those who wanted to escape the early days of the Castro regime. Take a look at those who came over after the Vietnam war, many of whom had risked their lives to fight on our side of that war, asked for refuge in the United States, and we gave it to them. Tell me that was a mistake. We know it wasn't. Tell me our decision to open the United States of America to Jews living in the Soviet Union who faced oppression was a mistake. I don't think so. I think it was the right thing to do. The things I have just described--the Cubans, the Vietnamese, the Soviet Jews--define who we are. This Nation--this caring, wonderful, great Nation--defines itself by its policies. Now look at this policy of family separation. Look at this policy of removing children from the arms of a mother, with no suspicion of any wrongdoing whatsoever, and tell me that is consistent with who we are in America. That is what we face with this family separation policy. I am joining with Senator Feinstein and several other of my colleagues to prohibit this new policy. We don't have a single Republican cosponsor yet. I hope we do. I hope there is one Republican Senator who will step up and say: This is wrong. We can enforce our laws, but let's not do it by tearing children out of the arms of their parents and mothers, because that is sad, and that is what is happening now. The family separation policy of this administration, sadly, is not only not right, it is not American. Opioid Epidemic Mr. President, I have had roundtable discussions across the State of Illinois. I have gone from Chicago to downstate, to small towns, to suburban towns, to, of course, the big city of Chicago. What I have found is this: No matter where you go, no matter how rich the suburb, no matter how small the town, you will find the opioid crisis facing America. This drug epidemic may be the worst in our history. Every day, we are losing 115 American lives to opioid overdose. In the past 3 years, there has been a 53-percent increase in drug overdose deaths in my State. More than 2,400 of my neighbors and the people I represented in Illinois have died because of this crisis. When we look back at the history, it is hard to understand how we reached this point. We know--when we go far enough back--that the pharmaceutical companies that produced these opioid pills misrepresented, lied to doctors, nurses, dentists, and the American people about the addictive nature of opioids. We know that happened. We also know that it became a big cash cow industry for pharmaceutical companies when more and more Americans became addicted to opioid pills. Think of this: Two years ago, pharma produced 14 billion opioid tablets in the United States--enough for every adult in America to have a 3-week prescription of opioid pills. That was the reality. They were churning out these pills as fast as they could make them because they knew there was money to be made. What we learned is that when the pills got too expensive on the black market, those who were addicted moved to heroin--another form of narcotic--which was cheaper and also addictive and, when laced with fentanyl or taken in overdose, killed the person who was using it. Fourteen billion pills. I have introduced legislation to address several aspects of this crisis. There is a lack of access to treatment. Once a family or a person identifies someone in need of treatment, sadly, there aren't many opportunities for good, affordable treatment to stop this addiction and to save their lives. I also want to respond to the childhood trauma that can drive people to opioid use. We see that. I want to improve the oversight of the volume and types of opioids being approved by our government for sale in this country. We need to do more to prevent addiction and to address this crisis. What are we finally going to do to get serious about this? First, we have to have the pharmaceutical industry stop making profit--their motive in the production of opioids. Next, we have to be realistic about where these opioid pills are going. Downstate in my State of Illinois, in Hardin County, which is a small, rural county, fewer than 10 doctors can prescribe controlled substances--10 doctors in this county. There is a total population of 4,300 people in Hardin County, and there are 10 doctors with the legal authority to prescribe. It is the smallest county in my State. In the year 2010, pharma sent 6 million hydrocodone opioid pills and 1 million OxyContin pills to Hardin, IL. Seven million pills to a county with a population of 4,300 people were enough opioids for every resident of that tiny, rural county to have a 3-month prescription for opioids. Last year in Madison County, IL, which has a larger population, 17 million opioid pills were sent. Maybe you have heard of Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of OxyContin. I encourage my colleagues to pick up Foreign Affairs magazine or the New York Times or the L.A. Times or the New Yorker. There, you will read about the family who owned this pharmaceutical company and made a fortune off these opioid pills and addiction, the Sackler family. If the name sounds familiar, it is because they have donated millions of dollars to art galleries and universities across the country--and also helped to fuel our Nation's opioid epidemic. The Sackler family owns Purdue Pharma and is responsible for a lion's share of the opioid crisis we face today. For years, under the Sackler family leadership, Purdue waged a comprehensive campaign to addict America to OxyContin. They wildly mischaracterized the risks of the drug, falsely claimed that it was less addictive and harmful, and just two pills a day were all you needed for full-time relief. They went on to say that OxyContin should be prescribed for common aches and pains, even when they had internal information proving that these pills were dangerous. The family promoted the liberalization of direct-to-consumer drug advertising. Ever turn on the television lately and see the drug ads? How do we keep up with these? They are coming at us from every direction. Well, they went on direct consumer advertising with opioids at this point. They enlisted an army of sales reps to swarm doctors' offices with payments, false medical journals, and false promises. As my colleague, Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri, has documented, they showered the so-called patient advocacy groups with millions in funding to fabricate a patient perspective demanding more opioids. In 2007, this company, Purdue, pled guilty to criminal misbranding of OxyContin. So what did they pay as a result? Listen to this. What did this company have to pay for creating the opioid crisis in 2007? Six hundred million dollars. Does it sound like a lot of money? It shouldn't because their sales revenues were $35 billion. So $600 million was the cost of doing their deadly business. No jail time for any member of the Sackler family, no Sackler family responsibility, but hundreds of thousands of Americans continue to be killed because of their crisis. As our former colleague, Senator Arlen Specter, once said, it is ``an expensive license for criminal misconduct.'' Purdue, the Sackler family, and other opioid manufacturers, such as Janssen, Abbott, Endo, and Insys, systematically orchestrated a complex web to deceive the American public, promote their opioids, and avoid liability. This is shameful, it is unjust, and it is well past time for Congress to do something about it. I will soon be introducing legislation to crack down on this corporate misconduct by properly penalizing and preventing the misrepresentation of opioids and requiring drug corporations to provide more information to the Food and Drug Administration on the risk of abuse and long-term effects. I am also examining the influence the pharmaceutical industry is exerting over our regulatory agencies and the medical community by hiring former officials with incentive payments. In the meantime, here is what we need to do: First, Purdue Pharma and other opioid manufacturers must testify before the Senate to explain their role in this epidemic. We did this with the tobacco companies and put them under oath years ago. We need to do the same to these pharmaceutical companies. Second, we must fix the 2016 law that weakened the Drug Enforcement Administration's strongest enforcement tool against this outrageous distribution practice. I support efforts by my colleagues, Senators McCaskill and Manchin, to restore the DEA authority. Finally, opioid manufacturers have profited off of flooding the market with painkillers and addicting Americans, and they should pay for the need for treatment their products have created. I have introduced legislation to impose a penny-per-milligram tax on the production of opioids. Big Pharma has to be financially liable for the mess and epidemic they have created. While we sit on our hands, sadly, in the United States and watch this opioid epidemic grow, an arm of the Purdue company, Mundipharma International, is shamefully exporting its deceptive marketing campaign overseas. Mundipharma, an arm of the Purdue company, is targeting doctors and the public with misinformation they were found guilty of using in the United States. Meanwhile, the wave of addiction created by the drug industry has ignited a new and deadlier crisis with the highly potent synthetic opioid fentanyl, which is being shipped through the mail in staggering quantities from China to the United States. This rippling effect is causing further deaths in America, straining our resources and exposing major gaps. I am glad the Senate Judiciary Committee is considering this issue and moving one of my pieces of legislation forward, but we must do more. Our communities across the country are facing the suffering caused by this crisis. We need to do more to hold pharma responsible for this deadly, irresponsible, and many times criminal conduct. Let's start by bringing them to testify under oath before the Senate. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I object.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, this is the first I am aware of this amendment. It was given to me this afternoon to take a look at. I don't have any history with it. It is interesting and coincidental that today is the 94th birthday of President George Herbert Walker Bush, the first President of the United States to ever live to the age of 94, a World War II decorated veteran, a man who served this country in so many different ways. This effort to eliminate the expenses--an amount that is paid to him as a former President--I had not seen before today. I am told this amendment would save the Treasury $4.3 million a year. So I would like to suggest to the Senator from Iowa--I am going to make an official request in this regard. We can do much better than $4.3 million a year in deficit reduction. I am going to ask the Senator from Iowa if she will modify her request to shave $404 million over 10 years by ensuring that millionaires across the United States--in Illinois and in Iowa--don't receive generous crop insurance subsidies. Big agribusiness in Iowa and Illinois receive government subsidies to the tune of nearly $600 million. A GAO study found that 4 percent of the most profitable farmers in America accounted for 33 percent of all the Federal premium support. My legislation that I am asking to be added to the Senator's amendment would reduce premium support for producers with an AGI, adjusted gross income, higher than $750,000 a year, and it will only reduce it by 15 percent. So I ask the Senator to modify her request so the text of her amendment be modified with the changes at the desk.

Mr. DURBIN. I object.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Maryland (Mr. Cardin), the Senator from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth), and the Senator from New York (Mrs. Gillibrand) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Connecticut (Mr. Blumenthal), the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons), and the Senator from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons) and the Senator from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons), the Senator from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth), the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Heinrich), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Leahy), and the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

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

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I was a senior in college at Georgetown University when I received a chance opportunity that literally changed my life. Paul Douglas, a great Senator from my home State of Illinois, hired me on as an intern in his office here in the U.S. Senate. I was just a kid from East Saint Louis, IL, the son of an immigrant mother, who was suddenly surrounded by Senators debating some of the most profound questions in our Nation's history. I used to come to the Gallery of the Senate as a student and observe the proceedings of the Senate, never dreaming that there would be a day when I would actually stand on the floor of the U.S. Senate. I couldn't believe my good fortune as a visitor to watch people like Mike Mansfield, Everett Dirksen from my State, Paul Douglas from Illinois, William Fulbright, Margaret Chase Smith, and so many others come to the floor and speak in debate. I remember sitting right there as a college student and watching. Through the door came Bobby Kennedy, and not far behind was his brother Ted Kennedy, both of them serving in the U.S. Senate in those days. It was an important occasion, I remember, on this one day because Bobby Kennedy was about to give a speech on Vietnam. His wife and Ted Kennedy's wife were seated in the Gallery just above them. I was just over here, I am sure with my mouth wide open, saying: I can't believe this moment that I am here to witness. I remember the moment today because today is the 50th anniversary of the day an assassin's bullet ended Bobby Kennedy's too-short life. For millions who remember him and many millions more who weren't even born in 1968, the death of Robert Kennedy remains a painful and haunting loss. What we miss is not simply the man; we miss his intelligence and wit, his compassion, his fierce commitment to justice and democracy, and his deep faith that Americans could come together to overcome difficult times and make our Nation stronger and better. Just 2 months--2 months--before Bobby Kennedy was murdered, America lost another apostle of peace and justice. The evening that Dr. Martin Luther King was murdered, Bobby Kennedy was in Indianapolis, IN, to give a speech. Breaking the news of Dr. King's death to a stunned crowd, Bobby Kennedy begged his listeners to not resort to violence. He said: We have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to go beyond these rather difficult times. What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black. Listening to his words, one can hear echoes of President Lincoln's first inaugural address when he told a young nation on the knife's edge of civil war that ``we are not enemies, but friends'' and looked forward to a time when we would be guided by, in Lincoln's words, ``the better angels of our nature.'' Bobby Kennedy understood that America is great when we are guided by those better angels, not by fear. As America's Attorney General in the early 1960s, Bobby Kennedy wrote a short book--only about 100 pages--entitled ``The Pursuit of Justice.'' It includes a short chapter entitled ``Extremism, Left and Right.'' I would like to read a short passage from it, the words of Robert Francis Kennedy--not as history but as hope and a reminder that we have the ability, each of us, to choose to overcome what divides us. Here is what he wrote: There have always and everywhere been those, throughout our history, and particularly in times of crisis, who have preached intolerance, who have sought to escape reality and responsibility with a slogan or a scapegoat. Bobby Kennedy wrote: What is objectionable, what is dangerous about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents. The intolerant man . . . cannot trust democracy. . . . [H]e condemns the motives, the morals or the patriotism of all who disagree. . . . [H]e spreads selfish slogans and false fears. The answers to these voices, Bobby Kennedy tells us, ``cannot come merely from government, no matter how conscientious or judicious. The answer must come from within American democracy. It must come from an informed national consensus which can recognize futile fervor and simple solutions for what they are, and reject them quickly. Ultimately, America's answer to the intolerant man is diversity.'' On this sad anniversary, the 50th anniversary of the death of Robert Kennedy, we would do well to listen to his words and heed the better angels of our nature here in the United States. It is our true source of American greatness.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons), the Senator from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth), the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Heinrich), and the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons), the Senator from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth), the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Heinrich), and the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons), the Senator from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth), and the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Heinrich) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons), the Senator from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth), and the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Heinrich) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, history is a great teacher, if you learn your history. The history of the United States, when it comes to refugees, is a checkered history. Back during World War II, there were people who came to the borders of the United States and begged for our mercy, begged for our help. Nine hundred of them were on a ship called the SS St. Louis. They were Jews who came from Europe seeking refuge in the United States from the Nazis. Sadly, the United States turned them away. Several hundred of them were forced back to Europe and died in the Holocaust. On the floor of this U.S. Senate, a Democratic Senator from New York, Robert Wagner, offered a measure to allow 10,000 Jewish children to come to the United States during World War II and escape the possibility of imprisonment and death during World War II in the Holocaust. That measure was defeated on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Those children were denied refuge in the United States. Toward the end of the war, things started changing. Our policies became more open. We started accepting more people, but the record had been written. During the darkest days of World War II, the United States virtually closed its borders to those who were trying to escape Nazi terror. After World War II, we decided we were wrong, that we had made a mistake, and that the United States would demonstrate to the world that we did care about those who came to the United States as refugees and those who came from other countries seeking asylum. We wrote an amazing history after World War II. When you think of the many different nations that turned to us when they faced the worst circumstances imaginable, you think about what happened in the United States. The Cuban population escaping communism in Cuba, where did they come? They came here, and you can still find them. You can find them all over the United States but especially in Florida, near Miami, in New Jersey--but everywhere. The Cuban Americans have made an amazing contribution to this country. They came as refugees, but they became real Americans. In fact, they love this country so much so that I believe three of our Members of the U.S. Senate are Cuban Americans today. That is quite a story, but it is not the only story about refugees coming to this country. You could add to that litany of people who came the Vietnamese after the end of the war in Vietnam, the Soviet Jews who escaped persecution in Russia to come to the United States, and the list is long. It includes refugees from all over the world who came to this country. Now, we don't just open our doors and say: Walk in and make yourself at home. We ask questions. We do background checks. We do everything we can to be sure the person coming is the person they say they are and that they will be safe for the United States. Over the years, the number of refugees we accepted on an annual basis went up to 80,000 and 100,000, and the United States developed an international reputation--a reputation for caring for people who were in the worst circumstances who came here looking for refuge. I run into refugees, their families, their children, and their grandchildren every single day. They have made a great contribution to our country, and we have made a great model for the world when it comes to accepting people who are in the worst, most terrifying circumstances. That is about to change. We are in the process now of facing the worst refugee crisis in the history of the world in so many different places, and the United States, instead of maintaining this image and this model of accepting refugees from other countries, under President Donald Trump, has decided to do just the opposite. It would cut in half the number of refugees we would clear, review, interrogate, and accept in the United States each year to 45,000, which is the official number, but in actuality only about 14,000 have been accepted so far in the few months of this year. It is an indication we will not even reach 45,000. There is something going on as well when it comes to those who seek asylum or refuge in this country that is equally horrifying and objectionable. The Trump administration has decided to discourage those who would come to our borders looking for safety by telling mothers who bring their infants and children that those children will be taken away from them by the Government of the United States when they arrive at our border. It is hard to imagine, but that is the stated policy now of the Trump administration. It is a cruel policy. It is not a policy consistent with American values. Since our Nation's tragic failure during World War II to help Jewish refugees fleeing Adolph Hitler, generations of Americans have tried to set an example for the world by providing a safe haven to the world's most vulnerable people. Now we face the worst refugee crisis in the history of the world, with more than 65 million people around the world displaced from their homes, but the Trump administration is admitting the fewest refugees since World War II and going to extreme lengths to prevent victims of war and terrorism from seeking asylum in the United States. So far this year, about 15,000 unaccompanied children have been apprehended at our southwest border. This is not necessarily a crisis in a nation of 325 million people, especially at a time when we are asking friendly nations--our allies in the Middle East--to do much more in accepting refugees. The real crisis that gives cause to people showing up at our southern border asking for asylum can be traced to three countries--Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala--the so-called Northern Triangle. These countries in Central America have among the highest homicide rates in the world. Young girls face a constant threat of sexual violence with little or no protection. That is why families are doing desperate things, taking extraordinary risks to come to our border and ask for protection. Is there any parent who would not do the same to save their child? How has the Trump administration responded to this refugee crisis on our border? They are trying to discourage families from fleeing to our borders by separating parents from their children. In March, we learned in my office in Chicago about a 7-year-old girl and her mother who came from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I have been there. It is a land of terrible massacres, barbarism. It is a land of violence. The Democratic Republic of the Congo had these two, a mother and daughter, come to our shores. They were separated for 4 months--a 7-year-old girl from her mother. I asked the Department of Homeland Security inspector general to investigate this. Why would we separate a 7-year-old girl from her mom who is coming from the Congo seeking protection? Well, at the time, the Trump administration said: We don't separate families. That was the official statement at the time. Last month, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the separation of children from their parents was a new ``zero tolerance'' approach, and now family separation has become the official policy of the Government of the United States of America. In just the first 2 weeks of this policy under Attorney General Sessions, 658 children have been impacted. White House Chief of Staff John Kelly says separating families is ``a tough deterrent'' to parents who are fleeing persecution, and he dismissed any concerns because ``the children will be taken care of-- put into foster care or whatever.'' Well, our Nation's leading medical experts disagree. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association have condemned this official policy of the Trump administration separating families in immigration detention. Here is what the President of the American Academy of Pediatrics said: Separating children from their parents contradicts everything we stand for as pediatricians--protecting and promoting children's health. In fact, highly stressful experiences, like family separation, can cause irreparable harm, disrupting a child's brain architecture and affecting his or her short- and long-term health. This type of prolonged exposure to serious stress--known as toxic stress-- can carry lifelong consequences for these children. The Trump administration has been taking some heat, deservedly, for separating families. In typical fashion--no surprise--they have decided the real cause of the problem would be the Democrats. Just this morning, President Trump tweeted: ``Separating families at the Border is the fault of bad legislation passed by the Democrats,'' but the law he is talking about wasn't passed by the Democrats. It is the bipartisan Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, which was passed by unanimous consent in the Senate and was signed into law by Republican President George W. Bush. President Trump has his facts wrong again. This law has nothing to do with the separation of families. Instead, it ensures the United States meets its international obligations to protect unaccompanied children seeking safe haven in our country. It was a response to concerns by Republicans and Democrats that children apprehended by the Border Patrol were being returned to countries where they might be further persecuted or killed. Under this law, unaccompanied children from the Northern Triangle countries I mentioned earlier are transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services and placed in deportation proceedings, giving them a chance to make their case to a judge as to why they are seeking protection in America. Consider ``Samuel'' and ``Amelie,'' who are siblings, ages 3 and 6, from Honduras. They are 3 and 6. When they arrived in the United States, they were traumatized and refused to speak. After months of counseling, Amelie revealed that both children had been raped by drug cartel members. Without the protection of this law which the President condemned this morning, these children would have been returned to Honduras and almost certain exploitation or death. Two weeks ago, there was a hearing on unaccompanied children in the Senate Immigration Subcommittee which I serve on as a ranking member. We examined the administration's claim that the law the President objects to is being exploited by gangs. Here is what we learned: Unaccompanied children undergo multiple screenings and background checks when they present themselves at the border, and the law gives the government the authority to place any unaccompanied child in a secure facility if there is any notion of a threat. Since the year 2012, 6 years ago, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection has processed more than 250,000 unaccompanied children. Of those, how many were confirmed or suspected of affiliation with the MS-13 gang that the President talks about nonstop? Sixty. It was 60 out of 250,000--60 over 6 years, which is 10 a year, fewer than 1 a month. The President says we have to separate these kids because of drug gang worries. I don't want a single member of any gang anywhere admitted into this country, period. For goodness' sake, 250,000 children and 60 over a 6-year period were confirmed or suspected of affiliation with MS-13? Instead of stoking fears, we should focus on preventing unaccompanied children from being recruited by gangs. Sadly, the Trump administration's budget is slashing funding for the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the government agency that is responsible for these important gang prevention efforts. At our hearing, we also discussed the conditions in the Northern Triangle countries in Central America that are driving families to flee to our border. If people were migrating because of the so-called legal loopholes, which we hear so often about from this administration, they wouldn't be just coming from three countries; they would be coming from all over the region, but we learned more than 90 percent of the unaccompanied kids referred to the Department of Health and Human Services are from three nations--the three of the Northern Triangle. Instead of addressing the root causes that are driving migration from these countries, the Trump administration is making the situation on the ground worse. The administration's budget request for the region would slash aid by more than one-third, and the administration is terminating the temporary protected status for two of these countries-- El Salvador and Honduras, forcing many people to return to them even though these countries are clearly unstable. Last year, the administration also ended the Central American Minors Program, which permitted children from the Northern Triangle to apply for refugee resettlement from their home country. We said to mothers with their babies and their infants: Don't make this dangerous journey. If you are in danger in your home country and want to seek asylum or refuge in the United States, make the application from where you are before you have to make that journey. Unfortunately, that came to an end with the administration's request to stop the program. There are many issues to come before the American people but few that have stoked emotions more than this issue. The notion that the United States of America--over 300 million good and caring people--would make it an official policy to separate these infants and toddlers and children from their mothers and fathers is not American. It is extreme, it is mean, and it is cruel. Sadly, it is the official policy--the so- called zero-tolerance policy that has been announced by Attorney General Sessions. We learned a bitter lesson back in World War II. We ignored the realities of human suffering. People across the world asked: What is going on in America? What are their values? After that war, we tried to make it clear what we do stand for, the things that are clearly important, and now this administration has decided we can no longer afford to do that. We have to separate children from their mothers, separate them by thousands of miles, put them into foster care, remove them from their mothers, even if that parent qualifies for protection here in the United States under our laws of asylum. This is a sad and cruel policy. I hope Americans across the board will stand up and speak up. We are a better Nation than this. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DURBIN

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

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons), the Senator from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth), the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Heinrich), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Nelson), and the Senator from New Hampshire (Mrs. Shaheen) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth), the Senator from New Hampshire (Ms. Hassan), and the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth) and the Senator from New Hampshire (Ms. Hassan) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, it was about 5 or 6 weeks ago that I accepted an invitation and an opportunity to visit Caracas, Venezuela. I had never been to that country before and spent 4 days. It turns out that not many Members of Congress go to this country and very few are given permission if they ask, but for some reason, I was given permission and went down there to meet with the leaders of the government and to take stock of what was happening in Venezuela. Sadly, I have to report that Venezuela--that proud nation--is teetering on collapse. I met with President Maduro, members of his government, opposition leaders, civic and humanitarian leaders, medical experts, victims of the regime's political repression, and an American who is currently jailed on political charges in Caracas. What I found there and recounted on the floor a few weeks ago was a heartbreaking set of overlapping crises--humanitarian, economic, and political. While these three inexcusable crises of the government's making continue, the people of this poor nation are increasingly suffering and leaving in desperation. It is one of the most desperate situations I have ever seen in a country that is not in the midst of a war. In my discussion with President Maduro, I urged him to help get his country out of the international isolation that it currently faces and put an end to the human suffering by starting with a clean election. Last Sunday, there was an election. It was a farce. I asked him to release political opponents so they could run for office. I asked him to authorize parties to field candidates. I asked him to create enough time in the election cycle so there could be a real campaign. I told him, if he didn't and went through with his election campaign, it would not be a credible result. We know the Maduro regime was using food, among its starving people, to manipulate votes. The regime had, unfortunately, no credible election monitors before or during the vote, and, of course, it rushed the election to get the result it was looking for. I recently joined with Senator Menendez of New Jersey. We said, quite simply, that Maduro should have the courage to have an open election, a democratic process. As we arrived at the airport, we noticed the great hero of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez. Hugo Chavez won his first election in a democratic manner, and I urged President Maduro to now do the same. I was also direct in saying to him that he had to release the American, Josh Holt, who is being held in prison, in Caracas, on political charges. Why is he being held? It is that he traveled to Venezuela to be with and to marry the woman he loved and to bring her and her two daughters back to his home State of Utah? He crossed the Maduro regime, and in that process, he was arrested on charges that are outrageous. He has been held now for almost 2 years without having had a meaningful trial or a resolution of the dispute. As the events of the last few weeks have shown, the obvious path forward for Venezuela has been rejected by the Maduro regime. Instead, it went ahead with last Sunday's widely discredited election in which his regime jailed or disqualified any meaningful opponent. It was a farce. It will only result in the further isolation and suffering of the Venezuelan people. I know President Maduro is blaming Yankee imperialists for the problems his country is facing or the opposition to his leadership. He need only look to neighboring nations in Central and South America to see that they also reject what he has done politically. Despite stirring video pleas from the prison in which Josh Holt, the American, is being held, Maduro's regime wouldn't even meet with our top diplomat in Caracas. Todd Robinson is the Charge d'Affaires who represents the United States since we are not allowed to have an ambassador in that country. He went to the Foreign Ministry on behalf of Josh Holt when he heard about the prison riot and the danger to this American prisoner who is being held on political charges. Obviously, he got under President Maduro's skin, and he has now expelled him. The Trump administration has been unequivocal in claiming that the Venezuelan election was a sham and also in imposing new economic sanctions in order to put pressure on the leaders in the Venezuelan Government to change. As I told President Maduro and members of his government, both parties in America may have their squabbles and differences, but when it comes to Venezuela, we stand together. Republicans and Democrats agree that things need to change dramatically in Venezuela if it wants to enter the family of civilized nations around the world. President Maduro has responded not by reaching out to the opposition and not by showing any true reform but by rejecting every overture. He refuses to release Josh Holt and his Venezuelan wife and daughters to allow them to come to the United States. He still keeps Leopoldo Lopez, a political leader in Venezuela, under house arrest. I spoke to Mr. Lopez by phone and met personally with his wife. It is shameful what they are doing to him. By restoring the power of a legitimate national assembly, President Maduro would show he is willing to move toward the Constitution which guided his country, but he refuses. He refuses to start a meaningful dialogue with the Lima Group--other nations in the region--that want to work with him toward moving Venezuela to a better day. He refuses to work with neighbors and humanitarian groups that truly want to address the suffering in that country. It was not until the public health briefing I had in Venezuela and a personal visit to a local hospital that it really hit me and hit me hard how bad things are. This is a country--one of the few on Earth-- that is not at war but that is currently facing epidemics of measles, diphtheria, and malaria. When you go to Caracas city hospitals--not to remote, rural hospitals--and ask them what they need, they tell you vaccines, antibiotics, cancer drugs--the basics. They don't have them in that country. You can just see on the streets of Caracas that the people are starving. They are starving. They don't have enough food to eat in that country. The inflation is so out of control that people stand in line for an hour a day to get the maximum withdrawals on their credit cards, in hard currency, because the withdrawals are worth the 60 cents they need for round trip bus fare to their places of work. At 11 o'clock at night, in the darkness, you will see people standing by ATM machines to withdraw wads of currency worth 60 cents so they can board the buses the next morning. The expulsion of our Charge d'Affaires, Todd Robinson, was really disgraceful. He was accused of conspiring against the Venezuelan Government. What did he do? He stood up for the American prisoner, Josh Holt. That is all. Todd Robinson is one of the Nation's highly respected diplomats who carries the rank of Ambassador and has served with distinction in some of the most challenging countries in the world. I spoke with him on the phone yesterday. He is disappointed. He knows there is much work to be done in Venezuela to protect innocent people and to make sure the Americans have a strong presence in order to protect them as well, and now he is being expelled. During my visit to Caracas a few weeks ago, I watched him try to establish a dialogue with the Maduro regime. It was next to impossible. A dialogue requires someone on the other side who will listen and respond in good faith. That was not the case. When I spoke to him--our Charge d'Affaires, Mr. Robinson--he was packing up and helping the Embassy staff prepare for his departure. He will be back in the Washington area over the weekend. I thanked him for his service in Venezuela and for his team that continues to soldier on under some of the most difficult circumstances in the world. Until the Maduro regime stops dismantling its country's democracy and starts to address the true humanitarian crisis which exists in its country, I will continue to support U.S. and regional measures to put pressure on the Maduro regime to change. I know of no other way to do this that will not bring more suffering and death to the innocent people of Venezuela. This once great nation will not be great again until its leadership understands that the current approach--denying democracy, denying the electoral process, refusing to have an open dialogue with democratic nations around the world--will only sink them further into the abyss. I yield the floor.