Richard Durbin

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, let me thank my colleague from Rhode Island and recall affectionately that, when I came to the Senate in 1997, John Chafee was serving. And I had an opportunity to meet with him and to work with him on something that he loved called the Atlantic Forum. He asked me to join him in a bipartisan way to lead that effort in the Senate--such a compliment for a freshman Senator to have that kind of request from a man of his stature. He served our country so well in World War II, maybe even in the Korean war, as well, in the Marine Corps, before he was elected Governor of your State. I attended his memorial service in Providence, and it was quite a crowd, as there should have been. Thank you for bringing up his name in this positive way.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I was first elected to the House of Representatives, here in Washington, in 1982. That is a long time ago, but I remember very well my first year in the House. Politically, I was scared to death. It was my first election victory, and I had defeated a 22-year Republican incumbent Congressman. I was looking over my shoulder every day, every minute, every bill, every vote, thinking: This is it. I can't get this done. And then they came around and told us something I didn't want to hear at all. They said: Incidentally, the Social Security system is going broke, and it will happen within a year or 2, and we have to fix it. I thought to myself: This is the end of me. No matter what they come up with--whatever proposal it is--the controversy will be so intense that it will cost me my congressional seat. I listened to the debate, and I saw the end product that was suggested, in 1983, for 50 years of solvency for Social Security and decided, in the end, that the responsible thing to do was to vote for it. We passed it. We waited to see what the electorate would do. Not a single Member of the House of Representatives of either party lost an election attributable to the Social Security vote. By making some hard decisions in a timely fashion, saving Social Security, we did the right thing for America, and, politically, it turned out to be a safe thing, whether we believed it at the time or not. So now we face another crisis in Social Security. The 50 years of solvency which we bought in 1983 is running out. The Social Security Board of Trustees releases a report that tells us about the status of Social Security finances. Their 2026 report, released yesterday, should send alarm bells through Congress. According to the Board of Trustees, the Social Security trust fund will be unable to make full scheduled payments in 2032. So the effort that I was involved in, in 1983, paid off. We bought 50 years, but now what are we going to do? Just 6 years from now, Social Security will only be able to pay 78 percent of current benefits. What does that mean? I will give you a rough illustration. The average Social Security check in the United States is around $2,500. If you reduce it by 22 percent, people will receive about $450 less each month. It means that beneficiaries across our Nation will see their benefit checks cut by 22 percent. Twenty-two percent means $455. It is about or around the average a retired household spends on groceries each month. That could be devastating. We cannot let it happen. Roughly, 70 million Americans--seniors and people with disabilities-- rely on Social Security for food, medication, housing, and utilities. In my home State Illinois, over 2.3 million people receive Social Security. Twenty percent of seniors in Illinois rely on it for all or nearly all of their income. It is all they have. Each year, Social Security lifts 533,000 seniors 65 and over out of poverty in my State. Social Security is a lifeline that they earned after a lifetime of hard work. But many beneficiaries still struggle with living expenses. Every day, seniors are forced to make decisions most Americans pray they will never have to face, like whether to buy groceries or pay the utility bill, refill their medications or pay their rent or mortgage. Now, if we do nothing--if Congress does nothing--with this Board of Trustees report, every single Senator faces the prospect of making do with $455 less a month in just 6 years. These are not hypotheticals. Every single Senator has received these heartbreaking stories from constituents about what they are doing, struggling to survive on a fixed income or Social Security. One of my constituents Kimberly shared her appreciation of Social Security and said it is traced back to her grandmother, who was a maid and commuted to the suburbs from Chicago to work each day. Kimberly said her grandmother stopped school in the ninth grade and had a family of eight children. When she retired after her husband died, she relied heavily on Social Security. Kimberly said: Social Security was [my mom's] monthly stream of income-- her only monthly stream of income. So why haven't we done something to avoid this deadline in 2032? It is because we have a fear of doing what is right and maybe politically unpopular. Every year, when the Social Security Trustees Report is released, we again bury our heads in the sand and say: Thank goodness some future Congress will take care of this problem. Social Security is a bedrock promise we made to America--the most fundamental safety net program in America--and I am concerned that Congress will wait until the absolute last minute to try to do anything to save it. That would make it extremely difficult and make it irresponsible conduct and unacceptable. Earlier today, I released a bipartisan statement. Yes, Senators of both political parties issued a statement together. Senators Bill Cassidy, Tim Kaine, Thom Tillis, and I are saying to Congress: Don't wait. Do something. We must find a way for Congress to debate this issue in a transparent, fair, and bipartisan way, a mechanism that forces us to make meaningful, important policy choices. Several of us have been working together, trying to figure out how we can strengthen Social Security for future generations of retirees. We say to our colleagues: Join us in doing what we were elected to do-- legislate on hard issues and protect this lifeline program, Social Security, for our kids and grandkids, because we do not have a shortage of ideas. What we lack is the will to do it. There are many bills that are out there. The senior Senator from Vermont has a bill to address this crisis; the junior Senator from Rhode Island, the same; the senior Senator from Hawaii, equally. The senior Senator from Louisiana is working on it as well. Good ideas are out there, but we need to come together on a bipartisan basis and agree on a path that buys 50 years of solvency at a minimum. Those Senators worked their proposals for a long time. They want to present them to the Senate, and they should. But to do that, we have to do something we haven't done in a long time. Get ready. Buckle your seatbelts. I am talking about legislating, actually bringing a measure to the floor and opening it to amendment. We would say: You could offer an amendment, if you wish, to anyone's proposal for Social Security, but whatever you do, it has to buy a minimum of 50 years of solvency for Social Security. And then let's vote. There will be some ideas that will be crazy and that you wouldn't even consider them. But I think we can work to a bipartisan solution to our challenge as well. These measures should be debated, receive a vote, and have their own chance to become law. Let's not run away from this responsibility anymore. Let's not say: It is somebody else's problem. We were elected to solve problems, and there is no greater problem than the solvency and the future of Social Security. If you think I am making that up, blowing smoke, ask senior citizens how important Social Security is. They will tell you it is critical for their survival. We were sent to Congress to legislate and work on hard issues. Four Senators--two Democrats and two Republicans--are stepping forward and saying: We can work on this together. We owe it to our kids and grandkids to protect and bolster this critically important program. I yield the floor.

Mr. DURBIN

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

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, on a separate note, Sunday marked 100 days since President Trump launched his war on Iran. What was true at the beginning of the conflict is still true: There is no evidence that the President has a coherent plan to resolve this quagmire of his own making. On Sunday, the President assured the Nation in an interview that he was ``very close to a deal.'' If that sounds like a familiar refrain, it is. President Trump has been saying some variation on that sentence every week since the war began over 100 days ago. Yet, just hours after he made those comments, Iran and Israel traded a new wave of strikes, and the Houthis--an Iranian-backed militia-- fired on Israel and threatened to further restrict shipping in the Middle East. While this latest exchange has ended, thank goodness, the larger regional instability remains. Global oil reserves continue to diminish by the hour. And in a cruel irony, it appears President Trump is inching toward a deal with Iran that is very similar to the Obama Iran nuclear agreement which Trump recklessly withdrew from during his first term in office. Ultimately, wars cannot be won through threat or bluster. We need a real plan that brings a real end to these hostilities and to Iran's threats in the region. I am pleased my Republican colleagues are finally starting to realize that reality. Last week, the House passed a resolution requiring that the President receive congressional approval before taking any further military action against Iran, and last month, the Senate advanced a similar measure. Where in the world did Members of Congress and the House and Senate come up with the idea that the Congress has any authority to say anything about the declaration of war? Well, it might be the Constitution, which says in article I, section 8, that it is the authority and responsibility of Congress to declare war--a fact which this President has totally ignored when it comes to Iran. We cannot allow the President to wage a war without checks, oversight, and accountability. Congress must step up and exercise its responsibility.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I listened to my colleague from Wyoming, my friend Senator Barrasso, talk about the benefits of the Trump policies when it comes to American families. I don't know the situation in his home State of Wyoming, but let me tell you the situation in most States in the Union, including my home State. American families are struggling. They don't believe the Trump policies are giving them any relief from what they face on a day-to-day basis. I wonder when the last time was that Members of the Senate filled up a tank of gasoline in their home States and realized that the dramatic increase in cost is working a real hardship, particularly on working families in lower and middle-income jobs. They are struggling to get by paycheck to paycheck, and now they have gasoline bills they never anticipated. There is no end in sight. And to talk about relief for American families and ignore the cost of gasoline is really to ignore the obvious. The same thing is true when it comes to utility bills. In my State, utility bills are up 15 percent this year over last year. There are a lot of reasons for it, and they have been explained over and over on the floor. The bottom line is that there is no Trump policy addressing this issue--particularly no policy that really is moving us toward renewable and sustainable sources of energy for generations to come. How about the price of groceries? The tariff policies of this administration have led to a protest by farmers across the United States. These tariff policies hurt their ability to compete in the world market. That is why the President recently went to the Midwest in the hopes of salvaging his reputation with farmers in rural communities. For the Senator from Wyoming to come to the floor and talk about the benefits to American families is to ignore the increased costs of groceries that people put up with every day. What the Senator didn't mention as well is that the big beautiful Trump budget bill also made some dramatic changes when it came to the cost of healthcare for American citizens. The idea of cutting $1 trillion out of the Medicaid Program over the next several years is not only going to create a hardship on people with illness, but it is also going to create a hardship on providers. Already in my State, where many rural hospitals and inner-city hospitals struggle to keep their doors open, the notion of these cutbacks in Medicaid means not only fewer treatments for those who are sick and need medical care, but it also means, when it comes to these hospitals and clinics that are really a life-and-death proposition, their survival is in doubt. Talking about the future for American families--the future starts with healthcare that is quality healthcare that you can afford. Do you recall when the Republicans, in their big beautiful budget bill, decided that they were going to cut back the tax benefits for people to help pay for their health insurance premiums? How can that be of any lasting, positive value for families across America? It creates a real hardship that they have to deal with. So I think coming to the floor and talking about tax policies in decades to come is interesting and worthy of note, but it certainly doesn't address the reality of what American families are facing in Illinois, Wyoming, and across the United States. That is the reality.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, on a separate note, section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is set to expire on Friday. This powerful, necessary tool allows for warrantless surveillance of private phone calls, text messages, and emails of hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals outside the United States. There is no authority in this law for direct surveillance on American citizens, but Americans are being swept up in the efforts under 702 and have been for years. Section 702 can yield valuable foreign intelligence and even prevent terrorist attacks. It is valuable, and I don't question that it should continue. But it can and has been abused in the effort to spy on foreigners. Americans have become the victims. Those who oppose reforming FISA argue there is no time to address these abuses because our national security will be harmed if section 702 is allowed to expire even for a day. That is not true. Existing law allows section 702 collection to continue under an order from the FISA Court for another year even without congressional reauthorization. Congress can and must take the time to get this right. We must finally fix the fundamental and indefensible flaw at the heart of FISA: warrantless surveillance of American citizens. We should ask ourselves two questions: Who is being entrusted with this immense power? President Trump would like this authority to be overseen by unqualified MAGA loyalists. President Trump has named Bill Pulte Acting Director of National Intelligence. Bill Pulte is in charge of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the housing programs of the Federal Government. He has no--underline ``no''--background in intelligence. The Republican Senate leader came to the floor here and said: Don't worry about it; he is just temporary. Temporarily in charge of the intelligence operations of 17 or 18 Agencies? Temporary approval of their actions by a man who has no background in intelligence? What are we saying to the men and women who have devoted their lives in defense of America to intelligence gathering? Some have risked their lives. Some have given their lives in the process. To take Mr. Pulte, who runs the housing programs, and put him in charge makes no sense whatsoever--temporary or permanent. Let me add as well that Mr. Pulte isn't just a housing expert; he tends to be an expert as well on revenge politics under MAGA. He has followed the President's admonition to go after the President's enemies and done it over and over again. Now we are going to put him in charge of all the intelligence Agencies of the United States? It makes no sense. Since being confirmed to lead the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Mr. Pulte has abused his position to push for criminal referrals against President Trump's perceived enemies, from New York attorney general Letitia James to Fed Governor Lisa Cook. If Mr. Pulte becomes the Acting Director of National Intelligence, he will have access to thousands of Americans' private texts, phone calls, and emails. This housing expert is going to be playing with ammunition provided by the intelligence Agencies to keep Americans safe. Now it is going to be used for political purposes if we are not careful. Then there is the Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel--a special case for sure. His Agency is one of the biggest users of information acquired through section 702. The New York Times this morning had a lengthy article on the lengths Patel has gone to--with the FBI--to get even with the President's critics. In addition to overseeing the purge of nonpartisan career agents at the Bureau itself, Mr. Patel has also gutted internal FBI oversight of FISA by eliminating the Office in charge of auditing complaints with section 702 regulations. Another official with an instrumental role in section 702 surveillance is Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. Mr. Blanche was President Trump's personal defense attorney, and he has warped the Department of Justice into a personal sword and shield for President Trump. The inability of Pulte, Patel, and Blanche to serve the American people rather than the personal and political interests of President Trump highlights why Congress must reform section 702. The second question Congress must ask is whether the section 702 authorities safeguard the privacy of Americans under any administration, not just the current one. Our Nation's Founders understood the government can't be trusted to police itself against the overreach into citizens' private lives. That is why the Constitution sets up a system of checks and balances. One of the most important checks is the Fourth Amendment, which requires the government to get a warrant from a judge before searching Americans' homes or private communications. Section 702 should not be a backdoor around this congressional limitation. That is why Senator Lee, a Republican from Utah, and I have a bipartisan proposal to require the government to obtain a judicial warrant before searching Americans' communications collected under section 702. Our legislation would also close the so-called data broker loophole, which allows the government to purchase Americans' personal information from third-party data brokers--data that would require a warrant if sought any other way. I urge my colleagues to ask if the current administration can be entrusted with the power of section 702 and whether every future administration can be trusted without adequate safeguards. It is clear that the answer to both questions is no. Congress must enact commonsense guardrails that uphold the Constitution and protect the American people from abuse by this administration or any future administration. The Republican leader came to the floor earlier today to talk about the security of the United States. I agree with him. It is a paramount task. But also adherence to our Constitution, which each and every one of us swore to uphold and defend, is part of that process. The notion that we could put a temporary person in charge of 17 or 18 intelligence Agencies across the globe, dedicated to keeping us safe 24/7, because he is loyal to the President's politics ain't enough. You ought to be qualified before you take on a job of that magnitude. Mr. Pulte is not qualified. I yield the floor.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, today, the Senate will vote to confirm Anthony Wayne Mattivi to the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas. While it is commendable that Mr. Mattivi is a long-time public servant, I have deep reservations that he can be impartial if confirmed to the bench. As the director of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, KBI, Mr. Mattivi signed a 287(g) agreement to participate in Federal immigration enforcement and touted Kansas as being only the second State in the country to do so. Given ICE's cruel and inhumane tactics, that is nothing to brag about. I am also concerned that Mr. Mattivi will not treat criminal defendants fairly, given that he has repeatedly characterized as soft on crime decreasing or eliminating mandatory minimums. We have seen how outdated mandatory minimum policies stemming from the failed ``War on Drugs'' continue to impose lengthy, one-size-fits- all sentences for many nonviolent drug offenses. They don't deter crime; instead, they overcrowd prisons and strain budgets. Lastly, Mr. Mattivi has demonstrated that he is too afraid to cross President Trump. When asked in written questions if he stood by his view that it was ``preposterous'' for President Trump to claim that he had issued a standing order to declassifying the documents he kept at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Mattivi declined to answer. Given Mr. Mattivi's inability to demonstrate that he will be a neutral arbiter, I will oppose this nomination.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Bennet) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I met a woman at a hearing, from Chicago, which I am honored to represent. Her name was Marimar Martinez. On a Saturday morning, last October, Ms. Martinez decided she had some spare clothes that she was going to take to her church to give to people who needed clothing. She got in her car on Kedzie Avenue and was driving along, when she ran into a group of ICE agents, who stopped her. She is Hispanic and appears to be Hispanic, and they decided to question whether or not she was in America legally. She had committed no crime, violated no law. She was just driving, looking Hispanic, which was enough for them. Before it was all over, she was driving away from the scene and was shot five times by the ICE agents. How this woman survived, I will never know, but she did. And, of course, she had to go through a lot of hospitalization and a lot of trouble. But she insisted to the ICE agents that she had never violated the law. And when it was all over, they sought her out at a hospital and arrested her and then, within days or weeks, dropped all charges. They argued, in the original charge, that her car had crashed into one of the ICE agent's cars and therefore she had committed a criminal act. When it was all over, that car was removed from the scene and never produced again. They took it to New England, for goodness' sake, from Chicago so that no one could actually look to see if there was any damage on it. There wasn't. Marimar Martinez survived. It was nothing short of a miracle. She was swept up into this hysteria that President Trump started at his rallies, where he would get up and say over and over again: We have to stop these rapists and murderers and terrorists and the criminally insane and child predators who came across the border under the Biden administration. We are going to get them, and we are going to send in people to make sure that happens. In came the ICE agents. Did you happen to watch what happened in Minnesota? Did you notice the two innocent individuals who were protesting for sure but were not violating the law, who were shot down and killed in Minneapolis? That is what has happened here and what has led to what the Republican leader just described, the difference between Democrats here, Republicans there, about how we should handle this issue. Let me say here again what I have said many times. I was chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. I am now the ranking Democrat. Immigration is one of our issues, and here is what I think is the bottom line I feel everyone agrees with--I hope they do. The bottom line is this: We should never knowingly allow a dangerous person to come into this country. Short declarative sentence: Never knowingly allow a dangerous person to come into this country. Second, if someone is in this country and wants to stay, wants any kind of legal status, and commits a dangerous crime, they are gone, no ifs, ands, or buts. They are gone. Third point, we need an orderly process at our border. We cannot accept all of the people in the world who want to immigrate to the United States at this moment. There has to be an orderly process. Those, I think, are the three basic principles that most Americans agree on. Some will disagree. But I come to this issue with a personal agenda. My mother was an immigrant to this country. She was brought here at the age of 2. Hers was a poor family from Lithuania that came to the land of opportunity-- East St. Louis, IL, where I was born and raised. My grandfather worked jobs that required manual labor, as immigrants do. They took jobs other people wouldn't consider. And here, the next generation produces a grandson who was elected to the U.S. Senate. That is my story. That is my family's story. That is America's story. We are a nation of immigrants--some brought here involuntarily, some came here voluntarily--and it has made us a great nation. I am proud of it. In my office just a few steps from here is my mother's naturalization certificate by my desk. I want everyone who comes to my office to know I am the proud son of an immigrant. I don't believe immigrants are inherently evil or bad. I think just the opposite--they are people who come here and work themselves to death so that their kids have a better life. We have now reached a mindset in this country that anyone who wants to come here is suspected of a crime or dangerous conduct. We should do a background check for sure. But listen to what happened. I have been in the Senate for a number of years, and 20 years ago, I introduced a bill called the DREAM Act. The DREAM Act basically said: If you were brought to the United States as a child, grew up in the United States, and have nothing serious in your background that raises any question; if you went to that school every day and pledged allegiance to that flag believing you were part of America, you deserve a chance to earn your pathway to citizenship. That is what the DREAM Act said. Lucky for me, one of my colleagues in the Senate by the name of Barack Obama was a cosponsor of my bill. Turns out he got a promotion from the Senate and became President of the United States. I wrote him a letter cosigned by Senator Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana, asking him by Executive order to try to create a mechanism like the DREAM Act that gave these kids brought to America a chance to earn their way to citizenship. He came up with something called DACA. Under DACA, these young people, if they would step forward and identify themselves to the government--they are undocumented--if they identify themselves to the government, if they were brought here as children, we would give them a chance. But the chance was simply this: You can legally work in the United States, and you won't be deported. Every 2 years, you have to apply for DACA again--every 2 years--pay a $600 fee every 2 years, and go through a lengthy criminal background check. If you pass it, you get DACA for another 2 years. Mr. President, 980,000 young people stepped forward in the United States to sign up for DACA. How are we doing with these people from DACA? Pretty good. They are teachers. They are nurses. They are doctors. They are policemen. They are serving in our military. They are proving the point they wanted to make: They love this country; they believe they are part of this country. They are not the problem. They have never been the problem. So what is the Trump administration doing to them? Denying them another opportunity to sign up for another 2 years. Their time is up. They are ready to do it, and they are holding them back. Sadly, they are deporting these young people who have done nothing wrong except try to prove themselves to be loyal Americans. So when you look at the environment here created by the Trump administration on the issue of immigration, you see overwhelmingly that you have to sit and listen to the whole story. Of every seven people who are arrested and deported by ICE under the Trump administration-- out of every seven, six of them have no criminal record. They are not the rapists and the murders and the terrorists. They are people who live next door to you. They go to the same church you go to. They are the ones who just took care of your sale at the convenience store. They are doing their thing in America, and they are not breaking any laws, and the Trump administration has said they still have to be deported. That, I think, is too much. When it comes to this debate over funding ICE, what the Republican leader--and he is my friend. John Thune is my friend from South Dakota. We disagree on a lot of politics. I respect him as a person. We disagree on this issue. And when he talks about these individuals who are involved with the ICE agents and Border Patrol and such and how they need to be funded, what he doesn't mention is we have already funded them for this year and last year. Do you know what the funding level is for those Agencies? It is more than the appropriation for the U.S. Marine Corps--more than the appropriation for the U.S. Marine Corps for these ICE agents who insist on wearing masks and don't want to be held responsible for what they are doing in the streets of Chicago and Minnesota and other places. I think it is reasonable to say to them: You should be held to the same standards as any law enforcement official in America. My State troopers in Illinois don't wear masks. The sheriff's deputies don't wear masks. The policemen in Chicago don't wear masks. They wear video cameras, which we are insisting that these ICE agents also carry. They have their names above their badges so that you know who they are and can hold them responsible for any misconduct. It is not unreasonable to do this. The Republicans say: No. We will make the rules. You probably saw--maybe you didn't; it was a Chicago occurrence, and we all saw it--when they broke down the door of a man's home and went in and said: You are undocumented. We are going to deport you. They dragged him out, and he was wearing a bathrobe. They took him out of the shower. It took 2 or 3 days to finally square it away. He was an American citizen. They had the wrong house. They had no warrant to tear down his front door; they did it anyway. That sort of thing should stop. ICE agents should play by the same rules as policemen, professional law enforcement all across America. That is what we feel on the Democratic side. We are getting nowhere on that issue on the Republican side. So I think the bottom line is this: We want a safe country, but we also have values. We don't want to mistreat people who are doing a good job in their lives and serving us in very important ways. I think about my State of Illinois and most other States, and we have a very serious problem finding caregivers in daycare centers for children, for disabled people, and certainly for our parents and grandparents who are in nursing homes and places. Who are those caregivers? Go in and take a look. Forty percent of them are immigrants. They are the ones who make sure your mom and your grandmother are treated with respect and have a chance for decent human treatment during the course of a day. We want them gone? Who is going to take their place? We know better. These are tough jobs. They don't pay an awful lot of money. These folks deserve a lot more than they are currently being paid. The reality is immigrants are critically important. The Farm Bureau is a very conservative organization in my State of Illinois. Politically, I know they are on the other side for most issues from me. But I always welcome them each year to hear what they have to say. They came to see me recently and talked about farm labor, migrant farm labor. There was a lady who has an orchard in Southern Illinois that is pretty well known for peaches and apples and the like. She said: Senator, I can't get the local high school kids to take any job at my orchard. I can't even get them to go to the fruit stand--and I put in an air-conditioner--to sell fruit to people who drive by. I have to deal--if I am going to deal with anybody--with migrant labor, people that I have known and who have worked for me for years. Now they are afraid to come to the United States. Will you help me? I said: I will try to help you if I can, but the bottom line is that they are scared, they are frightened of what is going to happen to them if they come to the United States. Is that a healthy thing? This lady said: I am not going to be able to keep this orchard for another year or two if I can't get workers to pick the fruit and sell the fruit as part of the operation. A lady from a dairy farm in Northern Illinois, hundreds of miles away--same story. She said: We don't have enough kids. We used to have a lot of kids in dairy farm families. We don't have enough kids anymore. We need migrant labor to come in and help us on the farm. That is part of America. It is a job that most people don't jump to take, but it is an important job and an important part of our future. So I would just say to my friend the Senator from South Dakota: We ought to be able to work this out--don't you think?--it seems to me, if we are reasonable. There are people like Stephen Miller, who works in the White House and advises the President. He doesn't like immigrants. I know Mr. Miller. I have worked on the other side of the table from him for a long time. I know what his values are. He just doesn't like them, and he is pretty clear about that. He inspires a lot of the conduct coming out of the White House. But there are others sitting on the other side of the aisle, the Republican side, who I know feel differently who would be willing to sit down and work. Is it possible for a partisan U.S. Senate to write a comprehensive immigration bill that both sides agree on? The answer is clearly yes. There were eight of us, four Democrats and four Republicans. I was on the Democratic side with Schumer and a couple other Senators, and the Republican side was led by John McCain. We put together a comprehensive immigration bill and brought it to the floor, Democrats and Republicans, and passed it with over 60 votes. It can be done, but you have to have people who are willing to sit down and say: Let's be honest about it. Keep the bad guys out, but give those DACA kids, for example, a chance to be part of America's future. That is what I think is the middle ground most Americans would agree on. It is still something I think we should aspire to. I don't know where we are going next on this immigration matter, but I worry about what is going to happen to a lot of people that I represent in Chicago. They are so frightened in the Hispanic communities in Chicago that they have stopped going to church, and some won't send their kids to school. They are just afraid of what is going to happen--somebody is going to be arrested, somebody will be deported or, like Marimar Martinez, God forbid, be shot on the street because they look too Hispanic. That is the reality of where we are today. We are a better nation than that. We can do a better job than that. We can't leave the debate where it is: Who is in favor of law enforcement and who isn't? I am in favor of law enforcement. I certainly was in favor on January 6 when the insurrectionists mobbed this Capitol and ran us out that door of the Senate because they were coming into this Chamber, rifling through our desks, aping for cameras. That was the reality. They attacked the law enforcement in this building that protected all of you, still protects you to this minute, and protects me and everyone else who works here--the Capitol Hill police. A hundred and forty of them were victimized by those insurrectionists. Some people are trying to rewrite history and say this didn't happen. They have a problem. It is called videotape. Videotape tells the story, and we all saw it. So let's respect law enforcement for the job they are doing. Let's not give them impossible tasks. Let's not ask them to wear masks, for goodness' sake, so people don't know who they are. America is better than that.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, last week, President Trump announced that he intends to nominate his former personal attorney Todd Blanche to serve as the next Attorney General of the United States. When Blanche was under consideration to be Deputy Attorney General, the No. 2 position at the Justice Department, I reminded him of the importance of DOJ maintaining its independence from the President and the pull of politics. Regrettably, over the past year, he has disregarded that call and erased that line, placing loyalty to President Trump above all else and damaging the independence and credibility of the Department in ways that will have ramifications for decades. It appears that blind loyalty has paid off for Blanche, which is exactly how President Trump incentivizes his appointees to compromise their integrity. How did Blanche earn the nod? I will tell you. During his brief audition as Acting Attorney General, Blanche took the weaponization of the Department to new extremes. He presided over the creation of a $1.8 billion slush fund that would funnel money to allies of the President, including January 6 insurrectionists who beat up cops, in a purported legal settlement between the President and the government he runs. It gets worse. As part of that settlement, the IRS is permanently barred from auditing past tax returns of President Trump, his family, and related companies. Let me state this another way: The President of the United States sued the government he runs in order to get cooperating Federal agents to give away taxpayer dollars to the President's political allies and permanently shield the President, his family, and his companies from accountability for any past tax crimes. And Blanche acted exactly how President Trump expected him to: He advanced Trump's personal interests at the expense of the American people. While deploying the Justice Department as a shield for the President and his cronies, Blanche has also used our top law enforcement agency as a sword against Trump's political opponents. He brought a paper-thin indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights organization that has a long history of exposing violent White supremacist extremists who are allies of this White House. And he brought DOJ's second baseless, vindictive indictment against former FBI Director James Comey. This prosecution was personally ordered up by the President, who despises Comey for overseeing the investigation of Russia's interference in the 2016 election. Blanche's misconduct as Acting Attorney General is just the most recent link in a chain of controversies that has surrounded Blanche during his tenure at DOJ--controversies that demand transparency and answers. Last week, appearing before the House Oversight Committee, former Attorney General Pam Bondi told lawmakers, ``[Todd Blanche] was in charge of the process and the entire release of the Epstein files.'' Setting aside Bondi's failures in leadership on this issue, Blanche's direct role in the Department's failure to follow the law and protect the victims and survivors of Epstein's abuse is disqualifying. These failures follow the inexplicable transfer of Ghislane Maxwell, Epstein's coconspirator, to a minimum-security prison after Blanche personally conducted an inappropriate and ineffectual 2-day interview with her. Such a move is unprecedented for someone convicted of the crimes she committed and rightly received bipartisan scrutiny. Survivors deserve an Attorney General who will ensure transparency and fairness in the justice system; instead, many of them were exposed while the network of people around their abusers remained redacted. When Blanche appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee for his confirmation hearing, my Democratic colleagues and I will press him for answers and urge him to comply fully with the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Consider Blanche's own words when, at an April press conference, he made clear that he was so devoted to President Trump that he would serve him in any capacity, even if he was not chosen to be the Attorney General nominee. He said that if he was not nominated, his message to the President would be ``[t]hank you very much, I love you sir.'' He added that ``I don't have any goals or aspirations beyond'' serving Donald Trump. That should tell the American people all they need to know about where Blanche's loyalty lies. That love manifests as slush funds, partisan prosecutions against those the President feels have slighted him, and redirecting DOJ resources from protecting the American people from grave threats to treating the American people as grave threats. Blanche has helped Trump achieve the goal that he couldn't in his first administration: fully warping the Department of Justice, the Nation's top law enforcement agency, into his personal law firm; corruption with doors wide open; political loyalty to the extreme; and a willingness to ignore the values of the Constitution. When the Senate considered the confirmation of Todd Blanche to be Deputy Attorney General a year ago, I voted no. The independence of DOJ has been decimated under Blanche's authority. I had no confidence in him before, and after everything we have seen, I doubt we can have confidence in him now. After his fingerprints were found all over this so-called ``Anti- Weaponization'' fund, a few of my Republican colleagues signaled he may face hurdles on the road to confirmation. Will any of them muster the courage to join Democrats in actually holding Blanche accountable and demanding answers regarding the host of concerns I have outlined today? Time will tell. I yield the floor.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Bennet), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fetterman), the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Klobuchar), and the Senator from Oregon (Mr. Merkley) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print the attached letter in the Congressional Record.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, Barney Frank was one of the brightest Members of Congress I have ever had the pleasure of serving with. He was smart, outrageous, colorful, and courageous. Most importantly, he was a good man. Barney passed away last month, and I would like to take a moment to recognize his lifetime of public service. Born in Bayonne, NJ, Barney discovered his interest in government at the age of 10 watching Senate hearings on his father's television set. Barney said in his own words: most children were interested in becoming ``a cowboy, a boxer, or a puppeteer. I preferred the idea of sitting behind an impressive dais grilling colorful Mafiosi.'' To feed his passion, Barney volunteered for Adlai Stevenson's second Presidential campaign in 1956 while he was in high school, and the next year, he arrived at Harvard University to study public policy. Barney remained in Massachusetts for 56 years, rising in the ranks of government from executive assistant to the mayor of Boston to the Halls of Congress. Anyone who met Barney knew that he was the last person you would want to argue with. His sharp tongue and acerbic retorts were legendary, and Barney was never afraid to use his talents to defend the causes that he believed in. Fortunately for our country, his cause was often that of the disenfranchised and powerless. Elected in 1980--the same year as President Ronald Reagan--Barney fought against the Reagan administration's attempts to cut government programs that helped working families, and he passionately defended the Legal Services Corporation, which was facing backlash for assisting the United Farm Workers. Barney's political acumen was as strong as his intelligence, and he achieved huge success for a new congressman. Yet Barney's early years in the House are perhaps best remembered for his courageous decision to come out as gay at a time when LGBTQ+ people were still banned from serving in the Armed Forces or holding a security clearance. That decision took guts. No congressman had ever come out of the closet willingly before Barney, and many had warned him that doing so would jeopardize his ability to reach higher office. But Barney refused to take the easy way out, and in 1987, he became the first openly gay Member of Congress. Barney had already been a staunch advocate for gay rights long before he came out; he even introduced the first gay rights bill in Massachusetts history as a State representative in 1972, and he continued that fight long after he announced his sexuality. Barney worked to remove homophobic provisions from America's immigration laws, advocated for funding for AIDS and HIV research and treatment, and fought passionately against the discrimination of the LGBTQ+ community at every level of government. By the time Barney left Congress, gay people were able to openly serve in the military, sodomy laws were declared unconstitutional, and hate crimes based on an individual's sexuality were explicitly prohibited by law. Behind Barney's brilliant wit and courage was also a statesman who was just as comfortable crafting bipartisan compromise as he was delivering a soundbite. Barney was indispensable in picking up the pieces of our economy in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. Not only did he work with the Bush administration to prevent the crisis from deepening, but he also joined forces with Senator Christopher Dodd to pass the Dodd-Frank Act, the largest reform to Wall Street and the American financial system in the post-war era. This bill created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an Agency tasked with defending American consumers from dishonest business practices; it regulated the securities and derivatives markets that brought our Nation to financial ruin; and it increased capital requirements for banks to avoid future defaults. While Barney wished that the rules enshrined in Dodd-Frank went further in protecting Americans, it still made a meaningful difference for millions of families. Before leaving office, Barney had one more accomplishment he was determined to achieve. On July 7, 2012, Barney married his partner Jim Ready and became the first Member of Congress to be married to a same- sex partner. I am pleased to say that while they were the first, they are no longer the only partnership in this category. While more must be done to end discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community, it is worth recognizing Barney and Jim's contributions to equality in America. Loretta and I would like to offer Jim our deepest condolences for his loss. Barney refused to allow the prejudice and bigotry of his time to define him. His courage and intelligence were an inspiration to many of his colleagues, and his legacy is still felt in Congress today. He will be missed.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Bennet), is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Bennet) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Bennet) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Bennet) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Bennet) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Bennet) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Bennet) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Bennet) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Bennet) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Sentor from Colorado (Mr. Bennet) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I want to join in extending my heartfelt congratulations to my colleague and friend Senator Collins as she marks this incredible milestone--the first Senator in America's history to have cast 10,000 consecutive votes in the U.S. Senate. It is an impressive demonstration of endurance and determination, and I salute you for it. We came to the Senate the same day, and so I asked my staff to check how many votes I had cast. It turns out, somewhere along the way, I have been denied over 100 opportunities to vote that Senator Collins had. I call on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations to look into this. I can't imagine what happened here. But this much I am sure: This is a true record, and it is one that reflects her commitment to public service and, in my case, friendship. We have worked together in many different capacities. I remember the days after 9/11 when your extraordinary leadership with Senator Lieberman, if I am not mistaken, led to the complete reform of the intelligence Agencies in our Nation. It was a dynamic legislative achievement, and I have talked to you about it many times. Over the years, we have worked together on many issues. We invited one another to our home States for town meetings. I don't know what a nor'easter is, but I can tell you that it was the damnedest rainstorm I have ever been through when I went to Maine. I won't forget it. But our friendship is sound, and my admiration for your achievement is one that is on the Record for all to witness. Congratulations. (Applause, Senators rising.)

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Bennet) and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Gallego) are necessarily absent.