Richard Durbin

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I understand this bill is intended to ``require a DNA test to determine the relationship between'' asylum-seeking adults at the border and ``any accompanying children.'' However, it fails to accomplish this goal, and our current laws already include provisions to allow for DNA testing. Under current law, as written, DHS and the State Department already have the necessary authority to collect DNA when there is any question about the familial relationship between a noncitizen and a minor child traveling with them. At the southwest border, the Department of Homeland Security currently conducts DNA testing when there is any question about the validity of the parent-child relationship, and additional scrutiny is placed on individuals who are not related to the child to ensure that a child is not being trafficked. Due to what I assume is a drafting error in this proposal before us, I have to note that this bill will not even apply to families seeking asylum at the border. As it is currently written, this bill only applies to someone who is ``admitted'' to the United States, but under our immigration laws, asylum seekers at the border ``enter'' the United States but are not usually ``admitted.'' There is a big distinction here. That means that this bill would apply to any noncitizen family coming to the United States through our legal immigration system but not families crossing the border to claim asylum--exactly the opposite of what the Senator says she wanted to achieve. The family relationships of those who are coming to our country through the legal immigration system are usually validated by multiple agencies before applicants are issued a visa. For example, assume that a family from Mexico wanted to come to Disney World in Florida and applied for visitors visas for that purpose for themselves and their children. They would need to prove at the airport, under this bill, that they are the relatives or guardian of the children or submit to a DNA test. Is that what we are going to expend our energy on? If the family refuses, the adults may be arrested. The children would be treated as unaccompanied children and placed in custody. Is that what we want to achieve? This bill would require every such family to prove their relationship with their children at the airport or other ports of entry. The burdensome requirements in this bill could bring our system for processing lawful travelers to a halt and deter legitimate trade and tourism in the United States. As the Senator from Tennessee knows, protecting kids has been one of our top priorities in the Judiciary Committee. Last year, we held two hearings on the safety and well-being of children seeking refuge in the United States. We heard from child trafficking experts and government witnesses. Following up on these hearings, the committee is in the midst of ongoing investigation into the issue. We all agree that no child should be abused, exploited, or trafficked, whether the President is a Republican or a Democrat. I vigorously opposed the Trump administration's inhumane family- separation policy, and I have demanded that the Biden administration do more to protect migrant children. It is easy to criticize the executive branch, but let's take a look at the reality of the situation. We need to look in the mirror. It has been decades--over 30 years--since Congress passed meaningful immigration legislation. In less than an hour, at 2 o'clock, every Senate Republican and Democrat will have a chance to make history, to start us on a bipartisan conversation for a better immigration system. Instead of lobbing pro-partisan attacks, let's come together across the aisle to fix the broken immigration system. We should provide funding for enforcement against child labor violations and ensure child migrants have the services they deserve. I have introduced legislation to improve sponsor vetting and placement, help children navigate our legal system, and better protect minors in government custody. I welcome my colleagues from either side of the aisle to join me. I would be more than happy to sit down with any of my colleagues to discuss solutions that would prevent child trafficking. Sadly, this bill does not accomplish that goal at all. I object.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Manchin), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez), and the Senator from Massachusetts (Ms. Warren) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

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

Mr. DURBIN

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

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, in reserving the right to object, the background that leads up to this moment is worth a minute or 2 to be explained. It was October. We faced some ominous challenges around the world. Our allies and friends were in conflict, and the United States wanted to stand by them. President Biden made a request for a defense supplemental and said: We need to move on this quickly. For example, our friends in Ukraine, who are fighting off the barbaric tactics of Vladimir Putin, need our continued help. We shouldn't waste any time. At the time, several Members of the Senate on the other side of the aisle said: No, you cannot even consider helping Ukraine fight this war against Putin unless you do something about our border. There has got to be a change in our border policy. So there eventually emerged a group that took on the task of writing a bipartisan bill. Make no mistake, legislation on a subject as serious as this will never pass as a partisan piece of legislation. It has to be bipartisan. Both sides of the aisle decided to enlist our colleagues to sit down in a deliberative effort to write a bipartisan border bill to address the crisis we face at the border. The Republicans chose as their spokesperson, as their negotiator, James Lankford of Oklahoma. James Lankford is a certifiable conservative Republican who is respected on both sides of the aisle. I join in that chorus of respect for him. The Republicans said to us: None of these freewheeling efforts. James Lankford is our man. He will negotiate this, and we will stand by him. At that point, Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, was enlisted to be part of that negotiating effort, along with the Senator from Arizona. They sat down and started a three-way effort to find a bipartisan bill. They worked on it not just for weeks but for months. During that period of time, I met with them from time to time, not to interject my efforts or any ideas I had, but just to measure their progress. They were not happy about the course of business and how quickly they could reach a conclusion, but the fact of the matter is they did. They reached a bipartisan agreement, one which I don't agree with in many aspects, but it is a good one--a heartfelt, serious effort; a bipartisan Democratic and Republican effort. We were prepared and did call on the floor of the U.S. Senate this bipartisan bill that Senator Lankford had led the Republicans into establishing. I believe it ended up with four votes--four votes. The Republicans were told: Keep your hands off, Democrats, when it comes to Lankford's efforts. Let him do the work. When he finally produced an effort, a good-faith effort, they rejected it, walked away from it. The Senator from Alabama just explained that they didn't have time to read it. If I recall, several days had passed where that bill was available for our staffs to analyze and others to look at. Most of us who wanted to knew the contents of it. I thought it was a step in the right direction moving forward. But it was rejected by the same Republicans who initiated the process by saying that there will be no supplemental for defense until there is a bipartisan bill, and the bipartisan bill is to be put together by the Senator from Oklahoma. When it finally appeared before us, they walked away from it. They walked away from this bipartisan bill. I would just tell the Senator from Alabama, I have worked on this issue for a number of years. The only effort I have seen that finally resulted in comprehensive immigration reform that came to the floor was totally bipartisan. A gang of eight Senators, which I was part of, led by Senator McCain on the Republican side, produced a good bill that received over 65 votes. It wasn't taken up by the Republicans in the House, but it was a good-faith, bipartisan effort. That is the only way we can pass legislation that is meaningful when it comes to immigration. The bill that the Senator from Alabama produces here today will not secure our border. It will not prevent the flow of illicit drugs through ports of entry or improve public safety. It would allow the Secretary of Homeland Security to suspend the entry of all asylum seekers at the border anytime the Secretary deems it necessary to achieve ``operational control'' of the border--whatever that phrase means. Let's be clear. No Secretary of Homeland Security, including the Secretary under President Trump, has ever achieved operational control of the border. The bill also requires the suspension of entry at the border of all asylum seekers if all asylum seekers cannot be detained and placed in expedited removal. One again, no administration, Republican or Democratic, has ever been able to detain and place in expedited removal all or even most asylum seekers--not even President Trump. It couldn't be done. No Congress has been willing to provide the funding that would be necessary to do it. This bill would indefinitely end asylum protection without additional resources for the Department of Homeland Security, without any alternatives for desperate women and children fleeing persecution, and without any additional consequences for those who violate our laws. We have learned from past experience that attempting to shut down the border is inhumane and simply doesn't work. To assume that this is one big wall that we could close the gate on is just wrong. It is not the reality. Our experience with title 42 emergency health authorities demonstrated this. Repeated attempts at unlawful crossings soared despite title 42, as did the number of noncitizens who successfully evaded Border Patrol, often referred to as ``got-aways.'' Recent data from CBP shows that in fiscal year 2024, the daily number of ``got-aways'' was 70 percent lower than the period immediately before the end of the use of title 42. The reality is that our current laws for processing asylum seekers at the border are fundamentally broken, and measures like this bill will not fix them. The bottom line is, the buck stops here. The buck stops here in the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives. The last time we passed meaningful immigration reform was over 30 years ago, and we wonder why this broken system continues to be broken. It is because of our dereliction. In contrast, we have the opportunity to vote on a bipartisan border bill, which will be offered tomorrow. It was written by Senator Lankford, a Republican of Oklahoma, Senator Murphy, and Senator Sinema. This legislation would actually help secure the border and provide essential national security funding. It would reform broken laws that are not working to process asylum seekers at our border, and it would provide desperately needed resources to our Agencies to allow them to implement these new provisions. While these new processes are being implemented, the bipartisan border bill would provide for a temporary suspension of asylum in between ports of entry if the number of asylum seekers arriving at the border exceeds the capacity of DHS to process. I have some concerns about the bill, but it reflects a genuine, bipartisan effort to create solutions to outdated laws and underfunding that have plagued our immigration system for years. I was really disappointed, as I am sure Senator Lankford was, to see most of my Republican colleagues vote against that bipartisan bill. Although the bill was written by Senate Republicans' designated negotiator, Senator Lankford, and endorsed by the National Border Patrol Council--the union that represents Border Patrol agents--the Speaker of the House declared it ``dead on arrival'' in the House before the text was even released. To think that the Border Patrol agents said that this will improve the situation--the Lankford bill-- and the Republicans still voted against it tells us the whole story. I hope my colleagues will work with me to pass immigration legislation that the American people deserve, one that supports our frontline law enforcement, addresses the needs of our economy, provides a path to citizenship for Dreamers and immigrant farmer workers, and lives up to our Nation's legacy of providing safe harbor to refugees fleeing for their lives. The American people are tired of partisan posturing and bickering over immigration. That is why this bipartisan bill, which was encouraged by the Republicans and the Democrats, needs to be the starting point of our negotiation. They want us to work together to secure the border, support our economy, and stand by America's fundamental values. I object.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask consent that I be allowed to complete these remarks before the rollcall begins.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, over the past 3 years, something profound has happened on the floor of the U.S. Senate. We have been building one of the most important accomplishments of the Biden-Harris administration: the confirmation of highly qualified, independent, evenhanded judges to the Federal bench. Today, the Senate will confirm the 200th lifetime judge since President Biden took office. This is an extraordinary slate of judges, who are ruling with reason and restraint. These judges respect the rule of law; adhere to precedent; and, above all, answer only to the Constitution. I have served on the Senate Judiciary Committee for more than two decades, including as chair for the past 3 years. During that time, I have been called on to evaluate and vote on over 1,000 judicial nominees that the committee has considered and have been brought to the Senate floor. In my opinion, the record is clear: President Biden's nominees to the Federal bench represent the best in our judiciary. They are highly qualified. Not a single one of these nominees--these 200-- have failed to be found ``qualified'' or ``well qualified'' by the American Bar Association. That is a departure from the previous administration's record. I have heard some of my Republican colleagues extolling the quality of those nominees in the previous administration as compared to those of President Biden, so I want to set the record straight as clearly as I can. For each judicial nominee that comes before the Senate, the American Bar Association conducts a nonpartisan peer review that ranks their qualifications. The qualifications are based on integrity, professional competence, and judicial temperament. During the Trump administration, Senate Republicans confirmed eight Trump nominees whom the American Bar Association found unqualified to serve on the Federal bench. Compare that to President Biden's record. Under this administration, not one of the 200 judges we have confirmed received an unqualified rating--not one. When there was a suggestion that one might receive that rating and they asked me whether we should move forward, I said: The answer is clearly no. So when I hear some of my Republican colleagues reminisce about the former President's nominees, I have to wonder: Which ones are they talking about? Are they talking about several nominees who had never tried a case? How about the district court nominee in the previous administration who challenged the legal basis for both surrogacy and in vitro fertilization or the Sixth Circuit nominee who likened abortion to slavery? And who could forget the Ninth Circuit nominee in the previous administration whose colleagues called him ``arrogant, lazy, an ideologue, and lacking in knowledge of the day-to-day practice of law.'' Yet some Republican Senators have relied on increasingly absurd criticisms in an attempt to criticize President Biden's nominees. In a new low, some of my Republican colleagues have gone so far as to falsely claim that a historic nominee, who would be the first Muslim American to serve on the Federal appellate court, is anti-Semitic and anti-law enforcement. As I have said previously, these bigoted attacks are false and should not stand. Something that stands out about President Biden's nominees, aside from their qualifications and integrity to the rule of law, is the professional and demographic diversity they bring to the bench. We have made history, confirming more Black women to the Federal circuit courts than all prior Presidents combined. Of course, we have confirmed the first ever Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court: Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. And we have confirmed historic numbers of Asian American, Latino, and LGBTQ judges. As we celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, I want to take a moment to recognize that President Biden has appointed more AAPI judges than any previous President. This includes several ``firsts'' to the Federal bench: the first ever Asian-American judge in the Third and Seventh Circuits, the first South Asian judge on the Ninth Circuit, and the first Asian-American judge in Virginia. Beyond this demographic diversity, there is recordbreaking professional diversity. In the past 3 years, we have confirmed more public defenders as circuit judges than all prior Presidents combined. In addition, we have confirmed State court judges, Federal magistrates, bankruptcy judges, and prosecutors who have made significant contributions to this country's justice system. We have confirmed jurists with experience protecting the rights of voters, the rights of workers, civil rights, women's rights, and LGBTQ rights. Another notable aspect of this record is that the vast majority-- nearly 90 percent--of these confirmations have been bipartisan--nearly 90 percent. This includes over three-quarters of the appellate nominees. In addition, I want to thank a number of my Republican colleagues who have worked in good faith with the White House, with me, and with the committee to fill vacancies in their States. This focus on qualified, consensus nominees will go a long way toward restoring trust and faith in our judiciary. The American people deserve Federal judges who not only look like America but understand the American experience from every angle. We have accomplished this during the longest evenly divided Senate in history and now with a narrow majority. We celebrate these 200 judges, but we should not stop here. We will continue elevating jurists who are qualified, principled, and committed above all to protecting the Constitution. The American people deserve nothing less. Mr. President, let me close by saying it has been an honor to serve as chairman of the committee, but our success in bringing these nominees to the floor really belongs to the members of the committee-- 10 Democrats and 10 Republicans. Those Democrats in particular have dutifully come to the committee hearings and to the votes and waited patiently for the opportunity to vote and bring these nominees to the floor. We wouldn't be here without them. I salute them and their dedication to the rule of law and our responsibility on the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Manchin), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez), and the Senator from Montana (Mr. Tester) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Manchin), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez), and the Senator from Montana (Mr. Tester) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, today, the Senate will vote to confirm Dena Coggins to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California. Born in Sacramento, Judge Coggins received her B.S. from California State University, Sacramento, and her J.D. from the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law. She then entered private practice, where she worked on general litigation and family law matters. From 2013 to 2015, she worked as a deputy legal affairs secretary for then- Governor Jerry Brown. Judge Coggins later served as a supervising attorney and hearing officer at the California Victim Compensation Board and as an administrative law judge at the State of California's Office of Administrative Hearings. As an administrative law judge, she presided over more than 150 evidentiary hearings or trials that resulted in proposed or final decisions. Since 2021, Judge Coggins has served as a judge on the Superior Court of California in Sacramento County. In that role, she has handled assignments in both the criminal division and juvenile court. Judge Coggins has presided over approximately 100 juvenile dependency trials, and she has served as the presiding judge of the Juvenile Court since 2023. The American Bar Association rated Judge Coggins as ``well qualified'' to serve on the Eastern District of California. She has deep ties to the district, and she enjoys the strong support of her home State Senators and the California legal community. Judge Coggins's litigation background and her courtroom experience as an advocate, administrative law judge, and State court judge ensure that she will be an asset to the district court. I am proud to support her nomination, and I ask my colleagues to join me in my support.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Manchin), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez), and the Senator from Arizona (Ms. Sinema) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Manchin), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez), and the Senator from Oregon (Mr. Merkley) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that Alexandra Gelber, a detailee to the Senate Judiciary Committee, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the 118th Congress.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Hampshire (Ms. Hassan), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez), the Senator from New Hampshire (Mrs. Shaheen), and the Senator from Montana (Mr. Tester) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, today, the Senate will vote to confirm Krissa Lanham to the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona. Born in Bangkok, Thailand, Ms. Lanham received her B.A., summa cum laude, from Yale University and her J.D. from Yale Law School. She then served as a law clerk, first for Judge Robert N. Chatigny on the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut and then for Judge Barry G. Silverman on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Phoenix. In 2009, Ms. Lanham began working as an assistant U.S. attorney in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Arizona. She has served as appellate division chief since 2020, after previously serving as deputy appellate chief, human trafficking coordinator, and medical marijuana coordinator. She also serves as the Ninth Circuit representative to the Department of Justice's Appellate Chiefs Working Group. Ms. Lanham has represented the United States in more than 500 Federal prosecutions, and she has represented the United States and its Agencies in more than 50 civil cases. She has tried nine Federal criminal cases to verdict, including six jury trials. The American Bar Association unanimously rated Ms. Lanham as ``well qualified'' to serve on the District of Arizona. She has deep ties to Arizona, and she enjoys the strong support of both of her home State Senators, Ms. Sinema and Mr. Kelly. At Ms. Lanham's confirmation hearing, Senator Sinema highlighted Ms. Lanham's commitment to public service and noted how she looked forward to Ms. Lanham's continued service to the Nation as a district judge. I also look forward to Ms. Lanham's continued service, and I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting her nomination.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Hampshire (Ms. Hassan), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), the Senator from New Hampshire (Mrs. Shaheen), and the Senator from Montana (Mr. Tester) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from New Hampshire (Ms. Hassan), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez), the Senator from New Hampshire (Mrs. Shaheen), and the Senator from Montana (Mr. Tester) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object--now, for the rest of the story. Last October, President Biden had a major piece of legislation that provided assistance to Ukraine in its battle against Vladimir Putin. It provided assistance to Israel, assistance to Taiwan, and a massive amount of humanitarian aid. It was bipartisan, we thought. Then the Republicans, particularly in the Senate, stepped up and said: We are not going to consider any bill like that unless you attach something to deal with our border, border security. Well, we said: How are we going to achieve that? They gave us a formula that they wanted. They wanted to have their lead negotiator, the Senate Republicans did, one of our colleagues, Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma. James Lankford is a certified conservative--I am sure he would be happy to be called that--and a person I respect a great deal. He is a man of principle, and he was in charge of negotiating on the Republican side. So they asked us: Whom do you want--the Democrats--to negotiate? We said: Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Kyrsten Sinema, an Independent Democrat from Arizona. The three of them went to work in October of last year, and they worked on this for weeks, months. It went back and forth, and it looked many times like it was hopeless; we couldn't reach an agreement. Lo and behold, they did. They came up with a bill, a bill that massively changed the way we manage the border. They brought it to the White House, this bipartisan bill, and they said to Joe Biden: This bipartisan bill, will you support it? He said: I will. So we had a perfect formula: a bipartisan bill and a Congress with a Democratic Senate and a Republican House and a President of the United States who says: I will sign it. So what happened next? That is the best part. Many of the Republicans didn't take yes for an answer because we had this bipartisan bill, the architect being the Republican Senator of their choice. They decided to ask one man whether they should go forward. Want to guess who it was? Donald Trump. Donald Trump said: No. I am sorry. I don't want to see this issue go away. I want to be able to work on this issue as part of my Presidential campaign in the year 2024. So I am telling you right now, stop that bill; stop that bipartisan bill. Don't vote for it. And he said: If you want to know, you can blame me. Go ahead and blame me for stopping the bill. That is what he said. That is a quote. It is on the record. I saw him say it. And in fact, most of the Republicans, except for a handful on the other side of the aisle, then decided that the Lankford bipartisan bill was no longer acceptable because Trump said it was unacceptable. And that is what happened. And so that bill died and didn't go forward. And, unfortunately, we know the reality, as I mentioned earlier, is that any immigration bill that has a ghost of a chance needs to be bipartisan. This bill would prohibit funding for processing individuals who arrive at our border between ports of entry. Think about that. The bill would prohibit funding for processing individuals who arrive at our border between ports of entry. This would prevent Border Patrol agents from executing their duties and essentially create an open border in between ports of entry. This bill would also dramatically limit the use of parole programs that the Biden administration and prior administrations--Republicans and Democrats--have relied on for emergencies. I am proud to represent the city of Chicago. There is a section of that city called Ukrainian Village. It is in the Near North. I have been there many times. I have been to their churches. I have been to their schools. I have been to their bakeries, as you can tell. I really like that section of Chicago, and a lot of Ukrainian Americans live there. When we decided to help the refugees from the Ukrainian war, under President Biden and others, we said that we would give them an opportunity to come to the safety of the United States while the war was pending. In the city of Chicago, we estimate that 36,000 Ukrainians came to Chicago. We basically said to them: If you can find a family to sponsor you, we will give you a work permit, and you can stay here while the conflict continues in your country. They were absorbed into the Chicago and Illinois and the Midwest economy without a ripple. They are hard-working people, good people. They were accepted in the churches and the schools--their kids went to school there--and they really contributed to the Chicago scene. They have done a great job. Well, the authority of a President like Biden to make that decision for Ukrainian refugees is removed by this bill. This authority has been relied on by the executive branch for decades in emergency situations. The evacuation of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese allies in the 1970s and the evacuation of thousands of Iraqi Kurds in the 1990s would be eliminated by this bill. This partisan legislation only received Republican votes--not a single Democratic vote. This partisan legislation also includes many provisions that are completely unrelated to border security; for example--listen to this one. How about this. Want to put this in a comprehensive border bill? It would prohibit funds from being used by the Department of Homeland Security to purchase electric vehicles for the Agency's law enforcement agents. What in the heck is that all about? This bill would also impose mandatory electronic employment verification, known as E-Verify, on every sector of the American economy. I left a meeting in my office with a person representing farmworkers in the State of North Carolina. Do you know what percentage of farmworkers in America working today, going out and harvesting the crops and fruits and vegetables, are undocumented? Fifty percent. Fifty percent are undocumented today. So this bill would impose mandatory E- Verify and would include the agriculture industry and these undocumented workers. Fifty percent of agriculture workers would be unable to work. What would that do to our food supply chain? I can tell you, it would come to a grinding halt, and it would dramatically increase food prices. Hear that, America? This provision by the junior Senator from Texas would raise food prices on its own. Massive consequences for American families. This bill is so extreme, there was a bipartisan opposition to it in the House of Representatives. Under close scrutiny, this bill is simply not a serious effort to secure our border. It would harm our economy and make our country less safe and less secure. The bipartisan bill which Donald Trump and many of the Senate Republicans killed would have worked to move us in the right direction. We earlier had an opportunity to vote on this legislation that would have actually helped us on the border. Though I had some concerns about it, I thought it was a genuine bipartisan effort I could support. I was disappointed but hardly surprised that the vast majority of my Republican colleagues, including the junior Senator from Texas, who is making this motion today, voted against it--this bipartisan bill, with James Lankford's leadership on the Republican side, rejected out of hand by Republicans in the Senate. It is no surprise to me the junior Senator did that. The only time we brought a bipartisan, comprehensive immigration bill to the floor, he voted against that too. It is no surprise. This bill, written by the Senate Republicans' designated negotiator, Senator Lankford of Oklahoma, endorsed by the National Border Patrol Council, the union that represents Border Patrol agents--the Speaker of the House declared it dead on arrival in the House before the text was even released. We can only fix our broken immigration system if we do it on a bipartisan basis. Nobody gets their way around here. You have to work for compromise. It is clear that the House Republicans are unwilling to help secure the border under those terms. Instead, they want to maintain the crisis at the border to help score political points for their favorite candidate for President. Instead of a symbolic and failed effort to pass bipartisan bills that won't actually address challenges, let's work together on a bipartisan basis. Let's start with the Lankford bill. That is where the opportunity will be on the floor. If you want to change it, let's amend it. For goodness' sake, let's start with a bill that we agreed was going to be the starting point not too long ago, before Donald Trump made his pronouncement, one that supports our frontline law enforcement officials, addresses the needs of the economy, provides a path to citizenship for Dreamers and immigrant farmworkers, and lives up to our Nation's legacy of providing safe harbor to refugees fleeing for their lives. The American people are tired of partisan bickering over immigration. They want us to work together to secure our border, support our economy, and stand by America's fundamental principles. Proudly, I object.

Mr. DURBIN. Reserving the right to object.

Mr. DURBIN. Recapping, we have a bipartisan bill. Republicans in the Senate said: We have a negotiator here. Don't bring anybody new to the table. His name is James Lankford. He is a conservative Senator from the State of Oklahoma. I respect him and I like him, and he headed up there to negotiate. On our side, we had Chris Murphy, Senator from Connecticut, and Kyrsten Sinema, Senator from Arizona, Independent Democratic. The three worked, not for weeks, but months to put together a bipartisan bill. The bill that they put together was endorsed by the National Border Patrol Council. When I heard the stories said by the junior Senator from Texas about the terrible things that would occur if that bill would pass, I wondered: Did he consider stopping to talk to the Border Patrol agents who endorsed the bill and thought from a law enforcement perspective at the border that it made sense? We were ready to go. We were getting a bipartisan bill and it was the beginning of negotiations to do something about the border. We need to do something about the border. Then what happened? And this is a matter of record. Everyone has seen it, all the clips on television. They went to the punitive--I guess that is the word--Republican candidate for President of the United States, Donald Trump, and said: We have a bill, a bipartisan bill to consider in the Senate. He said: Kill it. Stop the bill. Don't vote for it. I would rather have the issue, and I don't want to give Joe Biden any credit for anything. Even though we endorsed this bipartisan bill, we are going to be against it, and everybody who is loyal to me needs to vote no. Guess what? Virtually all the Republican Senators voted no. That was the end of the bipartisan conversation about the border. Take a look at what is being proposed by my colleague and friend Senator Lee from Utah. This bill targets the most vulnerable people seeking safety and protection in the United States: children traveling to the United States without a parent or guardian, families with minor children, and asylum seekers fleeing persecution. This bill would strip away protections for unaccompanied children. It would deport many of these kids back into the hands of smugglers who exploit them, keep others in detention up to 1 month. Do you know what detention on the border is for a child? It is a cage. I have seen them. That is exactly what would happen. They would sit in these cages for a month, keep them separated from adults who would care for them. This bill would require families to be detained--``detained'' is a nice word for ``incarcerated''--a failed policy that has disastrous effects on kids and doesn't make the border more secure. This bill would impose multiple new restrictions on asylum, undermining our longstanding, bipartisan commitment to refugees seeking safety. The Biden administration is doing what it can do now to secure the border under our outdated immigration laws. The Biden administration endorsed the bipartisan bill, which these Republican Senators all voted against. The administration has dramatically increased deportations of those who are not eligible, made tough changes to our asylum system, and improved access to lawful pathways to deter illegal immigration. But, ultimately, do you know whose responsibility it is to write this bill? Congress's. Do you know what the best starting point is? The bipartisan Lankford bill that came to the floor of the Senate. That is what we are going to offer on the floor. If you want to negotiate from there, if you want to offer amendments to that, be my guest. That is what the Senate is all about. But the notion by the Senator from Utah that this ought to be the starting point I think is a bad idea. Recently, a bipartisan group of Senators and the White House negotiated a good starting point. It was written by their negotiator. I respect him, and I think all Members of the Senate should. Yet, when it came to a vote, the vast majority of Republicans wouldn't support it. I just want to close by saying this: This is an issue I have worked on for my entire career in the Senate. I introduced the DREAM Act over 20 years ago. I really believe this is a challenge which we can only solve on a bipartisan basis. I think that the Lankford bill is a good starting point. Let's come together and work together on a bipartisan starting point, ignore Donald Trump, who says he doesn't want this to move forward, and let's do something the American people really want. To aspire to that goal, I object to this approach to it.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez) and the Senator from Montana (Mr. Tester) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Klobuchar), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez), the Senator from Montana (Mr. Tester), and the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Warnock) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, tomorrow the Senate Judiciary Committee--which I chair--will hold a hearing on competition in the prescription drug market and its impact on the prices that Americans pay for medication. Patients in the United States pay the highest prescription drug prices in the world. Nearly three times what people in other developed countries pay for common medications and sometimes for exactly the same drug as prescribed in America. Take a well-known name, Jardiance, a diabetes treatment--you can almost hear the young lady singing the song, can't you? It retails for $700 a month in the United States. Do you know what the exact same drug made by the same company in the same place goes for in Canada? It is $150. Madam President, $700 for American citizens; $150 for Canadians for exactly the same drug. What is the difference? The difference is the Canadian Government cares, and the Canadian Government started acting years ago to protect the consumers in their country. The average new cancer drug entering the market last year had an annual list price of more than $200,000, and the prices keep going up. In 2022, drug manufacturers raised prices on more than 1,200 medications by an average--an average--of 32 percent, four times the rate of inflation. For patients already facing a gut-wrenching diagnosis, the last thing they should have to worry about is whether they can afford lifesaving treatment. Yet 20 percent of seniors report that the sky-high cost of their medication forces them to skip doses or cut pills. No drug is more representative of this problem than insulin, the life-or-death drug for those with diabetes. Do you know when it was discovered? One hundred years ago. By Americans? Not this time. Canadian inventors not only found this new, lifesaving drug, they surrendered their patent rights--the rights to control it, and their rights to receive profit from it--for $1. Why? They said a life-and-death drug should not be a matter of bargaining, and they believe no one should profit off this lifesaving medicine. When Eli Lilly launched its insulin product--Humalog--in 1999, a vial cost a modest $21, but over the next 20 years, the company raised its price more than two dozen times to more than $330 for a vial. Thankfully, President Biden and Democrats in Congress capped the price of insulin at $35 a month under Medicare in the Inflation Reduction Act. It is unfortunate and impossible to explain--not a single Republican joined us in voting for this historic legislation to cap the price of insulin at $35 a month for Medicare. Eight pharmaceutical companies raced to the Federal courthouses in the hopes of stopping another component of that bill, which enables Medicare to negotiate for lower drug costs. Big Pharma participates in the Veterans Health Administration, which has the authority to bargain for lower costs for our veterans, thank goodness. They have had that authority for decades. Yet we heard cries of price controls and socialism from Big Pharma as they opposed letting Medicare simply negotiate a better deal on behalf of senior citizens and taxpayers. Last fall, President Biden announced the first 10 drugs that would see price reductions from these negotiations. These drugs cost the Medicare Program more than $50 billion last year alone. When the President announced his list, I am sure many Americans already recognized the names of all 10 popular drugs. Why would we recognize them? Because they are the most heavily advertised drugs on television. Here is a trivia question you want to take to the next party you attend: How many countries on Earth make it legal to advertise prescription drugs? Two. We know one; it is the United States. Anybody know the other one? New Zealand. The United States and New Zealand are the only countries in the world where you can legally advertise prescription drugs. Americans see an average of nine drug ads on television every single day. By filling the airwaves with these ads, Big Pharma is inflating demand for the most expensive drugs on the market. Some manufacturers are willing to spend more than $100 million a year to make sure that all of us can spell ``Xarelto'' and ask the doctor for it, but they never tell you the price, do they? You see all those ads and all the information and all the gibberish they put at the end of it. Don't you think it is worth knowing that Xarelto costs more than $500 a month in the United States, when a generic or other lower priced alternative may be just as effective? That is why Senator Grassley, Republican Senator of Iowa, joined me in introducing a commonsense, bipartisan bill to end the secrecy surrounding drug prices in advertising. Our bill would require Big Pharma to disclose the price on the ad. Incidentally, in 2020, Xarelto's manufacturer, Johnson & Johnson, spent $22 billion that year on advertising--nearly double the $12 billion it spent that year on research for new drugs. Big Pharma will tell you that the high prices paid by Americans are just the cost of innovation. They point to the money they spend on research and development to create the next generation of lifesaving drugs. I want them to come up with new drugs. I want them to make a profit in doing that. But I want them to be reasonable in the process. They always fail to mention one fundamental fact that we as taxpayers should not forget: Taxpayers fund the bulk of basic biomedical research through the National Institutes of Health. In fact, studies have shown that 99 percent of drugs introduced by the drug companies and approved by the FDA between 2010 and 2019 benefited from NIH research to get their start. Too often, the prices charged by Big Pharma do not reflect scientific advancement; rather, they are the result of manipulation, not by researchers or doctors but by lawyers in the patent system. Take the blockbuster drug Humira--at one time, the most heavily advertised drug on television. Its manufacturer, AbbVie, introduced the drug in 2002. For more than 20 years, the company exploited intellectual property laws to build a thicket of 165 patents. The way it works is this: If you discover a new drug, you have a legal right to be the exclusive salesman of that drug during a certain period of time. If there is a variation on that formula on that drug, the patent time can be extended. So patent lawyers are always at work to make sure they extend the patent period of price monopoly for these drug companies. It is supposed to reach a point where there is competition over a generic form of a drug. The lawyers do their darndest to make sure they don't reach that point. The result: more than $200 billion in revenue over Humira's 20 years of exclusivity. That drug is not unique. A recent study found that the top 10 bestselling drugs in 2021 had a combined 1,429 patent applications filed, 72 percent of which were filed after the FDA approved the drug for sale. These blockbusters were covered by an average of 42 active patents, blocking generic competition and generating windfall profits for the drug companies. The Judiciary Committee has taken a leadership role in addressing Big Pharma's abuse. Last year, the committee unanimously reported five bipartisan drug-pricing bills to address anticompetitive pay-for-delay agreements, sham citizen petitions, patent thickets, and product hops, among other issues. This includes my bill with Senators Tillis, Coons, and Grassley to improve information sharing between the FDA and the Patent Office to ensure accuracy in the representations made by pharmaceutical companies to prevent gamesmanship. Tomorrow's hearing is going to be cochaired by my colleague and friend from Vermont, Senator Peter Welch. He told me when he recently came to the Senate, replacing Senator Pat Leahy, that this was an issue near and dear to him. I assured him there would be a hearing on this subject because it is so important to the country and so many people have an interest in it. I have been watching all those drug ads day in and day out like everybody else. It is time that we have the facts put in front of the American people instead of just the advertising and the jingles. Our committee work is far from done. Tomorrow's hearing will shed light on additional obstacles to reducing drug prices and how our committee can help solve this problem for the American people. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, today, the Senate will vote to confirm Seth Aframe to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Mr. Aframe has deep ties to the First Circuit. Born in Boston, he received his B.A., summa cum laude, from Tufts University and his J.D., magna cum laude, from Georgetown University Law Center before clerking for Justice Judith A. Cowin on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. He then entered private practice in Boston, where he worked at a large firm and primarily practiced employment law. In 2003, he moved to New Hampshire, where he clerked for Judge Jeffrey R. Howard on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Concord. In 2007, Mr. Aframe joined the civil division of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Hampshire as an assistant U.S. attorney. In 2010, he was appointed to serve as the appellate chief within the criminal division, and he was promoted to chief of the criminal division in 2023. Mr. Aframe has tried 19 cases to verdict, including 18 jury trials; and he has argued approximately 100 cases in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. In addition to his work as a litigator, Mr. Aframe also serves as the District of New Hampshire's elections officer and civil rights coordinator, and he represents the U.S. attorney on the District of New Hampshire's alternative drug court. Mr. Aframe is strongly supported by both of his home State Senators-- Mrs. Shaheen and Ms. Hassan--and the American Bar Association unanimously rated him as ``well qualified'' to serve on the First Circuit. His significant litigation background and extensive experience in Federal court ensure that he will be a valuable addition to the First Circuit. In a letter supporting Mr. Aframe's nomination, a bipartisan group of former U.S. attorneys for the District of New Hampshire wrote that, ``[t]o our minds, there is no one better-suited or better qualified to join the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.'' I am of the same mind. I am proud to support this nominee, and I urge my colleagues to join me.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey, (Mr. Menendez) is necessarily absent.