John Kennedy

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY.--a high crime and misdemeanor; it is a felony.

Mr. KENNEDY. I will. Since we are not allowed to talk among ourselves about the absurdity of this and my Democratic colleagues will not allow us to go into closed session to talk about the absurdity of this----

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I have a motion, and it takes precedence.

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, before we establish a precedent that lying to the U.S. Congress is not a felony----

Mr. KENNEDY. And before we add a new chapter to the movie ``Pulp Fiction,'' I move that we go into executive session to at least allow us to talk about the breathtaking precedent we are about to establish here. Could you turn me back on here? And I ask for the yeas and nays. Vote on Motion

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Well, may I ask one more?

Mr. KENNEDY. Well, I am trying to follow the Senate majority leader's logic. What do you have to do to get impeached now? I mean, a felony is not sufficient. What is above a felony?

Mr. KENNEDY. But it takes, as I understand it, Senator--you are a legal scholar--it takes more than a felony now.

Mr. KENNEDY. Yeah.

Mr. KENNEDY. Who is on first? What is on second? I don't understand any of this, and I am very, very worried and would like your thoughts or others' thoughts about the precedent that our Democratic colleagues, in their haste to sweep this under the rug, may have established.

Mr. KENNEDY. With pleasure.

Mr. KENNEDY

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, with me today is one of my colleagues from my office, Mr. Matt Turner. I want to talk about the woolly mammoth in the room: impeachment. I want my colleagues to just put aside for a second the legal aspect of this. Let's stop thinking for a second about how many lawyers can dance on the head of a pin, and let's just think for a moment what is about to happen over the next 2 days. A few moments ago, the managers from the U.S. House of Representatives came over--every Member of the Senate was here and seated--and read their Articles of Impeachment, their charges, about Secretary Mayorkas. The U.S. House of Representatives--did you notice I said that? Representatives of the U.S. House of Representatives came over to us. As I said the other day, we are not talking about some snow bro who likes chicken McNuggets and weed and has an opinion. We are not talking about some game boy who is living in his parents' basement and has an opinion--though both of them are entitled to their opinion because this is America. We are talking about the U.S. House of Representatives. For months, they investigated the open, bleeding wound that is the southern border and why it is open and why it is bleeding. And after investigating it-- not for days, not for weeks--for months, the U.S. House of Representatives voted two articles, two charges, in an impeachment of Secretary Mayorkas. And those are serious charges. They are as serious as four heart attacks and a stroke. The first one is willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law--not negligence--willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law. The second charge is breach of the public trust-- breach of the public trust. Serious, serious charges. Now, this doesn't happen every day or every week or every month or even every year around here. Our country is almost 250 years old. This has only happened 22 times. Twenty-two times has the U.S. House of Representatives impeached a public official. And every single time-- check it. Go Google it. Every single time--you can write this down, take it home to mama. Every single time, except when the public official has quit, the U.S. Senate has done its job, through thick and thin, whether the Democrats were in the majority or the Republicans were in the majority. It didn't matter who the President was. We did our job because we respect the institution of the Constitution; we respect the three branches of government; we respect the U.S. House of Representatives. We respect them enough to do our job. We held a trial every single time, except when the public official quit. Now, in the next 2 days, you are going to hear one of my colleagues-- the majority leader--say we don't need to hold a trial. He is going to say the evidence is insufficient, that it is not worth our time. I want you to think for a moment. Just ask yourself this question: How does he know the evidence isn't sufficient? How does he know? He hasn't heard the evidence. What you are about to see, folks--it breaks my heart to say this. Over the next 2 days, what you are going to see is not about the evidence. It is not about the law. It is not about the process. It is not about what should be 250 years of precedent in history. It is about raw, gut politics-- raw, gut politics. Some of my colleagues in this body do not want us to talk about the border in an election year, and we all know that. You know that. I know that. Everybody watching knows that. The American people know that. They may be poorer under President Biden, but they are not stupid. They can see that. And that is not right. It is vacuous. It is fraudulent. Regardless of what you think or you may think you think without having heard the evidence, the U.S. Senate should do its job. We should hold a trial. Now, my Democratic friends have the votes. They can do pretty much what they want to. When you have got the votes, you know, you can--what is the old expression? You can make a koala bear eat hot peppers and like it if you have the votes. They have the majority, and I believe in the rule of law, and the rules are the rules. But sometimes--sometimes the majority just means a lot of the fools are on the same side. That is why we have a Bill of Rights in our Constitution: to protect our rights that the majority can't take away. And I want to say this as respectfully as I can because I understand politics. I have been in this business for a while. The Presiding Officer has too. I have seen the dark side of it too. I have seen the good side, but I have seen the dark side. And what I am seeing right now is the dark side. I am seeing the dark side. This is a political decision, and it is an insult to the Senate. And it is one more step of the U.S. Senate rotting from within, where we don't do our job for political reasons. So I am asking my Democratic colleagues--I say this gently, with as much respect as I can muster: Pretty please, pretty please, pretty please with sugar on top, let's do our job. Just because you have the votes, don't dismiss these impeachment proceedings summarily, like it is spam in your inbox. The U.S. Senate needs to do its job. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I would like to talk for a few moments about and I am going to have a motion about the impeachment of Secretary Mayorkas. As you know, Madam President, our government is one of laws, not people--laws, not people. As you also know, the U.S. Senate is built on precedent and custom and history and the law, not political expedience. We in the Senate are supposed to listen to the American people, not ignore them. One of the ways we do that is by playing by the rules we have all agreed to--all of the rules, all of the time. Now, my Senate Democratic colleagues today or at least very shortly, however, may be willing to jeopardize centuries of this stability--the stability that this body has wrought and lives by--for short-term political advantage. We all know what is going on here. We all know exactly what is going on here. For the very first time in our Nation's history, my Senate Democratic colleagues are seeking to table--maybe even dismiss--an impeachment by the United States House of Representatives of a sitting Cabinet official without holding a full trial. If my Senate colleagues do that, they will be summoning spirits that they won't be able to control. Let me say that again--the United States House of Representatives. We are not talking here about some ``snow bro'' who lives off Chicken McNuggets and weed and happens to have an opinion. The United States House of Representatives, elected by all of the American people, spent months investigating our border policy and Secretary Mayorkas's role in it, and then they thoughtfully crafted and they passed with a majority vote two Articles of Impeachment. Now my Senate Democratic colleagues want to toss them out in the trash like a week-old tuna salad sandwich without hearing from either side. In the more than two centuries that this body has existed, we have never once tabled an impeachment--not once. The Senate has never dismissed impeachment articles under these circumstances either-- neither tabled nor dismissed. If the Senate dismisses these charges without a full trial, it will be the first time in the Senate's long history that it has dismissed impeachment charges against an official it has jurisdiction over without the official first resigning, and that is just a fact of history. The Senate has the responsibility to hold this trial, and everybody in this body knows it. Yet my Senate Democratic colleagues seem willing to forfeit our constitutional authority in order to bury the evidence of how bad the border crisis is. Now, I, for one, want to hear the House's evidence, and Senate Republicans are offering our colleagues across the aisle--all of whom I respect, by the way--a menu of options for how to hear that evidence and listen to Secretary Mayorkas's defense without eroding democratic institutions. If Democrats set a new precedent by making an impeachment trial impossible, as I am afraid they are going to try to do, they will be silencing the voices of the Americans who elected them, and they will have to own the decisions they will be making and bear the consequences tomorrow, and tomorrow may come sooner than they can imagine. Apparently, my Democratic colleagues are really leaning in on their double standards. Whenever protecting democracy--have you heard that expression?--or upholding ``the rule of law''--have you heard my Democratic colleagues talk about the rule of law? I have. I agree with them. Whenever they use those expressions but it becomes politically challenging, they seem happy to ignore the rule of law and the will of the people, and their political expedience is in full view today. I regret to say that. We will see what my Democratic colleagues do with respect to my resolution and Senator Lee's resolution. Senate Democrats, I am afraid, are silencing the American people who want their country's secure border back. The truth is that the American people are tired of the drug trafficking. They are tired of the human trafficking. They are tired of the sexual abuse of women and children. They are tired of the widespread illnesses. They are tired of the death. They are tired of the behavior of President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas with respect to the border. They are tired of the chaos. They believe it is chaotic by design, and they believe it is undermining their national security. And they are right. Now, the American people may be poorer under President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas, but they are not stupid. They are not stupid. In total, more than 9 million people, foreign nationals, have crossed the southern border under President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas--9 million. That is four Nebraskas. Secretary Mayorkas doesn't have any idea who they are. He doesn't have any idea where they are. Customs and Border Protection also seized 53,000 pounds of fentanyl from 2021 to 2023. That is enough to kill every man, woman, and child on this planet, for God's sake--not the United States, this planet. The southern border is an open, bleeding wound. Now, the majority of the House of Representatives reached that conclusion. That is why they voted to impeach Secretary Mayorkas. They have sent us their evidence, and that evidence alleges that Secretary Mayorkas's policies have made our immigration system septic. If I were Secretary Mayorkas, I would want to answer those allegations. As a Senator, I want to hear the evidence, and I know the American people want to hear the evidence. These are serious charges. By tabling or dismissing the Articles of Impeachment without so much as a trial, like it was just spam in their inbox, my Senate Democratic colleagues are endorsing the Biden administration's lawless approach to the southern border. They are setting a precedent that the next administration can ignore the laws of Congress and the will of the American people as long as it advances the majority party's agenda. That is what they are saying. Now, my resolution will give the procedures we need to set up the procedures we need to conduct this trial fairly and efficiently. My resolution is modeled on the procedures that this body used during the second impeachment trial of President Trump. When President Trump's first impeachment came to the U.S. Senate, Senate Republicans were in the majority. You didn't see us trying to table that impeachment. You didn't see us trying to dismiss that impeachment because we believe in the rule of law all the time, not just when it is politically expedient. We heard the evidence. We did our job. And that is what we ought to do right now. The proceedings set forth in my resolution are efficient; they are fair; they are honest. They will not uproot the longstanding precedent that we have given to Articles of Impeachment in the past. It will give the Articles of Impeachment serious consideration, as we have always done. Here is my final point. If my Senate Democratic colleagues--let me say it again, each and every one of whom I respect--if they choose to ignore this impeachment, they will have placed their seal of approval on the lawlessness at the border and the chaos it has brought to so many American communities, and they will have ignored 200 years of Senate precedent--200 years. A charitable interpretation based on policy does not exist for what my Democratic colleagues are going to try to do. It is all based on raw, gut politics and they know it and I know it and everybody in this room knows it. Please don't do it. Please, my friends, don't do it. Please don't allow the Senate to rot from within. The American people deserve better. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Rules and Administration be discharged from further consideration and the Senate now proceed to S. Res. 623, my resolution that I just talked about; further, that the resolution be agreed to and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I will respond, briefly. The U.S. House of Representatives--the U.S. House of Representatives--has found, after lengthy investigation, that the chaos at the southern border is manmade, and the U.S. House of Representatives has alleged that that man's name is Secretary Mayorkas. We need to hold a trial. Now, Senator Durbin is my good friend and, as usual, he is eloquent, and he sounds very confident that the evidence will exonerate Secretary Mayorkas. How does he know? He hasn't heard the evidence, and he doesn't want to hear the evidence because he is scared that the American people might disagree. That is what this is all about--raw, gut politics.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, a lot of history has unfolded in this room. The U.S. Senate has been home to some of the most formative debates in our Nation's tenure. These are fierce arguments among passionate, intelligent people. It is not all that different from the debates today. The Senate has always welcomed these sometimes intense disagreements by respecting the rules and the traditions of the institution. It is how a Senator like me, who is a Member of the minority party, can stand here and speak freely about the issues that matter to the American people and to the people of Louisiana. Now, my Democratic colleagues in the Senate, today, may be about to make some new history in this room. Apparently, they think it is a brave new world, and they want to set a dangerous new precedent. For the very first time, Senate Democrats are seeking to table--maybe even dismiss--an impeachment of a sitting Cabinet official without even holding a trial. They are summoning spirits they won't be able to control. Please, my colleagues, don't do it. I fear though that Senate Democrats are going to try to take the Articles of Impeachment that our colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives thoughtfully crafted and passed with a majority vote and toss them into the trash without hearing from either side. They don't want to let the House impeachment managers make their case. They don't want to let Secretary Mayorkas make his case. They just want to ignore the House's evidence, summarily sweep it under the rug, and move on. And that is wrong. The Senate has never in its history tabled an impeachment--never. In the more than 200 years that this body has existed, the House of Representatives has impeached an official 21 times, and we have never once tabled the impeachment--not once. Now, Senator Schumer may also try to dismiss these charges instead of tabling them, but that has never been done before, either. If the Senate dismisses these charges without a trial, it will be the first time in the Senate's long history that it has dismissed impeachment charges against an official it has jurisdiction over without that official first resigning. And that is a fact. I want you to consider this: The U.S. House of Representatives has voted to impeach an official 21 times--only 21 times--in our long history. The U.S. Senate has only dismissed 3 of those cases--3 out of 21. Now, why did they dismiss them? In two of those cases, the impeached official chose to resign instead of facing a trial. As a result, the Senate dismissed the charges. In this case, Secretary Mayorkas has not resigned. In one of those dismissed cases, the impeached official was a U.S. Senator, and the Senate concluded that the Constitution did not give it jurisdiction to remove a U.S. Senator through the impeachment process. Here, everyone agrees that the Constitution gives Congress the power to impeach and remove a sitting Cabinet Secretary. Now, listen to me carefully on this. The U.S. Senate has the right and the responsibility to hold this trial. Yet Senate Democrats want to ignore our Chamber's history and forfeit our constitutional authority by tabling or dismissing these charges without even considering the evidence--without even considering the evidence. Americans need to hear what I am about to say, even if my Democratic colleagues won't listen. Let me say it again: A majority of the duly elected Members of the U.S. House of Representatives, who represent all of the communities across America, spent months investigating the allegations against Secretary Mayorkas. They spent months drafting the Articles of Impeachment, and a majority of the House then voted yes to bring two very serious charges. The Senate Democrats are now treating those charges--those Articles of Impeachment--like spam that landed in their inbox. Americans, however, are not nearly so sanguine about the border crisis that has brought death, drugs, violence, chaos, criminals, and mayhem into their neighborhoods. The Biden administration's border crisis is as unprecedented as the majority leader's move to bury the evidence of who could be to blame here. I, for one, want to hear the House's evidence, and so do the American people. The majority leader's move is unprecedented. It is undemocratic. And I am confident that my Democratic colleagues, if they do this--please, don't--but if they do it, will regret this new precedent when they find themselves in the minority, just as they regretted breaking the Senate precedent for confirming judicial nominees. You see, Republicans do not like to break precedent when we are in the majority. We respect the traditions of this Chamber because we respect the voters who sent all 100 of us here. If my Democratic colleagues set a new precedent that tramples the rights of the minority party and silences the voices of the Americans who elected them--if they do that--Senate Democrats will have to own that decision and bear its consequences. Now, I have listened to the loon wing of the Democratic Party spend the better part of the past decade making passionate speeches about how important it is to protect democracy, to uphold the rule of law, and they are right. President Biden even ran his campaign on the idea of ``restoring our norms,'' as he called it, and ``defending democracy.'' Apparently though, the rules of the loon wing were of the ``for thee and not for me'' variety. Whenever protecting democracy and upholding the rule of law becomes politically challenging, the loon wing has been happy to ignore the rule of law and the will of the people. Isn't that special? Their political expedience is in full view today, but it is not the first time that their cynicism has reared its ugly Democratic head. I am sure, Madam President, you will remember. I will give you just two examples. The loon wing spent several years promoting a conspiracy that the Trump campaign was an arm of the Kremlin, despite no objective evidence to tie President Trump to Russia. Democrats and several members of the national security community rushed to dismiss any information found on Mr. Hunter Biden's laptop as ``Russian misinformation,'' despite not having any objective evidence, as we now know, to make that claim. And those are just two of many examples that I could give. Secretary Mayorkas' impeachment may be the best example of this hypocrisy to date. The same Senate Democrats who have shouted for years about defending democracy and upholding the rule of law seem ready to disregard serious impeachment charges without so much as a second glance. These Senators, if they do that, won't just be silencing the House of Representatives. They will be silencing the American people-- the American people who want their border's security back. You can pick any poll--any one you want--and you will find President Biden's approval rating on the issue of immigration and border security is on a journey to the center of the Earth. A recent Associated Press poll, for example, found that more than two-thirds of Americans--69 percent of Americans--disapprove of how the Biden administration is handling border security. I can't imagine that these same Americans would approve of Democrats' refusal to even hear the evidence that Americans see play out in their communities every day. This poll is only surprising if you peaked in high school. Under President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas, the southern border has become an open, bleeding wound. It has become a cesspool of misery. Drug trafficking, human trafficking, sexual abuse of women, sexual abuse of children, drowning, dehydration, widespread illnesses, death--all have become commonplace. In total, the Border Patrol has encountered illegal immigrants at the southern border more than 9 million times since President Biden took office. That is four Nebraskas. The Biden administration has failed to remove 99 percent of foreign nationals that it has released into this country. The backlog of immigrant court cases has doubled under the Biden administration's watch. These foreign nationals have overwhelmed American cities. Instead of investing in American citizens, cities throughout the country are raising taxes. They are cutting programs to fund prepaid debit cards for migrants. America's children have to stay home from school because Democratic officials turned their classrooms into housing units. Democratic leaders in New York City, Chicago, Denver, Houston, and Los Angeles have begged the Biden administration to do something to curb the flow of unvetted people into their cities. Of course, it is not just people flowing illegally over that border; cartels have flooded the United States with poisonous fentanyl over that border, too. Customs and Border Protection seized nearly 53,000 pounds of fentanyl from 2021 to 2023--not 53,000 grams, 53,000 pounds. That is enough to kill the entire population of our planet. This poison actually did kill more than 70,000 Americans in 2022. It is now the leading cause of death among Americans 18 to 40. The Biden administration's border policies bring Americans nothing but suffering. If you hate America, however, the Biden border strategy has been a blessing. Cartels' smuggling operations saw revenues increase from $500 million in 2012 to $12 billion--that is ``b'' as in ``billion''--in 2022. The policies that President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas have implemented are directly responsible for this disaster at our southern border. At every turn, the Biden administration has ignored the laws of this land and this Congress and the will of the American people to facilitate their own broken border security policies. The House has detailed several examples in their Articles of Impeachment, and we ought to hear their evidence. To start, the law requires that all foreign nationals who are not clearly admissible must be ``retained for a removal proceeding.'' Instead, Secretary Mayorkas established a catch-and-release--catch, release, repeat--a catch-and-release scheme that incentivized illegal immigrants to flood our country. The law also requires that law enforcement take an illegal immigrant who commits a crime or has ties to terrorism or both into Federal custody. That is the law. Yet Secretary Mayorkas told his Department not to follow that law regarding the ``mandatory arrest and detention'' of criminal aliens. Our law also says that law enforcement must detain illegal immigrants. Instead, Secretary Mayorkas has paroled them wholesale by the thousands into our country, where they could catch a bus or a plane to any unsuspecting community they desire. Not only that, Secretary Mayorkas even gave them the money to do it. Secretary Mayorkas killed the ``Remain in Mexico'' program. He quashed contracts to build a border wall. He ended the safe third country agreements that allowed America to work with other countries to find protection for migrants in need. By tabling or dismissing the Articles of Impeachment without so much as a trial, my Senate Democratic colleagues will be endorsing the Biden administration's lawless approach to the southern border. They will be setting a precedent that the next administration can ignore the laws of Congress and the will of the American people too. Impeachment matters. It is an important check we have on the executive branch, and we have an obligation to take it seriously. We have an obligation to give any charges brought the full trial they deserve. I am going to have a resolution, if I am allowed to present it, that will give the procedures we need to conduct this trial fairly and efficiently. I will be bringing that at the appropriate time. It will be efficient. It will be fair. It will be honest. It won't uproot the longstanding precedent we have given to Articles of Impeachment in the past. If the majority leader and my Democratic colleagues table or dismiss these charges and destroy Senate precedent--precedent that we have established to conduct full and fair impeachment trials--they will regret it. They will regret it. Senate Democrats, if they do that, will show the world that their proclamations about rule of law and protecting democracy are just tools of their own political experience and arrogance. Senate Democrats will let the American people know that they endorse the lawlessness and the misery the Biden administration's broken border has brought to this country. I don't think Americans' future should be beholden to the politics of the moment, and that is why I want the Senate to do its job and hear this evidence. I yield the floor.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, with me today is Mr. Matt Turner, one of my colleagues in my Senate office. Mr. President, I want to talk about one of President Biden's nominees to be on the Federal Bench, but first I want to digress for a moment. I love animals, and I especially love dogs. If only people had the hearts of dogs, the world would be better off. The Presiding Officer and I, of course, are in the same profession-- politics. Politics takes a big heart and a lot of wind and a thick skin. I try not to worry too much about what anybody thinks of me-- except dogs. I really like dogs. I used to have a beagle. His name was Roger. I loved Roger to death. We lost him a few years ago to cancer. Roger was a stray. Actually, Roger was raised to hunt rabbits. If you know anything about beagles, when a beagle gets on a scent, the beagle is oblivious to everything else. They just follow that scent. Roger got on the scent and got lost and showed up at my house, so Becky and I took Roger in. Roger was a rascal. He was a rascal. He loved us, but he couldn't help himself. Whenever there was a small crack in the door, Roger was gone. He was out and gone, and he stayed gone 2 or 3 days. I would worry incessantly. Oh, is he hurt? Will he come back? I love Roger. He would always come back. But about half of the time when Roger would come back, he would come back dragging roadkill. I wouldn't let him inside with his roadkill, so he would go in the backyard, and he would hide his roadkill--he didn't think I was watching--Roger would hide his roadkill under the back porch. I miss Roger. Sometimes--not always but sometimes--the nomination process that the White House uses to select Federal judges--the nomination process is what I am talking about--looks to me like something Roger was hiding under my back porch. I just don't understand it. I don't understand the criteria or the process the Biden White House uses to put people on our Federal bench. Now, I am not suggesting that President Biden hasn't made some good nominations because he has, and I voted for his nominations who I thought were qualified. But I think it is also--any fairminded person would have to conclude that over the past several years, President Biden has nominated some people to the Federal bench who, quite frankly, are not qualified to judge a pie contest. That is just a fact. That is my opinion, but if you go look at the testimony of all of those nominees, I think you will see I am right. With respect, the President's pick of Mr. Adeel Mangi is, frankly, one of his worst. Mr. Mangi is affiliated with an organization that calls itself the Alliance of Families for Justice--the Alliance of Families for Justice. In fact, Mr. Mangi is not just affiliated with this group; he is on its advisory board. One of the Alliance's founders was a member of a domestic terrorist organization. What does that mean? One of the Alliance's founders was convicted of murdering police officers in cold blood. He killed cops. Now, the Alliance of Families for Justice on whose board Mr. Mangi sits--or at least sat--advocates for the release of people who kill cops. Let me say that again. I didn't know such organizations existed. The organization on whose advisory board Mr. Mangi sits or sat advocates for the release of people who kill cops. This organization has even called people who kill police officers freedom fighters. Freedom fighters. Why? I know that sounds crazy. That is because it is. It is also why so many law enforcement organizations have sent all of us on the Judiciary Committee letters opposing Mr. Mangi's nomination. I have never gotten so many letters or phone calls from law enforcement supporting or opposing--in this case, opposing--a nomination. For example--I am not going to read all of them. I would be here the rest of the evening. For example, take the National Sheriffs' Association. I think most of us have heard of them. The National Sheriffs' Association wrote to all members of the Judiciary Committee, and here is what they said. I am quoting now. These are not my words but the sheriffs' words. ``Mr. Mangi's association . . . with an organization advocating the release of convicted cop-killers is seriously disturbing.'' That is coming from the sheriffs. According to the National Sheriffs' Association, the Alliance's position--on whose advisory board Mr. Mangi sat or sits--according to the sheriffs, the Alliance's position ``is not only tone-deaf to the sacrifices made by law enforcement [officials], but also disrespectful to the victims of heinous crimes, as well as the family and friends of officers who have made the ultimate sacrifice.'' We also heard from the National Association of Police Organizations. I think most people have heard of them. They said this about Mr. Mangi's nomination: Mr. Mangi's ``conscious work with the Alliance shows an anti-victim and anti-police bias that would certainly cloud his decisionmaking as a judge.'' That came from the police. Those aren't my words; those are law enforcement's words. By itself, Mr. Mangi's work for and with this organization that I refer to as ``the Alliance'' should be disqualifying, but there is more. There is a lot more. From 2019 to 2023--4 years--Mr. Mangi also served on the advisory board of another group, and this group calls itself the Center for Security, Race and Rights--the Center for Security, Race and Rights. This organization is steeped in hatred and anti-Semitism. I don't know any other way to put it. I think any reasonable person who looked at the center's work would agree with me, at least as to my description. Now, every single American I know--and I will bet this is true for the Presiding Officer too--every single American I know remembers where they were on September 11, 2001. We call it 9/11. We don't even have to explain ourselves anymore; we just say ``9/11,'' and every American knows what you are talking about. On the 20th anniversary of 9/11, Mr. Mangi's Center for Security, Race and Rights, on whose advisory board Mr. Mangi either sits or sat, sponsored an event. Here is the title of their event: ``Whose narrative? 20 years since September 11, 2001.'' The purpose of this event was to blame America and blame Americans for 9/11. That is why they held the event. This event and the speakers there blamed ``U.S. imperialism''--not the terrorists; ``U.S. imperialism''--for the 9/11 attacks that killed thousands of innocent American citizens. The event featured some of the most despicable speakers that even the most fertile imagination would be challenged to come up with. One of those speakers was Mr. Sami Al-Arian. Mr. Al-Arian was convicted of providing support to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Another speaker, Mr. Rabab Abulhadi, has ties to terrorist hijackers. A third speaker, Mr. Hatem Bazian, publicly called for an intifada in the United States. Hard men. Rough words. American imperialism. Mr. Mangi claims that he didn't know about this event--that is what he told the Senate committee--but his center has a long, long history of sponsoring vile, hate-filled events, and that is just a fact. That is not rhetoric; that is just a fact. Are we really expected to believe that Mr. Mangi had no idea what the center was up to? He sat on its advisory board, for God's sake. Now let's talk about the director of this center on whose advisory board Mr. Mangi sat. The director also has a vile history of bad behavior. In 2021, the director of this organization on whose board Mr. Mangi sat signed a letter. That letter is posted on the Alliance's website. So far as I know, you can go to it and read it right now. In the letter, the director says that she is ``in awe''--``in awe''-- ``of the Palestinian struggle to resist violent occupation, removal, erasure, and the expansion of Israeli settler colonialism''--``Israeli settler colonialism.'' Hamas murdered, raped, maimed Jewish men, Jewish women, little Jewish children, and according to Mr. Mangi's organization's director, it is Israel's fault. The center's director describes himself as being in respectful awe. I think the vast majority of Americans would describe themselves as being nauseated. The center's director, of whom I speak, also personally recruited Mr. Mangi to serve on the center's advisory board. Again, are we really expected to believe that Mr. Mangi didn't know about the director's vile behavior? Did Mr. Mangi not even run a single Google search on this person? On top of all of that, I do not believe--this is one person's opinion--I do not believe that Mr. Mangi told me the truth in our Judiciary hearing. When I asked him about his involvement with this radical organization, Mr. Mangi told me he only provided ``advice on academic areas of research.'' That is what he told me. He said: My only involvement is ``advice on academic areas of research.'' Those aren't my words; those are Mr. Mangi's words. But it turns out he was also funneling money to the organization--tens of thousands of dollars from himself and from his law firm. I didn't know that at the time of the hearing. I wish that I had. With these facts in mind--and I have tried just to stick to the facts--I find it very hard to believe that anyone can in good faith-- no. Strike that. I find it hard to believe that a fairminded, objective person who is not involved in this nomination can defend Mr. Mangi's nomination. Some of my Senate colleagues are doing that. That is OK. Sometimes people disagree, and that is a good thing. I believe in having two sides, opposing sides, come together in a dialectic. Sometimes that is how you find the truth. But it has gotten kind of personal. I regret that. Some people--not all people; the Presiding Officer doesn't do this-- some people, when they are losing an argument, tend to rely on epithets, you know--``You are a racist'' or ``You are a sexist'' or ``You are a misogynist'' or ``You are a Nazi'' or ``You are a bigot'' or, as in this case, ``You are Islamophobic.'' Some of the Members of this body have made that suggestion. They have suggested that all of the people who are opposing Mr. Mangi's nomination based on the facts that I have just tried to describe as fairly as I could--some Senators have suggested that asking Mr. Mangi questions about his involvement with these organizations is Islamophobic. One of my colleagues--which, again, is his right--came down to the Senate floor, and he said that certain Republican members of the committee ``believed that he,'' referring to Mr. Mangi, ``must be a terrorist because he is a Muslim.'' Wow. That got my attention. That is not true. I believe that Mr. Mangi is not qualified to be a Federal judge because he supports organizations that celebrate people who kill law enforcement officers; he supports organizations that hate Americans; and he supports organizations that hate Jews. When President Biden, as I said earlier, has nominated qualified people to serve on the Federal bench, I have supported them regardless of their race, regardless of their gender, regardless of their religion. I confess to asking tough questions in committee. That is my job. When you are put on the Federal bench, you are there for life--for life. You are unelected, and you are there for life, and you have the full power of the United States of America, the most powerful country in all of human history, behind you, so you had better get it right. Just a few years ago, for example, I voted to confirm one of President Biden's nominees, Mr.--now judge--Zahid Quraishi. Mr. Quraishi happened to be at the time the first Muslim-American Federal judge. I voted for him. He is doing a great job. Unlike Mr. Mangi, Judge Quraishi was not on the board of an organization that celebrates and advocates for the release of cop killers. He was not on the board of an organization that sponsors anti-American events and blames 9/11 on American imperialism. Judge Quraishi was qualified and is qualified to serve on the Federal bench. Mr. Mangi is not. He is just not. That is not Islamophobia; that is just a fact. And I think anyone who is being honest with themselves--particularly if you go look at the confirmation hearings and read the evidence--I think any person who is being honest with themselves would agree. So, for these reasons, I ask my colleagues to oppose Mr. Mangi's nomination, and I urge President Biden to withdraw it. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I would like to begin with a quotation: Let me tell you something, New Yorkers, never in my life have I had a problem that I did not see an ending to [but] I don't see an ending to this. This issue will destroy New York City. ``This issue will destroy New York City.'' That is New York Mayor Eric Adams. He was responding to the crisis at our border. Mayor Adams is the mayor of our country's largest city. Now, New York City is about 2,000 miles from Eagle Pass, TX, but the breathtaking influx of illegal immigrants into our country and the Secretary of Homeland Security's refusal to detain or deport them has brought New York City to its knees--to its knees. Mayor Adams now knows what Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas won't admit. When reality calls, you can only ignore it for so long. Secretary Mayorkas's actions have had consequences, and time is up. Time is up. I am only going to say a brief word about the open, bleeding wound that is our southern border, which has been open wide to unknown people--to criminals, to cartels, and, yes, to terrorists. No. 1, I know you know that fentanyl is now the No. 1 killer of Americans between the ages of 18 and 45 and that fentanyl is coming across our open southern border. No. 2, we know that under Secretary Mayorkas's watch, human traffickers have built a $13 billion--not $13 million--$13 billion business trafficking human beings across our border. No. 3, we also know that roughly 450,000 children unaccompanied have shown up at the border. And most of them have been released into our country. Many of them--we don't know how many--many of them have ended up in dangerous places with dangerous, evil people. And, finally, as best we can tell, since President Biden has been President and Secretary Mayorkas has been Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, we have had 8.6 million people--8.6 million people--come into our country illegally. That is four Nebraskas--that is four Nebraskas. And we don't have the slightest idea who they are. Now, the U.S. House of Representatives has investigated this crisis, and it has found that some of the blame for this crisis lies with Secretary Mayorkas. And the U.S. House of Representatives has impeached Secretary Mayorkas for it. In its first Article of Impeachment, the House alleges that Secretary Mayorkas has ``willfully and systematically refused to comply with Federal immigration law.'' The House says that Secretary Mayorkas has refused to detain some illegal immigrants, as the law requires them to do, and has, instead, embraced his own catch-and-release scheme in which he has released huge numbers--I think any fairminded American would call 8.6 million people huge--huge numbers of illegal immigrants into the United States. The House says that Secretary Mayorkas has refused to follow unambiguous and clear Federal laws that require him to detain illegal immigrants who are subject to deportation for engaging in criminal or terrorism-related behavior. The House says that Secretary Mayorkas has failed to make case-by- case parole determinations, which the law clearly requires--clearly. And, instead, he has, on his own, paroled millions of people illegally into the United States en masse. In its second Article of Impeachment, the House alleges that Secretary Mayorkas has breached the public trust in two respects: by knowingly making false statements to Congress that the border is ``secure'' and that the Department of Homeland Security has ``operational control'' of the border and by failing to comply with subpoenas issued by congressional committees seeking to exercise oversight over DHS activities. Any fairminded person can see that these are serious charges. And they demand a full trial. Let me say that again. They demand a full trial. The Senate must let the House present its case. And then we must do our job and give that case careful consideration. If the Senate dismisses these charges without trial--as if it is just a parking ticket being fixed by some politician--it will be the first time--the very first time--in the Senate's long history that it has dismissed impeachment charges against an official it has jurisdiction over without that official first resigning--the very first time. The House of Representatives of the U.S. Congress has voted to impeach 21 times--only 21 times--in the history of this country. The Senate has only dismissed those cases three times--three times. And two of the cases the Senate dismissed, the impeached official chose to resign instead of facing a trial in the Senate. As a result, the Senate dismissed the charges. Secretary Mayorkas has not resigned. In one of those cases--the last remaining case--the impeached official was a U.S. Senator. Perhaps some remember it. And the Senate concluded that the Constitution did not give it jurisdiction to remove a U.S. Senator through its impeachment process. Now, in this case, everyone agrees that the Constitution gives Congress the power to impeach and remove a sitting Cabinet Secretary. I repeat: The U.S. Senate cannot and should not turn a deaf ear to the democratically elected Members of the U.S. House of Representatives by dismissing their charges against Secretary Mayorkas without a full and fair trial. Precedent demands a trial. Respect for the House of Representatives demands a trial. Respect for the law demands a trial. And the American people demand a trial, and they deserve it. The U.S. Senate should do its job. I yield the floor.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that that I be permitted to speak for up to 40 minutes and Senator Peters be permitted to speak up to 3 minutes prior to the scheduled rollcall vote.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, with me today is one of my colleagues from my Senate office, Mr. Matt Turner. Mr. President, not long ago, on February 23, in fact, an article appeared in one of my State's local newspapers. If it had appeared on the opinion page where it belonged, I wouldn't be saying a word because everybody in America has the right to their opinion. Instead, it appeared in the news section as a purportedly objective news article. In this article some reporter said, ``The state'' referring to the State of Louisiana, ``The state has already banned transgender young people from receiving gender-affirming medical care.'' That is not true, and I want to spend a few minutes responding to this inaccurate statement in the news as opposed to the opinion section of one of my newspapers. It is very hard to be a parent today, and it is even harder to be a kid. Between social media and cell phones, this generation is growing up in a way that we could not have imagined a few decades ago. Nowhere is this clearer than the issue of gender confusion among our children. Children today are facing an onslaught of identity-obsessed activism. Well before a child learns the difference between adjectives and verbs, activists in many government schools are teaching their pre-K students lessons on transgender pronouns--pronouns like ``ze'' and ``zir.'' Public libraries are hosting ``drag queen story time'' for ``children of all ages.'' The American Federation of Teachers--one of our largest, if not the largest, national teachers unions--actually runs a website with a lesson on how teachers can help children hide their transgender status from their parents. I kid you not. TikTok essentially functions as a ``how to transition'' guide book. The issue of gender has morphed from a topic that only involved the personal decisions of private adults into a movement--a movement that seeks to inject questions about gender and sexuality into every aspect of a child's life with or without parental approval. In fact, parents who disagree with the notion that adults should be immersing young children in discussions about gender and sexuality fear being smeared as bigots. In more horrifying examples, parents risk losing custody of their children for refusing to adopt a particular--usually a pro- transgender--ideology. It is not new for activists to target kids with their political rhetoric--unfortunately, we see it every day in America--but the gender and sexuality agenda goes far beyond the usual policy disputes that we see on a regular basis here in Washington. We are talking about giving children irreversible medical treatments before they can even understand the consequences of those medical procedures. I want to be very clear here. Eighty-five percent of the children who express some confusion about their gender--85 percent of the kids who say they are confused about their gender will outgrow it by the time they finish as adolescents. Now, that is just a fact. We have no idea, unfortunately, which 8-year-olds are going to outgrow their gender confusion, but we know it will be most of them--85 percent. Yet some activists in this country, particularly at Planned Parenthood, want to put kids under the knife or pump them full of hormones before these minors have a chance to grasp the consequences, and it is happening throughout our country. Like with a frog in a pot, gender activists have gradually turned up the heat, and we have all seen it. Now the United States is boiling over with some of the most radical pediatric gender policies on Earth-- on Earth. To understand just how extreme these policies are, I need to discuss a few of these so-called treatments and how they are implemented today. Today, many activists believe that the only way to respond to a child with gender confusion is by affirming whatever the child says about his or her gender, agree with the kids in all cases. Activists warn parents--we hear it all the time--not to question their child's gender proclamation. If a first grade boy tells his parents on a Tuesday that he is a girl, these activists say parents are just supposed to agree with the child until the child changes his mind on a Thursday. Now, if you have ever raised a child, first, thank you, but if you have ever raised a child, there was probably a point during which your child told you that he or she was--I don't know--a lion, and that child would belt out a roar just to prove it. But I am guessing--just a wild guess--that if that happened to you with your child, you didn't call animal control and say: Hit him with a stun gun, and take him back to the zoo. Why? Because you knew he was a child. We can acknowledge that gender dysphoria is a real and difficult condition. Let me say that again. We can acknowledge that gender dysphoria is a real and difficult condition for a small subset of our population. At the same time, we can understand that it is foolish and dangerous--and, like a rock, only dumber--to blindly affirm whatever a child tells you about their identity, gender or otherwise. If a 13- year-old kid tells you he is a NASCAR driver, you don't give him the keys to your sedan. He is a kid. She is a kid. Yet gender activists not only encourage parents in all cases, without question, to affirm their children's gender confusion, they also pressure parents to subject those kids to life-altering surgeries and life-altering hormone treatments--puberty blockers. Puberty blockers are often the starting point for these activists. Puberty blockers are hormone-based injections, and sometimes they are implants. They are given to kids in our country today who are as young as 8 years old. The purpose of a puberty blocker is to delay the onset of puberty. These drugs can prevent breast development and menstruation in kids--in girls. They can cause genital--or, rather, prevent genital growth in boys. They can also inflict lasting damage on a child's bone density. They can stunt bone growth, and they can harm future fertility. Those are all medically proven facts. The hormones used in puberty blockers are known as--let me say this carefully--gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogs. ``Gonadotropin- releasing hormone analogs'' is the medical term. These are also the same hormones used to chemically castrate sex offenders. These hormones that some doctors are giving our kids are the same hormones used to chemically castrate sex offenders. I didn't misspeak there. They give confused kids drugs designed to castrate adults. The FDA hasn't approved the use of puberty blockers to treat gender dysphoria, but nonetheless some doctors have been prescribing these hormones off label to kids. In some parts of the country, children don't even need a formal psychiatric diagnosis of gender dysphoria before receiving puberty blockers. According to one estimate, from 2017 to 2021, the number of children prescribed puberty blockers--chemical castration for boys--increased by 120 percent. At least 4,700 children underwent treatments during that period. Most States, as the Presiding Officer knows, require parental consent before they give children the same drug they use to castrate pedophiles but not all States. For example, in Oregon, children as young as 15 years old can receive Medicaid-funded--taxpayer funded--puberty blockers and sex change surgery without ever asking their parents, without ever telling their parents. In other words, taxpayers help the State fund gender transitions in children while keeping it a secret from their mothers and their fathers. That same 15-year-old likely needs a signed permission slip to go on a field trip to pet llamas at the local zoo, but these kids can pump themselves full of life-altering hormones without mentioning it to Mom or Dad. If the child has already begun puberty, the next option that some radicals recommend is what they call cross-sex hormones--cross-sex hormones. These drugs begin physically changing the child to resemble the opposite gender. Young girls are given testosterone. This increases their muscle development. The testosterone lowers their voices; it broadens their jaw lines; and it creates coarse body hair. Young boys take estrogen. They are given estrogen. The estrogen shrinks their testicles, diminishes their sex drive, and it redistributes fat to their hips and their breasts. According to the Mayo Clinic, these changes usually cannot be undone; they are permanent. Boys who take estrogen often become infertile. They also risk blood clots, heart problems, and strokes. Girls who take testosterone also often become infertile. Cross-sex hormones can permanently hinder a person's sexual interest or function as well. It is undeniable--undeniable--that the decision to use cross-sex hormones can change a child's entire life. Yet Planned Parenthood offers cross-sex hormones to children as young as 16. Planned Parenthood even brags that individuals can begin cross-sex hormone treatment--I am quoting; this is what Planned Parenthood says--``the same day as your first visit.'' No letter from a mental health provider is required. Come on down and get the drug. Children can begin taking cross-sex hormones at age 13. Thirteen- year-olds can't even drive, for God's sake. They can't get a tattoo. They can't see an R-rated movie. Are we supposed to believe that a 13- year-old can make an informed decision about whether he or she wants to have children or whether he or she should risk their ability to function sexually with their future spouse? No child--no child--is mature enough to make that decision, so no child should be able to opt into cross-sex hormones. The surgeries that activists are pushing on our children are even more disturbing. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health--this is a group known for its support of pediatric transgender policies--has said that girls as young as 15 should be able to get double mastectomies to remove their breasts. By age 17, this group that purportedly cares about kids says that boys should be allowed to receive vaginoplasties. In a vaginoplasty, surgeons remove a boy's penis; they remove the child's testicles; and they remove the child's scrotum. Then the boy's remaining genital tissue is stitched together to create something that mimics a vaginal canal. If the boy doesn't have enough spare tissue to complete the procedure, the doctor may slice a skin graft from his abdomen or his thigh. In other words, the doctor cuts up healthy skin, leaving significant scarring, just to finish the vaginoplasty. Some boys never regain sensation in their reconstructed genital area. These medical extremists also offer a similar procedure to young girls. It is called a phalloplasty. During a phalloplasty, doctors carve off skin and veins, often from a young girl's wrist and thigh, to create a fake penis. The surgery is very complex. It is very risky. It often results in serious complications--complications, frankly, so disturbing that they will make you go weak in the knees. Because complications during phalloplasty happen so frequently, even the radical World Professional Association for Transgender Health does not recommend phalloplasty in girls under 18, but some States allow it. Some States allow it. These procedures mutilate and they sterilize America's sons and daughters. Doctors cut out healthy organs to build a pile of flesh that may never regain full sensation or function properly, and it is barbaric. No child has the psychological maturity, no child has the emotional maturity to make this life-altering decision. Now, one would think that if adults are willing to chop up a child's body and pump him or her full of sterilizing hormones, there must be a good reason for it. If you ask many gender activists, they will tell you that gender confusion is a matter of life or death. Now, to be clear, there are higher suicide rates among people who identify as transgender, higher than among the general population. Gender activists know this, and they misuse those statistics. That is why they often ask parents who are worried about the extreme gender treatments--they will say to a parent: Would you rather have a dead son or a live daughter? Have you heard that? It scares parents half to death, and that is on purpose. What you won't hear these gender activists ask is whether these extreme measures actually improve a child's mental health. They don't ask that question because they don't like the answer. They know the answer, but they don't like it. Studies show that cross-sex hormones and reassignment surgeries have little to no effect on the long-term mental health of folks with gender dysphoria. A study was published in the American Journal of Psychiatry. It found that there was no significant reduction in mental health issues or suicidal ideation among adults following hormone treatments. This study also ``demonstrated no advantage of surgery''--``no advantage of surgery''-- as it relates to reducing anxiety, to reducing depression, or to reducing suicidal thoughts--no advantage to the supposedly lifesaving cross-sex treatments. Activists are mutilating and sterilizing children, and they don't even have a good reason for it. Still, thousands of children in the United States are receiving these treatments. A report from Reuters found that at least 4,700 American children took puberty blockers from 2017 to 2021. More than 14,700 children took cross-sex hormones. From 2019 to 2021, nearly 800 girls received double mastectomies. And that only includes girls whose insurance covered the procedure. And I am worried this is only the tip of the iceberg. The population of people diagnosed with gender dysphoria, including adults, by the way, increased in every State except South Dakota from 2018 to 2022. In Louisiana, my State, the population of people diagnosed with gender dysphoria has increased by 72 percent in 4 short years. If we look exclusively at gender dysphoria among children, the population of transgender children in the United States nearly doubled between 2017 and 2020. In Louisiana, 13- to 17-year-olds are nearly three times more likely to say they identify as transgender than adults aged 25 to 64. From 2018 to 2022, children's share of the total--often, of course, self-reported--transgender population in the United States increased from 17.5 percent to 20.4 percent. And that is over the entire population. Now, here is a fact that should make everyone who cares about our society's more vulnerable members stop and think. A significant portion of these often confused children struggled with severe autism and mental illness. A study out of the United Kingdom found that 35 percent of children receiving care at the nation's transgender youth clinic suffered from moderate to severe autism. Children diagnosed as transgender are up to 13 times more likely to have ADHD, depression, or anxiety than nontransgender children. They are also more than four times more likely to have bipolar disorder than the general population. These kids who say they have gender dysphoria face enough challenges without gender activists rushing them into irreversible treatments-- cutting off their breasts, removing their penises--based on what statistically will probably be temporary confusion. Young girls appear to be driving the surge, quite frankly, in adolescent gender dysphoria. One 2022 study found that girls are up to 7.1 times more likely to present with gender dysphoria than boys, and I think we know that, just as a practical matter. In the United Kingdom, once again, the National Health Service--the NHS--reported that it had 250 gender dysphoria referrals about a decade ago. Most of them were boys. By 2022, the NHS reported 5,000 gender dysphoria referrals, two-thirds of whom were girls. That is why many fear that gender dysphoria has become a social contagion among young girls. In the same way that groups of girls developed eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia in the 1990s and early 2000s, girls today are developing gender dysphoria in groups as well. One key difference, though, exists. One key difference between disordered eating in the 1990s and 2000s and the gender dysphoria we are seeing today is that educators and policymakers didn't blindly affirm eating disorders. Even today, we are not so foolish. Even today, doctors wouldn't give an anorexic teenager Ozempic or staple her stomach because she thinks she looks fat. We wouldn't do that. Yet activists rush to inject girls with irreversible cross-sex hormones and inflict double mastectomies on them, all in the quest--all in the quest--to affirm their gender confusion. Thank God, other countries are proving themselves wiser than America. Thank God. The United Kingdom, Sweden, Luxembourg, Finland, Denmark, and Belgium have all prohibited sex reassignment surgeries for children, for minors. Before doctors can prescribe children cross-sex hormones, many European countries require years of extensive documentation from a panel of psychiatrists, a panel of pediatricians, a panel of endocrinologists. In the United States, however, Mr. President, children can access irreversible hormone treatments without so much as a second opinion from doctors. A former caseworker from the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children's Hospital--that is the foremost pediatric transgender medical center in the United States-- said some kids at that facility were eligible for cross-sex hormones after a single visit--one visit--to a therapist. Federally funded insurance programs won't pay for a woman to elect to tie her tubes, not until she is 21 years old, and most insurance companies require a 30-day waiting period because it is important that a woman is certain before she consents to her own sterilization. Yet many activists are comfortable allowing children to take sterilizing medications at 13 years of age after a single appointment with a therapist--all because adults are supposed to trust children when they claim they are a different gender. I am very thankful to say that Louisiana is full of compassion and common sense, and we don't do that. We know that this agenda is dangerous, and we know it is outrageous. And so does the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom used to have a similarly misguided policy until one brave woman came forward with her story: Keira Bell. Keira Bell was 15 years old when she first attended the Tavistock clinic, which was then the UK's transgender youth clinic. Ms. Bell had a pretty rough childhood. Her mother struggled with alcoholism. She regularly faced bullies at school. And in her own words, she said: I was ``very mentally ill.'' And she struggled with depression. Ms. Bell attended just a few appointments at the Tavistock Hospital before they put her on puberty blockers. Shortly thereafter, she began cross-sex hormones, and she eventually received a double mastectomy. A few years went by. By age 22, Ms. Bell realized she regretted these changes, but the damage was done. The Tavistock clinic took her breasts; the Tavistock clinic lowered her voice; the Tavistock clinic jeopardized her fertility--all before she even understood the consequences of those treatments. She was a kid. Her story horrified the people of the United Kingdom. Ms. Bell brought a claim against the Tavistock clinic to argue that kids were not psychologically mature enough to make irreversible medical decisions. The NIH investigated, and it found that the clinic had put young people ``at considerable risk'' of long-term mental distress. And the UK Government then deemed that the treatments Tavistock offered were not a ``safe or viable long-term option,'' and the Tavistock clinic no longer exists today. The NHS shut them down. There is a growing population of young people like Ms. Bell who regret receiving irreversible treatments when they were kids. They are generally known as detransitioners. A study out of Sweden followed adults who received treatment for gender dysphoria from 1960 to 2010. It found that roughly 2 percent of those in the study detransitioned. A new study in 2022, however, found that roughly 10 percent of people who received treatment detransitioned. And that number may be growing. Given the nature of these types of studies on regret, we won't know for many years what percent of the boys and girls receiving irreversible treatments today will regret it when they enter adulthood. We just don't know. But if the 10 percent figure holds, gender activists will have wrongfully mutilated or sterilized more than 1,500 American children between 2017 and 2021 alone. And there is good reason to believe that the rate of detransitioning will be much higher than current studies indicate because the majority of children who present with gender dysphoria at a young age outgrow it. Eighty-five percent outgrow it. A 2017 study published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism found that 85 percent of children with gender dysphoria outgrew it during adolescence. And you know what, Mr. President, this figure is only surprising if you have never met a kid. Children change their minds often. Duh. One week, they are obsessed with dolphins. The next week, they love race cars. A kid can morph from the sweetest boy you have ever seen into a honey badger within the course of one Sunday morning church service, and we have all had that experience, and that is normal. Kids don't typically have a mature sense of self or impulse control, and that is why God gave them parents. But today, if a little girl has a week where she thinks she is a boy because she hates wearing dresses and loves to climb trees with her brothers, some activists think we ought to pump her full of puberty blockers that destroy her bone health so she feels ``affirmed'' in her decision to play cops and robbers with the boys. Secretary Hillary Clinton once famously said it takes a village to raise a child. What she meant was it takes a Federal Government to raise a child. No, it doesn't. Kids need parents to succeed, and parents have the right to raise their children according to their values. Parents are here to protect kids from danger, from the kids' own immaturity, and from misguided government agents. And contrary to what these activists say, there are some sane ways to treat children who struggle with gender confusion. Many doctors in Europe and the United States recognize that permanently maiming and chemically castrating confused children is bone-deep, down-to-the- marrow stupid. That is why many physicians have adopted the practice of ``watchful waiting.'' That is a treatment plan--we offer it in Louisiana--whereby doctors and psychologists wait to implement any medical treatment to children with gender dysphoria while watching to ensure that they have all the responsible mental health support that they need. As I mentioned earlier, 85 percent of children will outgrow their dysphoria during puberty. Watchful waiting ensures that the child is well supported and protected from irreversible physical and psychological damage. Some activists, though, don't want to let doctors wait, and a lot of those activists work in the Biden administration. In 2021, the Biden administration announced that it would start requiring doctors to issue hormone treatments or surgeries to transgender individuals, even if such procedures--even if such procedures--run contrary to the doctor's medical judgment or religious beliefs. And, unsurprisingly, the Biden administration has been sued over that. It is not just doctors facing pressure to conform to the demands of gender activists. In some States, parents have lost custody of their kids for refusing to do it. Schools have fired counselors simply for wanting parents to be told about their kid's gender transition. I am terrified that our country is mass-producing a generation of mutilated and sterilized young people because policymakers in our schools and our cities and our State capitals and Washington are too afraid to stand up and say: Enough. And that is why, in conclusion, I am so proud of the Louisiana State Legislature. The Louisiana State Legislature passed HB648. HB648 protects Louisiana's children and supports their parents. HB648 makes it illegal to use puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgery on children under the age of 18--period, full stop. It wasn't easy to get this bill passed. Our lawmakers faced strong opposition from gender activists, and our former Governor, John Bel Edwards, vetoed the bill. But in Louisiana, we will run into hell and back to keep our kids safe, and that is why senate and house members-- Democrats and Republicans--in the Louisiana State Legislature overrode the Governor's veto. They said: No, children are children. Congress should follow the leadership of the Louisiana State Legislature and so many European governments to ensure that parents-- not activists--have the power to make medical and moral decisions for their children. And that is why I am helping to lead the Families' Rights and Responsibilities Act, which would do that. This bill would require the Federal Government to pass the strict scrutiny test--that is the Supreme Court's toughest level of review--before it could infringe upon a parent's right. Nothing disturbs me more than the notion that a child's upbringing should be determined by some bureaucrat rather than the child's parents, especially when those bureaucrats use the power of the government to maim children. It makes me want to throw up. It makes me want to reach for the sick bucket. Congress must do more to protect parents and their kids from the zealots of the transgender movement and from newspaper reporters who inaccurately report the news. I yield to my colleague Senator Peters.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, with me today are two of my colleagues from my office, Mr. James Shea and Mr. Parker Loy. I want to thank them both for their good work. Energy suicide, that is what I want to talk about: energy suicide. President Biden is committing energy suicide for America. Regrettably-- and I mean that--regrettably, too many times in the past 3 years and on too many issues we have seen President Biden act as a sock puppet for a faction of neosocialist Americans who don't like our country, who think our country was wicked when it was founded and that it is even more wicked today. And this faction, which President Biden has supported far too often, thinks our country must be torn down and rebuilt, and, of course, they want to be the ones to rebuild it. Now this faction has turned its sights, with the help of President Biden, on America's hard-fought energy independence. President Biden just aided this faction in destroying America's energy independence and committing energy suicide by declaring a moratorium on new liquefied natural gas terminals in America. Apparently, President Biden's new policy is to give up our own oil and gas and buy the energy we need from countries that hate us. So those countries that hate us will have more money to buy weapons to try to kill us. Stupidity. Stupidity should hurt more. Now, I realize you can't fix stupid, but you can vote it out. America's ability to be energy independent is one of our greatest strengths. We are a big country. We are a big, wide, open, diverse, sometimes dysfunctional, imperfect, but essentially good country. This is a country that is filled with oil and natural gas and coal and uranium and plutonium. It is filled with rare Earth minerals. It is filled with roaring rivers and just about everything else you need to power this economy, to help families live the American dream, and we even have a little bit leftover to help our friends. American ingenuity did that. Now, Louisiana is a big part of the equation, and we are very, very proud to be a leader in energy production. Not every country is as blessed as America. Our friends in Europe, for example, were relying on Russian oil and gas for their energy when Putin invaded Ukraine and then cut off their supply. This paralyzed many European leaders. They didn't know how they were going to run their businesses. They didn't know how they were going to heat their homes. They were totally dependent on Vladimir Putin and Russia. Fortunately, they had a friend. They had a friend in the United States of America, and we helped them out, and we kept their businesses running, and we kept their homes heated. And do you know how we did it? Do you know what we did it with? American liquefied natural gas. American liquefied natural gas. Energy independence. One way to look at it: Energy independence is America's jackpot lottery ticket. Now, we have worked hard for it, but it is our jackpot lottery ticket. But for some reason, President Biden wants to light our winning numbers on fire. He is committing energy suicide. Did I mention that? At every turn--at every turn--the Biden administration has taken steps to make it more difficult, more expensive, and sometimes flatout impossible to produce, transport, and sell the energy products we need to power this great country. These foolish policies--the latest of which is a moratorium on LNG--these foolish policies are killing American jobs. They are killing American jobs. They are driving up energy prices. They are jeopardizing our national security. And it needs to stop. Natural gas is the latest victim. President Biden's Department of Energy recently announced that it was issuing a ``pause''--a ``pause''; that is Washington-speak--a ``pause'' on all new and pending permits for liquefied natural gas export projects. Can you believe that? Liquefied natural gas--it is not complicated. America helped invent it. You just take natural gas in its gaseous form and you cool it, turn it into a liquid, put it on a ship, and you can send it all over the world. That is how we kept Europe open after Putin cut off Europe's oil and natural gas. It was a lifeline for our allies in Europe. It was a lifeline for many of our friends in West Asia. President Biden, before this moratorium, promised our allies in Europe that they could count on us for their LNG needs, and now President Biden has chosen to stab America's LNG producers and our allies in the back--not in the front, in the back--by prohibiting the development of new LNG export permits. This decision is going to kill dozens--dozens--of multibillion-dollar new terminal projects, including a project in Louisiana that we call Calcasieu Pass 2--$20 billion down the drain. Calcasieu Pass 2--a private project, a private sector project--cost $20 billion. It was set to be the largest LNG export terminal in the United States. It would have brought thousands of good jobs to Louisiana and to America. It would have produced energy to keep this country safe, to keep this country warm, and to help our friends. But President Biden has put all those jobs and the terminal itself in jeopardy. Why? Politics. To appease that neosocialist faction that I talked about who doesn't even like our country. Why? But, you know, the ironic thing about this--the whack jobs who talked the President into this said: Well, we want you to help the environment. Attacking the natural gas industry actually hurts the environment. You don't have to be an astrophysicist to figure that out. Natural gas is cleaner than coal. Natural gas is cleaner than cow chips. Natural gas is cleaner than wood. That is what millions--billions of our world's citizens are going to use if they don't have access to natural gas. As a result of natural gas--natural gas drove a 32-percent reduction in American carbon emissions. We reduced our carbon emissions by 32 percent from 2005 to 2019, and we did it with natural gas. Also, at the same time, we helped families pay half as much to heat their homes. We cut the price of the energy needs of the average American, and we created 1.4 million new jobs. The whole world wins, not loses. The whole world wins--including the economy--when Americans produce natural gas. But President Biden is going to pause all that success because some meathead activist on TikTok doesn't like natural gas. Give me a break. The President's LNG ruling is foolish. It demonstrates world-beating vacuity and deep, profound stupidity. It is also the most recent of many actions--I say regrettably, and I mean it--it is also the most recent of many actions that President Biden has taken to undermine America's energy security. Before he even took office--remember the campaign?--before he even took office, President Biden said--this is what he told the American people: ``I guarantee you. I guarantee you. We're going to end fossil fuel.'' ``I guarantee you. . . . We're going to end fossil fuel.'' Since his very first day in office, he has tried to do that, no matter how much it hurts Louisianians, no matter how much it hurts our allies and our friends, no matter how much it hurts the American people. Let me just give you a few examples. On his first day, the first day he was President, President Biden blocked the Keystone XL Pipeline. It would have made transporting crude oil from our friends in Canada safer and cleaner. It would have been good for the environment. President Biden's Department of Energy reported that canceling--his own Department said this, for God's sake-- President Biden's Department of Energy said, after he made this decision, that canceling the Keystone XL Pipeline cost 59,000 American jobs, resulted in an economic loss of $1.3 billion. Stupidity should hurt more. Next, the Biden administration blocked all oil and natural gas drilling on Federal lands. He cut off 25 percent of America's drilling rights. Then he placed restrictive emission caps on American coal and natural gas power plants that would force them to invest in costly new equipment or switch to hydrogen. Then, just recently, he canceled seven oil and gas drilling leases, ending future drilling on 10 million acres--not 10,000 acres but 10 million acres--of land in northern Alaska. Then he approved just three offshore drilling leases--the fewest number of offshore drilling sites approved by any President since leasing began in America. Now, he is not just killing fossil fuels. He told us he was going to do it, and, by God, he is doing it. But he is not just killing fossil fuel projects; he is killing projects that are essential for wind and for solar too. Wind and solar energy and the electric cars that President Biden wants Americans to drive all rely on batteries. Duh--that is why they call them electric. Those batteries require rare Earth minerals: cobalt, silver, copper, nickel. You can't just go to the Piggly Wiggly and buy those things; you have to mine them. We can mine those minerals in the United States, but once again, the Biden administration wants Louisianans and Americans to rely on countries that hate us for these minerals instead of mining for them at home. For example, President Biden recently announced a ban on all copper and nickel mining in Minnesota's boundary waters--all of them. The Biden administration's EPA also proposed a rule that would allow Governors, blue State Governors--I am looking at you, California; I am looking at you, Illinois; I am looking at you, New York--that would allow blue State Governors to block rare Earth mining permits in their States. In fact, America's only cobalt mine closed on President Biden's watch. Foolish political energy policies make life harder for Louisiana and American families. Electric prices are already up 23 percent nationwide since President Biden took office, and that is just a fact. Look it up. Go to Google. Let me say that again. Electricity prices are up 23 percent on average nationwide since President Biden took office. Gas prices are up 32 percent. They come down some, thank God, but they are still up 32 percent. While Louisianans struggle under President Biden's energy- and job- killing policies, our adversaries can't stop winning. Let's take Iran. Iran's oil imports are at a 5-year high. The Ayatollah in Iran--this guy made enough money to resume funding terrorist attacks on American bases. He is doing it all over the world. Do you know why? Because President Biden lets him. We have sanctions on Iran; the President will not enforce them. Venezuela. Let's take Venezuela, another enemy of our country. Venezuela's oil imports increased 12 percent in 2023. Do you know why? President Biden took the sanctions off of them. China is probably the biggest winner of them all. Even when President Biden tries to help the American people afford his surging energy costs, China wins. China wins. I will give you an example. The Biden administration allowed a Chinese-owned company to buy up fuel from our strategic natural petroleum reserve. We have a strategic natural petroleum reserve. We buy up oil, millions of barrels. We store that oil underground in case we need it, in case we can't get oil from anywhere else. It is our energy savings account. Well, President Biden decided to sell some. He decided to sell it. Do you know whom he sold it to? China. China. It was a move so foolish that the House and the Senate, which usually can't agree on the fact that the sky is blue, both passed bills to prevent China from ever tapping into our petroleum reserve again. You can't make this stuff up, folks. Energy independence keeps America safe; it keeps America strong; it keeps America prosperous. Louisianans--I don't know about other States, but I suspect other Americans believe like Louisianans. Louisianans do not want to rely upon the whims of our adversaries to keep our country running. We cannot let President Biden commit energy suicide--we can't--to appease the radical left, the ``loonwing,'' of his party. So I ask my colleagues to join me in pushing back against President Biden's anti-energy agenda and his moratorium on liquefied natural gas. Why? Because stupidity should hurt more. I yield the floor to my good friend from Kansas.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, with me today are two of my colleagues from my office: DJ Sandoval, who is to my right; and Mr. Wesley Davis, who is in the back. They do an extraordinary job for the people of Louisiana and the American people. You can cut the irony--the cynical might say ``the hypocrisy''; I would rather say ``the irony''--you can cut the irony with a knife. After years of presenting themselves as ``sanctuary cities,'' officials--many of them well-intentioned--throughout our country learned in 2023 that the crisis at our southern border is not just a crisis for Southern States like Texas and Arizona and even my State; it is an American crisis. Today, President Biden's failed border policies have wreaked havoc in every single corner of the United States, including my State, Louisiana. According to one estimate--and it is not the only estimate, but I think this is a very telling estimate--Louisianans pay an additional $4,613 a migrant. That is about $604 million a year in State taxes because of illegal immigration. People in Louisiana support legal immigration, just like they support the rule of law, but they do not support illegal immigration. It is not just the money. It is a moral issue for them. It is a constitutional issue--as I said, the rule of law--but it is a money issue as well. My people pay 4,613 bucks per illegal migrant. My people have to come out of pocket $604 million a year to deal with President Biden's illegal immigration. That is happening at a time when Louisiana families are also having to come out of pocket an extra $800 a month to deal with inflation--$840 a month just to deal with inflation. So that $604 million that we spend to deal with illegal immigration--not legal but illegal immigration--could provide a lot of relief to the families in my State who have to sell blood plasma in order to go to the grocery store. Sanctuary cities, to their credit, are finally starting to understand what Louisianans have figured out for a long time. In New York City, for example--and I love New York City. I think it is one of the most extraordinary cities in the world, maybe the most extraordinary. I love it. It breaks my heart to see what is happening there. In New York City, elected officials just recently had to force thousands of students to stay home--they couldn't go to school--so that thousands of migrants, illegal migrants the Biden administration allowed into the country, could have a place to stay. I mean, what have we come to? We are having to send kids home--so they can't learn--so that folks who have come to our country illegally can have a place to stay. In Massachusetts, Governor Healey asked residents to ``consider hosting'' migrant families in their homes because many shelters have reached capacity. Several suburban cities--Chicago recently voted to restrict buses from unloading illegal migrants in their cities. These suburban areas are outside of Chicago. Because the American people are compassionate people, we don't want people to starve to death or to die in the snow from hyperthermia, but at the same time, you don't get a free lunch. There is no free lunch, and you don't get one now. All of this costs money. We have, as you know, Mr. President, as many as 12,000 migrants arriving at the southern border each day. Secretary Mayorkas confirmed that the Biden administration admits more than 85 percent of these migrants into our country. Since President Biden has been President, we have had 8.6 million people that we know of come into our country illegally. That is four Nebraskas--four Nebraskas. No city in America--I don't care how well run or how mismanaged--can handle the massive influx of illegal migrants the Biden administration continues to release into America. That is just a fact. Taxpayers, students, shelter providers, hotel customers, and law enforcement officials in America are suffering because of these bad policies. They have to deal it. The White House doesn't have to deal with it; the people on our frontlines do. As you can tell, I am very concerned about the burden President Biden's policies have placed on cities throughout the country, but I want to focus today on a subset of that really terrible problem, and that is the national security threat--the national security threat-- that this problem poses to every American, including my people in Louisiana. President Biden's border policies are not just a human rights disaster, although they certainly are, but his policies have also provided the perfect cover--the perfect cover--for terrorist sympathizers, for child sex offenders, and for cartel associates to enter the country illegally. All you have to do is mix in because nobody is checking anybody. The numbers that I am about to give you will make you throw up. Border Patrol apprehended 169 members on the FBI's Terrorist Watchlist attempting to cross the southern border illegally in 2023 alone--169. It only takes one terrorist. That is more than 10 times the number of potential terrorists Border Patrol detained in the 4 years before President Biden took office. That is just a fact. The men and women who earn their spot on the FBI's Terror List do so by associating with groups that hate America. They hate our values. They hate our country. They hate our people. Many of them want to kill us and drink our blood out of a boot. Yet they are coming across the southern border. These terrorist sympathizers--in some cases, terrorists--they may be evil, but they are not stupid. They know they can blend into the masses at the border and come in unnoticed. For example, CNN reported a few months ago that someone who had worked as an ``independent contractor'' for ISIS helped smuggle more than a dozen people from Uzbekistan to our border. Overwhelmed officials at our border process each migrant's asylum claim without triggering a single red flag, not a single red flag, and then they release the whole group--every one of them--into the United States to live among innocent American citizens while they wait for their immigration court dates, which takes 4 years. Do you think even after 4 years they are going to show up for their court date? The FBI finally uncovered the problem. They finally uncovered the ties to ISIS after border officials released the group into the country. Thank the Lord that the FBI caught the mistake and caught what happened. It set off a mad search, of course, trying to track down all these individuals. The men and women of ISIS, I don't need to tell you, Mr. President, are some of the most dangerous people on Earth. I am not sure they are human. They have bloodstains under their fingernails. Americans, unfortunately, will remember that ISIS gleefully--gleefully--beheaded our citizens. The terrorist sympathizers on the FBI Watchlist certainly pose a threat to innocent Americans in Louisiana and other States, but at least we know a little bit about them. We know they hope to bring Americans harm, and we have some tools to track them. Thank goodness for that. My stomach turns, though, when I consider the thousands of migrants we know nothing about--we don't even know they have come in-- who hail from countries with millions of people who hate us. Customs and Border Protection calls these people ``special interest aliens.'' That is not my term; that is the term that CPB uses. In the past 2 years, Border Patrol has encountered 6,386 Afghans, 659 Iranians, and 538 Syrians, all trying to enter the country illegally. Border Patrol also apprehended more than 24,000 Chinese nationals in fiscal year 2023 alone. That is more Chinese immigrants than they caught in the past 10 years combined. (Mr. MARKEY assumed the Chair.) I am not saying these are all bad people. I am not saying that. I don't doubt that some of these ``special interest aliens,'' as the authorities call them, may have good intentions, may want to live the American dream. But you would be a fool--you would be a fool--to think that men like President Xi Jinping of China and the Ayatollah of Iran wouldn't exploit--happily, enthusiastically--President Biden's catch- and-release playbook to bring pain and terror to the American people. I mean, after all, we know what Mexico's cartels have done. They have been exploiting our open border to terrorize Americans for years. Their weapon of choice is fentanyl. The cartels kill tens of thousands of U.S. citizens per year by working with China to flood our communities with fentanyl. That fentanyl comes from China, and it comes from Mexico. Louisiana lost more than 1,300 people--1,300 loved ones--to fentanyl poisoning in 2022 alone. The narco-terrorists flood our communities with poison and fill their coffers with as much as $1 billion a year. And that fentanyl comes--the precursor chemicals come from China, and the fentanyl comes from Mexico. And the Mexican politicians know it is going on, and they let it happen. If you took Mexico's cartels and turned them upside down and shook them, hundreds of Mexican politicians would fall out of their pockets. And President Biden does nothing--zero, zilch, nada. In addition to fentanyl, the cartels make billions running--they run human trafficking rings. They steer the unvetted migrants to America, including many of the caravans we have seen in recent months, right into the United States. And don't think these cartels are social workers. Don't think these cartels are small businesspeople who want to make sure people get a good service for their money. These cartels--these members--they put the migrants through hell as they march them across the southern border. Predators sexually assault an estimated four out of five women. It is unsurprising, then, that many of the male migrants the cartels usher to the border are also known sex offenders. In just 2 months--just 2 months--Border Patrol agents in Texas caught 21 known child predators. In 2 months, in one State, Border Patrol caught 21 known child predators attempting to enter this country illegally. Imagine how many we don't know about. And Border Patrol apprehended 284 sex offenders in fiscal year 2023 alone. The southern border is an open, bleeding wound. Everyone suffers except the cartels. They make billions. And that is why I helped introduce the NARCOS Act earlier this year. Our bill, the NARCOS Act, would designate the Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and allow U.S. prosecutors to arrest those in charge. President Biden's border policies have already contributed to the deaths of too many Americans and too many Louisianans. It gives me no joy to say that. There are some things beyond politics. We can do better. We deserve better. The American people ask for better, but they keep getting worse. In March, for example, a cartel smuggler struck and killed a 71-year- old American grandmother and her 7-year-old granddaughter after he crashed his vehicle while trying to evade law enforcement in Texas. This illegal migrant also killed 2 of the 11 migrants he was smuggling in the back of his truck. Just last week, an illegal migrant with four prior deportations--that is right, four. Four times he came in, he got caught, he was sent back. He came in, got caught, and was sent back four times, and somehow reentered the United States only to drive drunk and kill a mother and her son in Colorado. This man had a very lengthy criminal record of not just deportations but also alcohol abuse and reckless driving. An official with Immigration and Customs Enforcement said this man had ``no regard for immigration law''--none. Yet he was able to get back into our country, drive drunk, and kill two innocent people. I am not surprised he has no regard for immigration law. ``Legal immigration and legal immigration laws are for suckers'' is the attitude of the people coming across the border. Why be vetted? Why wait? Why fill out the paperwork when President Biden and Vice President Harris will just let you walk across? I mean, how is this possible? Why can't this administration see the threat that the southern border--an open, bleeding wound--poses to the American people? I sure don't blame our overworked Border Patrol agents. I have been down there to the southern border. I have talked to them. I know that our agents are doing the very best they possibly can. But their work goes to waste, folks, when President Biden refuses to address the failed policies that have created this mess. The southern border is a cesspool of human suffering. That is just the fact. It is a national embarrassment. It is the biggest national security threat our country faces, and that is saying something. People in my State do not understand the President's commitment to keeping the border open to criminals, to sex traffickers, to drug dealers; but they do suffer because of his decisions. Now, I want to end this way, Mr. President. I think I have made my point. The American people support legal immigration. I do. I know the Presiding Officer does. I don't know this year's numbers, but last year we admitted about a million people into our country legally, our world's neighbors. This is the greatest country in all of human history, and the whole world knows it. When is the last time you heard of somebody trying to sneak into China? They want to come to America because we are the land of opportunity and we care about our fellow human beings, whether they are born in the United States or not. Sometimes people say: Oh, the American people are selfish. I get a little angry when they say that. In other countries, they will let their neighbors die in a ditch--not in America. In our country, when you are homeless, we will house you. When you are hungry, we will feed you. When you are too poor to be sick, we will pay for your doctor. And we do welcome our world's neighbors to come in legally, and I get upset when some of my colleagues--not all of them, but some people-- say: Well, Kennedy, you are racist because vetting people at the border is racist. No, it is not, Mr. President. It is prudent. I read this somewhere once--and I will end on this point--and it made great sense to me: The American people are not racist, and they are not xenophobic, and they are proud that people want to come to their country. But they want to know who is coming in and going out. The American people see the southern border like they see the front door of their home. Most Americans lock their front door at night. They don't do that because they hate everybody on the outside. Most Americans lock their front door at night because they love the people on the inside, and they just want to know who is coming in and out of their home. And that is all the American people want in terms of immigration. They support legal immigration, but they want people to be properly vetted, and they want to know who is coming in and out of their country. And, for the life of me, I don't--I don't hate anybody, Mr. President. I don't. I certainly don't hate the President, but I do not understand his policy on the border. I just don't. I hear him talk to us a lot about democracy and the rule of law. And, boy, that is important. There is not a single person in this body who doesn't believe in democracy and have respect for the rule of law. But the legal immigration laws don't just have an asterisk by them. Now, we could secure this border. We could secure it, I think, in 6 weeks. Here is what we need to do. I am not even sure it would take legislation. There are laws on the books right now; it is a fact. If you try to sneak into our country illegally and you get caught, you are supposed to be immediately deported. We need to enforce the law. No. 2, if you claim asylum under the 1951 U.N. resolution that we agreed to, you are entitled to have your asylum claim heard. But 70 percent of asylum claims fail. Once your asylum claim fails, you are supposed to be immediately deported. President Biden is deporting none of those people. No. 3, we need the ``Remain in Mexico'' program. It doesn't mean that people claiming asylum won't get their day in court. They just need to remain at home or remain in Mexico until their day in court comes. No. 4, the whole purpose of our asylum policy is to keep people from being persecuted politically. That means, if you feel unsafe in your country, you can go to another country. But the law says--the U.N. resolution and treaty to which we agreed says--if you feel like you will be prosecuted illegally in your own country, then you have to seek safety in the first safe country that you go into. That is not, for about 90 percent of our migrants, the United States. If we had a safe third country policy, which President Biden can do like that--he could do it; he could do it by 6 o'clock--that would solve about 70 to 90 percent of our problem. And for the life of me, Mr. President, I don't understand why. But I know this: We don't have the slightest idea who these millions and millions of people are, and it only takes one. It only takes one terrorist. I appreciate your patience. I yield the floor.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Two minutes, two points, Madam President. No. 1, imagine if you are a typical Louisiana middle-class family. Mom is making, let's say, $40,000 a year; Dad is making $40,000 a year. They have two children. You have a house note. You have a car note-- probably two car notes because both Mom and Dad have to get to work. You have to pay for health insurance. You have to eat. You try to save a little bit for retirement, and you try to save for your children's college education. But, basically, you are living on $80,000 a year for a family of four. All of a sudden, prices start rising, as they have. Since President Biden has been President, we have experienced 17-percent inflation. That is how much prices have gone up on average. What does that mean? We cite that number a lot. By the way, I know inflation is coming down and that is a very good thing and I am glad. I hope it stays down. But all that means is that prices are rising less quickly. It doesn't mean prices are dropping. These high prices caused by the President's inflation are going to be permanent. They are. I wish I didn't have to report that. And as a result of Bidenomics and inflation, in my State, the average family making $80,000 a year is going to have to pay an extra $800 a month because of inflation. That is an extra $10,000 a year. You are on a fixed income of $80,000 and you have to find an extra $10,000. That is happening right now to millions of Louisianians and millions of Americans. What are you going to do? Well, the first thing you are going to do is ask for a pay raise from your employer. And some of our employers have granted pay raises; and I thank them for that. But it is not how much of a pay raise you have been given that is relevant. What is relevant is how much of a pay raise you have been given vis-a-vis the inflation rate. That is why, when we look at wages, we talk about real wages. That is the amount that wages have gone up after accounting for inflation. Well, here is what they look like. Since President Biden has been President, this chart represents wages after inflation. We started up here. We are down here. They have been a little bit better lately. So most Americans who have gotten a pay raise after inflation, it doesn't count. It doesn't count. Pay raise doesn't work. It is great to have, but inflation eats it up and then some. Well, OK. That family still has to find $10,000. What do you do? You are going to borrow the money. And that is what is happening. Credit card debt--buy now, pay later--and other types of loans. Don't just take my word for it. On the last numbers we have in the third quarter of this year, credit card spending was up 9 percent at Chase Bank. It was up 15 percent at Wells Fargo. It is not just putting more money on the card that is relevant; it is also paying down the amount on the card. People are not only borrowing more on this credit card, but they are not able to pay the amount on their credit card off as quickly as they were. Unpaid loan balances have gone through the roof--16 percent at Chase Bank, up 14 percent at Wells Fargo, up 11 percent at Citigroup. People are using credit cards. They are charging more and more, and they are paying less and less on those credit cards. And they are getting deeper and deeper into the hole. What else are people doing in my State and every other State? They are raiding their savings. If you look at the numbers, personal deposits are down 3 percent year over year at Chase Bank. What does that mean? That means people are raiding their savings accounts to deal with this inflation. Personal deposits are down 5 percent at Citigroup. Personal deposits are down 10 percent at Wells Fargo and 31 percent--31 percent--in the wealth management division of Wells Fargo. My point, Madam President, is that these actions that are taken in Washington, DC, have real-life consequences for average, everyday American families on fixed incomes. As a result of this inflation, which is coming down--but the high prices are permanent--people are having to borrow and people are having to raid their savings. And it is clearly a cancer on the American journey. Point 2, Madam President. A month or so ago, the Congress passed a resolution. It passed here in the Senate--for us, overwhelmingly--53 to 43. We passed that resolution on the Congressional Review Act. What did we do? Well, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau--we call it the CFPB--it is where common sense is illegal. Common sense, I think--I know--is illegal at the CFPB. CFPB comes up with these nuggets every week. If you ever want to understand why the American people hate the Federal Government, just look at the output of the CFPB. I mean it. Common sense is illegal there. One of their last nuggets, they put out a resolution. The title of it was called ``Small Business Lending Under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, Resolution B.'' And the Senate said no to this resolution. We said, no, can't do it, 53 to 43. And the House followed it by saying no to the CFPB, 221 to 202. I am very proud of the Senate. Thank you, colleagues. I am very proud of the House. Unfortunately, President Biden has vetoed it. If I didn't know better, I would think that the President is auditioning to become the President of an Ivy League university, because let me tell you what this resolution will do unless we override the President's veto. Once again, you are a small business woman or small business man. You need a loan. Maybe you need a loan to grow your business; maybe you need a loan to sustain your business. You go to your community bank. You say, I need to borrow some money. You submit your financials. The bank does its job. It does accurate underwriting, but before the bank can make a decision under this new CFPB rule, where common sense is illegal, the small banker has got to turn to that applicant and say: Look, I have to ask you a bunch of questions. I don't want to, but CFPB says I have to before I can grant your loan, so please bear with me. Now, the small business woman or small business man is sitting there, things have been going pretty well. That small business person is feeling warm and toasty, thinking, I am going to get my loan, and I am going to be able to keep my business going and keep my people employed. But all it sounds like to me, there is a hitch here because my banker is being very apologetic, and I can tell he is upset about this, but I am going to try to help him and comply. So the small banker says: OK. Let's get going. I have got to ask you 81 questions. And the banker from the small bank starts with this small business person. First question: Are you female? Next: Are you male? Are you Black? Are you White? Are you mixed race? Are you another race? Are you Hispanic? Are you a homosexual? Are you a lesbian? Are you gay? Now, remember, this is probably a small town in a community bank with a small business woman and a small business man applying for a loan. And the CFPB, our Federal Government, is telling the small banker, You have got to ask these questions. The questions continue. The small banker looks the small business woman in the eye and says: Are you bisexual? Are you transgender? Are you queer? Are you intersex? And on and on and on. Now, that small business woman--it could be a small business man--is going to have a couple of reactions. First, she is going to be thinking, What in God's name has happened to my country? What in God's name has happened to the Federal Government? And the second emotion she is probably going to feel is anger. What business is it of the CFPB--what business does the CFPB have in knowing what I do in my bedroom? It is none of its business. But the other notion that small business woman is probably going to have is fear because she needs this loan and, if she looks that small banker in the eye and says, It is none of your business whether I am gay or straight. It is none of your business what I do in the privacy of my bedroom with a consenting adult. It is none of the government's business, that small business woman is going to be thinking, Man, if I do that, he could deny my loan. It is not the fault of the small banker; it is the fault of us in Washington, DC. It is the fault of Joe Biden because he has vetoed this resolution. He is saying to the world: It is OK for small banks in America to be required--be required--to turn to a small business woman applying for a loan and say: Are you a lesbian? Are you gay? Are you bisexual? Are you transgender? And after they answer or don't answer, all of that information is sent to a Federal Agency, the CFPB, which has a data breach about every other Thursday. This is insanity. And today, in about 10 minutes, I am going to ask this body to override President Biden's veto. If you believe in fairness, if you believe in privacy, if you believe in the freedom of the American people, if you have taken your meds today, if you have any semblance of common sense left, you will see that this proposal by President Biden is like a rock, only dumber. I can't think of a better example why the American people have come to hate the Federal Government, and I can't think of a better example to explain to people why President Biden's poll numbers are on a journey to the center of the earth. It is stuff like this.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. I yield the floor.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, look, I understand Senator Wyden's point of view. I don't think he meant this, but I don't want to leave anyone with the impression that he didn't know about this bill and that all of my colleagues didn't know about this bill. We have something called a hotline. And when we have a bill and we want to try to move it on the floor, we, through this hotline, notify well in advance every Senator: Hey, Kennedy is coming to the floor at this time, on this day, with his bill. If you object to it, you can come down and object. That hotline was sent to Senator Wyden. It was sent to all the other 98 of my colleagues. It was sent to every single Senator, and we do hotlines every day. So if he was surprised, I am sorry. But that is between him and his staff. Point two, I appreciate Senator Wyden's point of view. He is a smart gentleman. He is smart enough to know this has nothing to do with wealthy tax cheats. This has to do with safe seafood for the American people. The bill would have cost $36 million. It would come from the IRS. No Republican Senator voted for it. My Democratic colleagues gave the IRS $80 billion extra--$80 billion extra--to go out and audit the American people. This will take $36 million of it to make sure that they are still alive when the IRS audits them because they may not be eating dangerous shrimp full of antibiotics. Does the IRS need all $80 billion? Of course not. How do I know that? Don't take Kennedy's word for it. Take the word of the gentleman who asked us to pass the bill: President Biden. He has already told us the IRS doesn't need the full $80 billion. He offered up $20 billion to us for this year's budget to spend on other things. So the idea that the world is going to spin off its axis--and wealthy tax cheats and all of this other foolishness--is just not accurate. I say that with all respect to my colleague, Senator Wyden. I will be back. For $36 million, we can protect the American people. I can promise you that the seafood board will spend that money better than the Internal Revenue Service. That is faint praise, but I can promise you that will happen. My final point, I appreciate the opportunity to present this bill. Be careful what you eat, particularly if it is imported seafood. I am not kidding you. If you are eating seafood, given the statistics, you are probably eating foreign seafood, and this stuff can be dangerous. I mean it. Some of this product has enough antibiotics in it that you will grow an extra ear. And you don't want that. The best way to be safe is to eat domestic seafood--good old American seafood. But if you don't, if you are going to eat foreign seafood, be very, very careful. I will be back with a very commonsense approach to try to solve that problem, and I am sorry we couldn't do it today. Thank you, Mr. President, for your time, and I thank Senator Wyden. And I wish both of you a Merry, Merry Christmas.