Bernie Moreno

Mr. MORENO

Mr. MORENO. Mr. President, I have been in the U.S. Senate now for a total of 125 days. I have seen some outrageous comments over the last 125 days. My colleague has been here exactly 12,000 days more than I have. Let me just set the record straight. On October 7, 2023, families, mothers, fathers were sitting at home, enjoying a peaceful existence in one of the most difficult places on Earth to live. They had a day planned of joy at a festival. What happened? People came over and savagely--savagely--murdered children, raped women, took hundreds of hostages, killed more Jews than at any time since the Holocaust. What you just heard for the last 15 minutes could be summarized as the absolute propaganda of Hamas. Let me just be clear. This war was started by Hamas. It could end today by Hamas if they released every last hostage, including an American citizen. We are sitting here in the U.S. Senate and not even saying a word of the fact that there is a U.S. citizen being held hostage by a terrorist group in the Middle East. That is outrageous. That should be at the top of the agenda. Why have civilians been killed in Gaza? Because they hide weapons in hospitals, in schools, in homes. Hamas is the enemy, not our greatest ally, which is Israel. I was just there 2 weeks ago. Two weeks ago, I was there. There is almost no Israeli that hasn't seen a mom, a dad, a son, a grandson, granddaughter that hasn't been either injured or killed to protect their country. The fact that we are disparaging our greatest ally at this level is completely outrageous. I had plans to go home, see my wife and kids, but I rose today because I cannot stay silent after listening to that kind of nonsense spewed here in the U.S. Senate. It is a disgrace, and we should not ever forget that Israel is just fighting the war that we would otherwise fight. I yield the floor.

Mr. MORENO

Mr. MORENO. Reserving the right to object, think about some numbers. I was 5 years old when I came to this country from South America, 18 when I became a citizen. Since that time, there have been 10 Presidents of the United States of America and only one that actually had the guts and the courage to stand up for working Americans. We lost 90,000 factories in this country. If you take the logic of my colleague, let's shut down all of our factories and send manufacturing to the lowest wage countries on Earth that employ slave wages, that have massive government subsidies, and gut out what is left of the American manufacturing ecosystem. Of course, that is completely illogical. But that is almost what we have done over the last four to five decades. You drive through Ohio, Dayton was the computing capital of the world; you go to Toledo, it was the glass capital of the world; Youngstown, the steel capital of America; Akron, the rubber capital of the world. Today, these cities are working to get past what they have gone through. But as I went on the campaign trail against a Democrat that always claimed to be on the side of the working men but then saw what their policies enacted, we beat him soundly. I urge my Democratic colleagues to go back to your original North Star. The point of the Democratic Party for decades, as far as I knew, was that you were for the working men and women of this country. But that is not the Democratic Party today. They are the party of electric vehicle mandates, against tariffs, against fringe social issues. If we want to talk about the specific resolution, look, there is no greater ally ever in the history of the United States of America with Israel than President Donald J. Trump. Every single Republican last week voted against Bernie Sanders' resolution to block arms sales to Israel. Fifteen Democrats voted to kneecap them while in the middle of a war. When we talk about Israel, they have already negotiated a situation with President Trump. So let's talk about Ukraine. This is a country that both sides of the aisle--shockingly to me, quite honestly--have given hundreds of billions of dollars to this country of Ukraine when we have enormous needs in our country. What do we get in return? They impose a tax of 20 percent or more on our goods that we send there. Let me repeat that. We sent them hundreds of billions of dollars in aid, and then when we send them our products, they add a tax on our imports. Look, President Trump is doing a masterful job of negotiating with countries and with companies to finally do what should have been done a long time ago, which is to rebuild this country from the inside out. So for the reasons that President Trump laid out last week that we are going to rebuild this country with American hands, with American hearts, and with American pride, it is with that sentiment that I, therefore, object.

Mr. MORENO. I actually read the resolution. Again, I will repeat it. There is no greater friend of Israel's in the White House, ever in the history of the United States of America, than Donald J. Trump. He negotiated with these countries. We need to give him the latitude in terms of negotiating with these countries. In terms of bipartisan, go back through the record in the last 90 days and see almost the complete block voting on everything, including we have two votes coming up and another two votes at the end of the day. Let's see if there is one Democrat that doesn't vote in total unison with their party. Look at the Republican side. We are much more freethinkers and we have differences of opinion and that comes out when we vote. When we talk about bipartisanship, I hope the Democrats get to a point where they are willing to work with us on common sense. I had a bill that I presented to the floor about 3 weeks ago. Here is what it said: If you come into this country illegally, you can't claim asylum. And if you do, you invalidate your right for asylum for life, and you must only claim asylum at a designated port of entry. This is a 90-10 issue. Democrats blocked that. I want to work in a bipartisan manner. I think the American public demands that we do. But when every Democrat votes in total and complete lockstep with their leadership every single time to block any progress, we are going to be unable to do that. I yield the floor.

Mr. MORENO

Mr. MORENO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate resume legislative session and be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. MORENO

Mr. MORENO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 159, which is at the desk.

Mr. MORENO. I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. MORENO

Mr. MORENO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 160, which is at the desk.

Mr. MORENO. I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. MORENO

Mr. MORENO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 10 a.m. on Tuesday, April 8; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each; further, that notwithstanding rule XXII, all postcloture time with respect to Executive Calendar No. 56, Elbridge Colby, be deemed expired and, at 11:30 a.m., the Senate proceed to executive session and resume consideration of the Colby nomination and the Senate vote on confirmation of the nomination; further, that the cloture motions filed on Saturday, April 5, ripen following confirmation of the Colby nomination; that following the confirmation vote on the Colby nomination, the Senate vote on the motion to invoke cloture on Calendar No. 54, George Glass; that if cloture is invoked on the Glass nomination, the Senate recess until 2:15 p.m. to allow for the weekly conference meetings; further, that at 2:15 p.m., the Senate vote on confirmation of the Glass nomination; that following disposition of the Glass nomination, the Senate vote on the motion to invoke cloture on Calendar No. 67, Mike Huckabee; finally, that if any nominations are confirmed during Tuesday's session, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

Mr. MORENO

Mr. MORENO. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it stand adjourned under the provisions of S. Res. 159.

Mr. MORENO

Mr. MORENO. I ask that the previously scheduled rollcall vote begin immediately.

Mr. MORENO

Mr. MORENO. Mr. President, with great honor, I stand before you. As you know, I have been in this Chamber for 10 weeks, and it is one of the greatest honors of my life to represent the people of Ohio here in the U.S. Senate. It is especially an honor because I wasn't born in this country. I was born in Bogota, Colombia. My mom and dad moved myself, my sister, and my five brothers to America to find a different opportunity, a better opportunity. We are part of a long line of immigrants that come to this country to make this country stronger and to make this country better and to live our version of the American dream. We know what happened, Mr. President, over the last 4 years at our southern border. It was a total and complete disgrace. It is a disgrace not just because of the unlimited amount of people that came into this country--almost 10 million encounters over a 4-year period--but it is a disgrace because that is not how we should welcome people to this Nation. We should not have people who want to come to America pay a drug cartel to smuggle them across Mexico, raped along the way, beaten along the way, every last cent that they have robbed from them and their families, and then smuggled into the country, and then charged even more money when they think the journey is over. In some cases, the people come into the interior of the country and have to pay back enormous sums of money so that cartel members don't come into the country and find them and kill them or kill their family members back home. That is no way to have people come to this country. Now, if you look at this chart--it is a very famous chart because President Trump referred to it at his rally--you can see immigration is not a new issue in this country. We have had a problem for a long, long time. President Trump took office, and he put in place right here an Executive order. What that Executive order did is it said: Hey, you can only claim asylum at a legal port of entry. So if you cross a river, if you scale a wall, if you go through a tunnel, you can't claim asylum once you get to the other side because, as we know, asylum is for refugees, people who are fleeing dangerous situations because of their race, their religion, or their political beliefs. When he put that in place, look what happened--a total collapse of border encounters. Now, President Trump left office, Joe Biden rescinded that Executive order, and we saw what happened--a massive spike in illegal crossings, devastating our Border Patrol agents. Our Border Patrol agents were totally outmanned. They were completely overwhelmed and unable to do their jobs. Now, in the political season, Joe Biden put in place the exact same Executive order. What did that Executive order say? You can only claim asylum at a legal port of entry. If you enter through a nondesignated port of entry, you are immediately returned. Look what happened-- another massive drop. Now, here, President Trump took office and is now actively returning anybody who comes through in a nondesignated port of entry, and we are down to 8,326 border crossings in 1 month. At the peak of Biden, that number was almost 350,000. We didn't have to pass a law. We didn't have to hire new Border Patrol agents. We didn't need new equipment. We honestly didn't even need more wall. We needed better policy. Mr. President, I campaigned to run for the U.S. Senate for 2 years. During that 2-year period of time, I drove to every corner of my incredible State. I drove to every corner of Ohio, and to a man or a woman, the voters would tell me: Please go down to Washington, DC, and do something. The American people want to have faith and confidence that their leaders are actually able to come together and accomplish legislation that is purely common sense. So I present to you today a very simple bill--very simple bill. We don't have to boil the ocean. We don't have to reinvent the wheel. It is very simple. It says: If you are an asylum seeker, you must file a claim for asylum at a legal port of entry. If you are going to come to America and you are seeking asylum, do it at a legal port of entry. No release of asylum applicants into the interior of the country. We are going to follow the law. We are going to have them wait in the prior country and--180 days, which is currently the law, which is being violated. Sometimes, it is 5 or 6 years. But they wait until their asylum claim is heard. There is no second chance. Once we have identified that you have a fake asylum claim, then you can no longer claim asylum ever again. And anyone who enters the United States illegally is banned from claiming asylum. We welcome people into our homes every day. We don't let people break through our windows to come see us because that is insane. Now, I know that my Democrat colleagues are in a mode where they want to fight everything that we are doing, Mr. President, but we should at least come together on this. As I look over at my Democrat colleague, there are only two of us-- two of us--in this entire Chamber who are naturalized U.S. citizens. We know firsthand what it means to be able to be accepted by this country. Ninety-eight were born here; two of us were not. We became citizens of this country, and we got the ultimate opportunity to represent this country in the U.S. Senate. Let's come together one time and show the American people we don't have to fight about everything; we can actually accomplish commonsense legislation. Let's put in code--let's put in legislation those Executive orders that not once, not twice, but three times have been proven to reduce border encounters. I can't imagine that my Democrat colleagues will fight this, and I hope that somebody who has been here for 10 weeks as opposed to my colleagues--some of them have been here for two or three decades, fail to understand that the American people are watching. The American people want to have a Senate and a House and a government that can actually do something that matters a lot to them. So I will yield to my Democrat colleague from Hawaii. And I implore you, let's show leadership together, you and I. Let's show this leadership and get a very, very simple bill accomplished. Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of S. 200; and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, I ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be made and laid upon the table.

Mr. MORENO. If I could just go back and just reiterate a couple points for my colleague. The Executive order went in, border crossings dropped. President Biden--President Biden-- put in place the exact same Executive order that, in effect, is this exact legislation. Border crossings dropped. I am confused by my colleague's explanation about the Ukrainian refugees. If they are coming from Ukraine and they are entering through a legal port of entry, that is when they would claim asylum. I don't think we have a scenario where we are asking Americans or legal residents to apply for asylum because, if you are already in the interior of the country, that decision was already made. So if you are the Ukrainian family that you talked about, you claim asylum at the legal port of entry. The law says--which we are not following; this body refuses to enforce its own laws--is that we will adjudicate that claim in 180 days. I absolutely never said they would be arrested. In fact, nothing in this bill mentions being arrested, but what it says is they must wait in the prior safe country. So in the case of Ukraine, they can go to France, apply for asylum there, wait 180 days, and then we will welcome them with open arms to America--the right way, the legal way. I hope my colleague is not hoping for a scenario where that Ukrainian family goes to Mexico City, pays a drug cartel member a few thousand dollars to get smuggled across the border, across a river with a family where the children--who knows what can happen to them. That is how you want refugees to come to this country? That doesn't even make any sense. There is nobody being arrested by this bill. There is nobody being detained by this bill. It is exactly the opposite. We are asking the refugee to wait in the prior safe country for 180 days, which is the law; and then once your claim is adjudicated, we welcome you with open arms. My colleague mentioned that there is 3.6 million cases backlogged. That is true. It is a stunning and shameful number. What she doesn't mention is that 90-plus percent of those cases, a judge rules, once they get to it in 5 or 6 or 7 years, that it is an invalid asylum claim. It doesn't mean that they are not economic migrants. It doesn't mean that they are somebody who may want to come to this country. But they are people who are clearly not refugees. Not my thoughts, the thoughts of immigration judges that are making this decision over and over again. But only in Washington, DC, only when you have been here so long that your head can't see straight do you think it is a better idea to have unlimited amounts of fake asylum claims. And the way you handle that, instead of changing the law, is to hire thousands of more judges to give the answer you already know, to waste taxpayer dollars that way. My colleagues talk about Republicans being on the side of billionaires. You know what billionaires the Democrats have created? The drug cartel members that are making billions of dollars smuggling people. I went to a border crossing in Del Rio, TX. A border patrol agent let me come right to the edge of the river. I saw four people come across-- two men, two women. The minute they landed, they got on their knees and said, ``Asilo, asilo,'' which is ``asylum'' in Spanish. I asked if they knew what that meant. They said no, but that is what the drug cartel had told them to say the minute they landed in America. They are not refugees. Why are you making those Ukrainian families wait behind economic migrants claiming fake asylum claims? Look, this is what is wrong with Washington, DC. This is an easy, obvious fix. The data proves it out. You put that law in place, border crossings drop. Biden, Trump, they put the exact Executive order in place. Now, you don't have to take my word for it. On CBS just yesterday, Face the Nation--wake up on a beautiful Sunday and turn on Face the Nation. Margaret Brennan asked Congressman Suozzi--I apologize if I pronounced his name wrong. Margaret Brennan said to the Congressman: [I]llegal border crossings, as we just discussed, they are at a historic low. President Trump made that point when he was addressing Congress this week. Was he right that . . . he didn't need to wait for Congress? We didn't need comprehensive immigration reform. [Was he right] that it really was messaging from the White House beyond? This is what a Democrat, a Democrat from New York says: Well, obviously-- Keyword, ``obviously''-- we've seen a reduction in crossings. Why is it obvious? Because we know this works. We know that if we make asylum only at a legal port of entry, 180 days to process, can't claim it if you cross illegally--we know, obviously. His words: Well, obviously we've seen a reduction in crossings. We saw it under [Biden at the end of his administration] . . . after he did his executive order to say, no, asylum applications are between the ports of entry. But we need to make it permanent law. Democrat Member of the House of Representatives: But we need to make it permanent law. I guess after 10 weeks in the U.S. Senate, I should expect that everything has to be hard. Everything has to be a battle. But I can tell you, people all over this country, the people who don't watch C- SPAN 24/7, the people who don't go on X and read every last debate between their elected Members--they are just regular Americans who want to enjoy their lives, who pay taxes--cannot understand why we can't come together on something so incredibly simple, so easy. The Democrat President did it. The Republican President did it. It works. This is not theoretical. And to my colleague, I don't want those Ukrainian refugees waiting behind millions of economic migrants. It is not fair to them. Why would we do that? I yield the floor.

Mr. MORENO. I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of S. 200; and that the bill be placed on the legislative calendar.

Mr. MORENO

Mr. MORENO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate resume legislative session for a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. MORENO

Mr. MORENO. Mr. President, I understand that there is a bill at the desk, and I ask for its first reading.

Mr. MORENO. I now ask for a second reading, and in order to place the bill on the calendar under the provisions of rule XIV, I object to my own request.

Mr. MORENO

Mr. MORENO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand in recess until 10 a.m. on Tuesday, March 11; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate proceed to executive session and resume consideration of Calendar No. 26; further, that at 11:45 a.m., the Senate vote on cloture on the Bradbury nomination; that following the cloture vote, the Senate recess until 2:15 p.m. to allow for the weekly conference meetings; and that at 2:15 p.m., if cloture is invoked, the Senate vote on confirmation of the Bradbury nomination, followed by cloture of the Slater nomination; further, that if cloture is invoked on the Slater nomination, that all time be expired and that the Senate vote on confirmation at 5:15 p.m.; finally, if any nominations are confirmed during Tuesday's session, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

Mr. MORENO

Mr. MORENO. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it stand in recess under the previous order.

Mr. MORENO

Mr. MORENO. For the information of all Senators, Senators should expect a vote to proceed to Calendar No. 15, S.J. Res. 11, Senator Kennedy's CRA, at approximately 12 noon tomorrow.

Mr. MORENO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 10 a.m. on Tuesday, February 25; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, morning business be closed, and the Senate proceed to executive session to resume consideration of Executive Calendar No. 21, Daniel Driscoll, to be the Secretary of the Army; further, that at 11:15 a.m., the Senate execute the order of February 24 with respect to the Driscoll nomination and that following disposition of the Driscoll nomination, the Senate resume legislative session and the majority leader be recognized; finally, if a motion to proceed to Calendar No. 15, S.J. Res. 11, is made, that following the vote on that motion, the Senate recess until 2:15 p.m. to allow for the weekly conference meetings, and that if the motion is agreed to, all time during recess count equally between proponents and opponents.

Mr. MORENO

Mr. MORENO. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. MORENO

Mr. MORENO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate resume legislative session and be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. MORENO

Mr. MORENO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 92, which was submitted earlier today.

Mr. MORENO. I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.