Jeff Sessions

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, what I believe we should do, and the purpose of the amendment that I offered and am hoping we will be able to get accepted in some fashion, is modest, but it is an important step. It will require that $51 million be set aside in the underlying bill that is before us today for section 287(g) training; that is, training State and local law enforcement officers to be of assistance to Federal immigration officers, and that $2.5 million of the $51 million could be used to reimburse State and local training expenses. Now, there are 65 pending training agreements out there right now, some of which are being executed and some of which are waiting to be executed. I would like to explain why I think this is important, fair, and commonsensical. It is something we should do. Section 133 of the Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act of 1996 is codified as section 287(g), the Immigration and Nationality Act, the INA, and it has commonly been known as the 287(g) program. Under this program, States and localities can ask the Department of Homeland Security to enter into a memorandum of understanding. That is like a treaty between the State and the Department of Homeland Security. They enter into these agreements. The Presiding Officer, as a former U.S. attorney, knows how these MOUs are. They enter into these agreements, and the agreements essentially provide that their local law enforcement officers be cross- trained to work with Customs enforcement. The program clearly has not expanded at the pace we originally envisioned, but the tide is beginning to turn as to these issues and how we deal with the problem of illegal aliens. So today the number of illegal aliens in the United States is a staggering number. It is estimated at between 10 million to 12 million, with another estimated 800,000 arriving in our country each year. Last year, we arrested over 1 million. One solution to address the problem is to increase partnerships between Federal immigration authorities and State and local authorities through such programs as the 287(g) program. It is something I know a little bit about. I was a U.S. attorney in Alabama for 12 years. I was attorney general for 2 years, and I traveled around the State and met with local law enforcement officers as attorney general and as U.S. attorney. Since I have become a Senator, I have asked them about how things work if they apprehend somebody they believe to be illegally in our country. Let me tell my colleagues what they tell me without virtually any exception, except as we are seeing through this 287(g) program. But, fundamentally, what they have been telling me is they let them go. That is not just true in Alabama; it is true all over America. Local law enforcement officials who apprehend people they have every reason to believe--maybe absolute proof--that they are here illegally routinely are allowing the people they apprehend--maybe it is DUI, maybe it is for an accident or whatever, a domestic dispute--whatever it is, they are letting them go because somehow they have gotten the message that nobody will come and pick them up, and they don't know how to do it or who to call and what the processes are. That is what the 287(g) program is designed to deal with. Now, it has been odd to me since I have sought to do something about this for quite some time, well before the comprehensive immigration reform bill was introduced in this Senate over a number of years ago to deal with it, there is always an objection. It was out of that objection that I made the comment one time that people will vote for any kind of immigration reform, as long as it is a reform that would not work. If you produce something that will actually work and actually help the system get better and more lawful, somebody objects. It becomes a big deal. So I think this is a commonsensical thing. Our State and local officers are in the best position on a daily basis to come in contact with those unlawfully present here. We don't have Federal ICE agents, immigration agents throughout the country. Border Patrol people are just on the border. If you can get past the border--and that is one of the attractions of trying to get past the border--if you can get past it, you have a pretty good chance of being home free for some time. I think we have about 5,000 Federal ICE immigration agents inside our country, but only about 2,000 of those are actively involved in enforcement operations. We have 600,000 to 800,000 State and local law enforcement officers, sheriffs, police officers, State troopers. They are out there on the roads every day. Now, this bill and the training it provides on a 287(g) does not train and does not ask that the State and local officers do anything they don't want to do. They will not be compelled to participate in anything they choose not to participate in. It is a voluntary participation agreement. They are not called upon to participate in conducting raids to try to identify and find people who might be here illegally. Our goal would be to provide a situation in which they could assist the ICE officers during the course of their ordinary duties. If they come upon someone likely to be an illegal alien, they would take the proper steps, after they have been trained, to identify whether they are, in fact, illegal and take the appropriate steps in conjunction with ICE to handle it in the proper manner. Because of an interest I had in it for some time, the State of Alabama, I am proud to say, became the second State in the Nation to enter into one of these agreements. Our Governor, Bob Riley, thought it was the right thing to do. He is an excellent Governor. He took steps to do it some years ago. To date, we have trained 60 State troopers in 3 classes of 20 each, and the Federal Government trained these troopers at the Center for Domestic Preparedness in Anniston, AL. But let me tell my colleagues what happened to the State as a result of their partnership and willingness to assist the Federal Government. They have to pick up the costs of this training. Each class costs Alabama an average of $40,000, for a total of $120,000 in State money, all designed to help ensure that our State troopers are knowledgeable on all of the correct, fair, just, and legal ways to deal with illegal entrants into our country, and to be able to assist the Federal agents in doing their duties. I think one reason we have seen a fairly slow expansion of the 287(g) program is the fact that it costs the States a bunch of money. Now we have $51 million set aside here in this program for training. But they are not paying any of it, apparently, as of this date to refund the States for their costs of training. It takes some number of weeks in this training--more than I think is justified. It is 6 weeks, my counsel tells me. It is 6 weeks that they have to go through a training program. I have to tell my colleagues, if you go through any town in the country, whether it is Alabama or anywhere else, and you are a Senator, and you are speeding through that town and you are drunk, some 19-year- old, 20-year-old police officer can put you in jail, put your rear end in the Bastille. He doesn't have to have special training on how to arrest a Senator. But we are going to give special training to our local police officers on how to arrest somebody who is not even a citizen of the United States of America. That is what Homeland Security wants and that is what they believe. Six weeks, in my view, is too much, for heaven's sake. But they want 6 weeks of training and they make them cross designated and very intense partners in this program. But if you take a police officer off the streets for 6 weeks, that is a drain on the State and local police departments, and we ought to be able to compensate them some for it, in my view. Let me tell you what happened in my State. It has been rather remarkable. In the first 18 months of operation, the Alabama MOU has resulted in the seizure of over $689,000 in cash in connection with criminal immigration offenses. Pretty good action there. As of last year, the training of those troopers had already resulted in 54 indictments, including those for illegal entry, false claims to citizenship, fraudulent documents, and visa fraud. It resulted in 33 convictions, including Social Security fraud, prior deported aggravated felons, and visa fraud. These are in Federal Court, not State court. You cannot try people in State court for immigration offenses. They are picked up by the Federal prosecutors and they have to meet some seriousness standard before they would actually be prosecuted in Federal Court. In addition to those I mentioned, there are six Federal charges pending disposition, including aliens with firearms. There are 13 Federal charges pending indictment. So this is a matter that has the potential to help us identify those who are here illegally and those who may pose a threat to our country. It could well be that the next person planning an attack somewhere in the United States may be one of those picked up because, as we know, of the 18 hijackers, several of them were picked up--some more than once--by State and local officers. But they had no way to access or did not access the actual history of these individuals to find out whether they were here legally and might otherwise be subject to arrest. If that had occurred and our system had worked effectively, it is conceivable that the case could have been broken before 9/11 occurred. The 9/11 Commission did point out that we need to do a far better job in this area. The 9/11 Commission recommended we implement State and Federal training and law enforcement cooperation and enhance that ability. That was one of their firm recommendations. We have not done that to any significant degree at this point. The first State to be accepted with an MOU was Florida. They also have a history of an effective program under 287(g). The ICE program provides local law enforcement with comprehensive training and, once certified, the officers remain basically under ICE's supervision under all matters relating to immigration. To address concerns voiced by immigrant interest groups, Federal, State, and local enforcement have engaged in significant outreach efforts with local immigrant communities and have not engaged in sweeps for undocumented aliens. One of the greatest testaments to the success of a program is that in no instance has a complaint been filed against law enforcement officers as a result of the actions under this memorandum of understanding. It has gone extremely well without the kind of complaints that people have suggested might happen, and it has been an asset to the Federal Government and should be continued. It is already part of our law. We have provisions that allow for it. We have money set aside--$51 million in one area and $5 million in another area--but we don't have provisions to help the States defray the cost of their training. Now, I will remind my colleagues of some of the objective reports since 9/11 that are important to us. One is the Hart-Rudman report. The report is entitled ``America Still Unprepared--America Still in Danger.'' They found that one problem America still confronts is that ``700,000 local and State police officers continue to operate in a virtual intelligence vacuum, without access to terrorist watchlists.'' The first recommendation of the report was to ``tap the eyes and ears of local and State law enforcement officers in preventing attacks.'' On page 19, the report specifically cited the burden of finding hundreds of thousands of fugitive aliens living among the population of more than 8.5 million illegal aliens living in the United States. They suggested that the burden could and should be shared with the 700,000 local, county, and State law enforcement officers if they can be brought out of the information void. The final report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, the 9/11 Commission, released in the summer of 2004, also recognized the important role of State and local law enforcement officers in immigration law enforcement. Again, let me remind you, we have only a couple of thousand actively engaged Federal investigators inside our country to actually enforce immigration law. So how do we expect to intercept some of the individuals who may be plotting this very moment to attack? They may be here with false documents, or they may have gotten into the country legally and overstayed. How are we going to find them if we don't welcome the participation of State and local law enforcement officers? In the 9/11 Commission report, the section titled ``Immigration Law and Enforcement,'' the Commission found this: [T]oday, more than 9 million people are in the United States outside the legal immigration system. Some say it is 12 million, but they say more than 9. Nobody can dispute that. They continue: There is a growing role for State and local law enforcement agencies. They need more training and work with Federal agencies so they can cooperate more effectively with those Federal authorities. . . . To achieve that necessary collaboration, we must first clarify the authority delegated to each level of law enforcement and make it clear that State and local officers have authority to and are welcome to participate actively in the enforcement of immigration law. My amendment will do that. It is something that is overdue, and we should do it. I remain a bit baffled by the objections that continue to be raised on this. I had occasion last year to participate with my chief counsel, who is here with me--Cindy Hayden--to prepare a law review article for the Stanford Law Review on the question of the authority of State and local law enforcement officers. It is somewhat complex, but it is not disputed that State and local law enforcement have the authority to detain people who have come into our country illegally across our borders. They cannot prosecute them. They can detain them only for a reasonable period of time. They have to turn them over to Federal agencies. But they are able, with regard to criminal immigration offenses, to conduct such detentions as a complement to and as a part of their historic ability to assist in the enforcement of existing Federal law--and, indeed, citizens can make citizen arrests for violations in some instances. This has been a part of the law. What is somewhat confused is that we have perhaps 40 percent of the people enter into our country legally, but overstay. Maybe that large a percentage of our illegal population are visa overstays. The Court of Appeals in California--our Nation's clearly most liberal, the Ninth Circuit--concluded that local officers do not have the authority to detain those visa overstayers. If you break across the border, that is clearly a criminal offense and detention can be had for that, they say, but not for the others. Two other circuits--the Tenth and Fifth--seem to indicate otherwise. The Department of Justice did a memorandum at one point that said there was not authority for the detention of people in our country who have not committed criminal violations of immigration law. Then that opinion was withdrawn. So the matter is confusing. There was an article in the Washington Times newspaper about it yesterday. The article quoted one of the people as saying there are gray areas here. There was an article in the Huntsville, AL, newspaper about a meeting with the police and the lawyers and the city council about what they could do to participate in the enforcement of laws with regard to those in our country illegally. The lawyers told them there is some confusion there. Well, it is not hard for us to clear up that confusion. The House of Representatives tried to do it in their first bill last year, so they made it a felony to overstay and enter the country illegally. That resulted in an uproar and people saying we are going to make felons of them and that was awful, so there was a big retreat from that. We have to figure out the best way to proceed with it. My view is two things need to occur. We need better training of our State and local law enforcement that goes into their existing power so they know what they are able to do and they don't overreach; second, we need to pass legislation. But this is an appropriations bill and we cannot legislate on an appropriations bill. We are not able to offer an amendment that would change or would clarify what the powers of the local law enforcement are. We should make it quite clear that they have the power to detain anyone in our country illegally. They can detain a Governor. They can detain a mayor. They can detain a Senator. Why can't they detain somebody who is not a citizen and is in the country illegally? What do the American people think about this? Americans strongly value our heritage as a nation of immigrants. Americans openly welcome legal immigrants and new citizens. They value the character, the ability, the decency, and the strong work ethic of so many of those who have come to our country. However, it is also clear that Americans do not feel the same way about those who violate our laws. The fact is, a large majority feel that State and local governments should be aiding the Federal Government in stopping illegal immigration. A Roper poll titled ``Americans Talk About Illegal Immigration'' found that 88 percent of Americans agree and 68 percent strongly agree that Congress should require State and local government agencies to notify INS, now ICE, and their local law enforcement when they determine that a person is here illegally or who has presented fraudulent documentation. Additionally, 85 percent of Americans agree and 62 percent strongly agree that Congress should pass a law requiring State and local governments and law enforcement agencies to apprehend and turn over to the INS illegal immigrants with whom they come in contact. So this amendment I have offered is far less reaching. Those numbers speak volumes about the instincts and the understanding of the American people about the enforcement of laws in America. It is important to note that these responses were collected in response to questions about requiring State and local law enforcement action. The amendment I have offered does not require that, although it is mightily frustrating to see cities and certain jurisdictions open, call themselves sanctuary bodies, and assert to the whole world that not only will they not help in any way to enforce the law but will, in fact, not cooperate with the enforcement of Federal laws in their jurisdiction. To me that is inexcusable. It is an affront to our history as a lawful society, and I am troubled by it. Again, the first step is we should do a better job of training local and State law enforcement officers, and, second, we should clarify their jurisdiction. If we do not do that, I don't think we are very serious about bringing under control illegal immigration in America. I did offer a second-degree amendment earlier, and I withdrew it. I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to modify Senator Dole's amendment to include the language I proposed.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I believe the pending amendment is the Dole amendment.

Mr. SESSIONS. Would the Senator add me as a cosponsor?

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I send to the desk a second-degree amendment to the Dole amendment, No. 2442.

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I withdraw the second-degree amendment that I offered earlier, recognizing that there is some parliamentary question about it.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, the requirements of fencing, additional Border Patrol agents, bedspaces for those who have been detained who come here illegally are not there as an end in themselves. Our goal-- our real goal--must be to create a change in the mindset of what is happening at the border, to reach that tipping point in which the world knows our borders are not wide open, that it is exceedingly difficult to penetrate them illegally and they are unlikely to be successful. As a result, we can move from the current situation--in which over a million people last year were arrested coming into our country illegally--and see those numbers drop off, to reach that tipping point, where the world knows that border is not open. We have talked about it for all the 10 years since I have been in the Senate. Presidents have talked about it. They have campaigned on it. Members have talked about it. But we have not done anything about it. That is why the American people are not happy with us. So I think this legislation will do some things of significance. It will fund 700 miles at the border and complete that process. Why it has taken as long as it has I am not sure, but work is being done right now, although not a lot has been accomplished so far. I am told that pretty soon we will see the fencing come up that we have authorized and that the work is continuing on. So it will be 700 miles. That is really progress, I have to say, but it is not the final installment. We are going to have to do more in the years to come. It is actual fencing, plus virtual fencing also. So I am pleased we have made a concrete step forward with this funding. It will allow us, if the executive branch uses it wisely, to transform in a significant way the open border system we now have to a lawful system. That would be good for America in terms of creating a lawful system of immigration, and it will be good for the people who send us their money and expect us to do what we promise to do and that we actually get serious about it and start taking steps in that direction. With regard to fencing, other countries use fencing significantly. Spain is constructing quite a lot of fencing on their African border. Other countries are doing so in the EU. Hong Kong has a border situation that they have dealt with through fencing. It is not anything unusual. It is the normal course when you have a wide open border because what happens is, a fence will multiply many times the effectiveness of a Border Patrol officer. I ask my colleagues how you would be able to control hundreds of miles of border if you are just standing out there by yourself. If the person trying to come in knows they have to cross a fence, they will have a much harder time and be much easier to apprehend.

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

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Chair and thank Senator Murray. I do feel strongly about this issue. We have talked about it for quite a number of years. It is time for us to get this matter settled and fixed. It is overdue. I look forward to working with the Senator. I thank the Chair. I see other Senators have arrived. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I filed earlier a number of amendments. I want to talk about some of those and why I think that they are important. I am pleased to say many of them have been included, all or in part, in the Graham-Gregg-Kyl-McConnell amendment that I have cosponsored. I think, in effect, it represents a positive step to creating a lawful system of immigration, which I believe we owe to the American people. They expect that. What good is it for us to pass new ideas, new laws, and new provisions concerning immigration if they will not be enforced any better than those we have had before? That is the real rub, the real problem we have. That was my fundamental concern and objection to the comprehensive bill that failed to pass a few weeks ago. It would not have done the job, it would not have been effective, and it did not accomplish what we need to accomplish. I want to share some ideas about the amendments that I have offered and why they are important. I believe Senator Kyl said that we have broad bipartisan support for this. There was some belief that if enforcement amendments are passed, then some people would never confront the other aspects of immigration that others believe need to be confronted. I think the truth is that people tried to hold hostage enforcement in order to gain support for a new idea of immigration, and an amnesty, or a legalization process that the American people didn't agree to. It didn't work. So let me share a few thoughts that I think are important with regard to having a good legal system for our borders. First, we have to have more barriers, more fencing. The funding for the fencing that we asked for--the 700 miles of fencing--would be included in the amendment that has been proposed, offered, and called up. That is a good step in the right direction. I will offer separately an amendment asking the GAO--our Government Accountability Office--to analyze the cost. The cost factor that I have heard is about $3.2 million per mile for the fence. That exceeds my best judgment of how much that I think it ought to cost to build a fence based on my experience of building a fence in the country in the past. Fences usually do not cost millions of dollars but, this fence on the border is going to cost a lot of money. Yes, we need a lot of fencing on the border, and maybe double and triple fencing in some areas. We need high-tech cameras, and that will run the cost up. But sometimes you get the impression that the people who don't believe in fencing are running the cost up so high that maybe the American people will change their mind about the fence. We know the fence at San Diego was a great success. People on both sides of the border appreciate it. What was a rundown, crime-prone area on both sides of the border in San Diego is now making economic progress, and illegal immigration and crime in that sector is way down. Putting up a strong fence is the right thing for us to do and we must do it if we are serious about enforcement. I ask for commonsense purposes, tell me how we can have enough border agents to cover 1,700 miles for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? Are they just going to stand out there all day and all night? We need barriers that will multiply the Border Patrol officer's capability to respond in an effective way to apprehend those who break into the country. Through a combination of these efforts, we can get to the point where we go from an open border to a border that people understand to be closed, and, as a result, we could see a reduction in the number of people who attempt to come into our country illegally. I am pleased that a good part of the State and local law enforcement provisions I have provided for will be included in the amendment. I am pleased that a good part of the National Guard provisions I have offered, including continuing Operation Jump Start, will be included, and the criminal alien provisions dealing with removing those aliens who have been convicted of crimes are deported. I am pleased that we are moving towards ensuring that illegal entrants will be prosecuted when they come into the country illegally. This can be done by expanding the Del Rio, TX, zero-tolerance policy to other areas of our border so that illegal aliens who come across the border are not just met and greeted, given free meals, and taken back home, but actually are convicted of the crime that they committed when they came across the border illegally. We have seen good results from that program. And there are some other provisions that are important. I have filed three amendments dealing with the fence. The first deals with a GAO study of the cost of the fencing. We need to know how much money has been spent thus far--there is a lot of confusion out there-- how much fencing is now in place after all the money we have spent, how much it is costing and will cost the American taxpayers in the future, and whether there are better techniques and procedures by which we can build more fencing for less cost faster without significantly sacrificing quality. That is what that study would include. The Government Accountability Office regularly evaluates those kinds of issues, and I believe they will give us a valuable report that will help us in the future. A second amendment calls for full funding of the fencing. The Secure Fence Act of 2006 that I offered, which was signed into law, requires 700 miles of fencing. This amendment which I offered would fully fund the 700 linear miles of southern border fencing required by providing $1.548 billion to be used for the construction of topographical mile 371 through 700. That is what the law requires. The Congressional Research Service and the Department of Homeland Security have told us that 700 linear miles in the act will actually require more miles topographically; so the 700 linear miles becomes close to 854 topographical miles. So my amendment will fund the remaining 484 topographical miles of fencing not currently funded for construction by December 31, 2009. I have drafted this amendment in two ways. One is to be paid for with an across-the-board cut, and the other is designated as emergency spending. If we are able to adopt the amendment offered earlier today by Senator Graham and others, perhaps that will go a long way to solving the problems I have raised, but, in fact, we could go further and should go further. My next set of amendments addresses State and local law enforcement's ability to assist Federal law enforcement. My amendment allows for some of the grant moneys appropriated by the bill to go for State and local training exercises, technical assistance, and other programs under the law. This would be a pot of up to $294 million to be used to reimburse State and local expenses related to the implementation of the INA section 287(G) agreements. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, State and local governments can sign memorandums of understanding--they are referred to as MOUs in the Government. When two foreign nations do it, they call them treaties. It is about as complex. MOUs are important--with the Department of Homeland Security to have their law enforcement officers trained to work with DHS and to enforce immigration law. That is how State and local people work together. My amendment encourages State and local governments to seek out these agreements and participate in them. The Federal Government needs to welcome State and local law enforcement's assistance at every opportunity, not discourage it. Alabama was the second State, I am pleased to say, in the Nation to sign such an agreement. We have trained 3 classes of approximately 20 State troopers each for a total of 60 State troopers who are now ``cross-designated'' to work with the immigration agency, ICE. Each class cost the State of Alabama about $40,000. The State of Alabama had to pay to train their officers in this fashion so they could participate with the Federal Government. They have spent about $120,000 to date to help the Federal Government enforce Federal immigration laws. I think we can do better. We should encourage State law enforcement officers, and we should help fund this partnership program. I have no doubt in my mind that is the right way. Then I have an amendment that affirms State and local authority and expands of the immigration violators files in the National Crime Information Center, that is not in the Gregg amendment. My amendment would reaffirm the inherent authority of State and local law enforcement to assist the Federal Government in the enforcement of immigration laws. Confusion among the circuit courts, particularly dicta in a Ninth Circuit decision that appears to be somewhat contradictory to the Fifth and Tenth Circuits, is involved. That has led to a Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel opinion that questioned some powers of State and local law enforcement. And then the Department of Justice withdrew that opinion. So there is uncertainty--the Presiding Officer knows how uncertain it can get involving the prosecution of cases in multiple jurisdictions--about what the power of local law enforcement is to participate in helping to enforce immigration laws. The issue is very real. Just today in the Washington Times, there is an article about it. The article is entitled ``Virginia eyes plan to deport illegals. Panel suggests a statewide policy.'' It is being discussed all over the country. They say in that article: Other areas, such as the role of local and State police officers in enforcing immigration law, are more ambiguous. It is not clear what the State's role is in enforcing immigration law, Mr. Cleator said. He is senior staff lawyer for the Virginia State Crime Commission. He said it is not clear what the State role is, and there is some ambiguity, less than most people understand, but there is a perception of ambiguity, and there is some ambiguity. That is why my amendment is needed and important. My amendment will place additional information in the National Crime Information Center's immigration violators file so that critical information on final orders of removal, revocation of visas, and expired voluntary departure agreements can be readily available to State and local law enforcement officers. They need that information so they can make the right decisions when they apprehend somebody going about their normal business on matters such as speeding and the like. The National Crime Information Center is the bread-and-butter database of local law enforcement, and they need this information properly inputted into that computer center because the State law officers will be the ones routinely coming into contact with unlawful and deported aliens during the course of their normal duties, such as a DUI charge. They want to know something about them, and the information is not being readily placed in that computer. Everybody knows that virtually every law enforcement officer in America who stops somebody for an offense--such as DUI, theft, burglary, robbery--runs the suspect's name in the National Crime Information Center, and this is done to determine whether there are pending charges against the suspect, whether the suspect had been convicted of other crimes or if other charges will require that the suspect be held in addition to the charge for the original stop. This is done every day through tens of thousands of inquiries to NCIC. I have discovered that they are not putting a sufficient amount of the immigration violation information in NCIC. We have to do that if we want that a lawful system of immigration to work. If someone doesn't want lawful immigration to work then they will not put that immigration violators' information in NCIC. Another issue I have raised is Operation Jump Start. This deals with National Guard funding through the end of the year 2008 and improvement in the rules of engagement. There is funding in the Gregg amendment for this matter, but it did not include rules of engagement language. My amendment, and a similar amendment filed by Senator Kyl for another bill, provides the funding, which is $400 million, needed to keep the current National Guard presence of 6,000 guardsmen on the southern border through the end of 2008. The administration's plan is to reduce those forces by half--down to 3,000--by September 2007. So by next summer, they want to have those numbers in half. The National Guard is working to deter illegal border crossings. They are big making a difference there. They are also helping us create the impression that our border is no longer open, that it is closed and it is not a good thing for someone to try to come across it illegally. Removing the National Guard members when they have been so successful would be premature. If we take all these actions and keep the National Guard at the border, we can help reach that tipping point that I referred to earlier. In addition, my amendment will allow the National Guard members to have a greater role in stopping illegal aliens along the border. National Guard members should be permitted to aid in the apprehension of illegal aliens crossing the border, at least until a Border Patrol agent comes on the scene. Today, they are only permitted to use nondeadly force for self-defense or the defense of others. So they cannot apprehend illegal aliens that they see crossing the border because they cannot use force unless it is to defend themselves or others. The rules of engagement prevent them from effectively apprehending illegal aliens. My amendment will allow those brave and effective National Guard members to apprehend illegal border crossers until the Border Patrol officer can come to their location. Another big deal is that we want to make sure criminal aliens are deported. In effect, this language in the amendment I will offer and filed is included in the Gregg amendment. It deals with this problem. The American people understand the need to deport aliens, legal and illegal, who have committed crimes in the United States, crimes that make them deportable. We have laws that say that if you are here in a nonpermanent status and you commit a crime, then you are to be deported; nonpermanent status means that you do not have legal permanent status or citizenship in America. And one of the conditions of that admission is that you don't commit crimes. That is not too much to ask. That is our standard. Most countries have a similar standard. And criminal aliens should be deported, as a matter of policy, at the end of their State or local criminal sentences. They should not be allowed to slip through the cracks and be released back into society. That is not what our laws call for, but it is happening every day. Additionally, State court judges should not be allowed to vacate convictions or to remit sentences for the purpose of allowing the alien to escape the immigration consequences of their crimes. Those events that criminal aliens are not being deported and that some criminal aliens are avoiding the immigration consequences of their crimes are of great concern to the American people and Border Patrol agents who are out there working their hearts out. So my amendment will double the funding--$300 million--that DHS has for the institutional removal program, a program that allows DHS to identify criminal aliens while they are in jail serving State and local sentences. Once they have been identified, they go through the paperwork, and the administrative removal process can be completed while they are in jail. This allows the criminal alien to be put directly into the Department of Homeland Security's custody at the end of their prison term, so that they can be quickly deported. My amendment expands the criminal alien program by directing that the Secretary of DHS implement a pilot project to evaluate technology to automatically identify incarcerated illegal aliens before they are released. Manpower alone won't get this job done. But if we start correctly with technology, we can make great progress. It can be a big improvement in our current system. In addition, my amendment ensures that when a criminal alien commits a crime, then the original conviction and sentencing will stand when DHS has determined whether the alien is deportable based on their crimes. This ensures that the trial judge's decision to change the sentence or the judgment of conviction won't be able to undermine the immigration impact of the original judgment. Madam President, we have a real problem. We have a situation in which 27 percent of the persons in the Federal and State penitentiaries are foreign born--this is an amazing number to me--and they are there for crimes other than immigration--for drugs, fraud, sexual abuse, violent crimes. Large numbers of them--the majority of them--are persons who are not citizens. They have been involved in crimes of a serious nature, and they should be deported when they complete serving their sentence for those crimes. That is what is not occurring. In fact, we have at this moment, we believe, some 600,000 absconders. These are people who have been apprehended and ordered deported, who are told to report for deportation, or similar orders, and have just simply absconded into the country and never shown up. That is a huge number of illegal aliens that we could eliminate, or reduce, if we could handle this process of taking care of their deportation as soon as they have finished their criminal time in jail. Currently, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice have implemented a zero tolerance policy at the Del Rio sector of the border. This policy makes sure that every illegal alien is prosecuted for their illegal entry into the United States. It is a misdemeanor for the first offense. It is a criminal offense, but it is a misdemeanor for the first offense of coming into our country illegally. This policy has decreased illegal entry into the Del Rio sector by 58 percent. Now, when you consider that last year we arrested 1 million people attempting to enter our country illegally, you get an understanding of what a 58-percent reduction in illegal entries means when that kind of policy is enacted. Though there are nine border sectors, Del Rio is the only one that has such a policy. My amendment would expand the success of the Del Rio project to the two border sectors with the highest crossing rates--Tucson, AZ, and San Diego, CA. My amendment also requires that until a zero tolerance policy is fully in place, the Department of Homeland Security must refer all illegal entries along the Tucson-San Diego sector to the respective U.S. Attorneys' Offices for prosecution. The U.S. Attorneys' Offices must then provide a formal acceptance or declaration of that prosecution request, which would then allow a record so that Congress can know what all is happening--whether additional resources are needed to fully implement this highly effective policy along the entire border. I think that is a good step in the right direction. Also, Madam President, we have the question of affidavits of support and their lack of use and my amendment deals with that. Since 1997, most family-based and some employment-based immigrants have to have, and do have, a sponsor that guarantees the immigrant will not become a public charge. In other words, they are admitted into the country, but only on the condition that if they have financial needs, this sponsor will take care of that, not the taxpayers of the United States. That is a legitimate condition, I submit, to place on entrance into the United States. So the sponsor would enter into a contract with the Federal Government, promising to pay back any means-tested public benefits the immigrant would receive. There are some exceptions--medical assistance, school lunch, Federal disaster relief. To my knowledge, the Federal Government has never gone after sponsors to ensure they follow through on the commitment they have made. My amendment will require a study to be done by the Government Accountability Office to determine the number of immigrants with signed affidavits of support that are receiving or have received Federal, State, and local benefits when those immigrants really are not eligible and should have turned to their sponsors for support. A GAO study is needed to determine how much revenue the Federal Government could collect if they enforced these contracts and insisted that the individual who sponsored the person into the country actually pays what they are supposed to pay. We need to preserve means-tested public benefits for those who are truly needy. We don't have enough money to take care of all the people in our country and shouldn't have to take care of people when they have a sponsor who promised to take care of them and promised that the sponsors would pay back the money for any benefits that the immigrants received. So those are some of the amendments I offered. There is much that we can do to make our system of immigration at the border more effective. I would just cite that it is a matter of national security. We absolutely know that we have many people who simply want to come to America to work and don't want to cause any attack on the United States, and they are good people. They simply would like to make more money, which is available in the United States, than if they stay in their home country. But we also know that since we are not able to accept everyone who would like to come to America, we have to have rules about who can come and who cannot come and those we let come have to obey our laws. One of the first and toughest rules should be that we don't allow people to come here who are terrorists, or have terrorist connections that could threaten our country. Next, we need to ask ourselves how many persons should come in legally, and under what conditions, what kind of skills and abilities and education level and language skills they should have. That should be part of a good and effective immigration policy. I will just say, however, that any such rules are absolutely worthless if we have a wide open system where people come across illegally on a regular basis and they know they have a high probability for success to come here illegally. Indeed, we know they do because we have about 12 million people here illegally. So those are some steps I suggest we can take that will improve our legal system. I am pleased that a number of those will be included in the Gregg-Graham amendment and will not require a separate vote. I hope we will take this responsibility seriously. I see no reason we should not undertake the actions that I have suggested, which have bipartisan support in the Congress. I hope they will not become part of some grand agreement that everything else that we can't agree on has to be a part of it. In other words, these provisions, which I think would have broad bipartisan and public support, these provisions should not be used as a vehicle to try to drag on things that people don't agree with--certainly not at this time. So I support these amendments. I am glad we do have the Graham-Gregg- McConnell-Kyl amendment on the floor, and I support that. And I would ask these amendments be considered in due course. Madam President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for his effort and the time it takes to be able to examine the complexities of this situation. Most of us are too busy to do it. You do indeed have a passion for the truth, and you have done well in getting there, and I thank you for sharing those thoughts with us.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I would like to share some thoughts on the Graham-Gregg-McConnell amendment that has been offered this morning and to support it. It is the Border Security First Act. It includes actual funding which would be emergency funding. I think this is justified. I know my colleague, Senator Gregg, is a former chairman of the Budget Committee. He is very astute and alert that we do not abuse emergency funding, and he believes this is a justified emergency--and I do too. In other words, how much longer can we continue to have lawlessness at our borders? This bill would go a long way in fixing that. Certainly, every aspect of the bill, I believe, is a positive step in returning us to a lawful system of immigration in America. One reason actually funding this project, these efforts, through this bill and through emergency spending is so important is because we have a history of promising things and not doing them. Not this year but last year the bill came forward in the Judiciary Committee to comprehensively reform immigration. I realized we had a shortage of border enforcement officers, Border Patrol, and I offered an amendment to do that as part of that authorization bill, that immigration reform bill. It was readily accepted. I offered an amendment that added bed spaces, and it was readily accepted, because I knew we needed more if we were going to be effective. I offered more funding to train State and local law enforcement. It was accepted. I offered amendments on fencing which were accepted as well--at least some of them. More on the floor were accepted. Then I had an insight that hit me. That insight was that when we pass an authorization, what occurs is we authorize certain legal changes. Those legal changes take place at once. For example, the guaranteed path to citizenship in that immigration bill--it passed, it became law, it was guaranteed, it would happen no matter what. But I realized it was real easy for my colleagues to agree to things that involved enforcement that required money, real dollars, to carry out because I realized they may have no intention of seeing that effort be funded. Or, if they did have an intention to see it funded, there are so many steps, hurdles, and loopholes to go through before it is ever funded it may never get funding because it would have to go through the appropriators and they would have to appropriate the money. To authorize money for a fence is not to build a fence. That is the point. You have to appropriate some money to build a fence. That was the gimmick, I believed all along, and that led to a suggestion I made about having a trigger. Senator Isakson went into that in some depth and offered the amendment to have a trigger. The trigger said: Before any of these other law changes about amnesty or legalization of those here illegally could occur, some other things had to happen first. If you didn't spend the money on the others, this would never happen. There was a trigger. That was a good idea, it was. It dealt with the problem we were dealing with. There is cynicism that is out there because of what happened in 1986. Let's be honest about it, what happened in 1986 was amnesty occurred. They didn't deny it was amnesty. They were giving people legal residence and path to citizenship in 1986. But they promised to do the things necessary to create a lawful system in the future and that it would not happen again. Three million people in 1986 were provided amnesty. But as we all know, the promises were never fulfilled. We did not create a lawful system of immigration. We did not do the things necessary to enforce our laws at the border. As a result of that, we now have 12 million people illegally in our country. Right? That is what happened. There is no mystery about this. This is actually fact. We had this bill that came up, the so-called comprehensive reform bill. I absolutely believe it did not get us there. That is why I opposed it. I made up my mind I was not going to participate in a legislative process that would tell our people of America, and my constituents, we were going to create a lawful system in the future, if we were not going to do it. That is why a number of people suggested we should have a border security first bill. That is what the House of Representatives said last year. They said they were not even going to consider our bill because they believed we ought to prove to the American people we could create a lawful system of immigration first. In this amendment, Senator Gregg and Senator Graham and Senator Kyl and McConnell--many of those who had supported the comprehensive reform--are saying let's get some credibility with the American people. I thank them for that. I believe this is a step in the right direction. Senator Graham and Senator Gregg--we discussed it recently with members of the press and they made the point: The American people want to see we are serious about what we promise first. That is why they support that. For example, this legislation would fund 23,000 border agents. The bill that is on the floor today, the basic Homeland Security bill, would fund a little less than 18,000 agents. We need more agents. We have to get to that tipping point. We don't need a whole unlimited number of agents. In my opinion, somebody who has been involved in law enforcement most of my career, I believe we can get to a point where the word is out worldwide that our borders are not wide open, and if you come to the United States, you are likely going to be caught, unless you come legally. If we do, we could see a substantial reduction in the number of people attempting to come here illegally. But we have to get other agents out there to get to that point--so 23,000 would help a lot. It is more than this bill has in it. Another thing you have to have is detention beds. In other words, if you arrest someone for illegally entering our country, if you are in a position where they are released on a promise to come back for some proceeding because you do not have a prison bed, a detention bed in which to put them, they do not show up. We have examples of the catch- and-release policy, where 95 percent of the people released on bail on a promise to come back for their hearing didn't show up--surprise, surprise. They were willing to come to the country illegally. Who thinks they are going to show up legally to be deported? How silly is that? It was an indication to me and the American people that this Government was not serious about immigration. We were not serious. Any government that allows such a silly, worthless, no-good policy as that is not serious about it. So this bill would add detention beds. The underlying bill is at 31,000. This would take us to 45,000. Hopefully, that will take us to that tipping point, so then we can say to a person who has been apprehended: We are not going to release you, we are going to hold you until you are deported. Sometimes it is difficult, if they are from foreign countries, distant countries, not our border countries, to get them back to their countries. It takes some time to get a plane or a boat to ship them out. Another thing that is a part of this--certainly, if we are serious about immigration, one of the things we want to do is welcome legitimate help from our State and local law enforcement agencies. There are only a few thousand Federal immigration agents inside the United States--not at the border, I mean inside the United States. There are 600,000-plus State and local law enforcement agents. They basically have been blocked from being able to participate in any way. There is, however, a program called a 287(g) provision that gives training to State and local officers so they don't mess up, and they treat everybody exactly properly and help in an effective way to partner with Federal officers to enforce immigration laws. If you don't want immigration laws enforced, you don't want the 600,000 State and local law officers participating. See? If you don't want the law enforced, you don't want these people to participate in any way because right now we only have several thousand Federal agents--not on the border, inside the whole United States of America. The only people we can rely on would be voluntary State and local support. What we learned in Alabama, my home State, we trained 60 State troopers in this program. It took far too long, in my view. The State had to pay their salaries. It cost the State of Alabama $120,000 to be a partner with the Federal Government to enforce laws that they have authority to enforce--but to enforce laws of the Federal Government on an issue, immigration, that should be primarily a Federal responsibility. This bill, the amendment that was offered, this border security first amendment, would provide some grant programs to enable more States to participate in this program. It also funds--actually puts the money out to fund the fence. We have had a half dozen votes on the fence, and it has still not been built. They are building some now, they say. They are doing some. But it is still not on track to be completed, and it is not funded according to what we voted. We voted to build 700 miles of fencing. The underlying legislation, this appropriations bill, only funds 370 miles. That is not what we voted to do. You see what I am saying? It is one thing to authorize and vote to do something. We all go back home and we are so proud: I voted to build a fence. But nobody ever comes around to provide the money to actually do it. So this bill would fund that. On the question of our local facilities to apprehend people for serious crimes, people who are in the country illegally, who are subject to being deported as soon as they are released from jail occurs--under current law, that is not working well at all. This bill would allow local facilities, detention facilities, to detain them for up to 14 days, to give the Federal Government the right to do that, to get them deported, as they should be, if they committed felonies in the United States. Last September, 80 Senators voted to build 700 miles of fencing along our border. Ninety-four Senators voted for the amendment I offered for $1.8 billion to be appropriated. It eventually got reduced in conference to $1.2 billion to build the fence we said we were going to build. This bill, the underlying bill, calls for an additional $1 billion toward construction of the fencing. But that is not enough. The Gregg-Graham-Kyl amendment would provide the money sufficient to do that and get us on the right track. I will mention briefly a couple of other things in the legislation that I strongly favor. Senator Graham has advocated previously that we need to have penalties for people who come back into the country illegally. I mean, how silly is it to have persons enter the country illegally, you apprehend them, you do not prosecute them, you do not put them in jail--you could, because it is a crime--and you deport them, and here they are the next week, or even the next day coming back into the country. You have got to, at some point, if you are serious about law, have a penalty extracted. So this bill would require penalties for people who reenter a second time, at least, in our country illegally. Certainly that is a good step, but it is not happening today. There is a deal going on among certain judges, and it has gotten to be a real problem for our immigration enforcement system. That is, local State judges, if they have an individual who is about to be deported, often will cut the sentence and not make it the required sentence, and that would obviate their deportation from the country for being convicted of a felony. This would keep judges from going back and manipulating the criminal justice system to try to prevent a result that should naturally occur in the future. It has institutional removal program funding. This is important as a practical matter. It does not work to wait until a person has completed their jail time for a serious criminal offense, and then have the Federal Government start up a proposal to deport them. They run away; they do not show up to be deported. It is so obvious that that is happening. So we have a program, the institutional removal program, that does allow the Federal Government to take those people before they are released from jail and do the paperwork and commence the hearing so at the time of their departure, they are released into State prison for the serious offense they have committed, they would directly be deported. That only makes sense. We are doing some of that now, and this bill would provide extra money for that. In every aspect of the legislation, it is a step in the right direction. It does not get us there if the executive branch or if the Government does not want to enforce these laws. It does not get us there if the House or conferees fail to put this money in the bill. There are still a lot of loopholes. We should not pat ourselves on the back. But these are all critical steps toward creating a lawful immigration system. If we can do that and regain some confidence among the American people, we will be able to talk about many more of the issues in favor of that. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, for the first time, on the question of Judge Southwick's ruling, the Senator's remarks make clear to me that he was required as a judge, as I understand it, to not reverse the administrative panel's opinion unless it was arbitrary and capricious, I believe is what the Senator said. It seems to me that sometimes we make a mistake, and I was going to ask the Senator a question, as one of the most able lawyers here in this body for sure, about whether he thinks sometimes we ascribe to the judge who has to rule on a case following the law, that somehow we would suggest he may have approved this racial slur even though he may have ruled in a way different from that? In other words, does the Senator think we ought to be careful in this body not to unfairly suggest that the judge approved this racial slur, which I know he did not, as a result of that ruling?

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

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, for several years I have been looking at the question of student loans and the abuse that often exists in that process. Also, another issue that has concerned me is America's lack of physicians in numbers sufficient to meet our current demands and the demands we may have in the future. So I have an amendment today that, hopefully, the bill managers, Senators Kennedy and Enzi, might feel comfortable supporting. It deals with both of those issues, I think, in a way that takes us in a positive direction. The Association of American Medical Colleges, after the recommendation of Dr. Jordan Cohen, their president a couple years ago, recently stated it is their official policy that medical school enrollment should be increased by 30 percent. Most American medical schools are now already beginning to increase enrollment, some at about the rate of 15 percent, which can be done in most colleges without great expense. But as you get closer to a one-third increase, it actually begins to put a bite on people's programs. They have to have faculty, perhaps buildings, and other capabilities that may incur substantial costs. One of the things that has concerned me--and I am not sure most Americans are fully aware of it--is that a shortage of physicians is being filled by an increasing number of graduates from foreign medical schools. Many of these are offshore schools in the Caribbean--for- profit schools. Many of them don't require test scores to get in, and they are not up to the standard of American schools. That is a fact. We have the finest, most magnificent medical schools in the world. We have a tremendous teaching and training program. We have some of the best equipment any schools could imagine in our country. So it is a special thing. But I have been concerned that perhaps we have been too tough on enrollment, requiring too high of test scores, sometimes denying good people with good leadership skills, such as class presidents and captains of the football team, who scored a little bit below someone who had a higher physics or chemistry score, and they don't get in. So I think we need to expand the number of people who come into medical school, and we ought to be open to qualities that are proven to further medical success, frankly. So I am concerned about that. The interesting development I have discovered that goes to the question of our Federal dollars and how we are supporting medical education is indicated by this chart. It deals with the number of loans certified for U.S. residents who are attending foreign schools. In general, whether you are going for a semester abroad to Italy or Brazil or England or wherever, this shows that during the 1993-1994 academic year, there were under 4,600 loans, and ten years later there were over 13,000 loans. That might make one think this is a good thing, that more Americans are taking a semester abroad, as is common in a lot of schools. They encourage students to take a semester abroad, and it is an enriching experience--maybe even a year abroad. One might think that is what that issue deals with. But let's show what is happening here. Look at this chart. Of the 13,000 students who attend foreign schools, about 9,000 of those are attending foreign medical schools. About 75 percent of the total study abroad loan volume of 2003, or about $170 million--and I am sure that number has gone up--is now for loans to students who attend foreign medical schools. That is a rather shocking number and a dramatic number. It comes from a GAO report, dated July of 2003. That is a matter I would call attention to. What about these loans? Are these people attending top Paris medical schools or what? Look at them in terms of the volume of loans, first. Let's look at No. 1, the No. 1 school in the world where students receive U.S. Federal loan money is a medical school in Dominica. They only have one medical school on that island in the Caribbean, and they receive $35 million in loan volume, with 1,700-plus students receiving loans to go to that school. The next one in volume is Grenada. Remember during President Reagan's presidency, when we had an invasion of Grenada, where we had American medical students and their safety was of great concern to us when that invasion took place. Grenada has one medical school. It gets $30 million and has 1,500 students attending. The third country to receive Federal loan money for medical school is Mexico. They have 11 schools and they get $27 million. England is fourth. They have 182 schools in England, but they only get $25 million in student loans, and they have quite an advanced medical program there. The next school on the list--the next country is the Dominican Republic, another island school. The Dominican Republic has six schools, and they receive $20 million in student loans each year. The next one is St. Maarten, another Caribbean island, $16 million. Next is Canada. We would think that would be up there at the top, would we not? Canada, our neighbor. Canada has 108 schools and they get only $15 million. The next one is another island school in the Caribbean, St. Kitts, they have two schools and they get $14 million. I think that begins to show the problem we are dealing with. I would suggest we need to take some real interest in it. So I have offered an amendment that would deal with it. I send my amendment to the desk, as modified, and ask for its consideration.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. SESSIONS. So to briefly summarize what the amendment does, it attempts to deal with this issue in a balanced but effective way. It seeks to protect taxpayers' dollars from subsidizing foreign medical schools that are failing to show positive results, and we have a way to determine which ones are showing results. Currently, in order to qualify for student financial aid, we have a rule in effect. That rule is that the foreign medical school must show 60 percent of its graduates pass the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates' Examination. This is a test you have to take after you graduate to become licensed to practice medicine in the United States. So, currently, that rule is 60 percent. This amendment would raise the bar from 60 to 75 percent, to be implemented in 2 years' time. It would give them 2 years to prepare for this. I believe it is a reasonable change because approximately 90 percent of U.S. medical school graduates pass medical licensing examinations on their first attempt. That is a big difference. It is indisputable that the test failure rate is indicative of the quality of the instruction that one receives at a school. During the next 2 years, prior to implementation of the new 75- percent standard, the amendment also requires the Government Accountability Office to conduct a study on the amount of Federal aid going to offshore medical schools, the percentage of foreign medical graduates who pass the examination on the first try or after multiple attempts, the percentage of recent foreign medical school graduates practicing medicine in the United States, and a description of where and what type of medicine they are practicing and asking for recommendations for the examination passage rate the United States should require of foreign medical schools who wish to qualify so that they can receive U.S. Federal student aid. I am also modifying the amendment by adding a portion of the study to examine the rate of malpractice lawsuits and of lost or revoked medical licenses from graduates of foreign medical schools as compared to graduates of U.S. medical schools. Now, the study we have, the GAO report, would involve this. It would examine what is happening with students of foreign medical schools after they leave in order to determine how effective the schools are. While many of these schools likely do a pretty good job, and some I think do, there is no way to know for sure, as they are not licensed or accredited by any American entity. Many foreign medical schools do not use cadavers--do not use cadavers--but instead have students perform procedures that would be done, preferably on cadavers, by simulation on a computer. I don't know about you, but I don't want a doctor operating on me who has been practicing using a mouse and a keyboard. In fact, an article in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review earlier this year quoted Dr. Cameron Wilkinson, medical director of Joseph N. France Hospital in St. Kitts and supervisor of clinical rotations for two medical schools on the island as saying this--this is at St. Kitts in the hospital there, the training school, and he said this: ``No medical school here would have a cadaver.'' He said: ``It would be great,'' but he explained the schools in the islands aren't equipped to work with them. This was in reference to a school on the island that was actually found to have cadavers for clinical instruction, but they kept them in black bags in an unsterile, unlocked, air-conditioned room. They were not following protocol for the use of cadavers and lacked the necessary documents to have them shipped from the United States. They also did not smell like formaldehyde, which is one reason I didn't go to medical school, having gone into a place where something was kept in formaldehyde. But that is a great concern, as formaldehyde preservation is standard procedure for institutions that utilize cadavers in medical research. Thus, this school was handling cadavers inappropriately. But this story also makes clear that schools on the island, for the most part, never use cadavers. Many of these schools do not even require that students take the MCAT; that is, the Medical College Admission Test. Standards at some of these schools are much lower than standards at American medical schools in regard to MCAT scores and GPAs--grade point averages--if they have those requirements at all. The Association of American Medical Colleges states that about--get this--this is the Association of American Medical Colleges. They have found that about one in four physicians practicing in the United States today, and about one in four physicians in training in the United States today, are foreign medical graduates. This is a remarkable statistic, when we have this magnificent medical school system in our country. We have gotten out of sync. These foreign medical school graduates are, in many ways, needed to fill the gaps that currently exist in the American medical school education system. In June of 2006, as I said, the Association of American Medical Colleges recognized this shortfall and formally recommended a 30-percent increase in medical school graduates by 2015. That expansion would allow for 5,000 new medical students each year beginning in 2015.

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Chair. I ask unanimous consent for 1 additional minute.

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

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I would note that the U.S. population is increasing by 25 million each decade. The number of people over 65 will double by 2030. We expect more and more out of health care. We must have additional medical physicians, and we need to increase our own system and reduce the amount of money, taxpayer money, going to medical schools that are below par. This bill would make changes and move us in that direction. I ask our leaders to consider that. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I withdraw my request to call up amendment No. 2342 at this time.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, the provision in this bill that creates an entirely new loan forgiveness program for Government public service workers I believe is unprincipled and can only get worse in the years to come. Actually, it has some pernicious aspects to it. For example, it says if you are any Government worker or social service worker, it appears that as long as you are not in the private sector, after 10 years, the Government will forgive your loan debt. I think that is an odd thing for us to do, to have that many people have their loans forgiven. I think, No. 1, when people go to college and they make up their mind about how they are going to pay for college and whether they will work, this will be an inducement for people not to work and to borrow; it will encourage borrowing for loans. No. 2, it does not have any limit on the amount of money involved, so those who go to more expensive colleges will obviously get more of the taxpayers' money than those who don't go to more expensive colleges in terms of the loan forgiveness. I think that is not a healthy thing. Eighty percent of the colleges and universities in America don't use the Direct Loan Program. Eighty percent do not. You don't get this loan forgiveness unless you are part of the Direct Loan Program, or consolidate your loans with it. I think that is an odd bias in the system that I am not comfortable with. So I will say, again, I think this is creating a new bureaucracy, an unwise way to help workers. I would suggest if we want to help people, we should expand our Pell grants--as we have dramatically and I support--and the loan programs in general but not to target a forgiveness program to people who have been working for the Government for 10 years who are probably better able to pay off the loan than they were the first 2 or 3 years they started to work. It doesn't make sense to me. I don't like this new program and all its ramifications. I think our focus should be on Pell grants, on improving the loan program for everybody equally, and I don't think the plumber who is taking business courses so he might one day run his own business, or the nurse who is advancing her skill level so she might one day reach a higher level of pay, that one ought to be favored over the other. I strongly believe our resources should be directed to overall strengthening of the loan program and not focusing on just Government employees. I am not putting down Government employees, but I will ask you about two Government employees, one who goes to a community college and works their way through and ends up with no debt and another one who incurs a good bit of debt, one gets benefits under this program, whereas the other one doesn't. I don't think that is a good principle. I think that is hard to defend. How much time remains?