Jeff Sessions

Mr. SESSIONS

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 I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, a few weeks ago I wrote my colleagues a letter that had a serious front line about policies being executed, we are told, by the President that would seriously undermine the constitutional structure of our Republic and give to the President powers that would allow him to take powers he had never been given. Subsequent to that, a George Washington law professor, Mr. Jonathan Turley, remarked during recent congressional testimony: When President Obama pledged to circumvent Congress [he was referring to his State of the Union Address] he received rapturous applause from the very body that he was proposing to make practically irrelevant. Professor Turley emphasized that the ``most serious violations, in my view, are various cases where he went to Congress, as in the immigration field, as in the health care field, asked for very specific things and was rejected and then decided just to order those on his own.'' He testified before a House committee. Professor Turley I think has been known as a Democrat. I think he said he supported President Obama's election. He is not a partisan person. He is an observer who has testified before Congress many times and is well respected, and that statement should cause concern on the part of every Member of Congress. Is it so? Is it so that he asked for the very specific things that were rejected by Congress and he decided to just order them with his pen on his own? The primary immigration action Professor Turley was referring to was the President's decision to implement the DREAM Act by fiat, providing administrative amnesty and work permits to an entire class of illegal immigrants. Professor Turley described it as `` . . . the clear circumvention of Congress. And for Congress not to act in my view borders on self- loathing.'' Is that a serious comment? I think it is exactly right. He is exactly right on this. Has Congress no gumption at all? Multiple news reports have now made it clear that the President is now considering an Executive immigration action on a scale so far and indeed beyond our own imagination. Here is how that action was described by the National Journal, a prestigious publication in our country. This is the poster. This is what the National Journal reported: ``President Plans To Expand Unilateral Executive Amnesty.'' Executive amnesty means the Chief Executive, the President, expanding Executive amnesty including work permits for illegal immigrants and visa overstays. Obama made it clear he would press his executive powers to the limit. I would say well beyond the limit, according to Professor Turley. The article continues: He gave quiet credence to recommendations from La Raza and other immigration groups that between 5 million to 6 million adult illegal immigrants could be spared deportation under a similar form of deferred adjudication he ordered for the so- called Dreamers in June 2012. The article is referring to the DREAM Act that the President executed. One of the things that I think is extremely important, colleagues, is that what they are suggesting is that 5 million to 6 million people will be given a document that basically provides them legal status in America. The article continues: Obama has now ordered the Homeland Security and Justice departments to find-- Ordered them to find-- Executive authorities that could enlarge that non- prosecutorial umbrella by a factor of 10. That is all with the DREAM Act. 10 times that which was done. Continuing: Senior officials also tell me Obama wants to see what he can do with executive power to provide temporary legal status to undocumented adults. This is 5 million to 6 million. That is what a factor of 10 means. That is maybe more than half of the people who are illegally in the country today. Congress has considered these matters at great length and Congress set the law as to how someone enters the country lawfully and how someone enters the country, in effect, unlawfully and what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. The President is the chief law enforcement officer in America. The FBI, DEA, Border Patrol officers, ICE officers, Attorney General all work for him, and the leaders of those organizations serve at his pleasure. He can remove them at will if they don't carry out his policies. He has ordered the Homeland Security and Justice Departments, to find Executive authorities--not to see if they could find them but to find them--because he has a policy he wants to carry out and Congress doesn't agree with him. I will read another poster quoting Professor Turley. He talks about the danger, colleagues. This is dangerous. Does anybody not respect this institution? Do we not respect the House of Representatives, the Senate? Have we become so partisan that we don't care what the President does to diminish Congress? Don't we have an institutional responsibility, a constitutional responsibility to defend the legitimate powers of Congress? Sure, we can disagree sometimes, but this one is not a matter of disagreement, it seems to me. This is an overreach of dramatic proportions. Professor Turley said: The President's pledge to effectively govern alone is alarming, and what is most alarming is his ability to fulfill that pledge. When a president can govern alone, he can become a government unto himself, which is precisely the danger the framers sought to avoid. Certainly they sought to avoid that. They were very suspicious and aware that the tendency of chief executive officers is to assume more power than they are given. So they created a strong Congress and they gave certain powers to Congress that could not be delegated to the executive branch. Professor Turley, in his most recent testimony before the House Rules Committee--I believe last week--said: What we're witnessing today is one of the greatest crises that members of this body will face . . . It has reached a constitutional tipping point that threatens a fundamental change in how our country is governed. No matter what somebody thinks about immigration issues or health care issues, there are limits on what the President can do without Congress. So the President says: Congress will not act; therefore, I have to act. Have you ever heard that? They used to say Federal judges would say that. They would say: The legislature will not act. Governor King will not act. The court has to act. That is not so. That is so bogus. If a Governor decides not to act, if a Congress decides not to act, if a State legislature decides not to act and do what some President would like to see done, that is a decision. It is every bit as real and firm a decision as if they had passed a law. If they are asked to pass a law and they say no, that is a decision reached through the legislative branch by people duly elected from all over this country who come to this Congress to pass laws. I am very frustrated that my Democratic colleagues are not sufficiently concerned about it, and we certainly need more discussion from the loyal opposition, the Republicans on this question. Do my Democratic colleagues express concern about it? Not that I have seen. They seem to celebrate it. The newspaper, El Diario, quotes New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez, saying: Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) said Friday that he has ``no doubt'' that President Barack Obama will deliver on his promise to take executive action on immigration despite the current attention on the unaccompanied minors crisis. It goes on to be quoted there as saying: One executive action that Senator Menendez and other Democrats are pushing for is the expansion of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which provides deportation reprieve and work permits to undocumented youth. Colleagues, it is one thing to be less than vigorous in carrying out deportations as the law requires; it is quite another class of action to give people who are unlawfully in the country a document from the President that says you can work and stay in the country--to give them legal status when Congress has considered this and rejected it. It is beyond the power of the President. I wrote a letter to my colleagues, Democrat and Republican, before this testimony about these planned executive actions that I had been reading about. I said they would amount to an-- . . . executive nullification of our borders as an enforceable national boundary, [guaranteeing] that the current illegal immigration disaster would only further worsen and destabilize. We cannot provide continuous amnesty on a regular basis and ever expect everybody not to attempt to come to the country if they believe they, too, in a manner of years--maybe now even fewer years--will be rewarded for their unlawful act by being put on a path to citizenship or permanent status. So I therefore make two requests today: I believe any border legislation that is sent to the Senate by the House of Representatives should include specific language denying the President any funds to execute his planned work permits. Congress clearly has that power. We can appropriate or not appropriate money. We can say that money cannot be spent for this or that thing. So we have every right to say the President should not spend money delivering work permits to people whom Congress has declared to not be lawfully able to work in America. I believe the President's actions are in clear contravention of the law, and I feel strongly about that. Second, I am calling on every Senate Democratic colleague to stand up and be counted. Senator Cruz has a bill that would stop this Presidential overreach. It is very simple. It lays out that we won't spend money providing legal documents to people unlawfully in the country as defined by the law of America and as defined by the Congress of the United States. So I ask: Will you cosponsor Senator Cruz's bill, and let us defend our constituents? Or, will our congressional colleagues remain complicit in the nullification of our laws and basically the nullification of border enforcement? I would make a final note on what we owe to the citizens of this country. President Obama's illegal work permits add to the already huge flow of lawful work permits issued by the Federal Government. Between 2000 and 2013, we lawfully issued almost 30 million work and immigration visas. To put that number in perspective, 30 million is about the entire population of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala combined. This matter and our situation today are in disarray as a result of confused and politically driven thinking by this administration. It just is. I wish it weren't so, but it is. Obama administration officials have gone so far as to describe amnesty as a civil right. That is an argument against the very idea of a nation-state and the idea of a nation's borders. Of course there is, and can be, no civil right to enter a country unlawfully and then to demand lawful status and even citizenship. Of course there is not. How could this possibly be, that the Attorney General of the United States of America would assert that people have a constitutional right to enter unlawfully and be given amnesty? That is the kind of thinking which has got us into this fix, and it has encouraged the flow of unlawful immigration. The actual legal rights that are being violated here today I suggest are the rights of the American citizens. As Civil Rights Commission Member Peter Kirsanow warned, our African- American citizens often are the ones who are hurt the most, as well as recent immigrant arrivals and working Americans. What about their rights? They have sweat and bled and died for this country, been called on to serve and responded, paid their taxes, raised their children, tried to do the right thing day after day. What about their rights? What about the right of every citizen to the protections our immigration laws afford? Will no one rise to their defense? We need an immigration policy that helps all residents--including millions of immigrants who have come to America. We want to help them rise into the middle class and above. We need rising wages, not falling wages. We can't help those living here today if we keep bringing in record numbers of new workers to compete for their jobs, to drive up unemployment, and then pull down wages. That is just a fact. After decades of large-scale immigration, and with large illegal immigration flows in addition, we need to get serious and establish a principled policy of immigration and consistently enforce it, a policy that is honorable, that we can be proud of, and that serves the interests of all Americans--especially working Americans. These are the people who have made our country great. They deserve our attention and compassion, too. Middle America has been decent and right on this issue from the beginning. For 40 years American people have called on Congress and called on their Presidents to create a lawful immigration system they can be proud of that serves the national interests and serves their interests. But what have they gotten? Nothing but more illegality and more demands for amnesty. The leaders of their country have not listened to them, and they aren't listening now. It appears to me the leaders of this country are not very interested in what the American people think. The President plans to dramatically exceed his powers. It is the latest example of rejecting what the American people have asked for and it is a breathtaking violation of congressional power. It cannot be allowed to happen. We need to defend our Constitution, we need to defend the rule of law, and we need to defend the powers of Congress-- and, at bottom, to defend legitimate rights, interests, and desires of the people who sent us here. Mr. President, I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I know the Chair serves as a member of the Budget Committee, as I am the ranking Republican on that committee. We have gotten a CBO, Congressional Budget Office, analysis--our official scorekeeper of spending--on the part of the proposal the President has presented to spend $4.346 billion to deal with the Southwest border crisis. What CBO has done is provided its cost estimates of the President's recent supplemental request for the Southwest border. Significantly, CBO's analysis suggests that only $25 million of the $4.346 billion request will be spent this year. This indicates clearly that the agencies are not in dire need of supplemental funding from this Congress, certainly not in the degree asked for. Again, CBO's analysis suggests that only $25 million out of the $4.3 billion request will be spent this year. What does that mean? It means we ought to slow down. There is no basis to demand a $4.3 billion increase in emergency spending. Every dollar borrowed--because we are already in debt. To spend $4 billion more is to borrow every penny of it. We should not do that until we find out more about what is happening at our border. Twenty-five million dollars is a lot of money in itself. The Homeland Security and other agencies, Health and Human Services, have monies they can apply to these problems. I am not saying no money is needed now, because we want to treat children and be helpful and treat them in a humanitarian way and a compassionate way. But we don't need $4 billion. That is clear. And we are not to be doing that. Thank goodness, the House of Representatives is looking at it carefully. They need to reject this request out of hand. Colleagues, the fundamental problem here is that when the President of the United States did his DACA bill, when he did his DREAM Act Executive order, what did he do? He basically said: We are not going to deport young people. Then we began to see this surge of young people coming to America, and we are not deporting them effectively. They are being taken in, turned over to HHS, found housing, turned over to whoever comes and picks them up even if they are not citizens and not lawfully here. They are not being deported. So more have come in record numbers. I guess, first of all, the very idea that we would spend--I guess for that project--$3.7 billion is a stunning amount of money. It is a huge amount of money at a time when we don't need to be borrowing money more than we have to. So I believe and would say to our colleagues, this plan does not call for the expenditure of money this year except for $25 million, and therefore we are not in a crisis that demands us to produce billions of dollars in revenue for this President to continue to carry out policies that only encourage more people to come to America and cost us even more in the time to come. Mr. President, I thank the Chair and I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

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

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, three of our greatest `masters of the universe'--as I like to refer to them--have joined in an op-ed in the New York Times just last week to share their wisdom from on high and to tell us in Congress how to do our business and to conduct immigration reform they think should be pleasing to them. I am sure other super billionaires would be glad to join with these three super billionaires and could agree on legislation that would be acceptable to them. Sheldon Adelson, Las Vegas casino magnet and Republican supporter; Warren Buffett, the master investor; and Bill Gates, the master founder of Microsoft computer systems, all super billionaires, apparently aren't happy. They don't have much respect for Congress and, by indirection, the people who elect people to Congress, it appears from the tone of their article--you know, American people, that great unwashed group; nativists, narrow-minded patriots, possessors of middle-class values. They just don't understand as we know, we great executives and entrepreneurs. So they declare we need to import more foreign workers in computer science, technology, and engineering, because the country is ``badly in need of their services.'' They say we are badly in need of importing large numbers of STEM graduates. That is something we have all heard and many of us have perhaps assumed is an accurate thing. These three individuals, all generous men, have contributed to a lot of causes, and I am teasing them a lit bit. They didn't mind sticking it to Congress, so I just tease them and push back a little bit. They particularly praised the Senate for its elimination of any limits on the number of work visas that could be awarded to immigrants who have a degree in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and have a job offer. This is the op-ed in the New York Times last Thursday: ``Sheldon Adelson, Warren Buffett, and Bill Gates on Immigration Reform.'' What did we see in the newspaper today? News from Microsoft--was it that they are having to raise wages to try to get enough good, quality engineers to do the work? Are they expanding or are they hiring? No, that is not what the news was, unfortunately. Not at all. This is the headline in USA Today: ``Microsoft to cut up to 18,000 jobs over next year.'' Microsoft confirmed it will cut up to 18,000 jobs over the next year, part of the tech titan's efforts to streamline its business under a new CEO . . . That is a significant action. Indeed, Microsoft employs about 125,000 people, and they are laying off 18,000. The company laid off 5,000 in 2009. Yet their founder and former leader, Mr. Gates, says we have to have more and more people come into our country to take those kinds of jobs. It is pretty interesting, really. We need to be thinking about what it all means and ask ourselves: What is the situation today for American graduates of STEM degrees and technology degrees? Do we have enough? And do we need to have people come to our country to take those jobs? Or, indeed, do we not have a shortage of workers, and do we have difficulty of people finding jobs? These are some of the facts I think we should look at. President Obama, Senate Democrats, and House Democrats have endorsed a proposal, a bill that passed the Senate, that would double the H-1B foreign workers that come into America for one reason--not to be a citizen, not to stay indefinitely, but to take a job, double the number, to come to take a job for several years. The great majority of these guest workers are not farm workers. They take jobs throughout the economy. So how should we think about this? The U.S. Census Bureau reports that three-fourths of American with STEM degrees--science, technology, engineering, mathematics--don't have jobs in STEM fields. According to a recent newspaper from the Economic Policy Institute: ``Guestworkers may be filling as many as half of all new information technology jobs each year.'' It goes on. ``IT workers earn the same today as they did, generally, 14 years ago.'' Wages aren't going up, and in many cases they are going down. That is an absolute refutation, I think--if you believe in the free market--of any contention that we have a shortage of engineering, science, and STEM graduates. The paper further says: ``Currently, only one of every two STEM college graduates is hired in a STEM job each year.'' So only half of them find a job in the profession they trained for. Another finding of the paper: ``Policies that expand the supply of guest workers will discourage U.S. students from going into STEM fields, and into IT in particular.'' Get that. Is that not common sense? If anybody would dispute that, I would like to hear it. The policies that expand the supply of eligible workers in any field will tend to discourage people, particularly in science and engineering, if they feel like they are going to have a difficult time finding a job. That is common sense, and that is what the paper found. Now, Mr. Hal Salzman--I am familiar with his work. He is a professor at Rutgers University and a labor specialist. He has done a good bit of work in this area. And what do his findings show? He determined: ``For the 180,000 or so openings annually, U.S. colleges and universities supply 500,000 graduates.'' More than twice as many people graduate in STEM fields as jobs are available in America for them to take. Bob Charette, at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, writes: ``Wages for U.S. workers in computer and math fields have largely stagnated since 2000.'' That is 14 years ago. Even as the Great Recession slowly recedes, STEM workers at every stage of the career pipeline, from freshly minted grads to mid- and late-career Ph.D.s, still struggle to find employment. In total, Charette reports that there are more than 11 million Americans with STEM degrees who don't have STEM jobs. Harvard Professor Michael Teitelbaum has recently written a book. He explained: Far from offering expanding attractive career opportunities, it seems that many, but not all, science and engineering careers are headed in the opposite direction: unstable careers, slow-growing wages, and high risk of jobs moving offshore or being filled by temporary workers from abroad. Michael Anft, with the Johns Hopkins Magazine, observed: You're a biologist, chemist, electrical engineer, manufacturing worker, mechanical engineer, or physicist, you've most likely seen your paycheck remain flat at best. If you're a recent grad in those fields looking for a job, good luck. A National Academies report suggests a glut of life scientists, lab workers, and physical scientists, owing in part to over-recruitment of science-Ph.D. candidates by universities. And postdocs, many of whom are waiting longer for academic spots, are opting out of science careers at higher rates, according to the National Science Foundation. This is serious. There is a policy question, and he questions whether Members of Congress who don't pass laws like he wants on immigration are honoring their duty to the 300 million Americans whom we collectively represent. I feel a deep duty to the millions of Alabamians I represent and the whole country, and I do my best every day to ask what is in their interests. As far as I am concerned, so far as I can see, those three billionaires have three votes. An individual who works stocking the shelves at the grocery store, the barber, the doctor, the lawyer, the cleaners, the operator, and the person who picks up our garbage are every bit as valuable as they are. I know who I represent. I represent the citizens of the United States of America, and I am trying to do what is in their best interests. And just as it is not always true what is good for General Motors is good for America, likewise, what may be good for Mr. Adelson and Mr. Microsoft and Mr. Buffett is not always in accord with what is good for the American people. I know that. They are free to express their opinion, but I am going to push back. How many people come into our country each year as guest workers? We have discussed that. The Senate bill which Senator Reid maneuvered through the Senate not too many weeks ago would double the number of guest workers. How many is that? The Associated Press wrote: Although no one tracks exactly how many H-1B guest workers come to take jobs these are visas for jobs in fields like computers and technology--how many of these are in the United States? The AP says ``experts estimate there are at least 600,000 at any one time.'' That is a lot. These are individuals not on a citizenship path. They are in addition to the 1 million who come to America each year lawfully to become citizens of America. They simply come in at the behest of some business to take a job for a limited period of time. That is important. There are other visas these businesses can get too, but H-1B is one of the largest. A paper for the Economic Policy Institute explained the annual inflow of guest workers for the computer industry in particular is massive. We estimate that during fiscal 2011, 372,516 high-skill guest workers were issued visas to enter the U.S. labor market, and, of these workers, between 134,000 and 228,000 were available for IT employment. That is information technology. The supply of IT guest workers appears to be growing dramatically despite stagnant or even declining wages. But Microsoft and its allies want more. Here is an excerpt from a report issued by the Partnership for a New American Economy. This is the front group for the pro-immigration crowd. It is co-headed by Steve Ballmer, a recent Microsoft CEO. He left Microsoft in February, but he is the co-head of this group and is lobbying for more H-1B guest workers to come to take jobs. They say: ``In many STEM occupations, unemployment is virtually non-existent.'' This is not so. They declare it to be so. They say: There is no evidence that foreign-born STEM workers adversely affect the wages of American workers by providing a less expensive alternative source of labor. What planet are they on? Wages are declining. Median income in America today--well, according to the Wall Street Journal, it was approximately $55,000 for a family in 2007. It is now closer to $50,000. It dropped roughly $5,000. Somebody needs to talk about that. Is unemployment in these industries ``virtually non-existent''? That is what they are telling us. They are spending millions of dollars even running TV ads to promote bringing in more workers than the 600,000 we have today. They want to double that number. I am not talking about the 1 million who already come lawfully every year through immigration in America. We have one of the most generous immigration policies in the world. These guest workers are in addition to the 1 million we let in each year on a permanent basis. Look at these recent headlines. Today: ``Microsoft To Cut Workforce By 18,000 This Year, `Moving Now' To Cut First 13,000.'' How about this headline: ``[Google-owned] Motorola To Cut 10% Of Workforce After Laying Off 20% Last Year.'' ``Panasonic To Cut 10K More Workers In The Next 5 Months.'' ``[Online media and advertising company] CityGrid Lays Off 15% Of Its Employees.'' ``Hewlett-Packard: 27,000 Job Cuts to Save Up To $3.5B By 2014.'' I would say things aren't going as well as some would suggest, and the demand out there for workers ought to be met from our current supply. Byron York, an excellent writer at the Washington Examiner, wrote about this late last year in the Washington Examiner. The headline is: ``Companies lay off thousands, then demand immigration reform for new labor.'' On Tuesday, the chief human resource officers of more than 100 large corporations sent a letter to House Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi urging quick passage of a comprehensive immigration reform bill. Don't read it, don't worry about it, just pass it. It gives us more workers, and we need those workers, is essentially, what they have been saying. ``The officials who signed the letter represent companies with a vast array of business interests: General Electric, Marriott International, Hilton Worldwide, Hyatt Hotels Corporation, McDonald's, Wendy's, The Cheesecake Factory, Johnson & Johnson, Hewlett-Packard, General Mills, and many more.'' All of them ``want to see increases in immigration levels for low-skill as well as high-skill workers in addition to a path to full citizenship for the millions of immigrants in the United States currently illegally.'' That is their agenda. The article goes on to say: ``a new immigration law, the corporate officers say, `would be a long overdue step toward aligning our nation's immigration policies with its workforce needs at all skill levels . . . ' '' I would say at a time of high unemployment we need to be careful. The article goes on to say, ``at the . . . time the corporate officers seek higher numbers of immigrants, both low-skill and high-skill, many of their companies are laying off thousands of workers.'' So he did a little research. All these companies in need of workers. What about Hewlett-Packard? They signed the letter demanding more workers. I will quote from the article. For example, Hewlett-Packard, whose Executive Vice President for Human Resources Tracy Keogh signed the letter, laid off 29,000 employees in 2012. In August of this year, Cisco Systems, whose Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer Kathleen Weslock signed the letter, announced plans to lay off 4,000--in addition to 8,000 cut in the last two years. United Technologies, whose Senior Vice President for Human Resources and Organization Elizabeth B. Amato signed the letter, announced layoffs of 3,000 this year. American Express, whose Chief Human Resources Officer L. Kevin Cox signed the letter, cut 5,400 jobs this year. Proctor & Gamble, whose Chief Human Resources Officer Mark F. Biegger signed the letter, announced plans to cut 5,700 jobs in 2012. Those are a just few of the layoffs at companies, the article said, whose officers signed the letter. A few more: T-Mobile announced 2,250 layoffs in 2012. Archer-Daniels-Midland laid off 1,200. Texas Instruments, nearly 2,000. Cigna 1,300. Verizon sought to cut 1,700 jobs . . . Marriott announced `hundreds' of layoffs this year. International Paper has closed plants and laid off dozens. --including an old, big plant with 1,000 workers or so in north Alabama-- And General Mills, in what the Minneapolis Star-Tribune called a `rare mass layoff,' laid off 850 people last year. ``There are more still.'' I am quoting here from Mr. Byron York's article: In all, it's fair to say a large number of corporate signers of the letter demanding more labor from abroad have actually laid off workers at home in recent years. Together their actions have a significant effect on the economy. According to a recent Reuters report, U.S. employers announced 50,462 layoffs in August, up 34 percent from the previous month and up 57 percent from August 2012. This is last August. I am quoting from the article: ``It is difficult to understand how these companies can feel justified in demanding the importation of cheap labor with a straight face at a time when tens of millions of Americans are unemployed,'' writes the Center for Immigration Studies, which strongly opposes the Senate Gang of Eight bill. . . . The companies claim the bill is an ``opportunity to level the playing field for U.S. employers' but it is more of an effort to level the wages of American citizens.'' Mr. York goes on to say this in his next article. The next month, he writes another article on the subject. This week, the pharmaceutical giant Merck announced it would cut 8,500 jobs in an effort to remain competitive in a rapidly changing drug industry. Earlier this year Merck announced plans to cut 7,500 jobs, bringing the total of workers let go to 16,000. In all, Merck intends to lay off one out of every five of its employees. Well, what is Merck, this great corporation, doing politically about the situation? I will quote from the article. This is what they are doing politically: At the same time, top Merck officials are urging Congress to loosen the nation's immigration laws to allow more foreign workers into the United States. In a Sept. 10 letter-- --this is last September-- --to House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Merck Executive Vice President for Human Resources Mirian Graddick-Weir urged that the U.S. admit more high- and low-skilled immigrants to ``address the reality that there is a global war for talent'' and to ``align our nation's immigration policies with its workforce needs at all skill levels to ensure U.S. global competitiveness.'' Well, we have too many people unemployed. The number of people unemployed in our country is not accurately reflected by the simple unemployment data we get. When you look at the number of people in the actual workforce, you find we have the lowest workplace participation, the lowest number of workers as a percentage of the population at any time since the 1970s. It has been declining steadily. It is a fact. Everybody knows it. It is not disputed. If anybody wants to dispute that, come to the floor and tell me where I am wrong. And they won't because it is well accepted and Democrats and Republicans are talking openly about it, because it is a serious challenge for America. We don't have enough people working. We have got too many people living off the government and relying on federal aid and assistance. We need to create jobs for Americans first before we bring in foreign workers to take those jobs. We are going to help our people sustain their life. We make sure they have food and housing and aid if they are unable to work and don't have enough to live on, and we provide health care for them and education for their children. But we need to help them find work first before we bring somebody else to the country. I would say to my free market business friends, I don't think you can win the argument that we have a shortage of labor, because wages are down. I know you believe in free markets. I know you believe that things will balance out in a competitive world. If wages are down, that indicates we have a loose labor market, not a tight labor market. Wages go up when there are not enough employees, and businesses have to pay more to get good employees. Family income has gone down from 2007, as I said, from approximately $55,000 median household income to $50,000, adjusted for inflation. This is a very unusual decline. I am not sure we have seen anything like quite this before, at least since the Great Depression. This is a matter we need to talk about. ``Watching firms fire American workers while appealing for more immigration is a disheartening spectacle'', Mr. Byron York says. And I think that is true. This is another Associated Press article: ``Backlash Stirs in US Against Foreign Worker Visas.'' But amid calls for expanding the so-called H-1B visa program, there is a growing pushback from Americans who argue that the program has been hijacked by staffing companies that import cheaper, lower-level workers to replace more expensive U.S. workers--or keep them from being hired in the first place. ``It's getting pretty frustrating when you can't compete on salary for a skilled job,'' said Rich Hajinlian, a veteran computer programmer from the Boston area. ``You hear references all the time that these big companies . . . can't find skilled workers. I am a skilled worker.'' How about this? They say there is a STEM crisis--which is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. They say there are not enough STEM graduates to fill vacant jobs. This article says: ``The STEM Crisis Is a Myth.'' This is a paper by Robert Charette, contributing editor for the Industrial Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers magazine. He says: Companies would rather not pay STEM professionals high salaries with lavish benefits, offer them training on the job, or guarantee them decades of stable employment. So having an oversupply of workers, whether domestically educated or imported, is to their benefit. That is in part because it helps keep wages in check. Viewed another way, about 15 million U.S. residents hold at least a bachelor's degree in a STEM discipline, but three- fourths of them--11.4 million--work outside of STEM. If there is in fact a STEM worker shortage, wouldn't you expect more workers with STEM degrees to be filling those jobs?'' I think that is correct. What about the people who immigrate to America? They can't get a job because somebody else was brought in to take that job from them. What are they going to do? The economy can absorb a certain number, but in this low job-wage low-job creation economy we are in today, and have been in for a number of years, you simply cannot justify these huge increases in the number of workers we have brought into the country, especially when wages are falling. Here is another article: ``The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage.'' It is an op-ed by Michael Teitelbaum, a senior research associate at Harvard Law School. A compelling body of research is now available, from many leading academic researchers and from respected research organizations such as the National Bureau of Economic Research, the RAND Corporation, and the Urban Institute. No one has been able to find any evidence indicating current widespread labor market shortages or hiring difficulties in science and engineering occupations . . . He goes on to write, as I read before: From offering expanding attractive career opportunities, it seems that many, but not all science and engineering careers are headed in the opposite direction: unstable careers, slow- growing wages, and high risk of jobs moving offshore or being filled by temporary workers from abroad. I am afraid that is the undisputed reality. I wish it were not so. I wish we had a growing economy that would create a lot of jobs and a lot more high-tech workers and that wages were going up. But it is just not so. Here is an article from July 11, in CNNMoney. The headline is: ``Businesses Want Immigration Reform. Why? Because they can't find enough workers.'' That is what they say the answer is. This article notes the complaints of various business lobbyists. For instance: The tech industry faces a backlog of working visas for high skilled workers. The long wait for green cards at top universities means the U.S. is losing [talent]. . . . Microsoft founder Bill Gates and others CEOs like Yahoo's Marissa Mayer and Facebook's Mark Zuckerburg, have all pressed Washington leaders for an immigration [reform]. CNN also includes this statement from another group demanding Congress provide more workers: Two-thirds of construction companies have reported labor shortages according to the Associated General Contractors of America, who is pushing for immigration reform. So two-thirds of construction companies reported labor shortages. Well, what do we know about that? Here is a May 5 article from Economic Policy Institute by Ross Eisenbrey. They cite an in-depth study about the labor market. The headline says: ``There are Seven Unemployed Construction Workers for Every Job Opening.'' There is a chart showing the drop in wages. This isn't some promoter, some lobbyist or some media consultant putting out a self-serving statement claiming we have a shortage of workers. This is an academic study. Again, what does it say? ``No Sign of Labor Shortages in Construction: There are Seven Unemployed Construction Workers for Every Job Opening.'' That is where we are. What we need, as a Nation, is to construct an immigration policy that serves the interests of the American people. Professor Borjas at Harvard is perhaps the most astute and renowned expert on labor and immigration of anybody in the entire world and has written a number of books on this. He did an comprehensive study using census data and Department of Labor data and concluded that from 1980 to 2000, as a result of America's high immigration levels, the wages of lower-skilled US workers declined by 7.4 percent. The impact of this large flow of immigration from 1980 to 2000 reduced wages. We already bring in a million people a year, plus hundreds thousands more guest workers. I am not against immigration. What I am opposed to, however, is an immigration policy that fails to serve the needs of the people living here today. The myth is we have this great shortage of labor. It is just not so. If he allowed the labor market to tighten, wages would increase, more Americans would take some of these jobs and be able to raise a family, buy an automobile, and maybe even buy a house and educate their children. Today I am going to issue a challenge to Majority Leader Reid, and every single one of our 55 Senate Democrats, who voted unanimously for this Gang of 8 bill. With Microsoft laying off 18,000 workers, come down to the Senate floor and tell me there is a shortage of qualified Americans to fill STEM jobs. Come down and tell us. Do you stand with Mr. Bill Gates or do you stand with our American constituents? It is long past time we had an immigration policy that truly served the needs of the American people. That is the group to whom we owe our loyalty and duty and first responsibility. That is who elected us, and that is in our constitutional system, which ultimately judges us on our performance. The United States let in 40 million new immigrants legal and illegal--since 1970. There are many wonderful people in that group. But Washington actually hurts both our immigrant workers and US-born workers alike when we continue to bring in record numbers of new workers to compete for jobs. The share of the population today that is foreign-born has quadrupled. It has gone up four-fold in forty years. After four decades of large-scale immigration, is it not time, colleagues, that we slow down a bit, allowed wages to rise, assimilation to occur, and the middle class to be restored? I thank the chair and yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I first wish to say to the distinguished majority leader that the recent filibuster was supported by a number of Democratic Members, but most importantly it was supported by Members who did, in fact, favor the legislation. The reason they refused to go forward with the bill is because Senator Reid--in a dictatorial manner--has announced that he intends to control amendments. You don't get an amendment unless you grovel to the majority leader. There is no reference to the majority leader in the Constitution of the United States. He doesn't get to tell an individual Senator they can't have an amendment on a bill. He has been doing that consistently, and it is not right. We have been on this bill long enough to cast 10 or 15 votes. It is not a question of time as to why he will not allow amendments. The reason the majority leader will not allow amendments is because he wants to protect his Members from actually being held accountable by the voters of the United States of America by having to cast votes and choose sides. That is what it is all about. It has gone on way too long. It is demeaning to this Senate, and he demeans the loyal opposition who are doing the only thing they have as a tool, which is refusing to move forward with a bill because the majority leader is going to use parliamentary maneuvers to block anybody's amendment. I wish it were not true. I will not go quietly and allow him to come down and blame others for the problem he has caused. We could have already had this bill up for final passage. It is not a question of time. It is a question of control and domination of the Senate, and the majority leader is not entitled to do that. He is not entitled to do that, and it is not going to continue. This will be broken sooner or later. If the majority leader wants to move important legislation, he is going to have to agree to a process that allows duly elected representatives of various States in America to be able to at least offer an amendment. My remarks today are to discuss the nomination of Shaun Donovan to be the Director of the Office of Management and Budget. This is a very important office. I voted against Mr. Donovan in the Budget Committee, and I wish to take this opportunity to share with my colleagues my concerns. My concerns are not related to his character or personality or decency but his experience and qualifications to serve as the Nation's chief financial manager--the Director of the Office of Management and Budget. Alexander Hamilton explained in Federalist 76 why the Senate was assigned a role in the confirmation process: It would be an excellent check upon the spirit of favoritism in the President, and would tend greatly to prevent the appointment of unfit characters from State prejudice, from family connection, from personal attachment, or from a view to popularity. The President has the right to nominate, and his nominations should be given deference, but as Hamilton made clear, when the President's nominee does not have the fitness necessary for a critical position, the Senate should not provide its consent. The Director of the Office of Management and Budget is one of the most important positions in the entire government, entrusted to oversee our massive Federal bureaucracy and budget process during a time when the Nation is facing tremendous financial danger. Only weeks ago the Director of the Congressional Budget Office reaffirmed in testimony before Congress that the debt of this country is on an ``unsustainable path,'' and he meant exactly that. He went on to say that America faces the ``risk of a fiscal crisis.'' He means Greece when he says ``a fiscal crisis.'' Whoever holds the job of budget director must be one of the toughest, strongest, most able, and disciplined managers in America. We ought to be looking for the very best. We need someone who already understands this massive Federal Government, the financial stresses we are under, where the problems arise, and how to manage it. We need somebody with the capability and credibility to deal with strong-willed cabinet people who, as history shows, always want to spend more and need to be told no by the Office of Management and Budget. Sadly, what has become clear is that the President did not choose Mr. Donovan because he met those criteria. That was not what he was looking for. Mr. Donovan does not come close to meeting those qualifications. He just does not. I enjoyed meeting with him, but I asked him questions that deal with fundamental issues everybody in Congress understands but he doesn't understand because he hasn't had experience with them. Instead, it would seem Mr. Donovan, as with the President's past Budget Directors, was chosen because he has good people skills and personality and is politically loyal and would defend the administration's goals and priorities even when the result might be unfavorable to the public's fiscal health. We have seen this time and again in the President's Budget Office. His past Budget Directors have done more to conceal financial problems the Congressional Budget Office has told us we face than to illuminate those problems. They have steadfastly sought to avoid serious discussions about the unsustainable debt course we are on and to lay out any credible policies to fix that problem. They have been unresponsive to congressional inquiry. They make false statements about what their budget would actually do. Indeed, they have repeated--Mr. Lew did when he was Director--that our budget would pay down the debt when, in fact, there was not a single year in his 10-year budget that the deficit was less than $500 billion. They have tried to break spending caps that are agreed to by the President and are in law, and they refused to comply with legal requirements to submit a plan to prevent Medicare's insolvency--an edict the law requires him to do, and President Bush did. The Office of Management and Budget should be one of the least political departments in government. Instead, the President has made it one of the most political. Shouldn't the American people be able to look to their Budget Director with confidence, knowing their tax dollars have been entrusted to someone with great wisdom and experience and independence? Shouldn't they be able to know their Budget Director will look the American people in the eye and tell them squarely what the true facts are we are facing today, and is someone who could lay out a plan that would actually work to fix the debt course we are on? The President had the ability to scour the country for the most skilled, talented, disciplined, and gifted manager he could find for this office. Very few people of prominence would turn down a request from the President to fulfill that duty. A renowned manager of great financial acumen and recognized independence is what we are looking for--someone with a track record, a proven record of saving taxpayers' dollars, developing new efficiencies, taking on entrenched interest in the service of the public good, not the special interest good. They have to be capable of meeting with someone such as Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, to meet with members of the Budget Committee such as Senator Rob Portman who was also a former OMB Director; Senator Pat Toomey, Senator Chuck Grassley, Senator Ron Johnson, a businessman and an accountant. They know about these matters. They have been working on them. They have been negotiating and producing plans. Mr. Donovan has no knowledge of them. He cannot discuss it with them intelligently. He has no background in that. He has shown no interest in it. I suspect Mr. Donovan was stunned when he was offered this job. He certainly has not prepared himself for it. I am not criticizing him specifically as a person; I am saying this is not the kind of person we need today. There is nothing in his background to suggest he is up to the task this urgent hour requires. More troublingly, Mr. Donovan himself has a poor record of financial management at HUD. He is the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. During his tenure HUD has received repeated and stark criticism from his own agency's inspector general. They appoint, within these Cabinet positions, an inspector general who analyzes and acts independently to advise the Secretary and the Congress if something is wrong. Well, I would suggest what I am going to say evidences that Mr. Donovan's skill is in spending money and making investments rather than saving dollars and managing money. His record at HUD shows he spent money illegally, violating the Antideficiency Act--a very important act. On the great financial issue of our time--our Nation's crippling debt burden--I asked Mr. Donovan at the hearing in the Budget Committee about what he would propose to fix the unsustainable debt course. Shouldn't he do that? He offered no serious ideas to get our debt under control. Clearly, he has no intention of providing the leadership needed to reverse our disastrous current debt course. For instance, the President's most recent 10-year budget plan he submitted would break the in-law spending limits he agreed to and increase our Nation's total debt by an average of $800 billion a year. Over the next 10 years, under his budget plan, we could be expected to average deficits of $800 billion a year, almost $1 trillion. Indeed, in the 10th year, it is virtually $1 trillion. I asked Mr. Donovan about this and he replied: The President's . . . budget includes fully-paid for, fiscally responsible investments that will create jobs, grow the economy, and expand opportunity for all Americans. That is the answer we got. I submit that is not responsible. That is not serious. He is not in touch with reality. When Mr. Donovan was forced to admit in follow-up written questions that the President's budget plan would add $6 trillion to the public debt over the next 10 years, he called the increase ``nominal.'' It is precisely this cavalier attitude from government elites that is leading our Nation to financial catastrophe. CBO says these deficits put us on a path to a fiscal crisis. Last year we paid $220 billion in interest on our $17 billion debt. But the Congressional Budget Office projects that interest rates are going to return to more normal levels in a few years and we continue to add more deficits every year. They project that in 10 years, interest on the debt will be $800 billion. It will pass the defense budget--interest in 1 year will pass the size of the defense budget by 2019. This is dangerous. We cannot continue on this course. I would also share that in talking to my colleagues about their discussions with Mr. Donovan, they expressed concern that when he met with them individually, he lacked basic knowledge about the fundamentals of the Federal budget. Consider the written testimony he later provided to the committee about his specific plans for entitlement reform--mandatory spending reform. He said: I have not . . . written any papers or given any talks or lectures that specifically lay out a comprehensive plan for Medicare or Social Security. So this is the person who is supposed to coordinate the effort to rein in spending and put us on a sound path. I would say not only has he not written any papers or given any lectures, I am not aware he has given any thought at all to fixing Medicare and Social Security, two of the biggest challenges this Nation faces. I don't think he has ever expressed a serious thought about these issues. In response to one question about Medicare data, Mr. Donovan told me the data did not exist. But the data does, in fact, exist. And his response cited the very report from which the data was found. At his hearing, Mr. Donovan could not answer fundamental questions from Senator Johnson about the Social Security trust fund. That is very important. With only 2 years left in the President's Administration, the Nation needs to have someone at OMB who can hit the ground running, who knows these issues. I asked him about defense. I am a senior member of the Armed Services Committee. He didn't understand the F-35 program. He is not able to converse intelligently about the troop levels we are talking about having to reduce. He couldn't talk about aircraft carriers--something he has never had any experience with whatsoever. That is why he couldn't talk about it, and he has never given any thought to it. This lack of basic knowledge and professionalism is evidenced in the inspector general reports about his tenure at Housing and Urban Development. Here, for instance, is a representative example from an IG report issued on February 19 of this year about his multifamily project refinances program. They came up with a plan that supposedly refinanced housing loans and saved money. This is what the inspector general said: HUD did not have adequate controls to ensure that all Section 202 refinancing resulted in economical and efficient outcomes. They went on to say: Specifically, (1) HUD did not ensure that at least half the debt service savings that resulted from refinancing were used to benefit tenants or reduce housing assistance payments, (2) consistent accountability for the debt service savings was not always maintained, and (3) some refinancing were processed for projects that had negative debt service savings-- In other words, instead of saving money, the refinancings cost money. --which resulted in higher debt service costs than before the refinancing. It goes on to say: These deficiencies were due to HUD's lack of adequate oversight and inconsistent nationwide policy implementation regarding debt service savings realized from Section 202 refinancing activities. As a result, millions of dollars in debt service savings were not properly accounted for and available, the savings may not have been used to benefit tenants or for the reduction of housing assistance payments, and some refinanced projects ended up costing HUD additional housing assistance payments because of the additional cost for debt service. That is not the kind of glowing review one would hope to accompany a nominee to an office who would oversee the entire Government of the United States of America. But the problems get worse. Every year, the HUD inspector general conducts an audit to determine if HUD's financial statements are in order. When an agency's financial statements are in order, that agency is awarded an unqualified or clean audit, meaning there are no material defects in the way the agency is managing its books. For the years 2012 and 2013, under Secretary Donovan's leadership, HUD received failing grades or a qualified audit, which means material problems were found with HUD's financial statements. Twenty-four agencies undergo the audit process every year. Only two failed in 2013: HUD and DOD. And we all know DOD has never yet reached the kind of accounting the government requires in that massive agency. So HUD is the only non-DOD agency that failed last year. Whereas DOD has historically had problems with financial statements, HUD had, prior to Mr. Donovan, received clean reports. The inspector general, in failing Mr. Donovan, noted that HUD had improper budgetary accounting and lacked proper accounting for cash management. HUD, under Mr. Donovan's watch, was also recently charged with an Antideficiency Act violation by the inspector general--a big problem, in my opinion. It is serious. The Antideficiency Act essentially prohibits government employees or agencies from spending money that has not been appropriated by Congress. No President, no Cabinet Secretary can spend money under the Constitution that has not been appropriated for that purpose by Congress. So according to information received from the HUD inspector general, HUD, under Mr. Donovan's watch, has at least seven instances of violating the Antideficiency Act. These violations include overobligation of personnel or payroll funds, making student loan payments in excess of the funds allowed for that purpose, and obligating funds that were no longer available, and some of these were done after clear warnings to stop it. In one of the most recent violations, HUD paid more than $620,000 to a senior adviser to Secretary Donovan--personally his adviser, his staff--but they paid for it not from Mr. Donovan's budget for that purpose--to hire staff with--they paid for it out of the Office of Public and Indian Housing funds even though Mr. Donovan's adviser in his office was not employed in the Office of Public and Indian Housing section. This adviser's pay was required to come from the funds in the secretary's office, his budget. The inspector general found that HUD had ignored the advice of its own legal counsel and disregarded concerns that had been previously expressed by the House Appropriations Committee on antideficiency matters at HUD. I do not see how he could not be aware of this. This is his own adviser. His own lawyer said: You should not pay for it out of the Office of Public and Indian Housing funds. But he did it anyway. Congress had specifically addressed HUD's salary funding for the Secretary's senior advisers--it had been a subject of House discussion, which is unusual--and previous ADA violations. According to a July 26, 2010, House of Representatives report, ``all senior advisors to the Secretary should be funded directly through the Office of the Secretary.'' Of course. In addition, a HUD appropriations attorney in the HUD staff wrote in a January 13, 2011, email that a special adviser to the Office of the Secretary would need to be paid by that office-- the Secretary's office--and not another office within HUD. Despite the direction in the House report and guidance from his own appropriations attorney, HUD paid this adviser for his services from the Office of Public and Indian Housing program. Subsequently, in June 2012, Congress again admonished HUD for the lack of staffing data it provided and had available internally. Congress wrote: This lack of essential information led to multiple Anti- Deficiency Act violations in fiscal year 2011, in which HUD hired more people than it had resources to pay. To date, HUD has not even tried to address these problems and thus the Committee has no faith in HUD's ability to appropriately staff its operations. It is a very serious criticism of the management ability of the man now put in charge of managing an entire government. It is not the kind of activity that warrants a promotion. Finally, I have to say this. I have to mention this little matter: Mr. Donovan's membership in the Owl Club at Harvard--an item many of our Democratic colleagues found most reprehensible when Justice Alito came up for confirmation for the Supreme Court. This is a club the late Senator Ted Kennedy, resigned from because it did not admit female members. Indeed, Harvard kicked the club off campus in 1984, but that was the very year Mr. Donovan became a member and remained so until 1987. I have heard no complaints from my colleagues about Mr. Donovan's membership in the Owl Club even after it was kicked off campus, but they howled mightily when Justice Alito was found to be a member of a similar club at Princeton. So I would ask my colleagues, in conclusion, does this sound like the background of someone who really is the right man for the job at this time? That is my fundamental concern. I do not believe his background, skills, and record indicate he is ready for one of the toughest jobs in government. This President, even more than most Presidents in their second term-- and they all tend to do this--is surrounding himself closer and closer with a small group of political loyalists--Secretary Lew, Secretary Johnson, Secretary Perez. So do we need another loyalist who protects him better? Wouldn't the American people and the President himself be better off with a strong, capable manager who can see through all the fog and the political falderal and make good decisions, preserving the taxpayers' resources? We need someone who will act independently on behalf of the President and the American people, who will respect the jurisdiction of Congress and legitimate congressional powers, who will follow the law and submit a Medicare plan, as the law requires, because it is going into default. The law says if it goes into default and the Medicare trustees send a notice--and they have--the President is supposed to submit a plan to fix it. OMB is the place that has always come from. It has come from there previously. And shouldn't he tell the White House no if he is asked to do something that is improper for the financial future of America? Well, I do not like having to oppose Mr. Donovan. He seems like a nice person. But he is the wrong man for this important job. I think he has been chosen for the wrong reasons, not for the right reasons. I will oppose his nomination. The President himself, I truly believe, and the Nation would benefit from the most capable, strong, and competent nominee the country can produce at this critical time. That's not Mr. Donovan. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, the crisis at our border continues unabated. It is a crisis that should never ever have occurred. It occurred as a direct result of the failure of the leadership of the United States, the clarity of our message, and our willingness to enforce simple, plain immigration laws. Last week, we reached the point where the President of the United States--who is directly responsible for sending messages and effecting policies that encourage the flow of immigration to the United States, announced he would be asking Congress--us--to cooperate with him and provide him with $2 billion in additional funds to deal with the humanitarian crisis--a crisis, as I indicated, that was produced as a result of his activities. In the same breath at that moment when he asked for more money to take care of the crisis, he announced he will deliberately and openly go around the Congress of the United States and the Constitution and unilaterally change immigration law again through an executive policy. The President said: . . . today, I'm beginning a new effort to fix as much of our immigration system as I can on my own, without Congress. As a first step, I'm directing the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Attorney General [directing them] to move available and appropriate resources from our interior to the border. He further said: I have also directed Secretary Johnson and Attorney General Holder to identify additional actions my administration can take on our own, within my existing legal authorities, to do what Congress refuses to do and fix as much of our immigration system as we can. I expect their recommendations before the end of the summer and I intend to adopt those recommendations without further delay. The problem is that we have laws. Congress has established laws. The President wanted to change those laws, and Congress made a decision. The decision was not to change those laws, and those laws remain in effect. As President of the United States of America, he has the highest duty to see that the laws of the United States are faithfully executed. Remember now, the President is the chief law enforcement officer in America. The FBI answers to him, the Drug Enforcement Administration answers to him, the Department of Justice--he appoints the top officials, and they answer to him. So does Border Patrol, and so do Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, immigration officers throughout, and the Secretary of Homeland Security. It is his administration, and he has used powers to go beyond--that I am aware of--what any President has used to basically declare: I will not enforce the laws passed by Congress. I am going to change those laws--I don't have to change them; I am just going to direct my officers not to carry them out, not to enforce them. Another thing he said was that young people here would not be deported. He invited a number of them to the White House. As a result, the word got out in Central America particularly that if you come to the United States as a young person--a parent could bring them or brother and sister--and you get into the United States, you will not be deported; you will be allowed to stay, and you could get a permiso-- that is, you would be released on bail into some family member's custody and you could show up at some point in the future to have a hearing. I have heard it is maybe as many as 500 days before a hearing occurs. And who is going to go and look for these individuals when they don't show up for court, as is continuously happening in high numbers, not showing up for court? So to me it is disturbing that we are in this situation. And make no mistake about it--$2 billion is a lot of money. We work hard around here to try to pay for things we need to by saving money here and saving money there, and now the President just sends over a message: I am going to demand $2 billion. We have to take care of the children. We can't leave them in a circumstance where they are not fed or taken care of or in a safe condition. I guess we will have to find some money to do that. But the question is, How did it happen? Why did it happen? And $2 billion is more than the general fund budget of the State of Alabama, which is where I am from. An extra $2 billion is a lot of money--extra money this year. Why? Because in 2011 we had 6,000 unaccompanied children apprehended at the border, and this year we are projected to have 90,000. That is why the President says we need $2 billion more--because the message got out, the word got out: You can come to America and, as a young person, you won't be deported. In fact--and Congress doesn't know it fully at this point, but, in fact, that is true. Young people coming to America unlawfully from Central and South America, other than Mexico, are being allowed to stay, and it encourages more. We have to have a lawful system of immigration, a system that serves the national interests. A lawful system means one that is carried out effectively and efficiently. It is wrong and it is immoral to create a system in which there is no law, where laws are violated willy-nilly and nothing is ever done about it. That is not healthy at all for any nation, and I would submit clearly that any nation must maintain the integrity of its borders. Failing to do so undermines the very sovereignty of that nation. No nation in the world that I am aware of maintains open borders. If you are not going to maintain open borders, then you have to set up standards for application and admission, and then if you establish those standards, you have to carry them out fairly and objectively. There are millions of people who have applied to come to America who are waiting in line, people with college degrees and relatives here, who have applied lawfully and are waiting their turn. And how is it right, how can it be justified morally, religiously, as a matter of public policy, as a matter of law that we just ignore them and let people come through by the hundreds of thousands? Indeed, it has been projected that unless something changes--and I think it could change if we have leadership--unless changes occur, we could have as many as 140,000 young people come next year. I guess that would be $4 billion extra that would have to be funded next year to take care of the costs. It is an unbelievable turn of events. My staff and I did a time line months ago, before this crisis became so imminent, and we documented a series of actions in which the President of the United States has directed his agencies to conduct their operations in such a way that it undermines the laws of the United States. This is 39 pages. One of the first ones--and I talked about it at the time and the ramifications that would occur from it, and nobody paid much attention. Back in January of 2009 President Obama took office. He had talked to activist groups throughout the country and he had made a promise to them. Not long after he took office, immigration enforcement officers executed a raid--which they had been doing over a period of years and always been able to do--on an engine machine shop in Bellingham, WA, and detained 28 illegal immigrants who were using fake Social Security numbers and identity documents. Shortly thereafter, pro-amnesty groups--these activist groups-- criticized the administration for enforcing the law. An unidentified official at the Department of Homeland Security was quoted in the Washington Times as saying this about the new Secretary of Homeland Security: ``The secretary is not happy and this is not her policy . . . '' Instead of enforcing the law, the Secretary investigated the ICE officers, who were simply doing their jobs. Esther Olavarria, Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security, said on a phone call with employers and pro-amnesty groups that ``we're not doing raids or audits under this administration.'' That was a huge abandonment of a normal and natural law enforcement procedure to create a lawful system of immigration right out of the chute--a direct result, in my opinion, of promises made during the campaign, not for law enforcement reasons, not for the national interests of the United States. It goes on. In January 2009 the Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, delayed an E-Verify compliance deadline. She delayed the E-Verify deadline a second time. She delayed the E-Verify a third time. It goes on, page after page of activities in which they took steps to undermine law. In June 2010 the Obama administration sued Arizona. The State was trying to help enforce Federal immigration law, and they sued the State of Arizona. They sued any other State that attempted to do anything that would enhance law enforcement. In January 2010 the Obama administration ignored the dangerous ``sanctuary cities'' policy. Amazingly, in this country we have cities that are providing sanctuary to people who are illegally in the country. Law enforcement arrests someone who is here illegally, they convict them of a crime--I was a Federal prosecutor for many years-- they hold them and then turn them over to the Federal law enforcement officers for deportation. But then these cities refuse to do that. Nothing was done about it, and this administration took no action--in fact, seemed to encourage it, frankly. In March 2011, ICE Director John Morton issued the first of a series of memoranda systematically weakening their enforcement deportation procedures, essentially implementing an ``administrative amnesty.'' He issued two more amnesty memos in July 2011. In December 2011 reports surfaced that the Obama administration would reduce the National Guard at the border. President Bush had beefed up our enforcement and sent a pretty good message that we were getting serious about the border. We were making some progress when he was doing that, but by December 2011 the Obama administration had begun to reduce the National Guard's presence, which has now been eliminated at the border. On June 15, 2012, President Obama bypassed Congress and in effect unilaterally implemented the DREAM Act--legislation that had twice or three times been brought before this Congress and failed to pass-- dealing with children who enter the country before the age of 16 and who can prove how old they were when they entered, who can prove how long they have been here. The legislation was poorly drafted, it was rejected by Congress on more than one occasion, and the President just said to his officers: Don't enforce it with regard to these young people. Don't deport anybody you apprehend who claims they entered the country before they were age 16 or 17 or 18. Who knows what year it would be. This was really the beginning of the message to the people in Central America particularly that young people weren't going to be deported-- the direct action that led to the crisis we have today--and I pointed that out at the time and others did. Chris Crane, president of the National ICE Council, wrote a letter last May warning: We are seeing a surge of young people. As I said, there are 39 pages with multiple actions on some of those pages--actions that were taken by the President's staff and underlings that undermined and weakened the ability of our immigration laws to be carried out effectively, consistently, and fairly. It is a terrible thing, and now we have this crisis today. According to a new report from the Los Angeles Times--which, I have to say, is probably one of the more knowledgeable papers, if not the most knowledgeable paper in America concerning immigration issues. They issued a report that deportation of illegal immigrant youth has fallen dramatically under the current administration even as the flow of illegal youth into the United States has exponentially increased. Just this weekend, they wrote this: President Obama and his aides have repeatedly sought to dispel the rumors driving thousands of children and teens from Central America to cross the U.S. border each month with the expectation they will be given a permiso and allowed to stay. But under the Obama administration, those reports have proved increasingly true. Data from the paper shows that the number of illegal youth from Central America who were apprehended averaged around 4,000 per year over the last decade. So the newspaper points out that over the last decade we have apprehended about 4,000 youth per year. Some reports suggest that the number could reach 90,000 this year--an increase of more than 2,000 percent. Yet since 2008 deportation of illegal youth has dropped roughly 80 percent. So we have an 80 percent drop in the deportation while we have seen a 2000 percent increase in the number coming unlawfully. Does this not tell us something? Is this acceptable? Isn't this a guarantee that we will see more people attempt to come to America unlawfully in the future? In May of last year, 2013, Chris Crane, the president of the ICE union, wrote a letter and he warned about the increasing number of young people coming in as a result of the President's unilateral imposition of rules to block enforcement of immigration law with regard to young people. In October 2013 numbers were already beginning to surge. That was obvious. In January of this year, the Department of Homeland Security laid out proposals for bids for a contract to private companies that would handle as many as 65,000 young people coming into the country unlawfully. So in January they were well aware of what was happening. Was any action taken in May of last year or October of last year or January of this year to confront honestly what it was that was causing such an increase of immigration from our Latin American countries and Central America, primarily? The answer is no. So now what we have is an emergency demand for $2 billion to deal with the crisis--just a sad event, really. I wish it hadn't happened. But you cannot play games with law enforcement. I spent too many years as a federal prosecutor--almost 15, really. You have to have clarity of law. People have to understand it, and they have to believe that if they violate the law they will be apprehended. So we have this bizarre event where noncitizens can come into the country in violation of our laws, plain and simple, and they are given amnesty and forgiven and not prosecuted. But a citizen who doesn't pay a few dollars of our taxes or violates a speeding ticket or gets a DUI can go to jail. So how can this possibly be justified in any moral or legal sense? I just don't think it can. The situation is so bad and so sad that we had Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson before the Judiciary Committee, of which I am a member, and I pressed him. He said: Well, we don't want young people coming to America because it is dangerous. I said: ``What about it being a violation of the law?'' He sort of avoided that. I asked him again and I pressed him. He finally said: Well, it would be against the law. But he didn't clearly state that if you come to the United States unlawfully you will be deported if you are apprehended. He didn't deny that people who come to the country today--young people--if they are entering in they are given to HHS, they are released to the custody of some adult relative that may show up or housed by the government and eventually are unlikely to ever leave the country under their policies. The moderator of ``Meet The Press'' pressed him about this. Mr. Gregory said: Critics say you are not stemming the tide fast enough. This number's going to grow wherever it ends up. The bottom line is what happens now? Are you prepared to deport these children, young mothers. . . . Are you prepared to deport them? Isn't that a good question to the man that heads Homeland Security, whose responsibility it is to enforce our immigration law? Now, I will acknowledge I opposed Mr. Johnson's confirmation. I don't think he had ever met an immigration officer in his life or a Border Patrol officer in his life and never had any experience in this. He was active politically with counsel for Department of Defense, but he had no experience in these matters. So did Mr. Johnson give us straight answers to this question? His answer was this: Our message to those who come here illegally: Our border is not open to illegal migration. And we are taking a number of steps to address it, including turning people around faster. We've already dramatically reduced the turnaround time, the deportation time. For the adults we're asking this week for a supplement for Congress, from Congress, to bring on additional capacity. And we're cracking down on the smuggling organizations. Mr. Gregory said: Do they need to be deported? Or I've seen some reporting suggesting that more than half of them could end up staying in the United States. That is a plain question. Secretary Johnson said: The law requires that, when DHS identifies somebody as a child, as an unaccompanied child, we turn them over to the Department of Health and Human Services. But there is a deportation proceeding that is commenced against the child. Now that proceeding can take some time. And so we are looking at options, added flexibility, to deal with the children in particular, but in a humanitarian and fair way. Mr. Gregory: Well, I'm sorry. . . . I mean it sounds like a very careful response. Are they going to be deported or not? Secretary Johnson: There is a deportation proceeding that is commenced against illegal migrants, including children. We are looking at ways to create additional options for dealing with the children in particular, consistent with our laws and values. Mr. Gregory: ``I'm trying to get an answer to, `Will most of them end up staying, in your judgment?' '' Mr. Johnson: I think we need to find more efficient effective ways to turn this tide around, generally. And we've already begun to do that. Mr. Gregory: But what does that mean? Are you saying it is impractical to deport all of them who are here now? Secretary Johnson, our chief law enforcement officer, still does not say they will be deported. I'm saying that we've already dramatically reduced the turnaround time for adults and we are in the process of doing that for the adults with the kids. We're looking at additional options for the kids in particular. Mr. Gregory: To deport them or to settle them here in America? Is the goal of the administration to settle as many of these kids in America as possible? What about those who are here now? What is the goal of the administration, to settle them in America or deport them . . . ? Secretary Johnson: ``There is a deportation proceeding pending against everyone who comes into the country illegally and apprehended at the border.'' Look, this is a top law enforcement officer. This is the top law enforcement officer with regard to immigration in America. He is the Secretary of Homeland Security and answers directly to the President of the United States. He could not say: Do not come to America unlawfully. It violates our laws. We cannot accept that. If you do so you will be deported. If you bring children, you both are going to be deported. Why couldn't he say that? He couldn't say it because they have had no serious policy to effectuate the law which is current law since he has been in office and before, really. They just don't want to say it. It is just stunning to me that you cannot have clarity and leadership in the top people in our government, and I am concerned about it. So this Congress is going to have to wrestle with how to participate in doing something positive about the unlawfulness at our border. I wish we had a partner in the chief law enforcement officer of America, the President of the United States and his assistant, Secretary Jeh Johnson, but we do not. They have no intention of enforcing the law effectively and consistently. It demeans the respect this Nation should have in the world. It undermines one of the most remarkable valuable characteristics of America, and that is our commitment to the rule of law. It is a direct affront to the rule of law. They directly undermine the sovereignty of our Nation. If you don't control your border, you don't control your sovereignty, and it is just wrong. It is not right. We are not able to accept everybody that would like to come to America--we just cannot. We have the most generous immigration system in the world. We admit a million each year under lawful application processes. We admit another 600,000-plus under the guest worker program to come and take jobs that we need to put Americans in. Over half a million of these are not just farm workers--only 20 percent of that 600,000-plus are farm workers. Most of them are taking jobs throughout the economy. At this point in time with high unemployment and falling wages, this is not a policy that serves our national interest. We just simply cannot do that. It makes businesses happy. They like an overflow of workers that helps keep wages lower, but it is not the right thing to be doing for working Americans. So as a nation we have a challenge, and Congress is going to have to assert itself. Congress passes laws. The President executes the laws. It is his duty to see that the laws are faithfully executed, and they are not being faithfully executed. In fact, they are being eviscerated by policy after policy after policy. One of the top immigration officials declared: ``If somebody gets into America and passes the border, they are virtually unlikely ever to be deported, adult or child.'' This is a direct result of the President's policies. We do not need to continue them. In the course of this crisis, I hope we will act with concern for those young people who are here, but I hope we will use this opportunity as a Congress to assert our legitimate rights as the lawmaking branch, and in a bipartisan way, the Republicans and Democrats will defend and assert to the President that he must enforce the laws that we, the Congress, pass. He does not get to on his own execute alterations in the fundamental law of America. There was an internal memorandum, I believe, and this internal memorandum from the Department of Homeland Security said people with children were asked why they were coming. You have heard it said because there is more violence and crime in Central America this year than last year. That is not so. They interviewed these people and what did they tell them? According to this memorandum 95 percent of them said they came because they heard if they came to America with children they would be able to stay and they would be given a permiso--in other words, released on bail--and they wouldn't have to come back for a hearing and they would be in the country. The stories are quite clear from the investigative officers that people are crossing the border with children and they go right up to the Border Patrol officers and turn themselves in. The Border Patrol officers turn them over to Homeland Security, and Homeland Security doesn't deport them. They set them up for some sort of trial or hearing, which may take up to 500 days. Then they find a place for them and they take care of them. It is just the kind of process that makes no sense for a serious Nation. That is all I am saying. Why are we seeing this large number again? It is because they believe it works. And in fact it is working. In fact, young people who are coming in with their parents or brothers or uncles or aunts are coming into the country and both of them are staying. Nobody is really being deported, and they don't intend to leave. The President created this policy, and now it has caused a national crisis. I hope we can do better. I hope in the course of the discussion we can improve on our law and find some strength for the President and put some strength behind our law enforcement in America. Chairman Goodlatte, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee in the House, has made a strong statement. He said he simply cannot provide money until we have clarity that we are going to be taking action in this country that will keep this from happening in the future. We certainly need to do that, and if we do, I am more optimistic than a lot of people. I truly believe if we follow up aggressively and start promptly reporting people who come here illegally instead of talking about it and not releasing them on bail on permisos, the word will get out in Central America just as it got out that they could come and stay. The message that will get out will tell them: Don't come here or you will take a risk. You will lose your money, you will lose everything you invested in this attempt, and you will be sent back. If we do that, the numbers will start to fall, and we might be surprised how fast those numbers would fall. It would be good for public policy and the rule of law. I thank the Chair, yield the floor, and note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SESSIONS

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

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I was to be recognized before, but I will be glad to, but would like the 15 minutes or so I was allowed to have even though it may back up after me. So, Mr. President, I would ask unanimous consent that Senator Coons be allowed an additional 2 minutes and I be allowed 15 minutes thereafter.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I appreciate my colleague. I would note he didn't mention and wasn't mentioned in the effort to pass the Gang of 8 bill, which was dead on arrival in the House, the American worker. The numbers just came out yesterday, a revision of the economic numbers--our gross domestic product showed a decline in the first quarter of 2.9 percent, a GDP decline of 2.9 percent, which is the largest we have seen since the recession hit--those dramatic days. We are not creating jobs in this country. Wages are not going up. We do not need to be surging the number of immigrants coming into the country. We don't need to be passing a law such as the Gang of 8 bill that would double the H-1B workers brought into America, increase by 50 percent the annual flow, add another 500,000 so-called backlog workers, in addition to legalizing some 11 million-plus, at a time when Americans are having wages fall and jobs are very difficult to find. For example, I would note that workforce participation levels have fallen to their lowest point since the 1970s. This is a dramatic decline in the number of people working and the numbers continue to slide. Since 2009, we have had a decline in median income for families in America of $2,300. They suggest repeatedly that this legislation we have brought to the floor was focused primarily on melon harvesters, but that is not so. About 80 percent of the people who would be given legal status and would be allowed to come to America to work under the guest worker program would not be on the farms. They would be taking jobs in plants and factories all over America, reducing the need for businesses to increase wages for a change and try to attract people into some of these more difficult jobs. It is not that people won't do this work; it is that the wages aren't sufficient to take care of them and their families. We need wages to rise. We have a loose labor market, not a tight labor market. People are having a hard time finding jobs. We are talking about a dramatic increase in the number of workers at a time when the economy is struggling, workers are hurting, wages are down, and unemployment is up. I just want to dispute that. I want to push back on it. That has been my analysis from the beginning. Oh, we need more high-tech workers, they say, and businesses say that too. But what do the numbers show? Professor Harold Salzman at Rutgers did a report that said we are actually graduating about 500,000 STEM graduates--science, technology, engineering, mathematics--about 500,000 graduate a year, but we only have jobs for fewer than half of them. Most STEM graduates are not working in their fields. They haven't been able to find the kind of work for which they trained. One of the reasons is that a substantial number of those jobs are taken by H-1B workers who are brought in not to immigrate to America to create jobs, I say to my colleagues; they come in on the H-1B visa, which is a limited period of time, they work at lower wages, and they return to their country. They are not on a path to be permanent citizens. But it is a great asset to businesses that don't want to hire, perhaps--it seems--people and put them on a career path where they might be expected to get pay raises in the years to come. So I will challenge even that fact. I talked to a business person recently about a factory they have. The work sounded pretty good to me. He wants to bring in foreign workers to Alabama. Well, we have unemployment in Alabama. We have people on unemployment insurance. We have people on welfare and food stamps and assistance who need to be taking those jobs. So the first responsibility of a congress, a senate, when they consider an immigration bill is what is in the interests of the American people. I don't believe it is wrong to discuss that. We have to ask what is in our national interests, the interests of our people, and this is not a time to be doubling the H-1B workers into America. It is just not. And more and more scientific, peer-reviewed, excellent studies are coming out on that. I see my colleague, Senator Durbin. I know he is exceedingly busy. My intention is to make a unanimous consent request that we actually do something about the crisis we have on the border.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of S. 202, the Accountability Through Electronic Verification Act; that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of the measure; I ask further that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate. For the information of all Senators, S. 202, introduced by Senator Grassley and of which I am a cosponsor, amends the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 to make an E-Verify program permanent. This is critical to protecting jobs and wages of American workers. It requires the government to at least run a cursory computer check to determine whether a person applied for a job is legally in this country. I renew my unanimous consent request.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank the able Senator from Illinois for his articulate response. I would note that the E-Verify program should already have been fully implemented long ago. If it is so good, why don't we bring it up and pass it now? Why do we have to pass along with it a bill that will double the number of guest workers in the country and would increase immigration and also had many other flaws in it? So I ask unanimous consent--and this will be my last unanimous consent request this evening--that the Committee on Finance be discharged from further consideration of S. 91, the Child Tax Credit Integrity Preservation Act of 2013; that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of the measure; I ask further that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. For the information of all Senators, S. 91, introduced by Senator Vitter and which I cosponsored, would close a loophole in the law that permits illegal aliens to illegally and improperly receive cash tax credits from the Internal Revenue Service, according to the Treasury Department's own inspector general. The IRS sent illegal aliens $4.2 billion in additional child tax credit payments in 2010. The cost has quadrupled in 5 years. In one instance, four illegal aliens fraudulently claimed benefits for 20 children they claimed lived with them in the same trailer and received from the IRS $29,000 in refunds. So I ask unanimous consent that this bill be passed.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments of the Senator from Illinois. I would have to say that the inspector general of President Obama's own U.S. Treasury Department has said this is a clear abuse. They have written a detailed letter on why it ought to be closed. I am flabbergasted and amazed that we would sit by and allow $4 billion in child tax credit payments to go out that are not justified. We have been told this. Why is it that we won't even respond to this little problem? It is one reason I brought it up today--because I want the American people to know this Congress, this Democratic majority is not willing to take any steps to confront the problems we have with regard to immigration unless they get a massive increase that satisfies activist groups, business interests, and their own political interests. It is not in the interests of the American people. We need to do the right thing for our country based on law, on principles, on fairness. That is what we need to do. People who come to the country illegally aren't entitled to get child tax credits. I would think certainly not for children who don't exist. Nobody is going out and checking to see if children are in the home. They are just claiming this. The numbers have surged in recent years. The inspector general expressed great concern about that--how it went from $1 billion to $4 billion. That is a lot of money, $4 billion in 1 year, subsidizing, encouraging further illegal entry into America. The first thing any country ought to do to control its borders, its sovereignty, its legal integrity, is not to provide financial benefit to people who violate the law and then give them benefits that are unlawful. That is beyond comprehension. I want to say to my colleagues, the last few weeks it is becoming more and more clear that we have chaos at the border--all a direct result of the President and his administrative officials who have told the world we have no intention, basically, of deporting people who enter the country unlawfully, particularly the young people. And has that been heard? Have people around the world heard what has been said? Yes. And they are coming in unbelievable numbers, creating a humanitarian crisis, creating a crisis of law for America, and creating a financial crisis. The President's Fiscal Year 2015 Budget request $868 million for the Unaccompanied Alien Children program at HHS. Now that cost is expected to be $2.28 billion, based on the numbers today. In 2011 there were 6,000 apprehended children trying to come into America illegally. This year they say it could reach 90,000 or higher. 90,000 from 6,000? It is a direct result of the unwillingness of President Obama to look the American people in the eye, tell the people throughout the entire world: We believe in immigration. We have a lawful system of immigration. Please apply. Wait your turn. If you qualify, you will be able to come to America, and we are going to do it fairly and objectively and treat everybody with respect, but do not come unlawfully. Do not give money to some smuggler. Do not attempt to sneak over our border across the desert and place your lives at risk because it is against our law, and we will apprehend you and we will promptly deport you and you will lose all the money you have invested in this effort. Just do not do it. They refuse to say that with clarity. Secretary Johnson was before the Judiciary Committee and I asked him about it. He almost refused to say: Don't come to America because it is against our law. He said: Don't come because it is dangerous. That is not the kind of message we need to hear from our leaders. The first thing a law enforcement officer should do--and the President is the chief law enforcement officer--but the Secretary of Homeland Security has the Border Patrol, he has Immigration and Customs enforcement officers, he has the Citizenship and Immigration Service. That is who is supposed to be enforcing our immigration law. He will not say that with clarity and he will not communicate it with clarity. Vice President Biden supposedly made a statement in Central America about it. It was weak. It just was not strong. What is it? Do they want the illegality to continue? Do they believe in open borders? This Congress, this Senate is about to recess having done not one thing about it, and the humanitarian crisis continues on the border. These children, some of them are young. Some of them are 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, and they claim to be 17. Who knows. They are not carrying birth certificates with them. It is creating an incredible crisis. One reporter said the Border Patrol, instead of enforcing the law, are changing diapers. This is a very dangerous situation. Our entire legal system is crumbling about us, and the chief law enforcement officer in America--the President--alone is the one who can bring order to it. The Secretary of Homeland Security works for the President. If he does not get on it, he needs to be out of there. The President needs to say: Get this thing under control. What are we paying you for? What about the officers and agents? What do they think? Our officers and agents are stunned. There is report after report of senior officers saying they have never seen anything like this. It is a direct result of the inconsistent message we are sending. They are saying a message is only part of the solution. It has to be backed up with words. So how is it happening today? A child and an adult cross the border. What are they doing today? They are going straight up--this is, I know, hard to believe--they go straight to the Border Patrol officer and turn themselves in. What does the Immigration officer do? He takes them into custody. If they have a child, the adult has to stay with the child, and then they put them in a shelter. Then they give them a hearing date. The hearing date is down the road. They have a backlog. So what do they do then? They release them. They allow them to go someplace where somebody will take them in, which is what they desire to begin with. Then they are told to appear at court at some given date in the future. Nobody is going to investigate if they do not show up, or to see where they are, and there is nobody to investigate it. We are talking about a huge increase--by tens of thousands--of people coming into the country, in addition to the 11 million who are already here. So this is a guaranteed failure. That is what everybody has been telling us who knows anything about it. The ICE officers, the Immigration and Customs enforcement officers-- their association went so far two years ago to file a lawsuit in Federal court. What did they say? They said this administration is violating the laws of America and the Constitution by directing them not to enforce the laws they had sworn to uphold. The Federal judge was very sympathetic with them. He eventually ruled there was not standing for this lawsuit to proceed, but he was very sympathetic with the merits of their claim because that is exactly what has happened. We have a situation where the President of the United States, based on the DREAM Act--the idea that we would provide legal status to everybody who was brought here under, I think, 18, that we would provide basically a legal status and a pathway to citizenship--that bill came up before the Senate and has been voted down three times by the Senate. So what did the President do? He directed that the law not be enforced as to them, even though the law remains on the books. That is part of the message that was heard in Central America, and that is encouraging people to come unlawfully to America. So we are not against immigration. We do need a certain number of farmworkers. We do need and will accept validated people who come with skills who are ready to go to work. We should do that, and we have a generous policy, but we should not be doubling it, as the Gang of 8 bill did. We just do not have the jobs for them. If we had low unemployment, rising wages, and a shortage of workers, I think we could justify a generous immigration policy perhaps but not now. Canada is not doing this. England is not doing this. They are reducing, right now, the number of people who are allowed into their countries. They feel an obligation to see that their people get the jobs first. The whole matter is disturbing to me, that we are at a point where the law is not being enforced properly in this country.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, today, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled against the President's unconstitutional recess appointments in a dramatic repudiation of the White House's position. Nine to zero they ruled. It was an obvious decision, in my opinion. It was breathtaking that the President of the United States would appoint members to the National Labor Relations Board who have to come before the Senate for confirmation under the Constitution--we have the advice and consent authority--and he did not want to do that, so he just appointed them and claimed we were in recess. We were not in recess. It was not a close question. He just did it. So it took over 2 years of a lawsuit, and finally the Supreme Court has now ruled. A lower court ruled against the President some months ago. The President clearly and deliberately violated article II of the Constitution in circumventing the advice and consent clause. At the time of these appointments, the Senate had determined it was not in recess. We determined we were not in recess, and the Court affirmed that determination. The question of whether the Senate is in session is up to the Senate, not the President. So the President has to yield to the Senate's authority to determine its own rules and procedures. This is basic law, it seems to me. Unfortunately, the President has made it clear that he will only follow the letter of the law when it is not an impediment to whatever agenda he has at the time. Just today, the White House displayed again its lack of respect for our constitutional traditions. In a rather brazen display of candor, the new White House spokesman today explained the administration's rationale for moving unilaterally to rewrite America's immigration laws. Here is what Josh Earnest had to say. Hear me, colleagues. This is a direct threat to the integrity of our constitutional separation of powers. It is not far different from what the President said before, but it was today. [W]e're not just going to sit around and wait interminably for Congress. . . . How about that: We are not going to sit around and wait on Congress. We do not have to fool with Congress. We have been waiting 1 year already. The President has tasked his Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson with reviewing what options are available to the President, what is at his disposal using his Executive authority to try to address some of the problems that have been created by our broken immigration system. So this is about as close as you can get to an open admission that the administration does not believe it has an obligation to follow the law. You cannot just eviscerate whole code sections of the law claiming that you have authority to decide what you want to prosecute and what you do not. Jonathan Turley, the great law professor, has hammered this idea. He is a liberal. He voted for President Obama in 2008. He has hammered this idea. This is an abuse of Executive power. We are seeing the results of this on our borders right now. In 2011, we had 6,000 illegal immigrant youth from Central America apprehended. This year, we may hit more than 90,000. Next year, projections are as high as 130,000, costing billions of dollars to take care of them. That would be more than a 2,000-percent increase. The President's policies are directly responsible for this crisis. They just are. He has acted unilaterally to suspend immigration enforcement and has sent the signal to the world that our borders are open and that if you get here unlawfully and borough in, you will be able to stay here. As former ICE Director John Sandweg said: ``If you are a run-of-the- mill immigrant here illegally, your odds of getting deported are close to zero.'' I asked Homeland Secretary Johnson about this during his testimony, to say clearly to the world: Do not come unlawfully. You must follow the laws of the country. If you come unlawfully, you will be sent back home. He refused to even say that in my presence with any clarity. Here is what the New York Times reported on April 10: With detention facilities, asylum offices and immigration courts overwhelmed, enough migrants have been released temporarily in the United States that back home in Central America people have heard that those who make it to American soil have a good chance of staying. ``Word has gotten out that we're giving people permission and walking them out the door,'' said Chris Cabrera, a Border Patrol agent who is vice president of the local of the National Border Patrol Council, the agent's union. ``So they're coming across in droves.'' That is exactly what has happened. It is a national tragedy. It is a human tragedy for those children. It is costing them money, placing their lives at risk, and we are not able to handle them effectively. Colleagues, I have a timeline over 17 pages long of the ways systematically this administration has ignored or simply suspended immigration law by issuing orders to the officers not to do their duty essentially. So 1 week before the Fourth of July holiday, America cannot even protect its own borders, and what do our Democratic colleagues wish to do? They want to adjourn this Chamber, go home to their barbecues, work on their reelection campaigns, and promise while they are home they are fighting to end the lawlessness at the border, while doing nothing, while actually doing nothing but objecting to legislation that would make a real difference. I see my colleague Senator Sanders and I will wrap up. I believe we were elected, colleagues, to protect this country and its people and the laws of our country. A critical component of national sovereignty is a control over your borders. We have passed immigration laws that are on the books and not being enforced. We on the Republican side have opposed immigration laws that would reduce the illegality that cannot even see the light of day on the floor of the Senate. So I am asking my colleagues, we ought to stay here. Why do we not stay here and work on this crisis? I intend to request that we do so-- and have done so--and offered unanimous consents to bring up legislation that would help improve the situation. But that has been objected to. Our taxpayers are overstressed. If we want to get this country back on track, we need to control this border and enforce the Nation's laws in a fair and equitable way that allows generous immigration to America, that treats people fairly and decently, but is not an open border, where people can come by the tens of thousands unlawfully. How can any of us relax at an Independence Day barbeque next week knowing at this very moment the Nation's sovereignty is being eroded? I think we have failed in our session. We have not responded to the crisis that is on our border. We could have made real progress. But there is a lack of will and a lack of willingness to act. I am disappointed to see that fact. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

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

Mr. SESSIONS. Colleagues, there is an unprecedented crisis unfolding on our border. The crisis threatens the very integrity of our national border, our laws, and our system of justice. It is something I have been talking about for a number of years, but it has reached unusual and dangerous proportions. It is a crisis of this administration's own making and a crisis the administration's policies continue to encourage. America deserves leaders in the executive branch who will stand up and say clearly: The crisis must end now. The border is closed. Please do not come unlawfully to America. If you do come unlawfully, you will be deported. This is what we expect from our Chief Executive, the chief law enforcement officer in America and, for that matter, the head of Homeland Security, the office in charge of Border Patrol and ICE officers. But President Obama and Secretary Johnson at the Department of Homeland Security refused--just refused--to plainly make this statement. How can they not? It is their duty. It is the law of the United States, and it is causing people around the world, particularly in Central America, to believe they can come unlawfully to America. It is encouraging this to happen. They are getting wrong messages from the leadership in our country. So let's review the evidence. On March 20, 2014, the University of Texas at El Paso did a study that was funded and supported by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate, and it states that ``both Border Patrol and ICE officers agreed that the lack of deterrence for crossing the U.S./Mexican border has impacted the rate at which they have apprehended UACs.'' UACs are unaccompanied alien children. Officers assert that ``UACs are aware of the relative lack of consequences they will receive when apprehended at the U.S. border.'' Get this: Officers are certain the UACs are aware of this. UTEP [University of Texas El Paso] was informed that smugglers of family members of unaccompanied alien children understand that once a UAC is apprehended for illegal entry into the United States, the individual will be reunited with a U.S.-based family member pending the disposition of the immigration hearing. There will be some sort of hearing set for them. This process appears to be exploited by illegal alien smugglers and family members in the United States who wish to reunite with separated children. It was observed by the researchers that the current policy is very similar to the ``catch and release'' problem that the Department of Homeland Security faced prior to the passage of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. If we catch somebody in the United States unlawfully, they will be given some minimal process and then released on bail and told to return back to court in so many weeks or months. In many cases, they do not show up. They enter the country unlawfully against the laws of the United States. They are apprehended but released--and why would they show up? Recently Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley questioned 230 illegal immigrants about why they came. These are particularly related to children, and 95 percent said they believed they would be allowed to stay and take advantage of the ``new'' U.S. ``law'' that grants a free pass or ``permiso'' being issued by the U.S. government to adults traveling with minors and unaccompanied children. So this is what they said 95 percent of the people who came illegally believe. This memo that leaked out of the Department of Homeland Security continued: The information is apparently common knowledge in Central America and is spread by word of mouth and international and local media. A high percentage of the subjects interviewed stated that their family members in the United States urged them to travel immediately, because the United States government was only issuing immigration `permisos' until the end of June 2014. On June 10, 2014, newspapers in Honduras and Guatemala quoted Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson as saying this--this is what he is being quoted as saying in Central America: ``Almost all agree that a child who crossed the border illegally with their parents or in search of a father or a better life, was not making an adult choice to break our laws, and should be treated differently than adult violators of the law.'' This conveys a message. Isn't it clear that people who are not students of the esoteric aspects of American law would hear the Secretary of Homeland Security basically saying if you are a young person and you come you will be treated differently? Then they hear they will be given a ``permiso'' and allowed to stay and be taken care of, that there is no risk or danger in coming to the United States unlawfully. On June 13, the Washington Post published an article entitled ``Influx of minors across Texas border driven by belief they will be allowed to stay in U.S.'' How hard is it to reverse that belief? We have not done it. On June 19, Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar of Texas said, ``As long as they know they are going to be released and allowed to stay here, they are going to keep coming.'' Isn't that true? The New York Times quoted one teenager from Honduras whose mother had sent for him: ``If you make it, they take you to a shelter and take care of you and let you have permission to stay.'' Records show the administration knew this surge we are seeing at the border, which is unprecedented in our history, was coming, and they knew of it for some time and did nothing to stop it or to send the message: Don't do this. Do not come to America unlawfully. Make your application if you feel you are justified in coming, and it will be processed in regular order. Indeed, the administration sought, rather than to stop this dramatic surge, to accommodate it. Even before the public became aware of the beginning of the surge of this nature at our border, on January 29 of this year, the Federal Government-- get this--posted an advertisement seeking bids from a contractor to handle 65,000 ``unaccompanied alien children'' crossing the southern border. This was in January. In 2011 we had approximately 6,000 coming into the country unlawfully. So in January of this year they posted an advertisement to handle 65,000. So this raises serious questions. Why would the administration claim to be surprised by the current influx of unaccompanied minors when they were taking bids in January for a contract to handle the exact situation--almost the exact number--we are seeing? This year it is expected to hit about 90,000 children; whereas, in 2011 it was 6,000. Projections from official sources say we may hit 130,000 next year. How did the administration anticipate the very numbers it seems we have at least to date? In March of this year the Department of Health & Human Services estimated in its fiscal year 2014 budget proposal that the number of unaccompanied illegal alien children apprehended in 2014 this year would rise to 60,000, which is up 814 percent from the 6,560 who were apprehended in the United States only 3 years ago. Over the weekend the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security published an ``open letter to the parents of children crossing our Southwest border'' on a Spanish language wire service. I had demanded of him in the Senate Judiciary Committee that he send a clear message, and he actually refused to do so. I had to ask him about three or more times before he would finally say: It is unlawful to come here, and that is the reason you shouldn't. He said: You shouldn't come because it is dangerous. He said: You shouldn't come. It is not a good idea. But he was not simply saying: Do not come unlawfully. In newspapers in Central and South America and on Univision's Web site the letter noted, in part, that the Senate comprehensive immigration bill ``provides for an earned path to citizenship, but only for certain people who came into this country on or before December 31, 2011.'' The Senate bill died in the House and will not become a law, and it was wrong to have done that very thing. That is what the law said, but it wasn't passed. But the very fact that Mr. Johnson is advertising in foreign countries an earned path to citizenship for illegal immigrants undermines his primary responsibility, which is to enforce the law. The most primary responsibility for Mr. Johnson is not to see how many people he can apprehend and actually go through the cost and process of deporting; the primary job is to deter criminal activity to begin with, to send a message and back it up that people cannot come successfully illegally. Don't come. Then you will see a large dropoff instead of this 800-percent increase we see today. Human beings are rational actors, and if they believe the United States is granting citizenship to illegal aliens who arrived before 2012, it stands to reason that the U.S. Government will move that date back if more illegal aliens arrive in the years to come. Why wouldn't they think they would be given amnesty too? That is what happened in 1986--amnesty was given. There were 3 million people who were given legal status, and the message was heard. Some say that today, we have over 11 million illegal aliens in the country. Even a 2009 internal Department of Homeland Security report on approaches for implementing immigration reform recognizes this fundamental fact. This 2009 report said: Virtually all immigration experts agree that it would be counterproductive to offer an explicit or implied path to permanent resident status (or citizenship) during any legalization program. That would simply encourage the fraud and illegal border crossings that other features of the program seek to discourage. In fact, for that reason and from that perspective, it would be best if the legislation did not even address future permanent resident status or citizenship. That is from an official government report. Contrary to the administration's claims that illegal immigrants are acting on mere rumor and misinformation, it is the sad reality of lax enforcement plus the lack of a clear message that is driving the surge. The reality is if you get into the country today, you are not going to be deported. That is true. A leaked May 30 internal memo written by the top border official, Deputy Chief Ronald Vitiello, said: Currently only 3 percent of apprehensions from countries other than Mexico are being repatriated to their countries of citizenship, which are predominately located in Central America. I repeat, only 3 percent are being repatriated back home. According to the former head of Enforcement and Removal Operations for ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, Gary Mead: It's taking a year or more in some places for people to come up on a hearing and many times, they don't have an attorney, or they've lost an attorney, and they get an extension, and maybe it's two years before they have a hearing. And in the interim period, they enroll in school, or they get a job, or they are reunited with family members, and then they are no longer an enforcement priority. That is significant. Even if after 2 or 3 years a judge finally orders removal--assuming the individuals show up in court at all--many illegal immigrants simply ignore that order, and having been here for a period of years, no one makes them leave. As former ICE Director John Sandweg said: ``If you are a run-of-the- mill immigrant here illegally, your odds of getting deported are close to zero.'' Yesterday, Byron York published in the Washington Examiner the findings of Jessica Vaughan, Director of Policy Studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, which shows that the United States deported a total of 802 minors to Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador in 2011, 677 in 2012, and down to 496 last year. Weighed against the tens of thousands pouring in, it is clear that once again the reality on the ground--not merely rumor, talk, or policy--of the lax enforcement has influenced decisionmaking in Central America. It is obvious to me. I have been a Federal prosecutor. You have to send the message, and if the message is heard that if you violate a certain law, you will be disciplined, the number of people who violate the law will drop. If you never enforce speeding tickets, people will speed. If you enforce them systematically, people will slow down. York quotes ex-ICE official Gary Mead: If you're getting 90,000 a year, or 50,000 a year, or even 25,000 a year, and you only remove 1,200, you're not eliminating the backlog. How obvious is that? Additionally, those here illegally have taken advantage of an asylum system that is easily open to abuse and that the administration has sought to widen rather than narrow. This asylum question is very serious. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Goodlatte recently stated: Many of the children, teenagers, and adults, arriving at the border are able to game our asylum and immigration laws because the Obama administration has severely weakened them and many thousands have already been released into the interior of the United States. What does President Obama plan to do with those who have already been released from custody? That is a good question. We have a situation now where illegal immigrants seek out and turn themselves in to the Border Patrol officer. They come across the border and go straight to them and turn themselves in. That is a fact. What happens then? They are taken farther into the United States to be reunited with family members, apply for a job, attend school, have children in U.S. hospitals, and stay in the United States--whether through skipping court hearings, receiving asylum, or simply ignoring orders to leave. We can all expect that 5 or 10 years from now--and correct me if I am wrong--politicians in this body will probably say these illegal immigrants ``came here through no fault of their own'' and are entitled to citizenship. Is this a policy of a great nation? It is a policy of a nation that believes and advocates for open borders, but it is not a policy that is compatible with a system of law, duty, and order. If people apply and wait in line, why should other people be able to come from the outside, break in line, move ahead of them unlawfully, and then ultimately receive the very thing they sought unlawfully? The chaos continues. Indeed, the President actively continues to incentivize even more illegal immigrants. That is the effect of what he has accomplished here. He reauthorized his DACA program--based on a bill that did not pass the Senate or the House--for 2 years, which is a policy that exempts whole classes of certain individuals, particularly young people, from the immigration laws of the United States. He held a White House ceremony in the White House honoring 10 DACA recipients. DACA recipients are people who enter the country illegally. He also unilaterally authorized an additional 100,000 guest workers, and now the Justice Department is hiring lawyers to represent unaccompanied alien children in immigration court to maximize the number of those who will receive permission to stay in the country. Claims that DACA--this policy of nonenforcement unilaterally carried out by the President of the United States not to enforce the law--does not apply to these new arrivals is simply a distraction. DACA is a unilateral action that established the precedent that those who come to America at a certain age will receive special exemptions from the law. That is what it says. ICE officers report they are often forced to release even high-risk individuals of unknown ages and dates of entry who simply assert DREAM Act privileges. In the internal Border Patrol memo, Deputy Border Patrol Chief Vitiello stressed the only way to stop the flow is to show potential illegal immigrants that there will be real consequences for their action. He said: If the U.S. government fails to deliver adequate consequences to deter aliens from attempting to illegally enter the U.S. the result will be an even greater increase in the rate of recidivism and first-time illicit entries. Our immigration system is unraveling before our very eyes. It is unbelievable. The American people have been denied the protections they are entitled to under our immigration system. Washington is failing the citizens of this country in a most dramatic and open way. Laws are passed by elected representatives of the people. We have passed laws that say you can't come to America without permission, and you need to file your papers and follow the rules. It is unlawful to just walk across the border because you want to come to this country. That is not lawful in this country. I am calling on all the leaders and officials in this town to take the firm, bold, and decisive steps that are necessary to restore order and restore our borders. It is important for the children who are at risk. Many of them are having a difficult time. They have run out of money and the coyotes and smugglers have taken their money and mistreated them. We have heard a lot of horrible stories. What is the best way to fix this problem? The best way to fix it is to have the President of the United States and the Secretary of Homeland Security say we are not going to accept you coming unlawfully. Please do not come. Don't do it. Make your application like everybody else. Wait your turn like everybody else. We are not against immigration or young people, but it is unacceptable to have a lawless system--as we have today--that is placing children at risk and overwhelming our enforcement officers. One TV program today said the Border Patrol officers, instead of doing their duty, are changing diapers. We have gone from 6,000 to maybe 90,000 to 100,000-plus next year. The cost of the budget item last year for these kinds of things was about $800 million. I think they are now saying they need $2.28 billion a year just to handle this overflow. We don't have money to do that. It is not the right thing. It is dangerous for children, it is corrosive of the law. The President must send a clear message: Do not come. Please follow the law, and if you come anyway, contrary to the law, you will be apprehended, you will be deported, and you will be required to return home. I thank the Chair, yield the floor, and note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, on June 4, 2014, I was proud to participate with the National Energy Resource Organization in bestowing its Distinguished Service Award to Senator Tom Carper. NERO has, since 1978, recognized in a nonpartisan manner outstanding achievements in the energy field, particularly in the areas of public awareness regarding energy development, supply, and use. Senator Carper was recognized for his long career of honorable public service and his leadership. In the Senate, Senator Carper has served as a senior member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and as one of the wisest supporters of nuclear power. Senator Carper is the past chair of the Clean Air and Nuclear Safety Subcommittee. In that role he led the effort to pass the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act with Senator George Voinovich and conducted vigorous oversight of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It has been my privilege to work with him on this committee as his ranking member. As we all know, Senator Carper has been willing to work across the aisle on energy issues, and he is simply one of the best people we have in this body. He lives by the Golden Rule and sets the kind of example on a daily basis that we all admire and should seek to emulate. I wanted to share this good news with my colleagues.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I was proud to participate on June 4, 2014, with the National Energy Resource Organization when it presented its Distinguished Service Award to our colleague, Senator Jim Inhofe. Since 1978, NERO has recognized in a nonpartisan manner outstanding achievements in the energy field, particularly in the areas of public awareness regarding energy development and use. In addition to working for 30 years in the private sector, Jim is the past mayor of Tulsa, U.S. Congressman, and has represented the State of Oklahoma in the U.S. Senate since 1994. Senator Inhofe was recognized for his service as the lead Republican on the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee for 10 years, 4 of those years as its chairman. He has been a strong proponent of Oklahoma's energy resources and truly believes in an ``all of the above'' approach to American energy. Through his work on both of his committees, he has demonstrated that energy independence is not just an economic issue but a national security issue. Senator Inhofe is well respected in the Senate on energy issues, and he has been in the forefront of every energy and environmental issue in the Senate for the last 20 years. All of us know of Senator Inhofe's dedication to this Nation, his faith, and to a strong energy production. We also know of his giving spirit and his heart for Africa. We are amazed at all he accomplishes. Every day he gives his total and relentless effort towards making America a better place. I wanted to share this good news with our colleagues.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak for up to 5 minutes.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, when a nation commits itself to a military effort, it is a very significant, august decision. I was here when we voted to utilize military force in Iraq and Afghanistan. A majority of the Democrats in this body supported that. The American people supported that. Through tough times, success was achieved in the sense that Iraq had elections, they had a functioning government, the U.S. military was drawing down its personnel, the country had a reconciliation with the Sunni and the Shia and the Kurds, and we were on a path that gave us some prospect, I believe it is fair to say--critics can have different opinions--but it is pretty clear to me we had prospects for a successful conclusion of that effort which would allow a relatively stable, relatively democratic nation to be established that did not threaten its neighbors or the United States. So we should have not done that. Well, we did that. That is what has happened. That was the situation when President Obama took office. He failed, in my opinion, in negotiating the kind of drawdown in the status of forces agreement that needed to be established to be able to create credibility in this new and fragile regime and help hold their military together, keep them trained, while we reduced dramatically our presence and military activities. We would be there as support, supplying equipment, intelligence, aircraft lift capability. That would have given them confidence. It was very clear when we just said: We cannot reach an agreement. We are pulling everybody out. We had General Bednarek talk to us recently. He told us he has 100 solders. I asked him if he was the current General Petraeus. He said, yes, with a bit of a smile, but he only has 100 people. So I guess I would say we are worried about it. One of the things that is so critical in our conduct and understanding of what we are involved in is to understand that the terrorist threat is going to be there for a long time. We are going to be dealing with this for a long time. There is a significant number, not a majority by any means but a significant number, of radicalized people in the Middle East who want to destroy the United States. They see us as an evil force. They support what we oppose. They want to take over their neighbors and continue to expand. They want to knock down reasonably functioning regimes that provide at least some freedom and order in their societies. They want to impose a caliphate. They want to impose on those countries a theocratic government and legal system. It is not good for the United States and it is not good for the world. One of the things we have to do and have to understand is that when we capture a person committed to the destruction of the United States, and who is attacking our people, they are not criminals. They are warriors. Most of their activities are clearly contrary to the law of war. So they are unlawful enemy combatants. When we capture a soldier in battle, whether lawful or unlawful, if they have complied with the rules of war, unlike this group, we do not try them, per se. We hold them until the war is over, until a peace treaty has been signed, until an agreement has been reached. That is not happening now. As a result, we have a confused policy that results in the release of dangerous enemy combatants, such as the five Taliban leaders we just released under this confused thinking. It fundamentally arose when the left--determined to attack President Bush--attacked the secure terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. They argued that it became some symbol of the policies we are using to detain people who are captured enemy combatants, lawful or unlawful. When we capture them, we hold them. We do not release them so they can go back to the war and kill us. We are going to send soldiers out to capture them, and then once they have been captured, we are going to release them so they continue into the war? It goes against all common sense. As Justice Jackson once said: The Constitution is not a ``suicide pact.''

Mr. SESSIONS. I ask unanimous consent for 1 additional minute.

Mr. SESSIONS. So they have to be treated properly and that sort of thing, but they do not have to be released. We captured, for example, Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai last year for conspiring with bin Ladin to attack U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Somalia and for his part in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. Embassies in East Africa that killed 224 people before 9/11. He is a treasure trove of intelligence. U.S. forces went in and captured him, took him away at risk of their lives. He had been undergoing interrogation on the USS San Antonio until he said he was sick and not doing well. So what happened? They took him to New York, where he was formally arrested and taken into the custody of the U.S. Justice Department, and put into the civilian justice system. The purpose of capturing him was to get intelligence. This is a warrior. We want to talk to him. We want to see what we can learn about him. Even the New York Times said ``his capture was seen as a potential intelligence coup because he had been on the run for years and so would, presumably, possess information about al Qaeda.'' However, when he appeared in Federal court, he was appointed a lawyer, guaranteed a speedy, public trial--the things that prisoners of war are not entitled to--yet this has been happening over and over again. Al- Ruqai's cooperation ended, leading to a major lost opportunity to obtain valuable intelligence. This evidences a serious lack of understanding of the nature of the conflict we are engaged in. It evidences a policy that is dangerous to our safety. It is wrong to send Americans to capture people such as this and then treat them in a way that allows them to minimize the opportunity to obtain intelligence. Indeed, the gravest danger with bringing enemy combatants to U.S. soil is that the President cannot absolutely prevent their release into the United States. And, once foreign nationals are here, there are legal limits on the government's ability to remove them from the U.S. The reality is, once here, their fate is no longer simply up to the administration but also a federal judge. There are many examples of foreign nationals who have committed murder and other serious crimes and were released into the U.S. when our government could not transfer them to another country. This risk extends to the detainees at Guantanamo Bay. We saw that in the case of Kiyemba v. Obama. There, the D.C. District Court ordered the release into the United States of a group of ethnic Chinese Uighers who were detained at Guantanamo, many of whom had received military-style training in Tora Bora. Fortunately, the D.C. Circuit reversed the decision based on the fact that the Gitmo detainees had not been brought to the United States. If, however, Gitmo detainees are brought here, a judge may very well order them released into the United States if they cannot be removed to another country. That very real risk obviously does not exist if Gitmo detainees are not brought to the United States in the first place. The course this administration has chosen on national security matters has steered us into a head-on collision with reality. The American people unequivocally oppose transplanting terrorists from Gitmo into their own communities, either for detention or trial. Our primary goal is to prevent future terrorist attacks, especially through obtaining intelligence. We should not jeopardize that goal in order to afford foreign terrorists who seek to harm the United States and its citizens the rights and privileges granted to ordinary criminals. The administration's policy has put this country at grave risk. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I appreciate the work of my colleagues on this legislation. They have accomplished some very good things. We need legislation to pass to help our veterans. The needs are real, and recent revelations of substantially substandard care--and too often no care at all--at our VA medical centers are shocking. There is and has been a long-term problem with the management of that agency. It is heartbreaking. It is an embarrassment. We owe our veterans better care than they have been given. One of the keys to improve that care is improving accountability, ensuring money is being properly spent, not simply wasted by government bureaucrats. The money needs to get to our veterans. Our national debt now is $17 trillion. It is growing rapidly. We cannot be lighthearted or cavalier about our responsibility to follow our agreement to honor the budget limitations we have. There are a lot of budgetary freedoms we have and a lot of ability we have and duties we have to set priorities in our spending. Veterans clearly are a priority. I fought hard against the recent push to cut veterans pensions and led an effort to restore those pensions payments. In this case we are dealing with an issue of bureaucratic accountability. What happens so often is that in the crush and press of business, we are unable to reach agreements on finding money somewhere else in this monstrous bureaucracy and government of ours, and we simply break the budget and add to the debt. Our veterans deserve better than that. I am the ranking Republican on the Budget Committee. We wrestle with these issues--the chairman of the committee, Senator Murray--and the numbers from the Congressional Budget Office indicate that this legislation, as drafted, violates the Budget Act. Indeed, the entire bill, the way the language is written, has been declared an ``emergency'' which allows its authors to avoid finding the efficiencies and the accountabilities needed to stay within the Federal budget limits both parties agreed to. There is plenty of wasteful spending to be cut elsewhere in government, and much we can do to increase accountability at the VA. Even more concerning is the new open-ended entitlement legislation in the bill. The bill would authorize emergency spending but sets no limits on that spending. Section 801 says ``such sums as necessary.'' Well, how much is necessary? This is an important conversation to have, to wrestle with, and to develop solutions. But by simply not developing these solutions, we invite more of the same kind of accountability problems we have seen that brought us here. I feel strongly that we have to do the right thing for our veterans, but history suggests a blank check for the bureaucracy, an unlimited entitlement program, will not have the desired results--indeed, may even yield the opposite results from what we hope to achieve. We need to resist the temptation to create more entitlements and more entitlements, which is one of the reasons we are heading recklessly toward fiscal crisis, as our own Congressional Budget Office has indicated, and instead focus on creating reforms and solutions that improve that quality of service and the effectiveness that is delivered. Isn't that our job? Isn't that what our veterans deserve from us--the very best we can give them? As many hours as it takes for us to get this right, instead of simply avoiding the difficult issues we must tackle to solve this calamity long-term? There are also 3 years of emergency spending under the legislation, which I think is an unwise precedent for us to set. Again: it leads to the kind of unaccountability, the lack of oversight that helped create this crisis in the first place. We should designate--maybe if we have to do this--2014 money this year where the crisis is. We have already appropriated money. If we need some more, that could be perhaps justified as emergency spending, but a 3-year bill goes beyond what I think is proper. It fails to establish the oversight that Congress has a solemn duty to deliver. We can't just write a blank check and think it will solve these problems. We have to ask the tougher, deeper questions about the changes needed in Washington to do right by our veterans. Details matter. Every line of legislation matters. We need to get this right. The Appropriations Committee has already reported out the 2015 VA-HUD bill. It is already on the floor and could be here as early as next week. The Senate could easily attach a bipartisan amendment to that that provides the spending called for in this bill with offsets, cuts, efficiencies, and reductions in other spending to pay for it. There are places we could do this. So I have to tell you, there are some good things in the bill. I think there are. It improves the situation. I like the idea of giving veterans more choice to go to the doctor who is close to them. It is something Senator McCain and Senator Sanders have agreed on. I think that is progress, very much so, but I have to say I cannot suggest to my colleagues that the budget violation now before us should be waived. It should not. Ignoring this requirement will not help our veterans in the long run, but will lead to the same kind of problems we are confronting today. We should adhere to the agreement we reached on spending by finding offsets. If we don't adhere to our spending limits, other programs will crowd out the budget for veterans and mean we have less money in the future not more, to fund these programs. If we ignore our debt, we do a disservice to our veterans. Unfortunately, the bill does not do what the law we agreed to requires. It is not paid for. We all agree veterans are our priority. So then is it not our duty to them to fulfill this priority by reducing wasteful spending elsewhere so that money can be spent on veterans instead? Can we not deliver for these veterans that most basic level of responsibility on our part as lawmakers? Finally, colleagues, a vote to sustain the budget point of order is a vote that tells the committee to find appropriate money for the bill and does not kill the bill. It does not knock down the bill. It allows it to continue to be alive and a piece of legislation before us. It would just require us to fix the funding. It would require us to fix the bill. So that is what we should be doing. That is why I feel I must raise the budget point of order. In summary, the bill has mandatory spending that violates the limits we have agreed to in the Budget Act, and the bill also abuses the emergency designation to circumvent the requirement for offsets and the need for accountability.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I raise a point of order against the emergency designation provision contained in Section 802(b) of H.R. 3230, the vehicle for S. 2450, the Veterans' Access to Care Through Choice Act, pursuant to section 403(E)(1) of the fiscal year 2010 budget resolution, S. Con. Res. 13.