Jeff Sessions

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, as we come to a conclusion of this debate, Senator Harkin said something that was pretty insightful. He said: Show me your budget, and I will show you what you value. Refuse to show me your budget, I will say, and I can say you are refusing to show what is important to you. One of the things that has been brought up is the war costs. The war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan has been expensive, no doubt about it. Last year the total for both wars over 10 years reached $1.3 trillion--10 years--both wars. That was the deficit last year alone, $1.3 trillion. This year the war costs are declining. The year we are in, we are spending $118 billion on the war. Our deficit will be $1,200 billion. So eliminating all war costs would be less than 10 percent of the amount of our deficit. I say that so we understand what has happened. Over 50 percent of our spending is in mandatory entitlement programs--Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, food stamps, retirement benefits. Those are huge and they are increasing at two, three times the rate of inflation. That is what puts us on an unsustainable course. The President's budget goes against everything the experts said, against the debt commission he appointed, and refuses to confront these surging entitlement costs. That is a disappointment because we have nothing from the other side on how they would deal with them. But the Members on this side have offered budgets, and Congressman Ryan offered a budget. They do begin to deal with this painful but difficult situation concerning the entitlement programs. I note the Budget Control Act they have been calling a budget had nothing to do with over 50 percent of the budget. It did not deal with those expenditures, it did not deal with the entitlements. That is another reason it is not a budget. It is a cap on discretionary spending. That is all that was. It was a step in the right direction but not a budget plan that would help us have a prosperous future. This is an important day. I think it will cause the American people and all of us in Congress to confront the reality of a danger we face from debt. No matter how we vote this day, this next hour--even if we vote in what I think is the wrong way--hopefully this whole process would have caused all of us to confront the reality of the danger to the American Republic, the growing debt. I would say from my experience it will be tough to deal with it, but I absolutely believe we can. It is not outside of the possibility and ability of this country to reverse our course. The kind of cuts we will need to have will not be such that will damage in any significant way the strength and health of America.

Mr. SESSIONS. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. I appreciate that and will agree to those 2 additional minutes.

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, we need to lay out a plan for the future of this country. That is what this is all about. My colleague just said vote no on all of them and keep going, don't go back. What I hear being said--and there is no ambiguity about it--is let's keep on the path we are on. This is good enough. Here is the letter: Let's be happy. We are in Washington, and we are having fun, I caught a fish and we had a party, send more money. Isn't that what it is all about, isn't this what we are hearing from the other side? Send more money. We will take care of things for you. We don't have to cut anything. We are not on an unsustainable path. Actually, we cut spending over the next 10 years from $47 billion to $45 billion. Aren't we great. That is a huge increase over the current level of spending; it increases spending every year under the Budget Control Act--not nearly enough to change the debt course of the country. But that is OK. By the way, do you know what President Obama's budget does? It wipes out the sequester. Before the ink is even dry on the Budget Control Act, the agreement at the eleventh hour to reduce spending over the next decade by $2 trillion, President Obama submits a budget in February proposing to wipe out the sequester--all $1.1 trillion of it. What kind of commitment do we have to control spending? Send more money; that is the solution. Tax, spend, tax, spend. I wish it weren't so. I wish I could say differently. Well, let me ask this question: Do my colleagues not feel a responsibility to tell the American people what their financial plan for the future of America is? Do they have no responsibility? Do they feel no sense of obligation, no duty? All they want to do is attack anybody else's plan who is trying to save this Republic from financial disaster--attack them because they might want to reduce spending somewhere, and somebody might not like it because they didn't get quite as much from the government as they got before. Are there no programs that we are prepared to reduce or eliminate that are wasteful and not worthwhile? Is there nothing in this government? Maybe we stop GSA from having hot tubs in Las Vegas; maybe we ought to at least do that. How about the TSA, which has warehouses with millions of dollars of equipment in them that is not even being used? What about the $500 million Solyndra loan and other bogus loans to political cronies? And evidence is coming out that there is more of that. Can't we cut that? Or will they say that is anti-energy? What they need to do is get off the backs of the energy producers and allow more energy to be produced. It doesn't take taxpayer money to produce more energy and have decent regulations. Do you know what they do? They send checks to Uncle Sam. They pay royalties on offshore and Federal lands. They pay taxes on the money they make. The people who work at the oil companies pay taxes. That is the way you get money, not by just taxing somebody. I think the American people fundamentally understand that a tax on the rich is a tax on the private sector, and when you overtax the private sector, you get less of it. It is the private sector that creates the wealth that pays the taxes that allows us to distribute money here and go back to our districts and act as though we are some hero for returning people their money that we took from them, and we want to be some specially credited person because we brought back some bacon to our district. The American people understand this. They are not happy about this. The Budget Control Act is not close to what we need to do to put our country on a sound path. It is not close. I have to say that the President's budget undoes half of that. When I said the Budget Control Act took spending down from $47 trillion to $45 trillion, President Obama's budget that was submitted a few weeks ago would add $1.6 trillion back, so that would make it go from $45 trillion to $46 trillion in spending over 10 years. This is the way they propose to operate this government. That is what their plan is. Why won't they lay it out? Because they know the American people will look at it and say: Good grief, that is not what we want for this country. You guys have to get your house in order. We expect you to cut some spending. We know there is waste, fraud, and abuse in the capital. You better get busy. All we hear from my Democratic colleagues is: Send more money. What is particularly troubling is the suggestion that it is OK, we don't have to make any changes. But we do. We do have to make changes. Let me show you this chart. The changes will be difficult, but not so bad as to have the country be damaged in any significant way. This is where our spending level is today, $3.6 trillion. This is the next decade under the Budget Control Act, where we cut spending. In that late-night confrontation before the government was to shut down because we reached the spending limit and could not borrow anymore money, an agreement was reached to take $2 trillion out of spending over 10 years. That is what this chart is--after that cut had been put in place. President Obama wants to wipe out half of it. So it would add $8 trillion in new spending. If you cut that to $6 trillion or $5 trillion, we would balance the budget. You would still show an increase; it would just maybe be a $4 trillion or a $5 trillion increase in spending instead of $8 trillion. We could make a big difference there. The path we are on is unsustainable. The path we are on leaves us in the danger zone. The path we are on has led us to have more debt than Europe and more per capita than any country in Europe, and it is unsustainable. I am worried about this. I am particularly worried that we don't have a sense in this body that we have to make changes. We are going to have to look at the entitlement programs. I have heard Senator Conrad say this repeatedly. He served on the debt commission, and they said we have to do that. Does the President propose any entitlement changes in his budget? No. Are the Democratic Members of the Senate proposing entitlement changes? No. Who is? Congressman Ryan has proposed entitlement changes. He is prepared to defend them as being the kind of changes that will preserve, protect, and sustain Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. We cannot allow entitlement spending to continue to increase at rates four and five times the inflation rate. That is an unsustainable spending course. When 60 percent of our budget is increasing at three or four times the inflation rate, we are in big trouble, and we can't tax our way out of that. That is just a fact. Upper income people are going to have to contribute more to Medicare. They just are. We don't have the money. We can't just make it up and act like that is not reality. It is reality. So I think the budgets we will see from this side will be attacked viciously as wanting to kill these programs. They are not designed to kill these programs. They are designed to put us on a financial path where we can be healthy and prosperous and sustain the benefits we have promised. But a big chunk of Medicare is paid for out of the General Treasury of the United States, and people with big incomes ought to contribute to some of that, and they can do that. We can do that as a nation. So, Madam President, I think it is rather odd that we have come to the floor and called up--without debate, without opportunity to amend-- a series of budgets. Why? Because no budget has been produced in the Budget Committee, and under the rules of the Senate members can bring up a budget. We don't get to have amendments, but we can bring up one. Under the Budget Act, the Budget Committee should have hearings, have a markup, offer amendments, and bring the budget to the floor with a guaranteed 50 hours of debate, unlimited amendments, and then final passage within a certain time. That is the way it works. It guarantees priority to a budget because the people who wrote the Budget Act in 1974 knew how important a budget was. They gave it priority. It can't be filibustered. It can pass with 50 votes, with the Vice President--51 votes otherwise can pass the budget--because we need a budget, and we should be seeking to do that. To me, it is pretty frustrating to see our current situation. So I guess I will conclude by asking: Does the majority party not feel an obligation to tell the American people where they would like to lead the country; and do they not, in a time of financial crisis, want to lay out a plan they can rally behind and ask the American people to rally behind to save our country? It is an absolute fact this country has never, ever, ever, been in a financial condition as severe as this one. We have never, ever faced the long-term systemic debt threat we face today. We have never been on a path so unsustainable. Never. Nothing close to it. This is a threat to the future of America, and the party that aspires to lead the Senate should lay out its plan. The President should be engaged. He should be insisting we pass a budget that has some meaning and would change the debt course of the country. Yet what do we have? Nothing but attacks on Members of Congress who lay out plans that would actually do that. They do not want to bring up a budget. Why? They say it is foolish. It would be foolish for us. Yes, it would be foolish to reveal ourselves. The American people might add up how many taxes we want to increase. They might add everything up and say: Your plan doesn't change the debt course. They may add things up and say: You spend too much. So we don't want to do that. That would be foolish. I have never seen a situation where, in a time of crisis, this Nation has had a failure of leadership as great as we are seeing today. Now maybe I don't get this. Maybe something is wrong with me. But I think everyone who cares about the Republic should be prepared to stand and vote on proposals to put us on the right path. We are not on the right path today. We have a threat out there that could put us in a financial crisis overnight. It could happen very quickly. When that occurs, it will be too late to fix it. We saw the warnings that led to the 2007 financial crisis. That was a deeply damaging event--that crisis. We haven't gotten over it yet, and we could have another one. Wouldn't that be terrible? These numbers don't assume we have a recession. They have no real recession projected in the numbers we will see. We need to avoid a debt crisis, another financial crisis, as Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, on the debt commission, told us to avoid. We need to do that, and we are going to have some leadership on both sides of the aisle, I believe. So, Madam President, I will reserve the remainder of my time, and I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I see Senator Blunt here, who was part of the leadership in the House before he came to the Senate. I know he has a deep understanding of these issues and the place we are in as a Nation today. I also see Senator Thune from South Dakota, who is an active member of the Budget Committee and part of the leadership here in the Senate. I am pleased to yield to Senator Blunt and ask him how he feels this morning as we move forward today to bring up a series of budgets with no plan from the majority party in the Senate.

Mr. SESSIONS. Briefly, before I go to Senator Thune and get him engaged in this discussion, based on the Senator's experience in the budgetary process, I'm sure he is aware that about 60 percent of Federal spending is mandatory entitlement spending. Does the Senator think we can develop a long-term plan for the future that fails to address that large portion that is growing faster than the other part of the budget?

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Senator. I thank Senator Thune for his leadership and active participation in this debate. I ask the Senator, what is on his mind this morning, as we are heading for votes on four different budgets?

Mr. SESSIONS. I could not agree with the Senator more. I would note, the reason we are here today is because a budget was not produced. The Parliamentarian of the Senate ruled that a budget has not been produced and, therefore, under the rules of the Budget Act, budgets that have been filed can be brought to the floor. That is how we were able to force the votes today. Senator Thune, briefly--and I will also ask Senator Blunt, who is in our leadership--isn't it a fact that what happened with the Budget Control Act is that we had spent so much money, we had reached the spending limit of America--the debt ceiling--and we had to have a last- minute effort to reach an agreement; the Republicans insisted that we had to reduce spending, and we got a reduction in spending from $47 trillion over the next 10 years to $45 trillion? You would have thought that was going to bankrupt America--that we would spend $45 trillion instead of $47 trillion. That is not a budget. It was a limit on spending, and it was done because Republicans said: We are not going to raise the debt limit until you at least cut some spending. That is all that could be accomplished. We avoided a crisis, but it was a pretty tense time. Senator Blunt.

Mr. SESSIONS. Senator Blunt has been in the leadership in the House. He is in the leadership of the Senate. Be frank with us. What is it that would cause the majority party not to want to lead, not to want to lay out a plan for the future, and attack anybody who does lay out a plan? I know it is hard. We all know this is a tough thing. But doesn't the Senator think a party that aspires to lead the Senate should, instead of hiding under the table, stand up and say what they believe we should do over the next decade financially?

Mr. SESSIONS. Well, we need revenue--they use that word but will not explicitly say whom they want to tax except a very few rich. The Buffett tax would produce about $4 billion a year when we have a $1,200 billion deficit. I would note that Senator Manchin, a former Governor of West Virginia, said in today's Politico that he would have been impeached if he failed to produce a budget as West Virginia's Governor. He said: Sure I have a problem with failing to offer a budget. As a former Governor, my responsibility was to put a balanced budget forward. Well, I see my colleague is here. I think our time is up. There might be a couple of minutes for Senator Thune.

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, is the time up on this side?

Mr. SESSIONS. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I wish to make a reference to the Budget Control Act. One of my colleagues said we are running away from the Budget Control Act. I would suggest that is not accurate. In truth, the Budget Control Act was a cap on spending, and the Republicans have proposed that we spend less than that, as any economist would tell us we need to do because it wasn't sufficient. The difficulty arises, however, when we consider what President Obama proposed with regard to the Budget Control Act. It is amazing. In August President Obama signed the Budget Control Act as an agreement to raise the debt ceiling by $2.1 trillion in exchange for reducing spending by $2.1 trillion. He signed that, it went into effect, and it is the current law today. But when he proposed his budget in January of this year that we will vote on later today-- and I expect it will not get a single vote, and it should not-- President Obama's budget wiped out half of those savings. So $1 trillion of those savings were wiped out, and he replaced it with almost--he added more spending in addition--Mr. President, I am having a little trouble thinking here.

Mr. SESSIONS. So I think the dramatic event that has gone unappreciated is that the President's budget eviscerates the Budget Control Act and puts us back on full speed tax and spend. I see my colleague Senator Enzi is here, a senior member of the Budget Committee who has been involved in so many important issues. He is an accountant, a small businessman, and he understands the real world and the value of a dollar. I yield to Senator Enzi.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, before Senator Enzi leaves the floor, he made reference to the fact that in the European parliamentary system, when a Prime Minister proposes a budget that fails, that would be cause for collapse of the government and a new election. He also correctly recalled how the deficit commission that was appointed by President Obama came back with a number of recommendations that would have gone far farther than the President's budget in dealing with our debt course. But I would ask the Senator about that moment he mentioned, after the debt commission reported, when the President came before the joint session of Congress to give the State of the Union. Was the Senator surprised and disappointed that the President virtually ignored the debt commission and did not take the opportunity to explain to the whole audience of the American people that we are on an unsustainable course that could lead to financial catastrophe?

Mr. SESSIONS. Yes.

Mr. SESSIONS. I could not agree more. I do believe the debt course we are on, which is unsustainable--every expert and the witnesses who come before the Budget Committee on which Senator Enzi and I serve have told us it is unsustainable, and if we get off of it and tighten our belts and do things such as Governor Bentley in Alabama is doing, Governor Christie has had to do, Governor Brown is now facing in California-- they let that State go so far out of control, it is going to be difficult to bring it back--but they have to make tough choices. If we do that, I believe we will get some positive impact on the economy from the confidence that restores. I say to Senator Conrad, I see Senator Lieberman is here. I would be willing to yield if you are ready to use some time now.

Mr. SESSIONS. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, we have 1 minute on each side?

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, the President's budget is now before us. Last year it failed in this body 97 to 0. It failed in the House, the budget that he offered this year, 414 to 0. I expect it will receive no votes today. That is a stunning development for the President of the United States in his fourth year in office, to produce a budget for the future of our country at a time of fiscal danger, great financial and economic danger to our country, to not receive a single vote. Maybe somebody will vote for it. Let me tell you why we should not. It does not change the debt course. It violates the budget agreement the President signed and Congress passed last year, by increasing spending over that level by $1.5 trillion. It throws off another $1.8 trillion in tax increases, essentially using tax increases to offset new spending programs, not to pay down the debt. It is the most irresponsible budget submitted. I urge my colleagues to vote no.

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, at a time when our Nation has never, ever faced a deeper, more dangerous systemic debt threat than we face today, the Republican House, under the leadership of Congressman Paul Ryan, has produced a budget that would change the debt course of America, create economic growth, put us on a path to financial stability, and do the things that a responsible budget should do. The President's budget utterly failed in that regard and has gotten no support. This budget will do the job. People can disagree with this or that portion of it. I think this budget is a historic step in the right direction for this great Republic, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. SESSIONS

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

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I am here to speak, I believe, for the great majority of Americans who believe the time is long overdue for the Federal Government to fulfill its commitment and its responsibility to end the lawlessness at our borders. Only then can we put this matter, the deep frustrations that are occurring, behind us and move our country forward in a positive and united way. Immigration security is especially important in these economic times. Illegal labor does, in fact, depress wages and makes it more difficult for out-of-work Americans to find good-paying jobs. Immigration security is also vital to stopping cartels that are creating violence around our borders and in our cities. The Federal Government has a duty to protect those living in communities which suffer every day from preventable drug and gang violence. There is nothing compassionate about looking the other way when we can take concrete actions to make our schools and communities safer in every part of the country. There is nothing compassionate about a policy which makes it harder to protect not only Americans but immigrants who live in our country from gang violence that occurs in cities and at our border today. Unfortunately, instead of compelling sanctuary jurisdictions, such as the city of Chicago, to cooperate with Federal law enforcement officers, the administration has gone after those States that are trying to assist the Federal Government to end the lawlessness in our country. Under the administration's new ``prosecutorial discretion'' guidelines, if the Department of Homeland Security doesn't consider someone a priority, that individual's deportation proceedings are closed and they are allowed to remain in the country. So far, the administration has granted this form of backdoor amnesty to almost 17,000 aliens illegally in the country, some of whom have been convicted of crimes. The administration has also been resistant to the popular E-Verify program, never once including it in any of its jobs or economic plans. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, has effectively ended worksite enforcement operations, meaning employers can continue to hire illegal workers rather than out-of-work Americans. A determined President could take meaningful steps to stem the tide of illegality. I have been encouraged by Governor Romney's commitments on this issue. This is something I have worked at for some time, and I am absolutely convinced that with consistent, smart, effective leadership and a commitment on behalf of this country to end the lawlessness, it can be done and done quicker and with less difficulty than most people realize. For example, Governor Romney recounted the following conversation he had with a Border Patrol agent, and it is so similar to ones I have had with Mr. Bonner, who headed the National Border Patrol Council. This is the conversation as Governor Romney recounted it: They said, when employers are willing to hire people who are here illegally, that's a magnet, and it draws them in. And sanctuary cities, giving tuition breaks to the kids of illegal aliens . . . those things also have to be stopped. If we want to secure the border, we have to make sure we have a fence, determining where people are, enough agents to oversee it, and turn off that magnet. We can't talk about amnesty, we cannot give amnesty to those who have come here illegally. That is what Governor Romney said he was told by the agents who have to deal with this every day and who try to do their job professionally, and I think that is correct. That is what they are telling me. That is what law enforcement officers have told me for some time. Another example of how our country is so out of control is this government's failure to follow the rule of law with regard to Child Tax Credits. The Treasury Department's own inspector general for Tax Administration, who analyzes problems within the agency and issues reports, reported that in 2010 the Internal Revenue Service paid illegal aliens a staggering $4.2 billion in child tax credits for dependents, a great deal of whom don't even live in the country. This has been going on for years. This cannot continue. It must be stopped, and fixing it can't be delayed. The Treasury IG report states: Although the law prohibits aliens residing without authorization in the United States from receiving most Federal public benefits, an increasing number of these individuals are filing tax returns claiming the Additional Child Tax Credit, a refundable tax credit intended for working families. The payment of Federal funds through this tax benefit appears to provide an additional incentive for aliens to enter, reside, and work in the United States without authorization, which directly contradicts Federal law and policy to remove such incentives. That is from the inspector general for Tax Administration at the U.S. Treasury Department, not my language. Of course, that is exactly correct. That is exactly correct. How could it be otherwise? In a press report from Indiana, one of the illegal aliens admitted his address was used to file tax returns by four other undocumented workers who don't even live there. Those four workers claimed 20 children live inside that one residence, and as a result the Internal Revenue Service sent the illegal immigrants tax refunds totaling $29,608. A tax credit is not a tax deduction, it is a direct payment, a direct transfer of wealth through the tax system to an individual-- $29,608. The Treasury inspector general's report further stated: Millions of people are seeking this tax credit who, we believe, are not entitled to it. We have made recommendations to the IRS as to how they could address this issue, and they have not taken sufficient action, in our view, to solve the problem. Well, that is not acceptable. Now, $4 billion is a great deal of money. Four billion dollars a year is about $10 million a day. They found that $4 billion was doled out to people who received this one benefit illegally. No wonder we have people taking vacations to Las Vegas on the government's dime. No wonder we are giving $\1/2\ billion loans to failed companies like Solyndra. What are we doing here in Washington? So I say it is time to end this. I would note that the House of Representatives has voted to end this, and so it is now time to see what this Senate will do. We need to act to end it also. I have been in the Senate for 15-plus years, and being on the Judiciary Committee, we have seen the debate over immigration move forward, sometimes encouragingly and sometimes discouragingly. But every few years, it seems that the Washington masters of the universe who have willfully and deliberately failed to follow through on consistent promises to end immigration illegality begin to discuss some form of amnesty. They continue to incentivize the illegality but remain unwilling to take the necessary steps--not impossible steps--to secure the border on behalf of all citizens. For example, just this week my good friend and able Senator, Mr. Durbin, said that the DREAM Act is a bill that says: If you graduate high school and you have no serious problems when it comes to criminal convictions or moral issues and you either complete service in the military or 2 years in college, we will put you on a path to becoming legal and becoming a citizen. But we have examined that legislation in its most recent version, and it would really in effect grant amnesty to millions of people here illegally regardless of whether they go on to finish high school, finish college, or serve in the military. That is what the legislation does. And the bill is certainly not limited to children. It would apply to illegal immigrants who are in their thirties now. Because the bill has no cap, no limit, no sunset, no ending, it would allow people to remain eligible for the rest of their lives, at any age, to claim this benefit. Once they are naturalized, those granted DREAM Act amnesty would then have the right to legally petition for entry into the United States of their family members, including their adult brothers and sisters and the parents who caused their illegal presence in the United States to begin with, easily tripling the number of green card holders. This is a big issue. We need to be careful about these things. We need to consider what we are doing here. The bill's provisions are so broad, they are open to those who have even multiple misdemeanor criminal convictions that could include drunk driving and certain sexual offenses. But the bill goes further, offering safe harbor protection to those here illegally, those who have pending deportation proceedings against them. Those deportation proceedings have to stop even when the individual might pose a risk to Americans when that deportation may be based on the commission of serious crimes. This is especially dangerous because the safe harbor would also apply to those from terror-prone regions in the Middle East. In fact, the DREAM Act altogether ignores the lessons of 9/11, going so far as to open eligibility to those who previously defrauded immigration authorities, as did many of those 9/11 hijackers. So you say: Well, Jeff, what are we going to do? What can we do here? You say no, no, but we need to have a plan. We need to do something. Please, colleagues, think this through. The way forward for our country, the right way, the way to end the bitterness and develop common solutions for all residents is, first, secure the border, as Americans have asked their government to do year after year and this Congress and this administration have failed to do so. We must rebuild the trust, the trust of the American people, before other actions are taken. How commonsensical is that? People have a right to believe we will promise enforcement and give amnesty. That has been the pattern. We give the amnesty but don't do the enforcement. That is why people are upset with Washington. Why shouldn't they be? It has gone on for several decades. It has gone on since I have been in the Senate. We have to follow through on the commitments that have been made to the American people to do what we promised. It is time to end the lawlessness, not surrender to it. With determined leadership from the White House and support in the Congress, we can, in just a few years, I am totally convinced, solve the problem at our border, restore the rule of law, put an end to the border violence, and create a sane, just, and lawful system of immigration for America--a system that we can be proud of, a system that befits a nation as great as ours. Madam President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I wish to recognize the 15th anniversary of NumbersUSA, a national grassroots organization that advocates for immigration policies that seek to serve the national interest. NumbersUSA was formed in 1997 by Roy Beck, a former journalist who has been recognized by the Houston Chronicle as ``one of the five leading thinkers in the national immigration debate.'' Under his leadership, NumbersUSA has grown from a mostly Internet-based organization of about 2,000 grassroots members to nearly 1.3 million activists, giving a voice to American citizens on the important issue of immigration and securing our border. Those who were in Congress during the 2006 and 2007 debates on comprehensive immigration reform will confirm just how effective NumbersUSA is. NumbersUSA was an active leader in an outgunned coalition that stood up to virtually all the elites in Washington. The big lobbies pulled out all the stops, spent millions of dollars, and bore down hard in their push for mass amnesty. But Goliath fell to the grassroots David, whose faxes, e-mails, rallies, visits to our offices, and phone calls registered the clear message that the American people would not accept Washington rewarding lawbreaking. The overwhelming grassroots response actuated by the NumbersUSA coalition was most evident when citizens called Capitol Hill in such volume that it shut down the Senate's telephone system. NumbersUSA approaches the important and sensitive issue of immigration by emphasizing the number of immigrants that are lawfully admitted to the United States. Their approach is captured in a statement prominently placed on their website: ``To talk about changing immigration numbers is to say nothing against the individual immigrants in this country. Rather, it is about deciding how many foreign citizens living in their own countries right now should be allowed to immigrate in the future'' and ``about protecting and enhancing the United States' unique experiment in democracy for all Americans, including recent immigrants, regardless of their particular ethnicity.'' I commend NumbersUSA for speaking out effectively on these important issues for America. Their voice has added a valuable perspective to the discussion. I congratulate them on a successful first 15 years and wish them even greater success over its next 15 years.