Ken Salazar

Mr. SALAZAR

Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. SALAZAR. I yield 1 minute on Salazar 1384 and request a ``yes'' vote and yield the time to the Senator from New Mexico.

Mr. SALAZAR. I ask unanimous consent that the senior Senator from New Mexico be given 2 minutes to speak on both Salazar 1384 and Inhofe 1151.

Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be modified to be a first-degree amendment.

Mr. SALAZAR. Parliamentary inquiry: The senior Senator from New Mexico is recognized for 2 minutes to speak on both amendments?

Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I rise to speak on behalf of my amendment No. 1384 and to urge my colleagues to join me in support of this commonsense legislation that supports English as the common language for the United States of America. Our amendment is a very simple amendment. It says that the Government of the United States--and here I am quoting: The Government of the United States shall preserve and enhance the role of English as the language of the United States. Again, it is: The Government of the United States shall preserve and enhance the role of English as the language of the United States. This is a simple and straightforward amendment that recognizes the reality of the United States of America, that we are a people who yearn to speak English, want to speak English, and have the vast majority of our people knowing how to speak English. This language I have read is also part of a carefully crafted compromise. It is included in the underlying legislation that was worked upon by both Republican and Democratic Senators over a long period of time. It was agreed that this was the language that made the most sense in terms of including a provision relating to the English language in the underlying legislation. As I said earlier in opposition to Senator Inhofe's amendment, this is in fact a States' rights issue. The States of America ought to decide whether they are going to call English the official language of their State, as they did in Colorado; or they should decide, as they did in New Mexico in their constitution in 1912, to recognize English and Spanish as part of the language within their State. That was their right as New Mexicans. It is their right in Hawaii to be able to recognize a language other than English. It is a matter that ought to be left to the States. It would be a Washingtonian kind of thing to require these mandates upon the States, and it is something that we as the Senate should reject. Our language in amendment No. 1384 preserves that ability of the States to be able to enact their own legislation with respect to the English language. Finally, I only say that in my own personal history the native language in my home was Spanish. My family had lived along the banks of the Rio Grande River in southern Colorado for a period of 407 years. During all that time, they preserved their Spanish language, but they also honored and preserved the English language. My father and mother, who were veterans of World War II, had eight children who became college graduates. They understood the importance of English as something that would help them live the American dream, as all eight of their children have. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I conclude by urging my colleagues to vote no on the Inhofe amendment. At the end of the day, what the Inhofe amendment is proposing to do is to undo executive orders that have been signed by both the Clinton administration and the Bush administration. Those executive orders were created in order to be able to have people understand what is happening with respect to the courts, with respect to domestic violence, and with respect to other issues that our government provides services for where they need to be able to understand what is happening with respect to the communication they are receiving. I urge my colleagues to vote no on the Inhofe amendment.

Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 1384. Mr. President, I ask that the Chair let me know when I have 2 minutes remaining on my time.

Mr. SALAZAR. I ask unanimous consent that Senator Pete Domenici be added as a cosponsor to this amendment No. 1384.

Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry again: Just to be clear, then, on the Salazar amendment No. 1384, there will be 10 minutes for debate equally divided between the majority and the minority.

Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry in terms of the time available with respect to the Inhofe amendment.

Mr. SALAZAR. And with respect to the Inhofe amendment, the minority time has expired, and there is 43 seconds left on the majority side?

Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I ask for a ``yes'' vote on Salazar 1384 and a ``no'' vote on Inhofe 1151, and the 2 minutes under that time I will yield to Senator Domenici from New Mexico.

Mr. SALAZAR

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

Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I ask that the time during the quorum call be equally divided between both sides.

Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SALAZAR. I thank my friend from Tennessee for his comments on the importance of immigration reform. I would say there is agreement in this Chamber among both Democrats and Republicans that what we need to do is secure our borders. The legislation before us today and the legislation we have been working on is, in fact, intended to secure our borders. We all recognize we need to move from a system of lawlessness and broken borders that create a wake of victims, to a system of law and order and a system of immigration reform that works for our country. We have been making significant progress as we move forward with this legislation. At this point we have already had 15 rollcall votes on this legislation. We expect to have another seven rollcall votes on this legislation as we move forward today. That gets us up to 22 rollcall votes. Last year before cloture was invoked on the immigration bill that was before the Senate, there were, at that time, 23 rollcall votes. So by the end of tonight we should be at a point where we would have equaled at least the number of votes we had last year. We have some difficult amendments still coming up that we will be voting on, both today and tomorrow, but it seems to me we are making significant progress, and I appreciate the hard work that is going on today on the Democratic side as well as the Republican side. Again, I appreciate the leadership of Senator Reid. What he did is say: I am going to take the time of the Senate, 100 Senators. All of us here in the Chamber know how important our time is. We get a 6-year license to serve as Senators, so how we spend our time and how our time is allocated is at a very high premium. What Senator Reid did was to say a long time ago we would spend the latter part of May, and now we are into June, dealing with this huge issue of immigration reform. At the end of the day it is a national security issue that goes to the heart of what Senator Alexander was saying, which is we have to secure the borders of this country, we have to deal with the economic realities that have created the immigration issues we are facing here today, we have to deal with the reality of 12 million undocumented workers who live here in the shadows of America's society, and we have to create a system for immigration that is going to work into the future. The people who have worked on this, including President Bush in the White House, have helped us move this debate forward--hopefully closer to conclusion. I see my friend from New Jersey, who is I think ready to speak, so I yield the floor.

Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I rise to speak in opposition to the proposed amendment by my good friend from Oklahoma. First and foremost, I want to say I believe all Members of this Chamber and the people in the United States understand that English is important and that people, in order to succeed in our society, need to learn English; that the ability to acquire the English language and to speak it well is something we all support, and we support a number of different programs that would assist people who have limited English proficiency to acquire the English language as a keystone to success. I think that goes without saying. The amendment that is proposed by my friend from Oklahoma would, in fact, do a number of things that I think are problematical and should cause all of us to vote against the amendment. The first and a very important reason to vote against his amendment is that it is contrary to the provisions of law that exist in many States. For example, in the State of New Mexico, you have in the Constitution--in the Constitution of the State of New Mexico--as my good friend, Senator Domenici, would articulate here, a provision that says that many of the documents within that State have to be provided in both English and Spanish. The same thing is true for the State of Hawaii. I believe this is a States rights issue, and those constitutions of those States ought to be respected. There are other States in our Union which have decided they are going to adopt English as their official language. I believe that is a matter the States ought to decide. I do not believe it is a matter we ought to be imposing here from Washington, DC, on the backs of the States of our Union. Also, at the end of the day, what my good friend from Oklahoma is attempting to do with his amendment is to undo an executive order that has been long recognized by President George Bush, implemented by President George Bush, conceived by President Bill Clinton, and put into law with his signature. President Clinton's executive order was signed on April 11, 2000, on October 26, 2001. That executive order was recognized by Ralph Boyd with the U.S. Department of Justice under the Bush administration. It was again recognized on January 11, 2002, and again on November 12, 2002, and then again on December 1 of 2003. If I may take a moment to just read a portion of what was included in that communication that went out from the U.S. Department of Justice to all of the court administrators across the United States and all of the U.S. district courts. It said the following in the memorandum: It is beyond question that America's courts discharge a wide range of important duties and offer critical services both inside and outside the courtroom. Examples range from contact with the clerk's office in pro se matters to testifying at trial. They include but are not limited to matters involving domestic violence, restraining orders, parental rights, and other family law matters, eviction actions, alternative dispute resolution or mediation programs. . . . And on and on. What both the Bush administration and the Clinton administration recognized in this executive order is that it is important to make sure people who have limited English proficiency receive the kinds of services so they can understand what is going on in terms of the interface between the Government and themselves. Mr. President, I believe my friend from Oklahoma has an amendment in search of a problem, and I urge my colleagues to vote against it.

Mr. SALAZAR

Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to join my colleagues in tribute to the memory of a wonderful friend, Senator Craig Thomas from Wyoming. For me, Craig Thomas was not only a member of the Senate family, he was a neighbor to the north. Because of the similarities between Wyoming and Colorado in terms of the rural nature of our States, Senator Thomas and I had the opportunity to work on many matters during the time we both served in the Senate. I wish to comment on two or three of those issues which were very important to us as we worked on them together. I always saw Senator Craig Thomas as someone who was truly a fighter for the land, water, and people of this Nation, and the people of the State of Wyoming. I remember very clearly the debate we had in the Senate Energy Committee and the National Parks Subcommittee, which he chaired, about whether we were going to abandon the hundred-year principle that had guided the conservation philosophy of our national parks. It was Senator Craig Thomas who, at the point of the spear, made sure that the conservation doctrine of our national parks' policy remained intact. I also remember the leadership role Senator Thomas took in the last several years when there were efforts to try to sell off our public lands in order to make that part of the deficit reduction for our Nation. While he was a true fiscal conservative, he also understood the importance of the legacy of our public lands, protecting our public lands, and making sure those public lands were not used simply for deficit reduction. It was through his leadership that we were able to turn back the efforts of those who wanted to sell off the public lands of our Nation. I wish to also comment with respect to Senator Thomas's efforts for rural America. There are some significant differences between the Senate family and the House family. I think the House of Representatives, because of the makeup of that body--many of them come only from metropolitan and urban areas. Here in our Chamber, many of our Senators represent States that are very rural in nature, and there are very few States that are as rural as that great State of Wyoming. So it was natural for Senator Thomas to be a champion for rural America, and it was my honor to join with him in working on a number of other things where we stood together and said that the America that had been forgotten by so many, rural America, was never going to be forgotten on the floor of the Senate. It was in that vein that Senator Thomas took a leadership role, along with our good friend, Senator Larry Craig from Idaho, to make sure we were doing right with payment in lieu of taxes so that those rural communities in the West, which are so dependent upon payment in lieu of taxes because so much of our land is owned by the Federal Government, that we would be providing them with the kind of compensation needed to keep them afloat. It was also in that regard that I had the honor of joining Senator Thomas last year and Senator Craig in moving forward with the creation of the Office of Rural Veterans Affairs. That is because Senator Thomas understood that there was a great disparity in how veterans were being treated in the urban-suburban areas of our society and those in rural communities. The fact is that the VA had done a study that demonstrated the great disparity in health care services that were forthcoming from the VA to those veterans who lived in the urban communities as opposed to those who lived in rural communities. So it was his effort and his leadership that helped us lead to the creation of the Office of Rural Veterans Affairs. Finally, his work on the Agriculture Committee. When I think about Wyoming, a State that I often travel, a State where I have often worked, I think about its natural resources and I think about its people, but I also think about its agricultural base. Certainly, Senator Craig Thomas will always be remembered for his great advocacy for agriculture and making sure we have sustainable agriculture here in our Nation. I would like to thank Senator Thomas for the contributions he made to my State, even though I am a very new Senator here in this body. We worked on a number of different issues. It was through his leadership that we were able to hold hearings and move forward on legislation that created the Sangre De Cristo National Heritage Area, the Clark County National Heritage Act legislation, the Rocky Mountain National Park Wilderness Act, and the Betty Dick Resident Protection Act, and I could go on and on listing a whole host of other matters that were moved forward because of the advocacy of Senator Thomas. Lastly, I would say this: We get to know each other in a number of different ways here on the floor of the Senate and while working together. I fondly remember traveling with Senator Reid and with Senator Thomas to Iraq and spending 8 or 9 days with him in that troubled part of the world. I remember the conversations about his yearning for a more peaceful and stronger world, where we would create a legacy for our children that was a legacy of peace for the world. I was honored to often go to the Prayer Breakfast on Wednesday mornings and listen to the speakers. I knew Craig Thomas was a man of faith and that he was doing the duty of the people of this country and the duty of the people of Wyoming. So from his neighbor to the south, I conclude by simply saying that I am proud of that cowboy. I am proud of Craig Thomas, and I am proud of the contributions he made not only to the State of Wyoming but the contributions he made to this Nation. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. SALAZAR

Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, let me make a closing comment prior to adjourning the Senate for the day. We begin our work on immigration reform legislation in this time after the work period for Memorial Day. We have a lot of work ahead of us in this week ahead. It is my hope we will be able to work together to get to a position where we will have a final vote in the Senate this week on immigration reform legislation. We will hear, as this week continues, many personal stories about immigration, how the families of some Members of the Senate came into this country from different places. You will hear the stories which often tell us of immigration which has made us a rich country. I am sure we will hear the story of Senator Domenici and his parents and how his parents and his grandparents came to this country as immigrants-- illegally at one point--and became part of the American dream. You will hear lots of those dreams told here as we deal with the issue of immigration reform. For me, the issue of immigration is an important one for a lot of different reasons. Today, it is a very important issue for us because of the national security issues which are at stake. Unless we are able to fix our broken borders, I don't think any of us can say we are truly advancing the ball of national security for our country. The Presiding Officer knows well that as attorney general, the members of the law enforcement community hold ourselves up with pride to say we are different from other countries around the world because we honor the fact that we are a nation of laws and we uphold those laws in our country. That is integral to making this the great democracy we have in our country. So it is very important for us to move forward because we need to uphold those values which are so fundamental--the value of national security, the value of upholding a nation of laws. Those are fundamental values. For me, the issue of immigration reform also has some history in my whole family because my family did not immigrate to this country as is often thought about with respect to many of the immigrants we have here in the United States, families who came here in the last generation or the last 100 years. My family settled the city of Santa Fe, NM, in 1598. That was some 409 years ago. It was a time when, for the next 250 years following 1598, the part of the Southwest which is now northern New Mexico and southern Colorado was in the hands of the Spanish Government through 1821 and under the sovereignty of Mexico from 1821 until 1848. So for 250 years, my family farmed and ranched on the banks of the Rio Grande River in northern New Mexico and the southern part of Colorado and were very much a fabric of that landscape of the Southwest, very much a fabric of those non-Native American settlers who came and who found the great American dream to be a true dream in the United States in later years. In 1848, the treaty between the United States and Mexico was signed and Mexico ceded the northern part of its territory to the United States of America. At that time, those generations who came before me and my family were given a choice--a choice to become American citizens under article 10 of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo or, in the alternative, they could move some several hundred miles to the south to what had been a new border that had been created, now several hundred miles along the Rio Grande River, about 400 miles to the south of Santa Fe, NM, some 500 miles to the south of where our current ranch resides. At that time, my family, like many families of the day and in other generations as well, made the decision that they would stay. They would stay because they knew that this land was their land and those communities were their communities, that those landscapes were their landscapes and that they would make it their home. So for the generations in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico since 1848 until today, they continued to contribute greatly to the American dream in many different ways. In my own case, many members of my family have served in the U.S. military and have contributed greatly to the American dream. My own mother and father came here to Washington in the early years of World War II. My mother worked in the War Department at the age of 19, coming from a village in northern New Mexico, and spending 5 years working in the War Department as part of that ``greatest generation'' which gave back so much to America to give us the kind of greatness we have had for the last 60-plus years here in the United States. My father became a soldier in the Army. He retired as a staff sergeant after having served his time in the U.S. Army. There were other members of my family. My uncle Leandro, who is my mother's brother, 2 years older than my mother, gave his life in the soils of Europe defending this country's efforts in World War II as the United States of America saved this world from the hands of the Nazis and the hands of the fascists who would have turned civilization back to a place none of us ever wanted to go back to. So today, as we stand here on the floor of the U.S. Senate debating what we should do with the immigration laws of this country, it is important to remember that this country has indeed come a long way, that we are, in fact, an America in progress, that the America in progress we have seen for centuries and for generations is one we must build upon. For us here in the Senate to simply accept what some would suggest--and that is that we do nothing with this issue of immigration--is, in my view, a dishonor to our country and to the responsibilities we have. It is an abdication of duty, for those of us who have taken the oath of office to uphold the laws of the United States and the Constitution of our country to make this country greater than it is today, for us to simply say that this issue of immigration is too tough for us to deal with and that all we ought to do is somehow ignore it or figure out ways of sidestepping it and go on to work on other issues. I so much admire Senator Harry Reid because he has said to the Nation that he would hold the feet of the Senate to the fire as we deal with the issue of immigration. It may not be a comfortable issue for most people to deal with. It is a contentious issue. The phone calls and e- mails--and I am sure every Senator, both Democratic and Republican, has had their phones ringing off the hook for the last several weeks as we have dealt with this issue. Through the courage of Senator Reid, he has said we will move forward with this issue, and we are dealing with the issue. Through the courage of other Senators, both Democrats and Republicans, we have said this is an issue we can tackle. Yes, there are tough amendments, and we are working our way through those tough amendments, trying to make this immigration legislation which is on the floor better legislation, perhaps, than what was introduced here at the beginning of last week, and we are making progress. As I said, I think there are now 21 amendments which have been made to the legislation. There will be others we will make as the week goes on. But at the end of the day, America's greatness really depends upon chambers like this Chamber here, which holds the keys to the democracy of our country, and debating those issues which are difficult and getting us to a point of a conclusion to deal with these issues which are so fundamental to the 21st century of America. When we deal with this issue, what we will have done is we will have found solutions to the issue of a broken border that has been broken for a very long time. When we effectively deal with this issue, we will deal with the reality of the economic demands of the United States of America and how we treat people with the kind of humanity and morality we would expect of others. It is true that when one looks back at the immigration history of this country, there have been chapters in that immigration history which have been very difficult and very painful for those involved. From 1942 until 1964, there was a chapter in our immigration laws called the national Mexican immigration program, or the Bracero Program, in which people were brought into this country because there was a need for labor, and we had many of our men and women in uniform serving in faraway places, as those in my family were serving at that particular time, but because there was a need for labor in our factories and on our farms, people were brought to this country under a program. But it was a program that did not have worker protections, and the consequence of that program was that there were many people who suffered and who lived through a tremendous amount of pain because they did not have the protection of the laws of the United States of America. Today, in the legislation we have brought forward, we have included the worker protections that will ensure these people are protected. At the same time, the legislation we brought forward recognizes the importance of the American worker because even under the temporary guest worker program, which is a controversial issue being debated on this floor, what we have said in that part of the legislation is that a job has to be advertised first to the American worker and that if an American anywhere is willing and ready to take that job, it will not be available to somebody who would come in under the temporary guest worker program. So the economic issues, the national security issues, the human and moral issues which are at stake in this debate are some of the most important issues we face. I am hopeful that colleagues, working together in the Senate for the remainder of this week, will be able to come to a successful conclusion with respect to immigration reform legislation. Mr. President, I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I would note that with the adoption of those 4 amendments, when you add them to the 13 amendments that were added to this legislation last week, we have now acted on 17 amendments that have been proposed to the Senate. We have a number of other amendments that are pending, and we encourage our colleagues to come forward with other amendments they may also have. We are also ready to move forward to schedule votes on additional amendments beginning tomorrow morning. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that on Tuesday, June 5, when the Senate resumes consideration of S. 1348, the immigration legislation, that the time until 11:50 a.m. be for debate with respect to the Allard amendment No. 1189 and the Durbin amendment No. 1231, with the time to run concurrently on both amendments and divided as follows: 10 minutes each, the majority and Republican managers or their designees and Senators Allard and Durbin; that no amendments be in order to either amendment prior to the vote; that the amendments be voted on in the order listed here; that upon disposition of the Durbin amendment, the Senate stand in recess until 2:15 p.m. in order to accommodate the respective party conference work periods; that there be 2 minutes of debate equally divided prior to the second vote and that the second vote be 10 minutes in duration, with no further intervening action or debate.

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

Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, we continue to make significant progress as we move forward to getting to some final votes on this legislation. Last week, we disposed of 13 amendments. In comparison, last year, there were approximately 35 amendments throughout the entire debate on comprehensive immigration reform. So last week we accomplished disposing of 13 significant amendments to the immigration reform legislation before us. The unanimous consent request I will propound in a second will add an additional four amendments to this legislation. Amendments Nos. 1167; 1163; 1238; and 1166, As Modified With that, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that it be in order to consider en bloc the following amendments, that they be considered and agreed to en bloc, and that the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table en bloc: Cantwell amendment No. 1167; Alexander amendment No. 1163; Cornyn amendment No. 1238; and Grassley amendment No. 1166, as modified with the changes at the desk.

Mr. SALAZAR

Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 10 a.m. Tuesday, June 5; that on Tuesday, following the prayer and the pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed to have expired, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that there then be a period of morning business for 60 minutes, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each, with the first half of the time controlled by the Republicans and the remaining half of the time under the control of the majority; that at the close of morning business, the Senate resume consideration of S. 1348, the immigration legislation, as provided under a previous order.

Mr. SALAZAR

Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate today, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand adjourned under the previous order.