Making Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for the Fiscal Year Ending September 30, 2014 -- Motion to Proceed
Floor Speech
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Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I am glad that people have decided to speak about immigration reform.
This body passed overwhelmingly--Republicans and Democrats joined together--a comprehensive immigration bill last year.
We did it after six hearings during which we received testimony from 42 witnesses. We had five markups and 37 hours of debate, often late into the night, over three weeks. There were 212 amendments, of which 136 were adopted, all but three of them on a bipartisan bases. Staff and Senators, Republicans and Democrats, worked together throughout that time, and the Senate, by a better than 2-to-1 margin, passed a comprehensive immigration bill. It was supported by people from the right to the left.
It went over to the other body. In the other body there were enough votes to pass it. And what happened? The Republican leadership said: No, we will not bring it up. And so it died there.
Today, faced with a surge of migrants from Central America, they are giving great speeches: Oh, my God. We have to do something about immigration. Why don't we do something about immigration? And then they blame Democratic President Obama.
My response is: What are you doing? They could have brought up the bill. We would be a lot better off had they brought it up and voted on it. Vote yes or vote no. That is what we are supposed to do. The Senate did that, and we passed it.
The Republican leadership is so afraid they might actually have to take a stand on immigration. They might actually have to vote yes or no. It is so much easier to do nothing, just to let it sit there and say: Oh, it must be President Obama's fault. Oh, it must be the Senate's fault. Oh, it must be somebody else's fault. Or maybe it is the fault of these 6- and 7-year-old children who are trying to escape being killed or molested, the 12-year-old girls who are afraid they are going to be raped by gangs, the 12-year-old boys who are going to be forced into gangs or be shot in front of their families.
It is so much easier to say: This is terrible. It has to be President Obama's fault. Let's sue him.
What I say is: Why don't you have the courage to vote yes or no on the immigration bill we sent you?
I defy any one of them to go home during August and say: Oh, we have to do something about immigration. I hope people ask: How did you vote? Well, they didn't vote yes and they didn't vote no. They didn't vote at all.
I spoke in this Chamber earlier this month about the importance of living up to our own principles and traditions by addressing the influx of unaccompanied Central American children because it is a humanitarian crisis.
While there is no easy solution, the Border Supplemental Appropriations Bill offers a chance to make a downpayment on a strategy to address this crisis comprehensively, in accordance with our legal obligations and moral values.
The supplemental was described by the Appropriations Committee chairwoman Senator Mikulski yesterday. We know it is significantly different than the bill put forward by the House Republican leadership this week. The House bill provides $1 billion less than the Senate to help unaccompanied children currently in the United States and $700 million less to support the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice so they can effectively address this issue and adjudicate these children's cases appropriately.
There is nobody in this body or the other body, if they have children or grandchildren, who has to worry about them going hungry or has to worry about them living in fear every day. Let's get out of our ivory tower and pay attention to what is happening.
As I said earlier, the House ignored our bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill. Thirty pages of policy reforms included in the House supplemental and all it does is support their enforcement-only agenda to get rid of these children. Just throw them out. Let's pretend we have no responsibility. Send them back to face whatever horrors back home.
While many of these children and families don't qualify for international protection and would be better off not risking the dangerous journey, which the Senate bill seeks to address, many others have legitimate claims to protection because of the violence and persecution they have suffered in their home countries.
That is why this is a humanitarian issue. That is why we can't expect other countries with far fewer resources--such as Jordan or Turkey or Ethiopia--to accept far larger numbers of refugees from outside their borders if we are not willing to do our part.
The little country of Jordan is being overwhelmed by hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria. We say: Oh, thank you for doing that. Here we are talking about a tiny percentage compared to the size of our country. We say we want other countries to do this--but, gosh, the wealthiest, most powerful nation in the world can't. That's not who we are as Americans.
That is why it is unconscionable that the House on the one hand recognizes these Central American countries are among the most dangerous in the world, where gangs and other violent crime is taking a horrific toll on children and families. They will give speeches on that, but on the other hand they will say: However, that is their problem. Send these children back. Eight-year-old, you can fend for yourself against the gangs with machine guns. Go back, and do it as quickly as possible because we have to go on recess. We don't want to be bothered about you.
That is why it is also unacceptable that the House would pay for their misguided approach in part by cutting nearly $200 million from other programs in the foreign aid budget, the very funding needed to help reduce poverty, corruption, and violence in Central America so children won't flee in the first place.
Critics of the administration want to point fingers, but blame games aren't going to solve this problem. There is no single cause. It didn't occur overnight. It has been building for years as drug cartels, responding to the insatiable demand for illegal drugs in the United States, have migrated to Guatemala and Honduras and El Salvador.
It is caused by members of Central American gangs, arrested and imprisoned in the United States and then deported, who have resumed their threats and extortion and killing sprees with a vengeance.
It is caused by abusive and corrupt police forces and judges and the failure of the Central American governments to address the lawlessness and impunity in their own countries.
It is caused by the lack of educational and employment opportunities that are among the reasons Central American youth join the gangs.
So let's not play politics over something as complex and deadly as this. Let's vote for the Senate supplemental. It includes the funding needed to begin addressing some of the contributing causes of the migration and leaves intact the important legal protections in the Trafficking Victims Protections Act.
The $300 million in the State and foreign operations chapter of this bill requires a multiyear strategy to support the efforts of Central American governments to dismantle their criminal gangs and combat extortion, human smuggling and trafficking and domestic and sexual abuse, strengthen their social services, law enforcement, and judicial systems, develop child welfare services, and expand programs in education and get rid of the barriers to economic growth and opportunity.
It also provides funds for public information campaigns to discourage potential migrants from making the perilous journey in the first place, and it includes provisions that will ensure vigorous oversight of the aid we provide.
The emergency spending in this supplemental is needed to respond urgently and responsibly to this crisis. It is about what we stand for as Americans. Let's uphold our Nation's longstanding tradition of providing a safe haven for refugees that is engraved in the Statue of Liberty, for the well-being of thousands who have fled violence and risked everything to arrive at our borders, and for the millions in Central America who live every day in fear. Let's give them some hope for a better life. Let's pass this bill.
I yield the floor.
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