Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act--Resumed

Floor Speech

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Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I didn't hear all the remarks of my colleague from Kansas, but I think what I have to say will follow on directly.

I saw a prominent news magazine, the cover of which had a likeness of President Obama, and the title was ``The Imperial Presidency'' or ``The Imperial President,'' and the theme of it was this President seems to believe that by Executive order or Executive action he can simply do what he wants to do irrespective of whether the Congress has passed a law authorizing it or has in some other way directed the President to carry out a particular policy.

When the President takes his oath of office to see that the laws of the country are faithfully executed, that is a requirement of his job. Our three-branch government has the legislative branch and the President jointly deciding what the law is to be, when Congress passes the law and the President signs it into law. It then has the President required to execute those laws.

Now, he doesn't do it personally, of course. He does it with the Department of Justice. If it is something related to our national parks, then it would be the Department of the Interior, and so on. But the Department of Justice has a big role to play in this, as does the Department of Homeland Security in respect to immigration laws because the Department of Homeland Security has now taken over all of the immigration functions, and that relates to customs, to issuing visas and, of course, enforcing the laws against illegal immigration as well.

So it is not up to the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security or the Attorney General or the President to decide whether to enforce a law of the country. That is their responsibility. Then the Supreme Court resolves differences about the meanings of the statutes, their application, and whether they are constitutional.

Earlier this week--yesterday--the Supreme Court determined the constitutionality of a law the State of Arizona had passed to deal with the problem of illegal immigration in my State of Arizona. It is a serious problem there. About half of all the people who cross the border do so in the Tucson sector, and the results of that on Arizona have been devastating over the years: the damage to the environment, creating forest fires; the problem of the people who try to cross the border in the summer and end up dying in the desert because of its very harsh environment; the people who are brought across the border by unscrupulous coyotes, they are called--the smugglers--who then badly mistreat them, hold them hostage from their families, perhaps in Mexico or Central America and brutally mistreat them in many cases; the problems of crime that law enforcement has to deal with, the hospitalization and medical treatment they are required to receive under the law. All of these things have had a dramatic negative impact on my State.

As a result, the State legislature said: To the extent the Federal Government is not enforcing the law in our State, we will try to help fill that gap in cooperation and coordination with the Federal Government. So they passed

S.B. 1070. A key feature of that, which was the cooperation between law enforcement, was upheld by the Supreme Court. But what has been the Obama administration's reaction to that? The Obama administration has reacted by saying: Well, we don't like your ruling and, therefore, we are simply not going to cooperate with the State of Arizona as we have been in the past or any other State that has laws like Arizona, even if you, the Supreme Court, say it is constitutional.

The petulance and the arrogance of this are something the American people have to judge, but from a law enforcement perspective, to me, this suggests the administration is creating some very serious problems. It was one thing for the administration to say, as they did last week, as to the 800,000 or 900,000 students primarily who came here because their parents brought them here illegally, we are going to find a way, in effect, to suspend their deportation so they can go to school or work here; we are just not going to apply the law to them. But it is quite another for it to say: By the way, we are going to treat all the other illegal immigrants here the same way--the 10 million to 12 million people who have been in the United States for a while, those who crossed the border some time ago.

In effect, that is what the administration has said. Even if local law enforcement, such as the Phoenix Police Department, has the right to stop someone they see weaving down the road in the manner of a drunk driver, and they stop that individual and determine they are driving while intoxicated and then ask to see their driver's license; and if the individual cannot produce an Arizona driver's license--which is already a violation of Arizona law today--but if, for example, the individual says: Here is my Matricula card from the Mexican Embassy, that may be reason for the officer to believe that individual is not here legally.

So in addition to driving while intoxicated and not having a valid Arizona driver's license, the police officer, who now has reason to believe that individual may not be an American citizen, ordinarily then would take that individual's name, call it in to a Federal database--I think it is up in Vermont or New Hampshire--and there is verification that either the individual is or is not in the United States legally. If the person is not here legally and hasn't been convicted or accused of a major crime, they are turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, which is the part of Homeland Security that is supposed to take these illegal immigrants and decide what to do with them. In most cases, they are simply removed from the United States or deported.

But now the administration is saying we are not going to do that anymore. We don't even want to know whether the individual is an illegal immigrant. We are not going to check, and we are not going to allow you access to the database to check. Up to now, the Phoenix Police Department or the Maricopa County or Cochise County Sheriff could call up the database and say: We have the name of an individual; is this person legal.

The administration is now saying it is not even going to allow Arizona to check. So, Mr. President, this is a condition which cannot be allowed to stand. Where the administration is not enforcing the laws, the Congress is going to have to take what action we need to take to ensure the President enforces the laws, as he is sworn to do.

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