[Pages S4782-S4786]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           EXECUTIVE SESSION

                                 ______
                                 

                           EXECUTIVE CALENDAR

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
proceed to executive session and resume consideration of the following 
nomination, which the clerk will report.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read the nomination of Robert 
L. King, of Kentucky, to be Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary 
Education, Department of Education.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
  Mr. WICKER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                                 China

  Mr. WICKER. Madam President, I call to the Senators' attention today 
a disturbing article in the June 29, 2019, issue of The Economist, on 
pages 36 and 37. It is about the military buildup in China and the way 
it affects the United States. It says:

       Xi Jinping wants China's armed forces to be ``world class'' 
     by 2050. He has done more to achieve this than any of his 
     predecessors.

  I will quote from the lead of this article in The Economist.

       Over the past decade, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) 
     has been lavished with money and arms. China's military 
     spending rose by 83 percent in real terms between 2009 and 
     2018, by far the largest growth spurt in any big country. The 
     splurge has enabled China to deploy precision missiles and 
     anti-satellite weapons that challenge American supremacy in 
     the western Pacific. China's leader, Xi Jinping, says his 
     ``Chinese dream'' includes a ``dream of a strong armed 
     forces''. That, he says, involves ``modernising'' the PLA by 
     2035 and making it ``world-class''--in other words, America-
     beating--by mid-century. He has been making a lot of 
     progress.

  In the second column of this article, it goes on to say:

       He has done more in the past three years to reform the PLA 
     than any leader since Deng Xiaoping.

  This quote is not from some advocate of defense spending but is from 
one of the leading publications, The Economist.
  I say to my colleagues, we need to be mindful of the threat that is 
arising to the United States from around the globe--not only from 
China, as I have just read, but also from Vladimir Putin's Russia, from 
Iran, and from international terrorism. There is a deteriorating 
security situation in almost every sector of the globe. The fact that 
the United States has always been super supreme and able to defend the 
free peoples of this world is being challenged. We can no longer assume 
that any war would never be a fair fight. That has been the goal of the 
United States if we have to go to war. And we want to avoid war. But 
the best way, in our judgment, as a national strategy down through the 
decades, to avoid conflict of any kind is to make sure that if America 
ever gets in a fight, it will not be a fair fight; it will be a fight 
where we have overwhelming superiority, so no one will dare challenge 
the sea lanes and the freedom that we stand for in the United States of 
America. That is being challenged today.
  I would submit to you that it is a good time for the United States to 
point out that we passed the National Defense Authorization Act--the 
NDAA--on a huge bipartisan basis. It was 80-something votes to 8. It is 
just unbelievable, the way we came together under the leadership of 
Chairman Inhofe and Ranking Member Reed, his Democratic counterpart, 
working together as professionals, as legislators, and as Americans to 
send a strong statement that we need to go from the $700 billion that 
was spent last fiscal year to $750 billion to give our troops the pay 
raise they need, to recognize the sacrifice they have made, and to give 
our military--the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines--the tools they 
need, the equipment they need, and the innovation and manufacturing 
they need to get us where we need to go.
  We went through a 7- or 8-year period when--we ought to all be 
ashamed because our fingerprints are all on it, those of us who were in 
office at the time. The distinguished Presiding Officer was not a 
Member of the Senate at that time, but those of us who were, we got our 
fingerprints on it, Republicans and Democrats. Somehow, try though we 
might, say what we might, we were unable to prevent sequestration from 
happening--an unthinkable result. The military branches couldn't 
believe this was happening and couldn't believe Congress would be so 
irresponsible, but somehow we were.
  We have righted the ship over the past 2 years. It would be 
unthinkable to me, my fellow Americans, after making the progress to 
get back on the right track and return to responsible defense spending 
and responsible stewardship of our national security, if somehow we 
heeded some voices we have been hearing in Washington, DC, and around 
the country during the past few days about a continuing resolution, 
perhaps--maybe a continuing resolution of an entire year. The thinking 
there is, well, we just do a continuing resolution, and that will 
amount to level spending, and we can live with that.
  I just left a hearing on the confirmation of GEN Mark Milley as the 
next, I hope, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and I asked him 
about that. Would a continuing resolution simply be level spending, and 
might we be able to live with that? And he absolutely made the point 
which we all know if we study the law. It is way more than level 
spending. It stops innovation. It stops the new starts. It stops 
everything that we planned in the NDAA, which we passed with an 
overwhelming bipartisan vote, and it makes it against the law for the 
shipbuilders to do anything new and for the people working on our next-
generation aircraft to do anything new. It stops them in their tracks. 
It creates uncertainty in every branch of the military. And then we 
have to pay millions and billions to get back going again. It is an 
unthinkable result. Surely we can avoid that as Republicans and 
Democrats.
  Let me quote now-retired Secretary Mattis. When he was asked about 
this very subject on a recent occasion, Secretary Mattis said this:

       I cannot overstate the impact to our troops' morale from 
     all this uncertainty. The combination of rapidly changing 
     technology, the negative impact on military readiness 
     resulting from the longest continuous stretch of combat in 
     our Nation's history, and insufficient funding have created 
     an overstretched and under-resourced military.

  According to Secretary Mattis, ``Under continuing resolutions, we 
actually lose ground.''
  We need a budget deal. We need a
2-year budget deal, as we have had in the past. Give our defense 
leaders, the Secretaries and Assistant Secretaries, as well as the ones 
who put on the uniform and agreed, for a career, to put themselves in 
harm's way--give them the certainty they need in order to defend 
against the threats The Economist talked about and the threats General 
Mattis talked about. Give them that certainty.
  A new CR--a continuing resolution--would prevent us from having that 
certainty. It would delay maintenance for the Harry S. Truman aircraft 
carrier. It would prevent a guided missile frigate program we already 
authorized from even starting. This would happen September 30 if we go 
to a continuing resolution. It would cripple research and development, 
and it would prevent the Pentagon from aligning its funding with 
upcoming priorities.
  We need to realize a fact of life around here. I didn't exactly get 
my way in the election last November. If I had my druthers, the House 
of Representatives would have remained in Republican hands, with a 
Republican Speaker and a Republican Chair. The voters, in their wisdom, 
decided to vote for divided government last November.
  Our team was elected to continue leadership in the U.S. Senate. The 
Democratic team was elected to leadership in the House of 
Representatives. And I can assure you, if I were writing a defense 
appropriations bill, which is half of discretionary spending, and all 
of the other appropriations bills, which is so-called nondefense 
discretionary, it would look far different from the bill

[[Page S4783]]

Speaker Nancy Pelosi proposes to write. I can assure you that it would 
look different and that we would have less domestic spending. But the 
fact of life is that Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, is the one 
who guides legislation here in the Senate, and Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat 
from California, is the one who guides legislation on the floor of the 
House of Representatives, and if we get a bill passed, we are going to 
have to get a compromise bill passed. If anybody within the sound of my 
voice doesn't realize this, they don't understand government. They 
don't understand the dynamics that have taken place since Philadelphia 
in 1776 and Philadelphia again in 1787, where give-and-take had to 
occur, but we moved things along for the greater good.
  We can come to an agreement, or we can show ourselves to Vladimir 
Putin's Russia as unable to govern adequately, and we can show 
ourselves to Xi Jinping's China as unable to make the tough decisions 
to protect Americans. We have that choice, and we have a willingness on 
this side of the aisle and on the other side of the aisle. I was with 
some of my Democratic and Republican friends from the other body just 
yesterday. I think there is the willingness there. We are going to have 
to have an agreement that the administration will sign on to because 
the President's signature has to be affixed to this.
  Now is the time--July 11, 2019--to get this decision made, before we 
leave for August. I would hope we wouldn't leave for August until we 
get that number agreed to. We come back after Labor Day, and then it is 
brinksmanship, and then suddenly it is shutdown city, and that is being 
threatened. Russia knows this, the Iranian leadership knows this, and 
China knows this. Let's do it now.
  So I call on the Democratic and Republican leadership in the House, I 
call on our leadership, and I call on our President to get down to 
business in the next few days. Let's go ahead and make this decision 
that we know will eventually have to be made, make a responsible 
decision and send a message to the rest of the world that we intend to 
take care of our security.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
  Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, first of all, let me say that I couldn't 
agree more with the Senator from Mississippi, Mr. Wicker, than I do. 
His points are exactly right. A democracy is finding a way forward. It 
is not finding your way forward necessarily. It is obviously finding as 
much of your way forward as you can find. But it is finding a way 
forward.
  Clearly, a top priority of the Federal Government is to defend the 
country. It is my top priority. I think I would be safe in suggesting 
it is Senator Wicker's top priority. And it is an important priority 
for our friends on the other side, but it may not be quite the same 
priority on the other side.
  For this to work, the House and the Senate have to work together and 
the White House has to work together to come up with just that spending 
number. Once we have the number that we are going to spend, having the 
debate on the floor is suddenly possible.
  I am fully in agreement with that, but I want to talk for a few 
minutes today about a program that we need to extend for a short period 
of time to get it extended to the end of this spending year.


                             Mental Health

  Madam President, I know the minority leader, the Democratic leader, 
just arrived, and he has heard a lot about this program from my friend 
Senator Stabenow. The excellence in mental health program--something we 
started 2 years ago. We passed legislation in 2014. We have come to the 
end of the first 2 years of that trial program. I want to talk more 
about why we need a longer term expansion of that trial, but first of 
all, we need to get a 3-month extension to get us to the end of this 
spending year.

  I am always glad to talk about this program because what it does is 
it really begins to close the gap between how we talk about physical 
health and how we talk about mental health. Somewhere between one in 
four and one in five adult Americans, according to the National 
Institutes of Health, has a mental health problem that is diagnosable 
and almost always treatable, but less than half of the people who have 
that problem actually receive the care they need. These are people who 
are our neighbors, our family members, and our colleagues.
  There is no stigma to seeking care, and society needs to do a better 
job--as I believe this program is helping us to do--talking about 
mental health like all other health.
  On the last day of October 2013, on the 50th anniversary of the 
Community Mental Health Act, which was the last bill President Kennedy 
signed into law in 1963, Senator Stabenow and I came to the floor to 
talk about that 1963 bill and how many things have been closed down 
because of that bill and how many things have not been opened to 
replace them when that happened.
  In the decades that followed, about half of the proposed community 
health centers that bill anticipated just simply were never built, and 
the facilities used for people who had substantial mental health 
challenges were closed.
  What really happened over these 50 years is that the emergency room 
and local law enforcement became the de facto mental health system for 
the country, and nobody has been well served by that, including law 
enforcement, emergency rooms, and most importantly, people with mental 
health challenges and their families.
  The Excellence in Mental Health Act was signed into law in 2014 to 
try to begin to address that problem. What the bill did was it created 
a 2-year, eight-State pilot program that would provide mental health 
care at locations that met the standards, just like any other help 
would be provided. These would be certified community behavioral health 
clinics that would have, among other things, 24/7 crisis services 
available, outpatient mental health and substance abuse treatment, 
immediate screenings, risk assessments, and diagnoses available, and 
care coordination, including partnerships with emergency rooms, the law 
enforcement community, and veterans groups. All of that would have to 
be done in order to be part of that eight-State pilot. Twenty-four 
States initially applied. Nineteen States went through the entire 
process. Eight States were chosen, including Missouri.
  Among other things, our State participated in the Emergency Room 
Enhancement Project. This is a project that is designed to identify 
people who present themselves at the emergency room as people who 
really need treatment for addiction issues and mental health issues, 
not other health issues, and then get them to a place where that 
treatment is going to be much more appropriate than it is likely to be 
at the emergency room.
  In just 6 months of working with the emergency room, law enforcement, 
and mental health services in our State, we think there has been a 
reduction in homelessness of people who came to the emergency room of 
about 72 percent and a reduction in emergency room visits of 72 
percent. Unemployment was reduced by 14 percent among the people who 
have gone to the emergency room with a mental health concern, and law 
enforcement contact was reduced by 59 percent.
  So we have 2 years of study that indicates where we have gotten in 
our State, and I think other States are seeing similar kinds of 
numbers. I have been to clinics all over our State and have talked with 
those who have dealt with this. I talked particularly to law 
enforcement people all over our State, who have seen the change in the 
people they are dealing with and the options they have available. 
Suddenly, the option is not just to go to somebody's house at a crisis 
moment in the middle of the night and be taken to the emergency room 
for one night to have that problem solved; the option is actually to go 
somewhere where your mental health challenge is being dealt with, just 
like if you had a heart attack or a kidney problem or some other 
problem.
  That is why we have introduced legislation to extend this for another 
2 years and, if money is available in the pay-for we have proposed, to 
see whether we can add more States to the program.
  When we announced this new legislation, Laura Heebner, who is with 
Compass Health systems in Missouri, was one of the people who joined 
us. She said that in the past, before this program was able to help in 
our State, roughly half of the people who sought an appointment from 
their mental

[[Page S4784]]

health facility could not get scheduled for several days, sometimes 
several weeks, and half of the people didn't come back. If a person 
shows up that one time and says ``I am here because I have a real 
problem and I need help'' and the answer is ``We are not going to help 
you today; we are not going to do an evaluation right now,'' more often 
than not or as often as not, they don't come back. So at Compass 
Health, as well as many of our other certified clinics in our State, we 
increased access. We established same day walk-ins to attempt to look 
at their problem and see if they needed help that day or could, in 
fact, come back a few days later for an extensive visit. At that 
facility and others, everybody is being seen when they come in. The 
suicide care path they established has reduced suicides by 70 percent 
since last year.
  I will make two quick points as I conclude.
  No. 1, the goal of this program is not for the Federal Government to 
take over the behavioral health costs of the country; the goal of this 
program is to look at mental health and keep track of 24 or 25 other 
healthcare markers and decide how much other healthcare is impacted in 
a positive and, in fact, a cost-saving way if you are dealing with 
mental health at the same time.
  The second point I would make is that we need to see Congress step up 
in the next few days and extend the current program through the end of 
this spending year, and then let's have a debate about why 2 more years 
of putting all that information together gives States and communities 
the information they need to find out. As a result, I believe everybody 
will understand that it is not only the right thing to do, but fiscally 
it is the smart thing to do. By dealing with mental health like all 
other health, the overall healthcare cost of that big mental health 
community goes down dramatically if you are seeing your doctor, showing 
up for your appointments, and taking your medicine. Our other problems 
are much more easily managed when adding the cost of mental healthcare 
to all our other healthcare priorities. It isn't just the right thing 
to do, it is the smart thing to do.
  Hopefully the Congress will deal with that and the Senate can take a 
leadership role in dealing with that. The House has already sent us a 
bill. We need to respond to that by doing the two things I just 
mentioned. Let's treat mental health like we treat all other health.
  I yield the floor.


                   Recognition of the Minority Leader

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, first, let me thank my friend from 
Missouri for what he and Senator Stabenow are trying to do on mental 
health. I know some States were included and other States were not, so 
I support that aspect of what he was talking about.


                              2020 Census

  Madam President, later today, President Trump will give a news 
conference in the Rose Garden about his attempts to create an Executive 
order to add citizenship questions to the 2020 census. That is 
outrageous. It is outrageous substantively, and it is outrageous 
because this President has so little respect for the rule of law. He 
thinks he can just issue Executive orders and go around the Congress, 
go around established law, and try to bully the courts. I believe he 
will be thwarted by the courts, and this will be a real test of John 
Roberts and the Supreme Court, whether they stand for the rule of law 
or are always looking for an excuse to move the country rightward. We 
will see.
  Today, the Trump administration has provided no legitimate legal 
rationale for adding this question to the census. Just yesterday, the 
New York Times reported that Justice Department lawyers ``resigned from 
the lawsuit out of ethical concerns and a belief that the suit was 
unwinnable.''
  Well, we all know what is going on. The Trump administration doesn't 
have a legitimate legal rationale. The true motivation was even clear 
before the papers of that deceased designer of this question came to 
light. The true rationale is blatantly political and self-serving. 
President Trump wants to include the citizenship question to intimidate 
minorities--particularly Latinos--from answering the census so that it 
undercuts those communities and Republicans can redraw congressional 
districts to their advantage.
  The Census Bureau itself determined weeks ago that including such a 
question would result in a significant undercount. That alone is enough 
for disqualification. That is not what the Constitution says--
manipulate the census so you don't get an accurate count. The President 
knows this. Yet he continues to pursue a cynical idea--typical of the 
President--cynical and against minorities, with no respect for the rule 
of law, mores, and values that made this country great. Day by day, he 
destroys them. Day by day.
  The President's action is nothing more than a naked political power 
grab, which is one of the few things he is good at as President. It 
shows once again just how little respect the President has for our 
democracy. It is also one prong in the Trump administration's 
multifaceted attack on communities of color. They are doing another one 
today in addition to this, which I will speak about in a minute.
  Let's not forget that the census is a constitutional mandate. It has 
been conducted impartially by Democratic and Republican administrations 
alike since 1790. It should be beyond the reach of partisan politics. 
But this President has such disdain for constitutional law norms and 
the rule of law that he will try anything to set the rules to his 
advantage, even if it means circumventing Congress and circumventing 
the courts. This is what dictators do in banana republics. They try to 
change the rules to consolidate political power no matter what their 
constitutions and rule of law say. The President is moving us in that 
direction, and our Republican colleagues are supine. They say nothing. 
Many of them know what he is doing is wrong, and knees clatter because 
they are too afraid to tell the President he is wrong.
  The American people should be outraged about this. Republican 
Senators should be outraged about this, but, like so many other 
instances in which the President subverts our Democratic norms, the 
silence from Republicans in Congress has been deafening and degrading 
to the very fabric of this wonderful democracy that the President day 
by day tries--usually unsuccessfully, thank God--to undo.


                  Immigration and Customs Enforcement

  Madam President, on the ICE raids, last night the New York Times 
reported another thing President Trump was trying to do--ordering ICE 
to resume plans to carry out nasty deportation raids over the weekend. 
His plan will tear families apart and disrupt immigrant communities 
across America, including immigrants here legally and those in the 
process of legally applying for asylum. Cruelty. Cruelty seems to be 
the point of these raids. This is not an effort to root out dangerous 
individuals. This is an act of brutish force designed to spread fear in 
the immigrant community. Steve Miller whispers in the President's ear: 
Treat them cruelly. Make them afraid, and maybe they will not come.

  They are going to come. The dangers in their home countries are much 
worse. What would any citizen do in America or any other place in the 
world if a gang came to you and said: I am going to rape your daughter 
unless you do what I want; I am going to kill your son; I am going to 
burn your House--you would flee.
  These are not criminals. They are people trying to preserve their 
families, their children, their lives. Yet the President--egged on by 
some of the rightwing news media--tries to make Americans believe they 
are all criminals. Sure, if one of these folks is a bank robber or a 
burglar or hurts somebody, they should be out--one, two, three.
  If they are simply trying to escape brutality, we still should have 
rule of law, but they should be treated with some decency, honor, and 
humanity. That has been the American tradition for some 200-odd years.
  The President's policy is not only cruel--that is the worst of it--
but it is brainless. When it comes to intelligently using our 
immigration resources, the administration should focus on the small 
minority that are actually criminals, not families and not 10-year-
olds.

[[Page S4785]]

  These raids will not make America safer. They will not solve our 
immigration challenges for the reasons I mentioned. They will, instead, 
terrorize innocent families and rip children away from their parents. I 
warn President Trump, the pictures of these raids aren't going to be 
pretty. Average Americans who may agree with him on many issues will be 
appalled.
  President Trump, you are going to have to back off from this cruel 
policy because the American people are a lot better than you. They will 
see the pictures. What are they going to do with a father driving his 
child to school? Will they stop the car, pull the father out? They have 
done that. Will they let the 8-year-old sit in the car traumatized? 
They have done that.
  President Trump, mark my words, there will be a huge backlash against 
this. The American people are not cruel like you in this regard.
  I would plead with the President to call off these raids. We 
Democrats have proposed real solutions to the same migration problems 
that will stop the influx or greatly reduce the influx at the border. 
We would simply say: Let these would-be immigrants from Nicaragua and 
El Salvador and Honduras apply for asylum and beef up the number of 
immigration judges so they can get an adjudication quickly. If they are 
turned down, they can't come. Tough luck. If they get asylum, they 
should be welcomed here as America has always welcomed people, as that 
great Lady in the Harbor of the city I come from has done for 
centuries. That is the solution.
  We should also help these countries go after the gangs that are 
making the people flee. Go after MS-13 down there. Go after the drug 
dealers. Go after the coyotes. It was working in the last few months of 
the Obama administration and even the first few months of the Trump 
administration, until the President rescinded the policy because he got 
mad at somebody, which is typical of how he operates. That is what we 
should do.
  Until then, when these folks get to the border, I call on the 
President to work with us to put an end to the cruelty that the 
migrants are being shown when they come into U.S. custody. They are a 
small percentage of the people in this country. It is not a large 
number in terms of our total population.
  Another round of reports this week describes the horrid conditions 
endured by migrant children at our border. Facilities built for no more 
than 100 people are now housing up to 700 children. Many have nothing 
to sleep on, no change of clothes, and sometimes not enough food. These 
are reports from the President's own executive agencies, not from 
someone outside. In Arizona, these kids are reportedly being abused. 
CBP agents use racist slurs, deprive them of sleeping mats and, in one 
case, according to the report, potentially assaulted a 15-year-old 
girl. It is barbaric. It is not American.
  We need to put an end to this behavior now. We have just passed a 
supplemental appropriations bill to provide more resources to improve 
conditions and speed the asylum process, but it didn't go far enough. 
That is why, later today, I will join with my colleagues Senators 
Merkley and Feinstein to introduce the Stop Cruelty to Migrant Children 
Act. This new legislation would establish mandatory standards for the 
appropriate and humane treatment of children. It would make it easier 
for children to be connected with sponsors and legal counsel, and it 
would, once and for all, end the inhumane practice of separating 
families, pulling children--even little children--away from their 
parents. Democrats have been fighting for these provisions for months. 
We were able to secure some of them in the last border supplemental, 
but unfortunately our Republican colleagues blocked many additional 
provisions from going into the bill. This new legislation marks a clear 
bright line of what is left to be done. Now the only question that 
looms is, Will Leader McConnell finally stand up for the children and 
work with us to pass these new standards into law?
  I want to thank Senators Merkley and Feinstein for working on this 
very important bill. It is a necessary step to restoring America's 
moral credibility. A nation as powerful as ours has no need or right to 
treat the weak and suffering this way. We can deal with our immigration 
issues with dignity, common sense, and rule of law. The bill is how we 
get that done.


                                 China

  Madam President, yesterday it was reported that President Trump told 
President Xi of China that the United States would tone down its 
criticism of Beijing's approach to Hong Kong in order to revive our 
trade negotiations.
  If these reports are true, once again, President Trump has made 
another error when it comes to China, for two reasons. First, it is 
crucial always for the United States to stand up for democracy, human 
rights, and civil liberties everywhere--to be the ``shining city upon a 
hill'' that John Winthrop talked about 375 years ago. From Tiananmen 
Square to Tibet, from the brutal suppression of the Muslim minority 
Uighurs to the recent protests in Hong Kong, China's human rights 
record has been an abomination. They want to join the family of nations 
and be treated equally, but in some ways they are like a Third World 
dictatorship.
  America used to champion religious rights, minority rights, and 
democratic values abroad. It helped us in immeasurable ways, not just 
morally but economically and politically. It gave us strength. It gave 
us the moral high ground that the Scriptures have always said was 
important in human dealings. Unfortunately, under this President, that 
doesn't happen.
  Second, the idea that going easy on China's human rights record will 
ease trade talks is exactly backward. I know China. They respond to 
strength, not flattery or capitulation. Every time the President gives 
in to President Xi, President Xi smells weakness and says: I can get 
more out of the Americans.
  I generally am supportive of the President on a tough policy toward 
China on trade. China has ripped us off over and over again, but the 
way to win is to show strength. On some days, the President does, and a 
week later he backs off. There is no consistency. The Chinese smell 
that they can outfox the President. Backing off from fully telling 
Huawei they can't operate was a huge mistake. Huawei, with these 
exceptions, if they are given broadly, will gain economic strength. 
Huawei is a national security problem, but it is also a trade problem. 
When China steals our intellectual property, as Huawei has done, why do 
we then allow them to come into this country when they don't allow our 
best tech companies to go into theirs? It is ridiculous.
  The President's instincts are right, but he is never consistent about 
them. The way to speed successful trade talks, where America secures 
real and enduring concessions, is to keep the full-court press on 
Beijing, on human rights, on foreign policy, and certainly on trade. 
President Trump must not be weak on China for the sake of America's 
role as a champion of democracy and for the sake of driving China to 
accept meaningful reforms to its predatory trade policies.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Scott of Florida).
  The Senator from Illinois.


                            Border Security

  Mr. DURBIN. I want to thank my colleague and friend, the Democratic 
leader, Senator Schumer, for raising the issues of immigration.
  We are at a moment in the history of this country that I am sure will 
be reviewed and reflected upon for many generations to come. Decisions 
that are being made in the White House today in the area of immigration 
will be criticized, analyzed, and in many cases repudiated in years to 
come. It is time for us, at this moment, to have a sober reflection on 
what this administration has done in 2\1/2\ years with the issue of 
immigration and where we stand at this very moment.
  This President came to the White House promising he was going to get 
tough on immigration--immigration. Probably at the heart of America, 
more than anything, has been the issue of immigration. We are a nation 
of immigrants. My mother was an immigrant to this country.
  I believe the diversity of our Nation is one of our core strengths 
because we have attracted people from all over the world. This 
President doesn't understand it. If he does, he is not pushing policies 
that show any reflection on that reality and that historic background.

[[Page S4786]]

  Think of how this administration started. Within hours after this 
President was elected, he announced the Muslim travel ban; that he 
would single out countries with Muslim-majority populations and say 
that their people were not welcome in the United States. The reaction 
was immediate across the United States. In the city of Chicago, I can 
remember the supporters of those coming from other countries heading 
out to O'Hare and attorneys volunteering to give them counsel. There 
was an outpouring of support for these people, realizing that 
fundamentally innocent people were traveling to this country. Yet the 
President, with his travel ban, made it clear from the very start of 
his administration his view on these immigrants.
  What followed from there was a decision by this administration to 
eliminate temporary protective status. Three hundred thousand 
immigrants in this country came here because of natural disasters and 
political upheaval and got protection in the United States. The 
President wanted to turn them away. Was there any measurement as to 
which ones might be dangerous? No. All would be turned away.
  Then, of course, there was the President's decision to eliminate the 
DACA Program. The DACA Program was created by President Obama. These 
people were brought to the United States as children because of 
decisions by their parents. They grew up in this country, and every day 
in classrooms they pledged allegiance to that flag, believing it was 
their flag too. At some point in their lives, they learned they were 
undocumented. They didn't have legal status in America. President Obama 
felt--and I, as a sponsor of the Dream Act, agreed with and encouraged 
the creation by Executive order of the DACA Program. So 790,000 of 
these young people came forward, paid a filing fee, went through a 
criminal background check, and after they were approved, they were 
given 2 years to stay in the United States, renewable, where they 
couldn't be deported, and they could work legally in this country. That 
program, as I said, attracted 790,000 successful applicants, many of 
them outstanding students and amazing young people. I told their 
stories on the floor of the Senate. President Trump decided to abolish 
that program and to end the protection for these young people--790,000 
of them.
  That wasn't the end of it. The President continued with policies such 
as zero tolerance. Do you remember that one? Last year, the Attorney 
General of the United States stood up and quoted from the Bible as to 
how it was the right thing to do to separate 2,880 infants, toddlers, 
and children from their parents at our borders. Zero tolerance; treat 
the parents like criminals and separate the kids.
  What was worse was that no effort was made to track those children as 
to where they were placed and what happened to their parents. It wasn't 
until a Federal judge in Southern California came forward and forced 
this administration to finally match up the children with their parents 
that the effort was undertaken, and still more than 100 of them were 
never matched--lost in the bureaucratic sea of the Trump 
administration. That wasn't the end of it by far.
  What we have seen at the border in the last several months has been 
shocking and unprecedented in American history. This ``get tough'' 
President, who says he is going to cut off foreign aid to countries in 
Central America and get tough at the border with his almighty wall, has 
ended up attracting larger numbers of people who are presenting 
themselves for asylum status at the border of the United States than we 
have ever seen--dramatic increases we haven't seen for decades with 
regard to the number of people at the border. The President's 
immigration policy has backfired.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for an 
additional 2 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DURBIN. The net result of this has been the announcement by the 
administration that, come Sunday, we will see mass arrests and 
deportations in this country. Reports from the New York Times are that 
thousands will be rounded up, arrested, and deported. When possible, 
they say, family members will be arrested together and will be held in 
family detention centers.
  Have these people committed crimes since they have been in the United 
States? There is no evidence of it. It is simply the fact that they are 
undocumented at this moment, and many of them may have lived here for 
years. These arrests and mass deportations are going to create fear in 
communities across the United States, including in the city of Chicago, 
which I am honored to represent. For what? It will not make America 
safer for us if we deport these people. Sadly, it is going to mean that 
their families will be torn apart and that there will be more children 
and families in detention.
  We were told there was a humanitarian crisis and that we needed to 
apply ourselves and make certain that we had billions of dollars to 
deal with it, and we did. Now the administration has turned around and 
announced a new wave of splitting up families and deporting them from 
the United States. This is not what America is all about. There is a 
way for us to deal with immigration in a sensible, thoughtful, rational 
way. Cruelty has no place in the history of this country, and it has no 
place when it comes to the treatment of those who are in the United 
States today.
  I yield the floor.


                   Vote on Robert L. King Nomination

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the question is, 
Will the Senate advise and consent to the King nomination?
  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Bennet), 
the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from New York 
(Mrs. Gillibrand), the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the 
Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Heinrich), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. 
Sanders), and the Senator from Massachusetts (Ms. Warren) are 
necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 56, nays 37, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 200 Ex.]

                                YEAS--56

     Alexander
     Barrasso
     Blackburn
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Braun
     Burr
     Capito
     Cassidy
     Collins
     Cornyn
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Enzi
     Ernst
     Fischer
     Gardner
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hawley
     Hoeven
     Hyde-Smith
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johnson
     Jones
     Kennedy
     Lankford
     Lee
     Manchin
     McConnell
     McSally
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Paul
     Perdue
     Portman
     Risch
     Roberts
     Romney
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Sasse
     Scott (FL)
     Scott (SC)
     Shelby
     Sinema
     Sullivan
     Thune
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Wicker
     Young

                                NAYS--37

     Baldwin
     Blumenthal
     Brown
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Coons
     Cortez Masto
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Hassan
     Hirono
     Kaine
     King
     Klobuchar
     Leahy
     Markey
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Murphy
     Murray
     Peters
     Reed
     Rosen
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Smith
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Udall
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--7

     Bennet
     Booker
     Gillibrand
     Harris
     Heinrich
     Sanders
     Warren
  The nomination was confirmed.

                          ____________________