[Pages S307-S334]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

CONSOLIDATED APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2026--Motion to Proceed--Continued

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.

March for Life

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, on January 23, people from all over our
country came to Washington, DC, to celebrate the 53rd annual March for
Life. These peaceful movements are exercising their free speech, their
free association, and their right to petition government for redress of
grievances--all First Amendment constitutional rights. They exercise
this through using the Constitution to express their views.
This year's theme of the March for Life was ``Life is a Gift,'' so
they were inviting folks to embrace the joy of innocent human life in
the womb. They marched in solidarity with mothers who deserve better
than abortion; who deserve life, love, support, and encouragement. They
marched, hoping for a day when all people see babies as the blessings
these babies are, for a day when the word ``abortion'' is unthinkable.
So I say to this group of marchers: Thank you. You came to Washington
on January 23 for the 53rd year in a row to call attention to the value
of life. Thank you for your faithful example of what it means to be
pro-life.
In Congress, we must do all we can to support mothers and their
babies, and I

[[Page S308]]

hope I am doing that by being a proud sponsor of the bipartisan bill
that I call the Healthy Moms and Babies legislation, which would better
support pregnant moms to receive high-quality healthcare no matter the
ZIP Code they live in. I am also a cosponsor of the Pregnant Students'
Rights bill--a pro-mother, pro-family legislation ensuring pregnant
mothers receive support while pursuing their dreams. I look forward to
continuing this work.

Tribute to James Rice

Mr. President, I come to the floor to say bon voyage to a very
talented and trusted employee of mine who has worked hard for the
people of the State of Iowa. When I say bon voyage, as I will say
later, he probably has the prospects of being a college professor, a
think tank researcher, or maybe even a diplomat.
So, today, I come to the floor to pay tribute to a trusted, loyal
member of my staff whom I am honored to say has been a member of Team
Grassley for 25 years, and I am glad to have him here on the floor with
me right at this minute.
James Rice will leave his post as my legislative director at the end
of this month. He has devoted the past quarter century in service to
the people of Iowa here in the U.S. Senate. Now, he didn't start out to
be the important staffer he is right now because he started as an
intern in 1997. That summer, he even served in some positions that
don't get a lot of attention because they are behind the scenes.
He served as boots on the ground during my sixth Foreign Ambassadors
Tour. For over two decades, I organized every other summer an
Ambassadors trade tour across Iowa. I invited members of the foreign
diplomatic corps here in Washington, DC, along with their spouses
serving here in the Nation's Capital, to join me for a weeklong road
trip to showcase my home State's people, our products, and our places.
From securing overnight stays in the homes of Iowans to keeping the
trade delegation on schedule visiting farms, factories, and always
ending at the Iowa State Fair, this devoted team player, James, was
among the many helping hands working behind the scenes to make the week
run smoothly. That just might be why James first got bitten by the
foreign policy bug that has fostered his interest and expertise in
foreign affairs and international unity and diplomacy and why he has
been a valuable adviser to me on foreign affairs.
James is a native of Davenport, IA, majoring in political science,
history, and government. After graduating from Drake University in Des
Moines, he joined my staff here in Washington, DC, 3 years after being
an intern in the year 2000.
James has referred to the Grassley team as the embassy for Iowa. With
tireless conviction, he managed his work with proficiency. James
exemplifies the Biblical ``Parable of the Talents.'' He has been a good
and faithful servant to the people of Iowa. I will miss his very
scrupulous attention to detail and ability to finesse bicameral,
bipartisan victories for Iowa. I could always count on his counsel and
valued his wisdom.
James has an uncommon mastery of parliamentary procedure here in the
U.S. Senate, an encyclopedic knowledge of Iowa, and, of course, he
shares my love for history.
As legislative director, James cultivated exceptional depth of
knowledge in his policy portfolio, including education, foreign policy,
and the rules of the U.S. Senate.
When I hire people to join my staff, I tell them I expect them to do
their job the Grassley way, and that means adopting my approach to
representative government, which is to treat people with respect, do
your homework, and go the extra mile for the people of Iowa. James
worked tirelessly to provide outstanding constituent service.

One of my priorities as the senior Senator for Iowa is to respond to
every phone call, letter, and email I get from Iowans. James was
instrumental in his leadership to revolutionize my constituent
correspondence operation. Some may say that he was a tyrant over what
we call in the office ``old mail.'' To that, I would say he was doing
just as I asked: ensuring Iowans receive a thoughtful and timely
response to their questions and concerns.
During my 45 years of holding county meetings in each one of the 99
counties--during those meetings, I want to make sure things are going
right in my office. I say ``Write me a nasty letter'' if they haven't
heard back from me regarding their email or their postal mail or if
they left their name and address in a telephone call. They get a
written response. So, thanks in large part to this man's meticulous
efforts, that doesn't happen very often, that I am told somebody did
not get a response to their letter.
As legislative director, he mentored scores of legislative
correspondents over the years, many of whom climbed the staff ladder to
become legislative assistants or pursue careers off of Capitol Hill. He
also cultivated longstanding relations with Iowans, particularly
educators from across the State as well as Ambassadors from across the
world.
A rock-ribbed conservative, James practices what he preaches. He is a
warrior for freedom and liberty. Each year, he has hosted a tea in our
office in October to celebrate Margaret Thatcher's birthday because he
so admired her as a leader and Prime Minister of Great Britain.
In another quirk, James also spearheaded an annual observance of St.
John's Day--a summer solstice celebration in Estonia. That is when the
Estonian people celebrate Victory Day to mark the defeat of the German
troops in their war for independence in 1919. This goes to show that
James doesn't do anything halfheartedly. Although a dyed-in-the-wool
Iowan, he is a dual citizen of Estonia. In fact, he loved the Baltic
nation so much, he built a house there.
As I mentioned, James is leaving my staff and his Senate service at
the end of this month. He will dive into academia and passion for
foreign policy to obtain a doctor of philosophy in statecraft and
strategy at the Institute of World Politics, where he also earned a
master's degree.
I told him I liked his speeches so much that I hope he will continue
to keep me in mind when he feels a speech coming on to bring much
needed historical context to these modern-day problems that we face
around here.
So, James, Barbara and I wish you all the best, a great future, and
we thank you for your decades of service to the people of Iowa.
When you announced your departure to your fellow staff members, you
said you will always be a part of the Grassley family, and I couldn't
agree more. I like that you will do just that--be a member of the
family.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.

Shooting of Alex Pretti

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, ``Please get the truth out about our son.
He was a good man''--those are the words of Michael and Susan Pretti,
the parents of Alex Pretti, who over the weekend was killed by masked
Federal agents in Minneapolis. I am here to be part of getting the
truth out.
Masked Federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, an American
citizen, in broad daylight. Alex was an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA
hospital--a nurse for veterans. He was a son, a brother, a friend, a
caretaker. And he was killed while he was trying to help a woman who
had been pushed to the ground by a Federal agent.
The last words that Alex spoke on this Earth were ``Are you all
right?''
Those are the words of a good man trying to help someone who had been
knocked down by an out-of-control ICE agent. Do not let anyone tell you
otherwise.
And Mr. Pretti was not the first. Seventeen days earlier, ICE agents
shot and killed Renee Good, a 37-year-old American citizen and mom
dropping off her kid at school. She had stuffed animals in her glove
compartment. While ICE agents cursed at her, her last words on this
Earth were: ``I'm not mad at you.''
There have been more incidents. ICE agents detained Liam, a 5-year-
old boy who was literally ripped off the streets by the strap of his
Spider-Man backpack--a preschooler.
In Massachusetts, Marcelo Gomes da Silva, a high schooler, was
arrested by ICE on his way to volleyball practice. And Rumeysa Ozturk,
a student at Tufts University, was cornered by six masked agents,
shoved into an unmarked van, and taken to a detention facility in
Louisiana.

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It goes on and on and on, story after story after story.
The people ICE grabbed up, the people they shot are not threats to
you and me. They are not violent criminals that Trump promised to go
after. They are not, as Trump said, ``the worst of the worst.'' No,
these are our neighbors. They are our friends. They are our colleagues.
They are people who treat us when we are sick. The risk is not from
them. The risk increasingly comes from out-of-control ICE agents who
can't follow the basic training manual that our local police, our State
police, and our National Guard are all trained to follow.
This invasion by ICE is not making anyone in America safer. If we
don't put a stop to it, these masked agents are going to kill more
people. We are at the turning point in our country. What we do next now
is in front of the U.S. Senate, in front of my colleagues here today.
This week, we are tasked with funding the government, and one part
stands out. Last summer, Trump and the Republicans lavished ICE with
$75 billion. That is more than their annual budget for 7 years. And
maybe that is why ICE is handing out $50,000 recruiting bonuses. In
this budget, Trump and the Republicans want to reward ICE with an
additional $10 billion in funding. That is right. Donald Trump wants us
to write another check, hand it over to ICE, and let them keep rolling
in the dough.
But here is my view: I am a no. I am a hell no.
We cannot give one more penny to Trump's ICE while its masked, poorly
trained agents terrorize people all across this country. It is time for
the U.S. Senate to step up and stop ICE's violence. We must stand
united, and we must fight back, and we must do it now.
I want to be clear. If it were up to me, Congress would completely
overhaul ICE, strip the Agency down to studs, repeal billions in
Trump's bloated spending, and end these abuses entirely. I am going to
keep fighting for that.
But there are also some immediate commonsense steps that we can take
right now. Here is some of what I am fighting for: One, end ICE's
violence. No more roving patrols and profiling people on the street. No
mere treating people like they are guilty just because of their skin
color or because they speak with an accent. No more threatening people
with guns just because they are recording what is going on.
Two, follow the law. ICE must follow the same rules as everyone else
in law enforcement. Get a warrant from an independent judge before
barging into people's homes and snatching people from their families.
And make no mistake, there should be real consequences for anyone who
knocks down someone's door without a real warrant. This is the United
States of America, and the last I checked, the Constitution still
matters. We must enforce it.
And, three, accountability. It is about time that Border Patrol and
ICE wear a damn badge. No more masked secret police.
Let me say it again. No more masked secret police.
And real accountability means accountability for Renee Good; it means
accountability for Alex Pretti; it means accountability for every other
victim of these Federal agents. DHS must cooperate with State and local
officials for real independent investigations of these shootings. End
these coverups. We need transparency and accountability for victims of
ICE's violence.
Part of the reason that ICE's officers can act like they have no
oversight is that Donald Trump and the Republicans in Congress
prefunded ICE for years in their One Big Beautiful Bill. As things
stand right now, ICE can skate by for years without getting a budget
and without any oversight from Congress.
You know those healthcare cuts that are closing hospitals and causing
people's health insurance premiums to spike? That is the money that is
now being used by ICE to terrorize our communities. That is wrong.
Congress has the power to claw back those funds. Congress needs to use
that power and take back that money so that Congress has meaningful
oversight over an out-of-control ICE.
And that should just be the start.
I am urging every single Senator--Democrat and Republican--to vote no
on this budget bill and stop bankrolling ICE's abuses.
I want to put a finer point on this. Republicans control the White
House. Republicans control the Senate. Republicans control the House of
Representatives. Democrats are ready to rein in this rogue Agency, but
we need Republicans in Congress to stop this violence as well.
I know that there are Republicans right now who are seeing what we
are seeing in Minnesota, and they know it is wrong. It is time to speak
out. Silence is complicity. Grow a spine. Show some backbone. Being
disturbed doesn't change anything, and the ICE agents who are waving
around loaded guns know that. Republicans in the Senate have the power
to do something and to start righting these wrongs. Help the Democrats
put meaningful constraints on ICE. Help our people be safe.

To everyone who is angry, I am angry too. I am furious. And I am here
in the Senate to fight back for you. But it is in moments like this
that we must resist the urge for that anger and fear to take over. It
is time to turn our anger into action.
I want to end with this. I saw a post by Alex Pretti's student that I
wanted to read excerpts from into the Record. This is all a direct
quote:

I was Alex Pretti's final nursing student. For the past
four months, I stood shoulder to shoulder with him during my
capstone preceptorship at the Minneapolis VA Hospital. There
he trained me to care for the sickest of the sick as an ICU
nurse. He taught me how to care for arterial and central
lines, the intricacies of managing multiple IVs filled with
lifesaving solutions, and how to watch over every heartbeat,
every breath, and every flicker of life, ready to act the
moment they wavered. . . . Alex carried patience, compassion
and calm as a steady light within him. Even at the very end,
that light was there. I recognized his familiar stillness and
signature calm composure shining through during those
unbearable final moments captured on camera.
It does not surprise me that his final words were, ``Are
you okay?'' Caring for people was at the core of who he was.
He was incapable of causing harm. . . . He spoke out for
justice and peace whenever he could, not only out of
obligation, but out of a belief that we are more connected
than divided, and that communication would bring us together.
Please honor my friend by standing up for peace, preferably
with a cup of black coffee in hand and a couple of pieces of
candy in your pocket, just as he would. . . . Step outside
with your dog, breathe in the world, hike or bike as he loved
to do, and let yourself find peace in the quiet moments
within nature. Stand up for justice and speak with those
whose views differ from your own. Hold your beliefs with
strength, but always extend love outward, even in the face of
adversity.
Take one step, no matter how small, to help heal our world.
Through these acts, carry his life forward in his name. Let
his legacy continue to heal.

Like many of you, I see the video of his death, and I am gutted. I
see him lying on the ground as two ICE agents pump a total of 10
bullets into him. I see his lifeless body on that cold Minneapolis
street, and I feel sadness and anger and horror down to my bones.
But here is what gives me slivers of hope. It is every single person
who is speaking out and who is refusing to stay silent in the face of
these injustices. It is the post from his last student. It is the
hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans who haven't been baited into
violence, but, instead, who continue to show up and peacefully protest.
They are a reminder that now is the time to dig deep, stand up, and say
clearly what ICE is doing is wrong, and we can stop it. We must stop
it.
It is time to get ICE out because if we don't speak up, we are
complicit in this violence. If we don't speak up, we are giving our OK
to a Federal Agency that is openly and aggressively violating the
Constitution. If we don't speak up, we are giving up on our democracy
and our country.
It is time to speak up. It is time to make meaningful change. And
that change starts right here, right now in the U.S. Senate.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic whip.
Mr. DURBIN. First, I want to thank my colleague from the Commonwealth
of Massachusetts Senator Warren.
That was a powerful, moving, absolutely necessary speech, and I am
glad I was here to hear you deliver it. Thank you.
Mr. President, earlier this month, the Nation watched in horror as
social

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media was flooded with images and videos of a Federal immigration
officer shooting and killing an American citizen, Renee Good, as part
of the Trump administration's military enforcement operation in
Minneapolis.
Now, fresh on the heels of that tragedy, another one has struck. This
weekend, Federal agents gunned down yet another American in
Minneapolis, Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse in a VA hospital in
Minneapolis.
I am going to show a photo of that scene, which is graphic, but I am
afraid it is necessary to appreciate the horror of the moment.
This photo shows the last second when the ICE agent killed Alex
Pretti on the streets of Minneapolis. In his right hand is his camera,
and his left hand is holding the ground--no gun obvious, no effort to
resist obvious. This was a moment when this man lost his life. He was
characterized afterward as an assassin, as a domestic terrorist. The
photo tells the story.
The killing of Alex Pretti has further intensified tensions in a city
already reeling from the President's aggressive campaign of terror.
What was the Trump administration's immediate response when they heard
of this second killing in Minneapolis? It was not to bring down the
temperature but, instead, to rush to the American people with one
message: Don't believe your eyes. Don't believe what you are seeing. It
is the same playbook they used after the killing of Renee Good and
after other Federal immigration officer-involved shootings and
incidents.
Following the fatal shooting of Ms. Good, President of the United
States Donald Trump falsely claimed she ``violently, willfully and
viciously ran over [an] ICE Officer.''
In response to the killings of both Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti, Homeland
Security Secretary Kristi Noem labeled their actions as ``domestic
terrorism.''
Attorney General Pam Bondi, in a letter sent to Minnesota Governor
Tim Walz, effectively tried to blackmail the State, demanding that the
Governor of Minnesota turn over the voter rolls of that State in
exchange for Bondi's efforts to pull back Federal immigration
enforcement officers. In a court hearing earlier this week, an attorney
representing the State described Bondi's request as a ``ransom note.''
Why has this President targeted this city and other democratically
led cities?
Trump claims he is targeting these cities because local elected
officials have released ``violent criminal illegal aliens'' from State
custody. The claim does not hold up. Governor Walz eloquently refuted
it in a recent column in the Wall Street Journal.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Wall Street Journal
editorial ``Tim Walz: The Un-American Assault on Minnesota'' be printed
in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record as follows:

[Jan. 26, 2026]

Tim Walz: The Un-American Assault on Minnesota

(By Tim Walz)

The Trump administration's assault on Minnesota long ago
stopped being a matter of immigration enforcement. It is a
campaign of organized brutality against the people of our
state. It isn't just. It isn't legal. And, critically, it
isn't making anyone any safer.
Quite the opposite: Immigration agents have now shot and
killed two of our neighbors: Renee Good and Alex Pretti. And
there are countless other stories of protesters and
bystanders being physically attacked by federal agents, to
say nothing of the chaos and violence being unleashed against
the targets of these raids, many of whom have done nothing
wrong except exist as a person of color.
The pretext for all this is the Trump administration's
insistence that our immigration laws would otherwise go
unenforced. This federal occupation of Minnesota is,
administration officials insist, about our predilection for
releasing ``violent criminal illegal aliens'' from state
custody.
I can't stress this enough: The Trump administration has
its facts wrong about Minnesota.
The administration claims that Minnesota jails release
``the worst of the worst.'' In reality, the Minnesota
Department of Corrections honors all federal and local
detainers by notifying Immigration and Customs Enforcement
when a person committed to its custody isn't a U.S. citizen.
There is not a single documented case of the department's
releasing someone from state prison without offering to
ensure a smooth transfer of custody.
Yet the lies persist. This week, ICE tweeted that rural
Cottonwood County had refused to honor a detainer for an
alleged child sex predator. That's not true. The county
sheriff followed procedure and contacted ICE when the subject
posted bail, but ICE agents were too busy wreaking havoc in
the Twin Cities to do their actual job and pick the prisoner
up.
Some of the administration's claims are ridiculous on their
face. For example: it claims that 1,360 non-U.S. citizens are
in Minnesota prisons. The truth: Our total state prison
population is roughly 8,000, and only 207 of them are
noncitizens.
Earlier this month, the administration published what it
claimed was a list of people who have been arrested as part
of this ICE sweep, asserting that this list represents ``the
worst of the worst'' criminals, and implying that we have
been protecting them from capture.
Minnesota Public Radio investigated this claim and found it
to be completely false: ``Most of the people on the list had
been immediately transferred to ICE custody at the end of
time served in Minnesota prisons. All of those transfers
happened before ICE began its surge of operations in
Minnesota on Dec. 1, 2025, with some even happening years
before.''
In other words, ICE is taking credit for arrests that state
and local law enforcement made, activity that took place
before this assault on our state even began.
Everyone wants to see our immigration laws enforced. That
isn't what is happening in Minnesota. In recent weeks, masked
agents have abducted children. They have separated children
from their parents. They have racially profiled off-duty
police officers. They have aggressively pulled people over
and demanded to see their papers. They have broken into the
homes of elderly citizens without warrants to drag them
outside in freezing temperatures.
That isn't effective law enforcement. It isn't following
the rule of law. It's chaos. It's illegal. And it's un-
American.
I have repeatedly appealed to President Trump to lower the
temperature. But he refuses. I fear that his hope is for the
tension between ICE agents and the communities they're
ransacking to boil over--that he wants you to see more chaos
on your TV screens, protests turn into riots, more people get
hurt.
Minnesotans aren't taking the bait. They are protesting--
loudly and urgently, but also peacefully. They are helping
their neighbors cope with this violent, lawless assault on
people of color throughout the state--walking children to
school safely, preparing mutual-aid packages, and organizing
to make sure these atrocities are well-documented so that
those responsible can face justice.
Minnesota is a state that believes in the rule of law and
in the dignity of all people. We know that true public safety
comes from trust, respect and shared purpose, not from
intimidation or political theater.
This assault on our communities is not necessary to enforce
our immigration laws. We don't have to choose between open
borders and whatever the hell this is. Mr. Trump can and must
end this unlawful, violent and chaotic campaign, and we can
and must rebuild an immigration enforcement system that is
secure, accountable and humane.
Mr. DURBIN. Governor Walz noted that, in Minnesota, the State's
department of corrections honors all Federal and local detainers by
notifying ICE when a person in custody is not a citizen.
Governor Walz wrote:

There is not a single documented case of the department's
releasing someone from state prison without offering to
ensure a smooth transfer of custody.

If the President wants to work together in reducing crime, count me
and Governor Walz in, but these lawless immigration operations are
establishing a reign of terror--first in Chicago, now in Minneapolis-
St. Paul--eroding constitutionally protected civil liberties while
indiscriminately rounding up people for the crime of just happening to
be Black or Brown. Even the editorial board of the Wall Street
Journal--no liberal publication--agrees. In an editorial yesterday,
they noted that, since October, 73 percent of the individuals taken
into ICE custody had no criminal conviction. Only 5 percent had a
violent criminal conviction.
Do you remember the rants at all the rallies? We are talking about
rapists and murderers and terrorists, the criminally insane and child
predators coming into the United States, and now we are going to expel
them. That was the promise--the ``worst of the worst'' over and over
again. But when you listen to the statistics that show how few of the
people who have been detained or tortured are actually in that
category, you realize that it is not the worst of the worst. They are
innocent people who are being victimized by ICE and this
administration. Donald Trump is hell-bent on punishing his political
opponents in the blue States of America and those who didn't vote for
him in the last election. We see the cost.

[[Page S311]]

I have come to the floor before to share the stories of U.S. citizens
who were arrested in Chicago by immigration agents during Operation
Midway Blitz.
Take Elianne Bahena and Jax Lopez--two U.S. citizens who worked for a
local alderman in the city of Chicago, my friend Michael Rodriguez of
the 22nd Ward. They were arrested by Border Patrol agents in Chicago
and were held for hours without any explanation after they exercised
their constitutional rights to monitor immigration enforcement in the
area.
According to a recent report from the Chicago Sun-Times, the U.S.
Attorney's Office in Chicago has brought 32 nonimmigration criminal
cases to court that are related to ICE Operation Midway Blitz. Do you
know how many convictions there have been in those 32 cases? None, not
one. This represents precious time and resources that have been wasted
on baseless efforts by this Agency to punish peaceful protesters that
could and should be focused instead on keeping the streets safe, on
child exploitation, on human trafficking, and on public corruption.
The time for accountability is now. I have been calling for DHS
Secretary Noem to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee for
almost 1 year. She couldn't find the time. She is just way too busy. In
the last calendar year, she didn't show up at all. Now she tells us
that it is possible her schedule may loosen up and that she might be
able to come before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 5 weeks, on March
3, if she happens to still be the DHS Secretary then. With all the
violence and death surrounding DHS, the Secretary is in no hurry to
account for her mismanagement of this national crisis. She expects us,
in the meantime, in the days ahead, to rubberstamp her recordbreaking
budget.
Over the weekend, I announced my opposition to DHS funding. I will
not vote to fund the illegal DHS and ICE operations that terrorize the
city of Chicago, Minneapolis, and so many other communities. The deaths
of innocent Americans and the detaining of thousands of innocent people
are a national disgrace. We need to work on a bipartisan basis to pass
the five appropriations bills that have been sent to us by the House
and then work to rewrite the DHS bill to address well-documented abuses
witnessed by the American people. Anything less than this approach is a
nonstarter with me.
If the government shuts down yet again, it will be because
congressional Republicans have refused to place guardrails on this
reckless President and the ICE Agency. In the meantime, I urge my
colleagues to join us in the endeavor before Kristi Noem and her squad
take another innocent life.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that The Wall Street Journal
editorial ``Mass Deportation by the Numbers'' be printed in the Record.

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record as follows:

Mass Deportation by the Numbers

(By The Editorial Board)

President Trump and Gov. Tim Walz may be stepping back from
the political brink after a phone call Monday that both
called constructive. The best result would be for Minnesota
and the Twin Cities to cooperate with immigration
enforcement, and the feds to reduce their footprint.
Meanwhile, let's look at how the Trump Administration's
deportation policy is being implemented by the numbers. Mr.
Trump campaigned on a promise to deport criminal migrants,
``the worst of the worst'' as the Department of Homeland
Security put it. The policy has public support, but the
migrant roundup has become far broader.
Last week Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posted on
social media, ``We have arrested over 10,000 criminal illegal
aliens who were killing Americans, hurting children and
reigning terror in Minneapolis.'' Overall, Ms. Noem says
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has removed ``murderers,
pedophiles, rapists, gang members, and terrorists.'' She told
CBS that ``70% of them have committed or have charges against
them on violent crimes.''
It started out that way. At the beginning of 2025, 87% of
ICE arrests were immigrants with either a prior conviction or
a criminal charge pending, according to ICE data obtained by
the Deportation Data Project. Only 13% of those arrested at
the beginning of 2025 didn't have either a conviction or a
pending charge.
But the criminal share of apprehensions has declined as the
months have gone on. By October 2025, the percentage of
arrested immigrants with a prior conviction or criminal
charge had fallen to 55%. Since October, 73% taken into ICE
custody had no criminal conviction and only 5% had a violent
criminal conviction, according to a Cato Institute review of
ICE data.
Many of the criminal immigrants the Administration counts
among those in detention are convicted criminals culled from
prisons. White House border czar Tom Homan objected to
Minneapolis's sanctuary city policy because he said it wasn't
letting the Administration take prisoners into federal
custody. ``If they'd let us in their damn jail,'' he said,
``we could arrest the bad guy in the safety and security of
the jail.''
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz disputes that in his nearby op-ed,
but there's no doubt Minneapolis and St. Paul have ordinances
that bar using resources to help ICE apprehend people based
on immigration status. That complicates ICE's job and makes
confrontations more likely.
Syracuse professor Austin Kocher, who tracks official ICE
data, finds that between Sept. 21, 2025, and Jan. 7, 2026,
single-day ICE detentions increased 11,296. But only 902 of
those were convicted criminals, 2,273 had pending criminal
charges and 8,121 were other immigrant violators. ICE arrests
have been trending upward since January 2025, but criminal
arrests have plateaued.
All of which means that the Trump Administrations rhetoric
about deporting criminals doesn't match its current much
broader policy of mass deportation. As ICE agents target
businesses, schools and homes, scenes of arrest involving
mothers, children and long-time U.S. residents become more
common. This explains why immigration enforcement is becoming
a political liability for Republicans.
Ending migrant chaos at the border was necessary after the
Biden Administration. But White House aide Stephen Miller's
undisciplined mass deportation and zero immigration policy is
building distrust, and the White House pitch that public
safety justifies its enforcement is losing credibility.
Mr. DURBIN. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.

Department of Homeland Security

Mr. KIM. Mr. President, I rise today as we debate funding for the
Department of Homeland Security. It is a debate that 100 Americans
allowed into this Chamber will have a chance to do, but that really is
being had by millions of Americans across the country in their living
rooms and their group chats, in the comments on social media. There are
a lot of things that we debate here that fly under the radar that,
maybe, impact a lot of people but are not on their minds. This is on
everyone's mind. Whether we write another check to fund the Department
of Homeland Security isn't just front page news--it is the thing that
people who haven't picked up a newspaper in years are talking about.
Why is that?
It is because people can feel that something is wrong in this
country, and they know it has to be stopped.
People can watch the videos of the murders of Renee Good and Alex
Pretti at the hands of Federal agents and see that something is wrong
and that it isn't over. They can watch these videos of masked men who
are roaming through neighborhoods or are physically assaulting people
who are peacefully protesting and see that something is wrong. They are
absolutely right in that feeling. How can you watch any of that and not
see that it is wrong?
I hear from people whom I know--some friends of mine--who are telling
me that they are now carrying their passports around with them because
they are afraid of getting stopped and being targeted by Federal
agents. I have heard from constituents who are anxious, who don't feel
safe leaving their houses, who are afraid of door knocks at their
houses, and are just afraid that this moment of fear will never end.
The tragic irony of this is that we are nearly 25 years in from the
establishment of the Department of Homeland Security--25 years from
another moment when people felt an incredible level of anxiety and
unease. I was in college when 9/11 happened. It was a moment that led
me toward public service. It was a crisis that brought me into a career
in national security, working to keep our country safe. One of the
things I have learned is that safety isn't our ability to project force
or the tools we have at our disposal. Those things can make us safe,
but if they are used improperly, they can make us less safe and less
secure. And that is exactly what we are seeing from this
administration. It is what Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, Tom Homan, and
Kristi Noem are doing every day. They are using the tools that were
meant to keep us safe and are distorting them to grow their own power,
to fuel their own corruption.

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What we are debating here today is whether we should continue to fund
their efforts to use these tools against the American people and for
their own twisted agenda. And, to that, there is a simple answer: We
must say and vote no. We need to vote no on funding the DHS as this
bill currently stands because it is not going to make us more safe and
secure.
Everyone in America who has been carrying this feeling around with
them for the past few days and weeks knows that. They know that they
have been lied to by this administration. They know that the masked men
who are flooding into our communities are not accountable to them. They
know people like Stephen Miller, whom I have often called and said that
he is the most dangerous person in our country, are not accountable to
them. The American people are tired of it, and they are tired of the
lies. They see right through them. They are tired of feeling like they
have no say in this horrible feeling of insecurity and uncertainty.
How is it that, in the richest, most powerful country in the world,
we have this much unpredictability and this much anxiety that hangs
over us? But that can end today; that can end right here because, even
though the millions and millions of people who are struggling to make
sense of this moment aren't able to get into this Chamber and have a
vote, there are 100 of us who do and who represent all of the other
Americans in this Nation.
There are things that this administration can do today to restore
that sense of safety and security. For instance, they can pull ICE and
CBP agents out of their operations in Minnesota and in Maine and
deescalate the fear that American communities are facing. The
provocations are dangerous right now and the concern of powder kegs of
what is going to happen next. It is not that we see this in the
rearview mirror with the murder and the killing of Alex Pretti and
Renee Good. People are wondering: Is this just the beginning? Is this
going to continue and for how long? Is it going to get worse? That is
the fear that people are feeling, which is something that this
administration can immediately bring down if they pull these agents
out.
This administration can also allow and clearly articulate the need
for independent investigations into the murders of Renee Good and Alex
Pretti--actually, in terms of all 12 of the shootings that DHS agents
since September of last year have conducted. That deserves the same
level of transparency and accountability. The reason we need this is
that there is no trust right now. There is no trust right now from the
American people in having DHS or this administration as a whole
investigate themselves. It is antithetical to our understanding of
transparency and accountability if that is the case. So we demand true
independent investigations.
This administration can also fire their leaders who have clearly zero
credibility--zero credibility--with the American people right now--
Stephen Miller, Tom Homan, Secretary Noem, and others--who have
purposely weaponized our government for their own political agendas.
The American people demand accountability. Forward movement as a nation
in these troubled times cannot happen while having these administrative
officials still in power, still in their jobs.
There are many other things we need to think through, but these are
three things that can happen right now by this administration to show
that we can try to turn a corner on this incredibly chaotic and
dangerous moment for our country.
But even if that all happens, we owe it to the American people to
take a stand, we owe it to them to give them the security they deserve,
and we owe it to them to vote no on this appropriations bill.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I appreciate the remarks of my friend from
New Jersey. Mine will sound very familiar.
Listen, ICE is out of control right now. They are killing American
citizens. They are endangering the safety of our cities--in particular,
Minneapolis. They are just lawless.
This Nation was horrified when they saw the video of Alex Pretti,
exercising his First Amendment rights, gunned down in cold blood, but I
will be honest: They were just as terrified by the response from the
administration. Almost within minutes, before any investigation took
place, this young man, an ICU nurse who cared for veterans, was being
called an assassin, was being named as a domestic terrorist.
It is chilling to the American public that the people in charge of
our Federal Government would lie this willingly, this casually. It is
chilling that anyone who opposes this President or participates in
organized protests is immediately labeled a ``terrorist.'' That is what
happens in despotic, totalitarian countries--anyone that opposes the
regime is labeled a ``terrorist.'' That is not what is supposed to
happen in the United States of America.
So the focus of this country right now is squarely on Minneapolis.
By the way, there has been a lot of ink spilled over the last 24
hours about the administration's deescalation in Minneapolis,
substituting one leader for another. Tom Homan is not an avatar of
reasonableness, listening and parsing the President's words as he tries
to distance himself a little bit from the most outrageous things that
people like Stephen Miller have said. But if you talk to our colleagues
from Minnesota, they will tell you that nothing has changed. Today is
just like yesterday.
In a nursery school today, there is blinds down, recess canceled,
signs on the door: All of our staff have been vetted by ICE. We have no
one illegal here.
Kids don't know what is going on as they are ushered in by escorts to
their nursery school classroom. They are made to feel like prisoners
inside. Why? Because there are masked, armed men hunting them--and not
hunting people who snuck into the country; hunting people who are here
legally--who are here legally.
I want you to understand that as much as we are watching Minneapolis,
as much as we are feeling for those children locked in their nursery
school classrooms today, fearing the bad men outside that are trying to
take them away and send them to prison, it is not just Minneapolis.
Last week, I went down to Texas to inspect two facilities, one of
which is entitled ``the baby prison,'' ``the baby jail.'' It is where
they put the 2-year-old kids. I didn't show up unannounced. I am the
ranking Democrat on the Appropriations subcommittee that funds Homeland
Security. We all have a constitutional right to do oversight, but I
have the title, I have the responsibility. I gave them a day-and-a-half
notice, and I was still denied entry. Why? Because they are hiding
something. Thirty people have died in ICE custody and detention in the
last year.
So, instead, I went to a courtroom in San Antonio, an immigration
courtroom, and I sat in on proceedings for half a day. What I saw was
just absolutely outrageous. It is not on cameras--the country is not
watching it like they are watching Minneapolis--but it is just as
inhumane, and it is just as illegal.
The people that show up to this courtroom in San Antonio are
immigrants who are complying with the law. These are people who came to
the United States, immediately applied for asylum--many of them made an
appointment through an official government website to show up and apply
for asylum--and they have been showing up for all of their hearings and
court appointments since.
So I would watch as these individuals or families walked in, went
through their legal court proceedings, knowing that outside that door
were half a dozen civilian, plainclothes ICE officers waiting to
disappear them.
That is what happens in San Antonio. The individual who is here
legally shows up as part of their court process. They walk out the
door, and they are grabbed by ICE, put on a bus that is waiting
outside, and they are never to be seen again. They go to one of these
detention facilities. They are basically not allowed to see a lawyer.
Sometimes, their family doesn't even know where they are. They are very
quickly sent out of the country, either to the nation that they came
from, where they rightfully fear potential violence, or to third
countries. Families are split up.

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While I was there, I was asked to accompany two young parents and
their 2-year-old daughter out of the courtroom to see if maybe, because
they were talking to a U.S. Senator, ICE wouldn't take them--a 2-year-
old. The lawyer said: If you weren't here, one of two things was going
to happen--that 2-year-old was going to end up in jail with their
parents or they were going to separate the parents from the child--
separate at least the father from the child.

That is inhumane. That is wrong. And that is why people all across
this country are demanding that if we are going to fund the Department
of Homeland Security, we only fund a Department that is acting lawfully
and morally.
What we are asking is reasonable and impactful. What we are saying is
that these roving patrols in Minneapolis, the profiling of people just
based upon their skin color or their accent, the show-me-your-papers
enforcement, has to end.
ICE and CBP are fundamentally not trained to do that kind of work--
just roaming the streets, trying to find people who they believe to be
in the country illegally. We need warrants, and, in fact, that has been
the practice until this administration. The practice up until now had
been that you had to get a warrant in order to try to lock up somebody
who you believed to be here illegally.
And the roving patrols and the profiling.
Second, no more secret police. This is the United States of America.
This is the United States of America. We don't allow in this country
masked, unidentified men to be wandering up to you on the street and
ripping you into a car. We need masks off. We need body cameras on.
Lastly, we need accountability. Man, it looks like there was a crime
committed. It looks like that was murder. But the only way you will
know is if you have an impartial investigation and, potentially,
prosecution. That always happens at the State level. It can't be some
whitewashed, secret process inside the Department of Homeland Security.
No. Our justice in the United States of America happens in public; it
does not happen in private. We aren't Russia. We aren't Saudi Arabia.
Justice is administered in a court of law through a process that the
people can see, and that should apply to you whether you are an ICE
officer or whether you are just a citizen of Minneapolis.
So think about what we are talking about here--really reasonable
things that, frankly, should unite Republicans and Democrats.
I have a much longer list of reforms that I want. The illegality is
just off the charts at the Department of Homeland Security, but I
understand that we are not going to be able to get common ground on
that long list. So what we endeavor to do is put on the table three
things that we can find common ground on, that we must find common
ground on because to defend this--for Republicans' position over the
rest of this week into next week to be no reforms, no changes on how
ICE operates--it is unsustainable. It is not close to where the center
of this country is.
So what we are talking about are three reasonable projects: Stop the
roving patrols of our cities, no more secret police, and
accountability. I believe we can find a way to get that done.
I know there is an instinct here--and we suffer from it too--if
Democrats are for it, then Republicans just have to be against it, and
if Republicans are for it, Democrats just have to be against it. I fall
prey to that instinct. But this seems to be a moment where the country
has just decided that what is happening in Minneapolis is wrong. The
country would like us to come together on a series of reforms that will
make it less likely that there will be another murder in cold blood of
an American citizen.
Right now, we are on a pace for it to happen again. ICE is still
there. There are more ICE officers in Minneapolis than there are police
officers. The police aren't even doing their job any longer because all
they do is respond to the problems that are being created by untrained,
unqualified ICE officers.
I think we can find a way to come together on a set of reforms that
the American people are demanding.
I guess I draw my inspiration from that trip I took to Texas.
Late one evening, I met with a group of families that had recently
been detained, and they all had little kids--little kids that were in
what they call baby jail. I met with two boys--elementary school-age
boys about 8 years old and 10 years old--that had been locked up for 6
weeks. Six weeks these little kids had been locked up for nothing. They
were complying with the law. They and their father were going through
the legal process of applying for asylum. They were told to show up for
court. Their mom dropped them off. Their backpacks for school were
still in the back seat. The two young boys and their father went into
the courtroom for their appointment that they were told to show up for,
and they never came back to the car. Their mom had no idea where they
went.
It ended up that they were in detention, that the little kids had
been put in prison. They called their mom every day as Christmas
approached and said: Mom, maybe tomorrow they will let us out. Maybe
the next day. Christmas is coming up, Mom. I don't want to be here for
Christmas.
Well, they stayed right through Christmas, and they didn't get out
until just a week ago. These children were alive on the outside, but
you could tell they were dead on the inside. One of the two little
boys--the older of them--sat during our time together, and he just
stared straight ahead. He didn't make eye contact with anybody. His
brain, you could tell, had been poisoned by the inhumanity that had
been visited upon him by a policy that makes no sense other than for
the purpose of torturing these kids.
This is the United States of America. We shouldn't stand for that.
You can enforce the laws of this Nation without putting kids through
that kind of hell, without the kids of Minneapolis today languishing in
nursery schools with the doors locked, with no recess and the shades
down.
We were sitting around a round table, and on the other side from the
two dead-eyed children who had just left 6 weeks' detention was another
child. He looked about 10 to me.
The two boys who were in detention told their mother in all those
phone calls that maybe their greatest worry was that their friends were
going to forget about them.
Mom, I have been here for a week.
Mom, I have been here 2 weeks.
Mom, I have been here for 6 weeks. What if I go back to school and
none of my friends remember who I am?
This is what goes through the brain of an 8-year-old who has been in
jail for nothing--for nothing--for 6 weeks.
Do you know what happened? Their friends didn't forget about them.
That other little boy sitting on the other side of the round table--
10 years old--was one of their friends, and he noticed that his two
friends were missing day after day after day, and he remembered that
they were in immigration proceedings. So this 10-year-old boy went to
his teacher and his mom and said: I think something is wrong. I think
my friends might have been taken.
The teacher and the mother reached out to a local legal aid agency,
and that legal aid agency tracked down the boy and the father, and
eventually, the two boys and the father were let out.
That 10-year-old boy, their friend, had compassion. He believed in
right versus wrong. But he also believed that he wasn't powerless. He
believed that he could do something to help find his missing friends.
For him, that was alerting adults, because he knew that maybe they
would help.
And I am sure he was nervous about speaking up, about going to talk
to his teacher, because doing the right thing often comes with risks.
But to him, doing the right thing was worth the risk. To him, he knew
he wasn't powerless in the face of the immorality that he feared had
happened to his friends.
And I just tell you that story because it is a lesson for us. It is a
lesson for us to not feel powerless, for Democrats to stand up for what
we believe in, to not settle for less than a Department of Homeland
Security that complies with the law; and a lesson for Republicans, who
I know fear retribution by this President when they stand up for what
they believe is right, rather than what Donald Trump says is right.
We aren't powerless on the Democratic side, and you aren't powerless
on

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the Republican side. We can find a way to come together and protect our
citizens from an Agency that is operating outside the bounds of the law
and outside the bounds of morality.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, on Saturday, the Nation learned the
name of Alex Pretti. Alex was an ICU nurse at the Veterans'
Administration, fulfilling our Nation's sacred promise to care for our
wounded warriors. Many have probably seen the video of him paying final
respects and honors to one of our fallen veterans.
Alex was also a neighbor who cared deeply about his community, and
because of those values, Alex was an observer, recording and bearing
witness to the actions of ICE and Customs and Border Patrol as they
descended upon his hometown, stopping and detaining individuals without
judicial warrants.
We all saw video of Alex's final moments, when he stopped to help a
fellow observer, a woman who had been pushed by Federal agents, before
those agents sprayed him with chemicals, disarmed him of the gun he
legally carried, and shot him in the back, firing 10 shots in less than
5 seconds. We all saw this on video--in fact, multiple videos from
multiple angles from other civilians on the street that day bearing
witness.
But this administration--the Trump administration--immediately lied
to us. And when I say ``us,'' I mean the American people. They called
Alex a ``domestic terrorist.'' They called him a ``would-be assassin.''
This administration must think the American people are really stupid,
telling them not to believe their own eyes. This was the killing of an
American citizen exercising his constitutional rights, and you would
think that that by itself would spur a reckoning with the actions of
the Department of Homeland Security.
But this isn't one isolated event. This isn't even the only killing
committed by DHS agents in Minnesota this year. On January 7, a
Minneapolis mom, Renee Good, was shot and killed as she attempted to
drive away from immigration agents who aggressively approached her,
contrary to DHS's use-of-force policy, and, ultimately, killed her, and
then prevented her from receiving immediate medical assistance.
They lied about her case, as well, accusing her also of ``domestic
terrorism,'' despite the evidence that people across this land could
see with their own eyes.
This is not a case of just a few untrained bad apples. It is the
result of an out-of-control Federal Agency that has directed its agents
to act with impunity, to detain and deport scores of people who pose no
risk to our communities in so many cases and have no criminal records,
including small business owners, pastors, parents taking their kids to
school, neighbors walking their dogs, children.
This is an intentional policy coming out of the White House--from
Donald Trump to Stephen Miller, to the Secretary of Homeland Security,
Kristi Noem. JD Vance, the Vice President, said the agent who shot
Renee Good was ``protected by absolute immunity.'' That is what the
Vice President of the United States said. He should know better.
And they have deliberately cut funding for offices at DHS that
monitor the conduct of immigration officers to protect civil rights and
civil liberties. They are giving agents a license to kill with
impunity.
Secretary Noem should be fired immediately--if not fired, impeached.
Stephen Miller has now tried to point the finger at others, when he
has been the ringleader in the White House.
He should be fired.
DHS operates at the direction of the White House and the President
with orders to meet arbitrary quotas, to detain and deport not just the
worst of the worst but anybody. They conduct masked raids in unmarked
vehicles and refuse to show identification. They arrest people without
warrants, use force to enter homes, and lock people up without due
process. They sweep up citizens, legal immigrants, and immigrants
without deportation orders.
And when they are confronted with their abuses, they lie. They tell
us not to believe what we see with our own eyes.
I want to salute the people in Minneapolis and across the country,
including in Maryland, who are taking videos and working to hold these
Federal forces accountable. Think about what would have happened if
there was no video in these cases. These videos have complicated the
Trump administration's effort at a coverup, even as the Trump
administration refuses to work with State and local law enforcement to
investigate these killings.
In my State of Maryland, DHS lied about the circumstances surrounding
a nonfatal shooting, and they were exposed in their lies because of a
local county investigation that showed that DHS was plain wrong.
DHS has restricted access to detention centers, preventing
congressional oversight into inhuman conditions, where we know at least
30 people have died in custody, including one death in Texas that has
been ruled a homicide.
And as they view the actions of peaceful protestors and observers as
a personal offense, they have reacted with violence and labeled them
domestic terrorists for practicing their constitutional freedoms and
rights.
In Minnesota, these Federal agents hurled chemical irritants at
peaceful crowds who are simply exercising their First Amendment rights
to freedom of assembly and peaceful protest. They view whistles as
weapons. In Portland, they claimed to be threatened by people wearing
frog costumes.
My colleagues, Republicans in Congress, have fueled this surge in
illegal activity by exploding the DHS budget with $165 billion as part
of what Donald Trump called the Big Beautiful Bill. Remember, that is
the bill where the richest people in the country were given permanent
tax cuts. That is the bill that made deep cuts in healthcare for tens
of millions of Americans. And in that bill was also this huge slush
fund for DHS.
ICE, by itself, is now the Nation's highest funded law enforcement
Agency and has more funding than the militaries of most countries in
the world--including Italy, Israel, and Brazil. ICE, by itself, has
more funds than the armies of those countries, and now they are
spending those funds to hire more agents and are putting more of them
out on the streets with limited training.
They are preparing to turn warehouses into so-called processing sites
and detention centers, including one in my home State of Maryland,
doing it against the will of the community. We see DHS spitting in the
face of local communities across the country.
In Maryland, we had a rally with hundreds of people on a very cold
day, sending a message to ICE and to the Trump administration that the
people in that community did not want a warehouse for detainees right
there. Within days of that demonstration, the Trump administration--
ICE--signed a deal for $100 million of our taxpayer money to purchase a
warehouse where they say they can keep up to 1,500 detainees.
I can tell you Maryland taxpayers don't want their money going to
that purpose, and I will bet you the great majority of taxpayers around
this country don't want to see their tax dollars used in that way as
well.
And now, despite the fact that they are already clearly misusing
these taxpayer dollars, as American citizens are killed on the streets,
our fellow Republicans, our Republicans in the Senate, want to give
them even more in the bill that would be up on this floor this week--in
fact, another $10 billion more for ICE and over $18 billion more for
Customs and Border Patrol, while refusing to rein in these abuses--
another blank check for lawless activity, another blank check that
results in the killing of Americans, another blank check with no
accountability.
That would be madness. We cannot green-light the actions of an Agency
that is already terrorizing our communities and executing our neighbors
with billions of dollars in new funds without any regard to their
constitutional rights.
Again, President Trump said he was going to go after ``the worst of
the worst.'' That has not been their focus, and we can see it with our
own eyes.
And we cannot accept the administration's claim that these agents
have some kind of absolute immunity and are free from the consequences
of their actions. That is why an independent investigation into the
killings of Renee

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Good and Alex Pretti have to happen, and I appreciate my colleagues
from the other side of the aisle who have called for one. But that
should be a standard situation. That should be the standard operating
procedure in a situation like this. State and local law enforcement
should, of course, be partners in that effort. The Feds should not be
trying to hide evidence from those local and State law enforcement
officers.
We must do that, but it is not enough to take the word of the Trump
administration that they will do that. We can't simply trust an
administration that has repeatedly lied to the American people, as if,
this time, they will try to do better.
And, again, we wouldn't be here, probably, but for that video. The
administration would have thought that it got away with its lies.
So let's not be naive. We are not going to give away our
responsibility as legislators to put real reforms right into the DHS
bill to prevent this lawlessness, to prevent these killings, to protect
our freedoms, and to assure real accountability.
Our most important job is protecting the life and liberty of the
American people. It is sadly too late to protect Alex Pretti and too
late to protect Renee Good, as they should have been protected, but it
is not too late to act on behalf of the rest of the American people.
So, this week, we have before us a package of appropriation bills
that includes the work of six appropriations subcommittees--including
Defense; Transportations and Housing; Labor, Health and Human Services;
Foreign Operations; and Financial Services. These are not perfect
bills, and I have serious concerns with some of them that I would like
to see addressed. But it is also clear that there is enough support in
this body to pass them. We could pass them today if they were separated
out.
In fact, when those bills went through the House of Representatives,
they considered the Department of Homeland Security bill on its own
merits. They didn't bundle it in with everything else and say: You
know, you have got to vote for this whole package at one time.

So the House, after they passed it individually, they pulled all
those bills together and sent them in a bundle over here to the U.S.
Senate. But, my goodness, that doesn't mean the U.S. Senate has to take
it that way from the House. This is supposed to be an independent
branch of the Congress. I don't know why we would surrender our
responsibilities to the House of Representatives. And they should get
right back into Washington if we change this bill and pass it to
prevent a shutdown of those Agencies. That is their responsibility.
The House needs to perform its duties, and we need to perform ours.
And ours involve making sure that we separate out those five
appropriation bills that I mentioned from the Homeland Security
appropriations bill. In fact, I would argue that we should also take--
as part of the package of five bills, we should take FEMA and TSA and
the Coast Guard, which are part of the DHS bill, and we could send all
of those back to the House for immediate passage to go on to the
President.
But, instead, Republican colleagues here are wasting time. We could
take up that package today, if there was the will to do it among my
Republican colleagues. But, right now, instead, we are holding all of
those other Agencies--the Defense Department, Health and Human
Services--hostage to holding onto the Department of Homeland Security
bill that needs to be changed dramatically.
I don't think that a single person in this body would argue against
deporting those who have committed serious crimes--``the worst of the
worst''--but that is not what this administration has been focused on.
Nothing about this has been targeted. And Trump's ICE has not focused,
as they promised, on ``the worst of the worst.'' They are stopping and
arresting people who are citizens, who are legal residents, who have
legal pending asylum claims, just because of how they look or their
accent. And they are wreaking havoc on communities across the country,
including on peaceful protestors, two of whom have now given their
lives to protect our freedoms.
And do you know what? They are not just using their own agents as
part of this indiscriminate dragnet. They are bringing in other
Agencies as well, distracting them and redirecting them from critical
missions. Senator Warner released data that showed nearly half of the
FBI agents in its largest field offices have been redirected to
immigration, away from fighting drug trafficking, terrorism, and
violent crime.
It is time for us in the Senate to do our job. This isn't going to go
away with the couple hours of extra training, personnel reassignments,
or administration statements. Let's make this a moment for real change
and not give DHS another huge blank check.
I, for one, will not vote for one more dime for this lawless DHS
operation that we are witnessing at this time.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
Mr. SCHMITT. Mr. President, we are at an inflection point in this
country, and what happens over the next few months will ring onward,
far into the future.
We have all seen the scenes in Minneapolis--the riots, the violence,
the bitter chaos. You have seen the headlines, the TV monologues, the
nightly news reports, and the pundits' spin. If you weren't paying
close attention, it might seem like all of this noise just exploded out
of nowhere, a month or two ago.
But the story of what is happening in Minneapolis didn't begin last
month. It didn't even begin last year when President Trump took office.
It began on January 20, 2021, the day Joe Biden became President. The
Biden administration did something that has no precedent in American
history. They intentionally opened our border to a full-scale invasion
and actively sought to block any attempt to fight back.
Millions upon millions of illegal aliens entered our country
illegally, flooding in from some of the most violent places on Earth,
in direct violation of constitutionally enacted immigration laws passed
by multiple Congresses and signed by Presidents of both parties. It was
the most egregious betrayal of Federal law in American history.
Trump ran and won on fixing this. It wasn't some minor footnote in
his platform; it was one of the most fundamental defining policies of
his 2024 campaign. If you went out in the street and grabbed 10
Americans at random in November of 2024 and asked them what Donald
Trump was running on, just about every single one of them would give
you the same exact answer: the economy and illegal immigration.

Here is the thing: He won. Donald Trump won. Let me repeat that for
my Democratic colleagues. He won. He won the electoral college. He won
the popular vote. He swept all the battleground States running on the
promise to end the invasion and send the illegal immigrants back home.
The promise was one of the key reasons the American people sent him
back to the White House. That was democracy in action.
You know, we hear a lot of talk from the other side about democracy.
Well, if democracy means anything at all, it means that this
administration must be allowed to carry out the agenda the American
people voted for--enforcing our immigration laws, securing the border,
and deporting immigrants who are here illegally.
This is not a new concept, by the way. Democratic Presidents for the
past 20 years have done this. But the other side never had any
intention of letting this happen. President Trump moved forward with
his agenda. They were never going to let us enforce our immigration
laws against those who had broken them.
Why is that? Well, because mass migration is not just one policy
preference among many of today's Democratic Party; it is the policy
priority, the fundamental organizing principle of their entire agenda.
It is the foundation of their platform and the final end of their world
view.
Not one single Democrat has called on leftists in the streets to stop
impeding law enforcement with their cars or to stop physically
attacking law enforcement--not a single one. They have zero interest in
lowering the temperature. At this point, it is so obvious, it almost
feels silly to say.

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In Minnesota and here in DC, Democrats are actively and intentionally
adding fuel to the fire.
The mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, has claimed his city is
``invaded, under siege, occupied.''
The Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota, Peggy Flanagan, declared that
``our neighbors are being disappeared. . . . It is just called
kidnapping'' and publicly called upon Americans to ``put your body on
the line'' and ``not go silently into the night.''
Governor Tim Walz compared the ICE presence in Minnesota to a Nazi
occupation and likened residents of Minneapolis to Anne Frank. On
Monday, Walz published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal declaring
that the ``Trump administration's assault on Minnesota is a campaign of
organized brutality against the people of our state.'' Just last week,
he stood behind the metal gates of the Governor's mansion with a
bullhorn and told the crowd of protesters outside to go and cause
``trouble.''
These aren't unique examples; they are par for the course. Over the
last month, we have heard similar things from just about every powerful
Democrat in this country. I don't know what is in each and every one of
their hearts. I don't know that. I don't know if they really believe
that we are at war or that ICE is the Gestapo or that Minneapolis is
under Nazi occupation. But whether or not they believe it, many of the
people who hear them and are listening to them do. Now, many of those
people are taking these ideas to their final, logical conclusion. That
is exactly what the people in power on the left actually want. They
want the confrontations. They want the chaos. They want their conscious
political strategy. That is what this is, their conscious political
strategy. They have decided that leaning in and ratcheting this up as
far as it can go serves their political and ideological interests, so
they are all in.
By the way, might I just point out that they are about ready to shut
the government down again. They shut it down the first time because
they wanted healthcare for illegal immigrants. Now they are willing to
shut the government down, including FEMA funding and TSA funding,
because they want to stop deportations of illegal immigrants. It is the
single organizing principle of their party right now.
Think about that for a moment. Really sit with this. Think about what
it says about the kinds of people we are dealing with at this point.
In a better era of American politics, we used to say things like: We
all want what is best for the country; we just have different ideas
about how to get there. When you hear statements like the ones that I
just rattled off, it seems harder and harder to believe that right now.
These radicals are people who fundamentally do not believe America
deserves to be a sovereign nation, a nation that gets to decide who
comes here and for how long and when you have to leave. These radicals
have opposed the efforts in Minnesota and across the country to take
criminals off of our streets--criminals like Kou Lo Vang, a criminal
illegal alien from Laos convicted of first-degree murder; Phuc Trong
Nguyen, a criminal illegal alien from Vietnam convicted of possession
of a weapon and rape; Pedro Ornelas, a criminal illegal alien from
Mexico convicted of sexual assault and rape; Abdi Gelle Mohamed, a
criminal illegal alien from Somalia convicted of sexual abuse of a
minor. That is just a small sample of the last few weeks of arrests in
Minnesota.
These radicals are people who will cynically wax poetic about
democracy in one breath and then deploy organized mob violence as a
weapon to undermine the express will of the people when democracy
doesn't go their way.
My colleagues on the left are currently threatening to shut down our
government, shut down the Department of Homeland Security, if they
don't get their way.
What is their way?
Mr. MERKLEY. Will the Senator pause for a question?
Mr. SCHMITT. No.
What is their way? They demand we defund law enforcement Agencies
like ICE and CBP. They demand we force ICE agents to dox themselves so
that their families can be harassed and threatened in their homes. They
demand that we cripple Federal law enforcement's ability to enforce our
immigration laws.
This is not about oversight; it is about paralysis. And the objective
is mass amnesty, rewarding those who broke the law and punishing the
men and women sworn to enforce it.
My colleagues on the left are smart enough to know about the trail of
American victims that mass immigration has left in its wake, but they
made a conscious decision to sneer and roll their eyes and pretend like
it is all just a hysterical rightwing fantasy to advance their agenda.
What is really going on here? Well, it is a desperate and intentional
thirst for power at all costs--padding their numbers by importing new
voters and illegally adding people to the census rolls to distort
congressional apportionment in the electoral college, even if Americans
are less safe and it destroys our way of life in the process.
I want my Republican colleagues in particular to hear me on this.
Nobody wants to see American citizens being shot and killed. On a basic
human level, it is a tragedy. Every time a life is lost, it is a
tragedy. The lives lost in Minnesota have been tragic.
But what we are seeing in the streets of Minnesota--it is not on ICE,
it is not on the Border Patrol, and it is certainly not on President
Trump. If it were, we would be seeing the same chaos in every city
where ICE and Border Patrol carry out these operations, but we are not.
There have been large-scale deportation operations in red States all
across the country. Most Americans probably never heard of them because
they went off without a hitch. In fact, when we measure ICE arrests in
each State last year against the State's share of the national illegal
alien population, 21 out of the top 25 States are red. Only 3 blue
States, plus Washington, DC, crack the top 26. One of those States was
Virginia, which had a Republican Governor who was willing to work with
ICE at the time.
A recent analysis found that just nine counties account for nearly
two-thirds of all violent confrontations with ICE in America over the
past year. The number of violent confrontations in those counties was
twice as high as the total instances of anti-ICE violence from the
remaining 3,134 counties combined. Anti-ICE violence was 590 times more
likely to occur in those 9 counties than in any other county in
America. All nine counties are deep-blue sanctuary jurisdictions run by
Democrats.
We hear the left tell us that ICE and Border Patrol are agents of
chaos and terror. The data tells a very different story. It is not ICE
or Border Patrol that is causing this terror; it is the militant
leftists and their enablers in the Democratic Party.
Yet, in the face of all of it, the agents of ICE and Border Patrol
continue to do their job, courageously carrying out their duty and
running towards the fire. They are not villains. They are American
heroes. They are on the frontlines of the fight to save our country,
and we owe them absolute, unequivocal, unflinching support.
I want to close by reading a message from a DHS agent on the ground
in Minneapolis that was shared earlier this month. Here is what he
wrote:

It is about negative 20 in Minneapolis right now. Negative
31 with wind chill.
I was leaving the building we are all holed up in. I think
we've stacked close to 2,000 people in a building designed
for 500.
I ran into a grunt officer who's been sent here from Miami.
He clearly had just got back from an operation. Dude looked
absolutely exhausted.
We talk a little [smack] about how bad the weather sucks,
how tired everyone is from the op[eration] tempo.
We get outside, I ask him point blank how he feels about
risking his life going up against arctic temperatures,
criminals, rioters. . . . He stops, looks at me, and says
``doesn't matter. We do the job.'' Then he walks off and
jumps in the car to get on ANOTHER target.
No less than 10 seconds later, one of the garage doors
where teams are staging at opens, and about 15 [to] 25 guys
roll out in full kit and hop in cars for a different target
set.
Guys are risking it all in [minus] 40 temperatures to grab
foreign invaders, getting attacked by the very same
countrymen they are trying to protect, with an entire city
mobilized against them.
They don't even think of stopping for one second. They
don't eat, they barely sleep, they survive on nicotine and
black coffee and the occasional MRE. Not one of the dozens if
not hundreds of men I've talked to even thinks about
quitting.

[[Page S317]]

Everyone, even senior leadership, is out there right now.
[The] equivalent of general officers are out there on the
ground making arrests and fighting through protesters
alongside their guys.
I've never seen commitment like this before. These men are
genuine heroes. . . . They're putting it all on the line
every second of every day. They know that the political winds
can shift and that all the work and sacrifices and danger
could be for nothing. They even know they'll probably face
serious retribution for doing the right thing. But they don't
care, they're still getting after it.
Please, keep these men [and women] in your prayers. They
are a force of 20,000 going up against 20 million.

Mr. President, that is courage. That is heroism. It is a heroism that
the cowards hiding behind their guarded mansion gates will never
understand.
The ICE and Border Patrol agents are risking death every day. The
small men who sneer and bark at them from the sidelines are not men of
virtue but men who defy our rule of law.
The deportations must continue. Sanctuary cities must end. The era of
fake deals is over. There will be no fake ``comprehensive immigration
reform'' because a nation does not need new laws to enforce the ones it
already has. President Trump demonstrated a basic truth of self-
government: Law without enforcement is not law at all.
Congress criminalized illegal entry. The executive branch is
obligated to enforce it. And that is exactly what will happen--the
systematic removal of those who violated Federal law by entering this
country illegally--no theatrics, no apologies, no amnesty, just
enforcement.
So protest all you want, but let law enforcement do their jobs--
enforcing the immigration laws that Republicans and Democrats passed.
Let our men and women in law enforcement get home safe to their
families.
The only way out is through.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. MERKLEY. I asked my colleague from across the aisle if he would
pause for a question not to address all the lists of particulars he
threw out to all 47 of his colleagues on this side of the aisle but to
simply make one point. That is, he said, that Democrats want to shut
down the government.
Did he forget that Republicans are in charge of this Chamber? Did he
forget that all 47 of us here said that we are willing to vote today on
the five spending bills? Did he miss that somehow?
Republicans are in charge of the Oval Office. They are in charge of
the House of Representatives, and Republicans are in charge of the
Senate.
Mr. SCHMITT. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. MERKLEY. Yes. When I complete my remarks, I will be happy to
address the question.
We are ready to vote now on those five bills. So, if there is a
shutdown, it is clear where it is coming from. It is coming from the
Republican leadership and the President of the United States of
America.
I have been profoundly disturbed by what I have seen in the way that
the agents from Customs and Border Protection and ICE have acted across
this country. I held 17 townhalls in very conservative, Republican
counties, in super red counties, in blue counties, in purple counties.
People came out from across my State to say they are shocked and that
they are disturbed by what they are seeing happening across our entire
Nation.
They came to my townhalls to say one simple thing: No more must this
conduct occur. So I have come to the floor now to say: No more. No more
rogue patrols of Federal agents accosting people based on the color of
their skin or their accents. No more intrusions and violations in the
sensitive places like churches, mosques, synagogues, schools, daycare
centers, hospitals, courthouses, and polling places. No more secret
police tactics in which agents hide their personal identities, hide
their Agency identity, cover their faces, use unmarked vans so people
don't even know if they are being confronted by someone who has
legitimate authority. No more Federal agents arresting people and, in
fact, knocking down doors without warrants.
May I remind my colleagues that there is a Constitution of the United
States of America and that it says you cannot knock down doors without
a warrant?
It is shocking to see a memo from this President saying the executive
branch can tell other parts of the executive branch they can violate
the Fourth Amendment and knock down doors--violating a fundamental
premise of the privacy and security and freedom of the people of the
United States of America.
No more blatant lies from Kristi Noem when citizen victims have been
assaulted. She is quick to immediately say they are terrorists or they
are would-be assassins when she has absolutely no evidence to support
that, and immediately you know there will be nothing close to an
independent or fair investigation. Immediately you know she is making
it up because she hasn't collected the information. Then the videos
come out, and they show that she lied to the American people not once,
not twice, not three times, but time and time and time again. The
American people have witnessed the truth with their own eyes thanks to
the citizens who were responsibly videotaping the interactions.
No more corrupt Federal investigations that blame ordinary citizens
for ICE thuggery. No more blocking Members of Congress from touring
immigration facilities or stonewalling congressional oversight. No more
abducting children off the street, including a 5-year-old in a hat with
little puppy ears on it.
No more terrorizing our community. No more executions of our citizens
like Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
Colleagues, ICE has failed to follow the law. They have failed to
honor the Constitution. They have destroyed their own legitimacy and
integrity. Democrats have said: We are ready to vote on all five of the
spending bills that do not involve ICE. Do it right now.
Republican leadership says: Hell no. We want to shut down the
government.
Wow. Then they want to blame Democrats. Let's have an honest
conversation about who is responsible if there is a government
shutdown, and that lays across the aisle to the right.
The DHS bill must be separated because these issues must be debated
and addressed. If the goal of my Republican colleagues is to avoid a
debate over the misconduct of Customs and Border Protection and ICE,
then they are not fulfilling their responsibilities as representatives
of the citizens of the United States of America, who value their
freedom, who value their privacy, who never want to see the Federal
Government knocking down their doors without a warrant.
Kristi Noem has so failed in her honesty with America. She must go.
As the Senate eventually considers the Department of Homeland
Security bill, they must enact serious, meaningful reforms, including
ending the roaming patrols with all the violations they have been
involved in, unmasking the secret police, ensuring accountability and
fair investigations.
Let me remind you that in Trump's so-called Big Beautiful Bill--you
remember the one. That was the bill that cut nutrition, that cut
healthcare, making it far more expensive for mega millions of Americans
in order to give $75 billion to ICE, kind of advanced funding it for,
like, 5 years into the future. And they want additional money for ICE
now with no debate on the floor of the Senate? They want to suppress a
legitimate conversation about defending the privacy and rights of all
Americans and about defending our Constitution? No, absolutely not.
So, to every Senator, in recognizing they already have--ICE that is--
mega millions in their pocket or, actually, billions--$75 billion--not
one more dollar for ICE thuggery.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I want to thank Senator Smith and my
colleagues for being here today to stand up for the State of Minnesota,
for our Nation, and for our Constitution.
In the last year, we have too often come to the floor to discuss
tragedies in our State. This summer, an assassin killed our friend
Melissa Hortman, the former speaker of the Minnesota House, and her
husband Mark. We were, once again, shaken to our core when a mass
shooter attacked Annunciation Catholic Church right in the middle of
mass--children in their first week of school--when 2 children were
murdered, with 21 more people injured, including 18 kids.
In recent weeks, Minnesota has, once again, been at the center of
America's

[[Page S318]]

heartbreak, but we are also at the center of America's courage and
hope. We honor Renee Good today--Renee Good, who left behind three
children, including a 6-year-old, when she was shot and killed by an
ICE agent.
Her wife said this: ``Kindness radiated out of her. . . . She
literally sparkled'' and asked everyone to ``honor her memory by living
her values: rejecting hate and choosing compassion.''
We also honor the memory of Alex Pretti, a VA intensive care nurse
who did one of the most selfless jobs people can think of: caring for
our veterans, often in their final hours. He was a man described by his
friends and family as a kind-hearted soul.
Both Renee and Alex should be alive today.
It is not just these horrific killings. The administration, through
its surge of thousands of ICE and Border Patrol agents to Minnesota--
outnumbering the 10 largest metropolitan police departments combined in
the Twin Cities and outnumbering the sworn officers in the Minneapolis-
Saint Paul departments by 3 to 1--has repeatedly violated the
constitutional rights of the people of Minnesota. The fact is that
anyone who cares about federalism, about freedoms, about liberties
should be horrified by what is happening.
If you care about the Constitution, I say to our colleagues on the
other side of the aisle: You should be horrified because what is
happening in our State has been a violation of the First Amendment--the
right to assemble--and the Second Amendment. Alex was a lawful gun
owner, but he was immediately criticized for that when, in fact, the
video showed very clearly--very clearly--because eyes don't lie--that
his gun was firmly in its holster and that it was taken out by Border
Patrol agents.
They have been violating the Fourth Amendment, ramming into people's
homes without having a judicial warrant. Agents have been demanding,
without even reasonable suspicion, that Minnesotans show proof of
citizenship just based on how they look.
This administration is also going after the Fifth Amendment--the
right to due process--as it has denied detainees' access to counsel. As
the chief judge in the district of Minnesota--a former clerk to Justice
Scalia and a George Bush appointee--has made clear, they have been
defying court orders.
So I say to our Republican colleagues: If you are a defender of
liberty, you must defend it when it counts, not just when it is
convenient.
Federal immigration agents bashed upon a door and detained a Hmong
elder, who is a U.S. citizen and whose mom was one of the most loved
nurses who took care of our troops during the Vietnam war. They held
him at gunpoint without a warrant. They took him out of his home in his
underwear. He had nothing but Crocs on his feet. They put him in a car
and drove him around for an hour. Then they later discovered they had
the wrong guy. In fact, the guy they were looking for had been in jail
all along.
We have all seen the photos of 5-year-old little Liam, who was
standing there, scared in his blue rabbit hat with floppy ears and
Spider-Man backpack, as agents apprehended him.
This administration sent a 2-year-old to Texas despite there being a
pending court case. The order was issued, but they didn't want to wait
for that. They sent the 2-year-old to Texas when her mom was waiting
back in Minnesota. Thanks to the late-night work of my staff and
several local lawmakers, she has been reunited with her mom. But it
should never have come to this. A court case was pending, but it was
disregarded.
In another instance, a U.S. citizen was forced to the ground, placed
in a choke hold, and held in a detention center for hours. He offered
multiple times to show his U.S. passport but was ignored.
This has gone so beyond any original reason for Federal agents. It
has gone well beyond the fraud investigation. That was a good reason to
bring people to help, but that is not what this was--not the 2-year-
old, not the 5-year-old, not the Hmong elder. It has gone way beyond
apprehending violent offenders--not the 2-year-old, not the 5-year-old,
not the Hmong elder.
This has turned into a Kristi Noem- and Greg Bovino-driven shock and
awe public spectacle that is meant to intimidate our State. In fact,
Pam Bondi, on the same day Alex was killed, sent a letter to the
Governor of Minnesota, saying the administration would remove these
3,000 ICE agents if Minnesota would violate the privacy of its citizens
by turning over their personal voter data--something Republican
secretaries of state in States like Georgia have refused to do. The
Justice Department has actually sued 24 States for refusing to turn
over the data, including, as I mentioned, Georgia and also New
Hampshire. Three district court judges have dismissed these cases. It
is clear that our State is being targeted, but they have tried to get
this data in 24 States. They say: We will bring out the ICE agents if
only you will just give us that data.
There are 3,000 Federal officers in Minnesota, and I cannot state it
more unequivocally: ICE must leave Minnesota. Law enforcement has made
this clear. They can't do their jobs--they can't do their jobs. They
can't investigate burglaries. They can't help on some complex cases
because they are being called to people's homes all the time because of
the ICE agents hanging around homes of just regular citizens, in
parking lots chasing people down.
Local businesses, business leaders have come out and said: Enough.
Police chiefs in our State have joined together. Police chiefs across
the Nation have joined together and said: We believe in proper police
procedures and the rule of law. But the biggest story out of this is
the everyday people, the ordinary people doing extraordinary things.
They have rallied together, brought food to their neighbors, drove
other kids to school, showed up for small businesses and marching
50,000 strong. I was there. I saw it. Fifty thousand peaceful marchers
in 10-below weather.
You know, 250 years ago, our Nation declared independence from a
King. Our Nation was born from the deep revulsion to the idea of an
illegal occupation, a standing army of British troops literally taking
over our streets, demanding to see papers, acting with cruelty,
resorting to violence.
In those times, newspapers shared what was happening. Well, today,
Americans are seeing it firsthand on video. Americans heard Renee
Good's final words to the officer who shot her: ``I'm not mad at you.''
They saw Alex spend his final moments trying to help a woman who had
been shoved to the ground. His last words: ``Are you OK?''
And just as Americans fought for liberty 250 years ago, they are
standing up for liberty now. People across the country are speaking out
against this cruelty. And, of course, it is good that Bovino was
removed. Other people have to be removed too. Kristi Noem shouldn't be
in her job anymore. But mostly we need these ICE agents out of
Minnesota, and we hope that happens soon. Border Patrol, they began
that removal, but the ICE agents have to get out of Minnesota. It is a
very dangerous situation.
I spoke with Alex's parents the next day after we lost him. Through
the tears, they talked about what he was like, and they wanted the
world to know the truth and how much it hurt them to have senior
administrative officials call him a domestic terrorist, call him a
would-be assassin.
Alex's sister said:

Alex always wanted to make a difference in this world, and
it's devastating he won't be here to witness the impact that
he was making.

We must stand up. And so we are asking our colleagues--they know the
White House. We have all done our best here--but to tell them it is
time for those ICE agents to come home. There must be new leadership in
the Department of Homeland Security now, and there must be major
reforms to these Agencies before this Congress should approve another
cent.
First, we need to stop these roving bands. This means coordination
with State and local law enforcement and no more bounties that
encourage immigration officials to detain individuals even without
cause.
We need proper training and a code of conduct that includes
transparent investigations and meaningful accountability for when
agents break the law or violate the Constitution. This also means use-
of-force policies that are the same for local police.

[[Page S319]]

Immigration agents, like all law enforcement, should comply with the
Fourth Amendment.
This bounty system--we have had stories. We have hundreds of cases in
our offices right now where people were stopped: a White guy, Latino.
They said to the Latino: Where are you from? The Latino says: I was
born in America. They put him in the car, drive him a few blocks, let
him out or take him to the detention center and then let him go.
Bonuses? Bounties? The masks should come off, and the body cameras
should go on.
There must be thorough, objective, and independent investigations
into these killings. The Justice Department refused to cooperate with
local investigators in Minnesota after Renee's death, and over a dozen
career prosecutors in Minnesota and Washington resigned rather than
take part in a miscarriage of justice.
After Alex's killing, the Federal Government blocked State law
enforcement from accessing the crime scene. I know because I got
panicked calls--because I used to be a prosecutor in the county--about
what was going on.
A Federal judge, appointed by Donald Trump, had to issue an order
preventing the Federal Government from destroying evidence.
I am opposed to this ICE funding bill, and I am very appreciative
that people are starting to talk about reforms to this Agency. But the
money that was passed this summer, $75 billion, making this Agency
bigger than the FBI--that was wrong. I opposed it, and so did my
Democratic colleagues.
The costs continue to mount. Right now, our Federal, State, and local
governments are spending an estimated $18 million a week on the surge
in Minnesota alone, and what do you get out of it? Two out of three of
the shootings resulting in death in Minneapolis--two out of three--were
caused by Federal agents.
I appreciate Senator Schumer. I appreciate my colleague Senator Smith
and so many others for saying no to this, and I truly appreciate that a
number of our Republican colleagues have started to say that what ICE
is doing is wrong. A few have said Kristi Noem should no longer be in
her job.
ICE needs to leave Minnesota.
It was in 1776 when future First Lady Abigail Adams wrote to her
husband John Adams describing the retreat of British ships from Boston,
saying their numbers were so large ``they looked like a forest.'' But
despite their force, it was the determination of those demanding
liberty that won that day.
For Minnesotans right now, every corner, everywhere that you drive--
really, it is not just the city; suburbs, shopping malls, rural areas--
they see an ICE agent. The people are scared every single day, and it
feels like that forest, but out of that forest comes these people of
our State that are willing to stand up, citizens that are willing to
stand up to help people they may not even know because they understand
what is at stake for the liberties of this country.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Schmitt). The Senator from Minnesota.
Ms. SMITH. Mr. President, I thank my colleague Senator Klobuchar and
all of our colleagues who are joining us on the floor this afternoon.
We are here today because we have a full-blown, dangerous emergency
unfolding in Minnesota.
It is happening right now as I speak, and we need your help to end
it. America needs your help. The Nation has been appalled by what we
have seen happening in our State of Minnesota, the stories that have
captured everyone's attention.
Two innocent U.S. citizens, Alex Pretti and Renee Good, shot and
killed on the street in broad daylight by Federal agents just as they
were trying to help their neighbors and document with their telephones
what was going on, the brutality of it.
A 5-year-old in a Spider-Man backpack, Liam Conejo Ramos. So Liam is
coming home with his dad and the agents are there and Liam is trying to
get inside. The agents try to use Liam as bait to lure the mother
outside.
Liam is still in detention. He is still in Texas--a 5-year-old, 1,000
miles away from home.
Colleagues, my head is so full of stories, so full of stories that
might not have gotten all the attention but tell the tale of the
brutality and illegality of Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota.
This is about a U.S. citizen, a young man, who is walking out of his
place of work to get lunch, and he sees an ICE agent. He is concerned.
He is afraid that he might get targeted so he turns around and walks
the other way. The ICE agent runs after him and tackles the guy. He is
a U.S. citizen, throws him to the ground, injures him, and detains him
for hours, all the while this young man has documents to prove who he
is.
It is about a teenager in Willmar, MN. Willmar is a smaller regional
center in Minnesota. It is place where the Jennie-O turkey processing
plant is. It is an incredible community.
Here is a teenager in Willmar who is stopped by ICE. She is beaten.
She gets a concussion, and she is detained for 2 days, and she is a
U.S. citizen.
So imagine--it is hard to imagine this. But imagine you are in your
neighborhood, and there are those roving vans of Federal agents. They
have no identification. They drive around in black Suburbans. They have
masks over their faces, and at the drop of a hat, they just leap out,
and they go after people. They are restraining them. They are hitting
them. They are spraying them with chemical agents, and then people are
just shoved into Suburbans and driven off.
And nobody really knows what happens to them. This is happening in
Minnesota, if it isn't happening in your neighborhood. I want people to
understand this is not just Minneapolis-St. Paul where so many of the
TV cameras have been.
It is Rochester, MN, where the schools are reporting a huge falloff
of kids going to school because they are so afraid. Their families are
so afraid to send them to school.
It is in Mankato, MN, which is in the southern part of the State. It
is another regional center, a farming community. I heard today on the
public radio station that the local immigrant rights organization is
getting 400 calls a day from people who are trying to figure out what
their rights are, what to do: A family member of mine is detained. I
don't know where they are.
This is happening in dozens of cities.
So what we have here, colleagues, is a campaign. It is a campaign not
about public safety; it is a campaign about fear and intimidation. This
is about secret police roaming in our cities with no identification and
no name tags.
What they do is they overtly target individuals because of the accent
that they have, the skin color that they have. I am not just imagining
this is their motivation because these agents are telling people this
is what is going on.
I mean, this is the story of a Hmong woman that I met in Hmong
Village just last week who, in tears, is telling me that her son has
been detained. He has been gone for days and days and days, and she
doesn't know when she is going to get him back.
Where is he?
This is about ICE agents going to a suburban restaurant in the Twin
Cities, having lunch, and then after lunch, they go into the kitchen to
detain the folks that are working in the kitchen.
We are seeing this happen every single day; battering down doors,
breaking car windows. There literally--there is no pretext. There is no
warrant. They are targeting people, not because they know that they
have committed some crime, but because of what they look like.
There is this thing that we have in the Twin Cities now. They are
called ghost cars. What is this? This is a car that is left in the
street, the middle of the street sometimes, the door open, the engine
running, the keys still in the car, and nobody is there. People know
what happened. ICE came and got whoever was driving the car and took
them away.
You know, if you are going through a legal immigration process in
this country, you go through a process, and it is your obligation--your
legal obligation--to check in with the Federal authorities.
What is happening now is that you are getting--folks are getting--
legal residence getting a letter to appear. They have a choice. They
know that if they don't comply, they are breaking

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the law, so of course they comply. But when they go to the courthouse,
what happens is an agent is waiting outside the courthouse. An agent is
there waiting to detain that person who is following the law, who has
done nothing wrong. In fact, they are doing everything they possibly
can do to comply with the law, and yet they are being detained.
These are not, my colleagues--these are not what you hear from this
administration about the so-called worst of the worst. These are people
that are active, contributing members of our community. These are legal
residents who hold green cards who are being flown to Texas with no
legal representation, no access to counsel.
And you know what happens sometimes? They get down there; they go
through another screening; and the Federal agents say: OK. Sorry about
that. We made a mistake. And they just dump them on the streets of
Houston or wherever they may be.
No documents, no identification--how are they going to even get home?
That is happening in this country right now. And if they are not
released, because not everyone is released--if they are not released,
people have died in custody. People with no criminal record have been
deported to countries that they have never even known.
So this is happening in Minnesota, but this is not just Minnesota. I
think, because Minnesota has resisted so strongly and because the
tactics of Operation Metro Surge have been so brutal, we have gotten so
much of the attention, but this is not just a Minnesota problem.
I ask you, colleagues, to consider how these dangerous and poorly
trained and unaccountable ICE agents have been treating Americans who
have been exercising their constitutional right to peacefully speak and
to demonstrate. These Americans have been intimidated. They have been
taunted. They have been beaten. They have even been killed.
We have seen the images of people being maced at point-blank range.
You can see this in the final pictures of Alex Pretti before he is
killed.
We know that they are tracking demonstrators with facial ID
technology, following them home to intimidate them. And, in fact, I
have heard stories from demonstrators who have been led home by ICE
agents--so that those agents are communicating: We know where you live.
We know who you are. We want you to be quiet--pepper balls, tear gas.
And this is not just happening, colleagues, in situations of civil
unrest. I am not talking about riots here. I am talking about a family
that is trying to get home. They have six kids in the car. They have
been at basketball practice, and they end up with a can of tear gas
thrown under their car. It explodes. It lifts the car up off the
ground, and that family ends up in the emergency room. They need to be
decontaminated from the poison.
Now, I am telling you these stories because I want you to understand
a very important thing: What is going on in Minnesota is not about
public safety. It has nothing to do with public safety. In fact, what
is going on in Minnesota is hurting public safety. As Senator Klobuchar
said, police chiefs of suburban communities have come forward and said:
This is not sustainable. This is dangerous.
A police chief told the story about how one of his own officers, who
was off duty, was stopped for no reason by ICE agents, and they
threatened to get her out of the car and take her away before she
finally tells them. She decides: I have to tell them that I am a police
officer. And they leave her alone.
This is about people dialing 911 because an ICE agent is at their
home, and they are so scared about what to do.
So I want to be clear: We are pro-public safety in Minnesota. We have
worked often with Federal authorities to catch bad guys and lock them
up. But we need ICE out of Minnesota. What is really going on here is a
systemic and organized campaign of fear and intimidation.
This is government police, sanctioned at the highest levels of our
government, completely unbound, beating and attacking and detaining and
arresting and killing American citizens. This is what America looks
like with an authoritarian government, with no laws.
But here is what is happening not only in Minnesota but around the
country. Our constituents, the Presiding Officer's constituents are
watching these videos, and they are hearing these stories, and they are
reading these reports. And what is happening is a sense of moral
outrage is rising up, that feeling that you have in your gut when you--
that feeling of anguish and anger and disgust, when you know that you
are seeing something that is just wrong. You know that it is wrong and
that you can't look away from it.
And we are uplifted by this moral outrage and the incredible courage
of Minnesotans, but we know what we are seeing here. And people are
responding everywhere. I have talked to hundreds of people, over the
past few weeks, about what is going on in Minnesota--people who are
organizing mutual aid to get groceries and diapers to families; but
smalltown folks that hate to see this happen to their neighbors; and
local mayors and farmers and small businesses; Democrats, Republicans,
people who aren't political at all; law enforcement officers, faith
leaders, Second Amendment supporters, and civil libertarians.
And there is the man in the truck that I saw when I was in
Minneapolis, taking groceries to people on Monday. He is in the truck,
and I drive up. He is, at first, kind of concerned that I might be ICE.
Then he is worried that I am going to think that he is ICE. And we
start to talk, and he said of the President: I voted for him. I told my
kids. I talked my kids into voting for him. And I am so upset. I am so
embarrassed. I never thought that this would happen. This is so messed
up.
This, colleagues, is the coalition of the horrified, the people who
see this and feel a sense of moral outrage, people who are bound
together not by politics or faction or identity but by that feeling in
your gut that what you are seeing is wrong and that we have to do
something about it, that this can't be how we operate.
So that brings us to here, today, in this august Chamber of the U.S.
Senate, and we ask ourselves: OK, what do we do? What is our place
here?
We have all worked really hard to get here, and we all are here, I
believe, because we love this country. And I suspect that almost all of
us who serve in this Chamber understand. They see the threat. We see
the threat that this poses to the very underpinnings of our country.
And I am so grateful to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle,
Republicans and Democrats, who have spoken out, who have called for a
fair and impartial investigation, who have called for changes of
leadership. I agree with that. That is all really important.
But, colleagues, that is not going to be enough to stop this. This is
a crucial moment in our country, not just for Minnesota but for our
entire country, and our answer to the question of what we do in the
face of this illegality, this brutality--our answer to all those
people, all those constituents who feel that sense of moral outrage,
who are begging us to stand up for them--our answer can't be that we
are not going to do anything. It can't be the status quo. It can't be:
Well, the procedures of the Senate and the House make it really
impossible for us to get something done. So there is really not that
much we can do right now.
That is not acceptable.
But, colleagues, I can see a path forward. And, look, I want to be
really clear. In my view, we need to start over with the Department of
Homeland Security. I think it should be ripped down to the studs and
that we should start over. But that is not the question for today. That
is not the question for right now. Right now, we need to take
immediate, commonsense steps to stop the worst of the violence and the
violations that Americans are suffering.
So, to be clear, I will not vote for any funding for DHS, if we do
not take action to stop this emergency unfolding in my State.
And I truly believe that we can find agreement on both sides of the
aisle for a path forward. It will not solve all of these problems, but
we can address the worst of the assault.
We need to end these roving patrols of Federal agents that are
detaining and arresting people that have done nothing wrong. You can't
break down someone's door and arrest them without a warrant.

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We need accountability. ICE agents should be required to abide by the
same set of laws, the same use-of-force standards that your local
police department abides by. We need a fair and unbiased investigation,
and we need no more of this secret police--no more masks and agents
without proper identification, and body cameras.
I mean, to me, this seems like pretty simple and commonsense and
reasonable reforms that can only be achieved through the force of law.
We are long past the moment where any letter or Executive order or
promise can secure our trust. This is our path forward.
I am thinking about, as I wrap up this speech--I am thinking about
all of my colleagues who are here to speak with such intention about
what is happening. I want to just take a pause to acknowledge my
beloved Minnesota.
I am so proud to be your Senator, and, you know, so many people
around the country are looking to you--to us--for hope, and you are
showing the world how to respond to violence and how to stand up to
bullies with strength and with dignity and with peace. You are putting
your own safety and your own bodies on the line to protect your
neighborhoods and your democracy. You are risking your own safety to
document the emergency and the inhumanity unfolding on our streets. And
you are even--you are even--sometimes doing it by singing.
In Minnesota, we show up for our neighbors. We help people out. We
don't give in to bullies. We stand strong. We stand in the park with a
candle in our hands to mourn but also to kindle hope. And I know that
Minnesotans are going to stay strong because, as Dr. King preached, we
know how to put our faith into action.
As Dr. King said, ``Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice
everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied
in a single garment of destiny.''
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, I want to thank the Senators from
Minnesota--the junior and senior Senators from Minnesota--for their
incredible leadership in serving as a ballast not just for the people
of their State but for the whole country. Tyranny is tyranny, and the
people of this country, whatever our other differences, don't want
anything to do with it.
You might be a liberal; you might be a conservative. You might be for
immigration, or you might be against it. You might think that guns
should be more readily accessible, or you might think that guns should
be harder to purchase. But when the U.S. Government is killing your
fellow citizens in your name, none of that matters, because tyranny is
tyranny, no matter the tyrant. Overreach is overreach, regardless of
cause. And state violence is state violence, and it is against
everything that this country stands for.
There is a reason that a very unusual--an unusually broad--coalition
of unlikely partners quickly converged in the wake of the tragedy, and
it wasn't some organizing strategy. This was organic, across the
country and certainly across the great State of Minnesota. It was
liberals. It was conservatives. It was gun owners. It was clergy
members. It was business executives. It was libertarians. It was Trump
voters.
Why the new unity? Because people from different places and
persuasions, faiths and financial situations understand that, at least
on the very narrow question of freedom and liberty, our fates and our
futures are intertwined. No one is free until everyone is free.
In my Jewish tradition, during the Passover seder, it is customary to
recount the story of the Israelites' exodus from Egypt. And the reason
the story is told anew every year is to remind us that the struggle for
freedom is not confined to the past and limited to others but instead
has to live inside of all of us. The Haggadah says:

We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and the Lord, our God,
brought us out of there with a strong hand and an
outstretched arm.

Not ``they''--not ``they''--but ``we''--the point being that no
matter how many generations removed we are from that story, we are
still obligated to see ourselves as though we were personally freed
from slavery in Egypt.
No one is freed until everyone is freed. Our Founders knew that too.
The Constitution deliberately begins with ``We the People.''
The Declaration of Independence promises equality and ``certain
unalienable Rights'' that we hold to be ``self-evident.''
Collective responsibility to protect freedom and liberty is central
to the American experiment. It always has been, which is why in the
summer of 1963, sitting in a dark jail cell in Birmingham, AL, in the
throes of the battle for civil rights, Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote:

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We
are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a
single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly
affects all indirectly.

No one is free until everyone is free. That same spirit of solidarity
has united people for generations.
In Hawaii, it was the sugar plantation workers, in the 1940s, tired
of being overworked and underpaid, who organized across ethnic lines
for fair conditions. Up until that point, they had been divided by the
plantation owners into separate camps--Chinese camp, Japanese camp,
Filipino camp, and so on--and paid different rates for the same work.
And so they came together, vowing to treat an injury to one as an
injury to all. They went on strike and won, altering the trajectory of
workers in Hawaii to this day.
An injury to one is an injury to all. No one is free until everyone
is free.
If there is a lesson in this collective outrage and widespread
condemnation of ICE's conduct, it is that people don't want state-
sponsored violence on their streets in their names.
It is not a question of whether you voted for Trump or Biden.
It is not a question of whether you agree with Joe Biden's
immigration policy.
And the idea that the immigration enforcement has to be accompanied
by enthusiastic cruelty is so far out of the mainstream of American
society. Nobody wants this, save for a handful of people intoxicated by
power and deluded by their own fantasies.
Thuggery is not strength. Strength must be used to protect people, to
give a voice to the voiceless, and make people feel safe. That is
impressive and noble and important precisely because it is harder to
practice and harder still to come by.
But that is what makes the response in Minnesota of ordinary
Americans--taking it upon themselves to stand up for their neighbors--
so extraordinary.
I want to read a little bit of what Adam Serwer observed in The
Atlantic about the mistaken assumptions that fed this administration's
brutality. He wrote:

The secret fear of the morally depraved is that virtue is
actually common, and that they're the ones who are alone. In
Minnesota, all of the ideological cornerstones of MAGA have
been proven false at once. Minnesotans, not the armed thugs
of ICE and the Border Patrol, are brave. Minnesotans have
shown that their community is socially cohesive because of
its diversity and not in spite of it. Minnesotans have found
and loved one another in a world atomized by social media,
where empty men have tried to fill their lonely soul with
lies about their own inherent superiority. Minnesotans have
preserved everything worthwhile about Western civilization,
while armed brutes try to tear it down by force.

Look, I get that we are all divided and distracted and exhausted and
that it is not going to resolve overnight. But in the wake of the
tragedies in Minnesota, in Minneapolis, a bright red line has emerged.
We can argue about everything else, but we will not tolerate tyranny.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
Ms. BLUNT ROCHESTER. Mr. President, I rise today in disbelief of
where we are as a country. I will tell you, in listening to the
speeches that came before me--such powerful words--I thought to myself,
What can I actually contribute to this moment? As a matter of fact,
when my colleagues said that they were going to schedule this floor
bloc, I never thought about what I would say; I just said yes.
And in my mind, there are a few things I do want to say. First, I
want to start off by thanking my sister Senators, Senator Amy Klobuchar
and Senator Tina Smith, as well as former colleague Representative
Ilhan Omar, for your strength and leadership in such a trying time.
Secondly, I want to acknowledge the people of Minnesota who have been

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through so, so much. I recall years ago, going to Minnesota myself for
the memorial service for George Floyd and being with the community to
have conversations about community policing, and then witnessing the
tragedy of Melissa Hortman, and so much that has happened in that
State. And so, to the people of Minnesota, I want to say thank you for
showing us strength, resilience, what it truly means to be your
sister's keeper, your brother's keeper, and to show up for your
neighbors. You are truly inspirational.
I guess what has been on my heart is the history of this country. We
will be celebrating Black History Month, and at a time where history is
trying to be replaced--erased--I think it is important to think back on
the things that we have been through.
And what it took to make it through those times were not necessarily
our eloquent speeches, but it was that everyday people did something.
And so, right now, the words that are ringing through my head are that
they had their time; this is our time. We didn't ask for it, but we are
prepared for it whether we know it or not.
And the three words that stick in my head right now is: Now we must.
It is our time. It is our time to stand up for our brothers and sisters
across this country.
When the administration first signaled their goals to do these kinds
of interventions across the country, it was to arrest violent
criminals. That is what I heard. But in reality, when you see a mother
of three shot, when you see an ICU nurse who works for the Veterans'
Administration shot and killed, when you see children and families and
pastors and priests and people across the country--not just in
Minnesota--concerned to even walk in their own neighborhoods, maybe
because of their color or their accent, that is not the way it is
supposed to be.
So that means each and every one of us has to do what we can in this
moment to prevent this lawless chaos that is happening on our streets.
I will say that what we are trying to put forward as Democrats,
again, is just common sense, practical--actually safety measures to
keep our country safe. And so as we think about the fact that right now
there are armed cars roving, people in masks that we don't even know
who they are--they should be identified. People shouldn't have to worry
about carrying their papers with them.
When we think about the process, people shouldn't be knocking on your
doors and pulling you outside of your house--you don't even get a
chance to put on your clothes, and they don't have a criminal warrant.
They should be following the same rules as our State and local police
officers follow in our States. Because what we are hearing is their
efforts right now are making it even more difficult for law enforcement
to do their jobs and keep us safe.
And so there are, in this moment, things that each of us can do, and
I hope that our Republican colleagues will join us. I hope they will
join us in making sure that not only do we continue to have public
safety that includes the public and our law enforcement, but that we
reform an Agency that has received over $75 billion as a slush fund. We
want to make sure that money is targeted, that people are trained, and
that they are doing what is right and that they are doing at least what
our State and local police officers do.
And, again, I want to end by just saying that I didn't come to give a
big formal speech. I came to say that each and every one of us in this
moment can do our part.
Our Senators--again, thank you so much to Amy, thank you so much to
Tina for your strength and for your example.
Again, I encourage our Republican colleagues to join us as we reform
and change that Agency, meaning ICE and DHS. But more importantly, I
think what is at the core of all of this is that we still have a
democracy when it is all said and done.
And so my call, again, is for each of us to just do your part, to
stay strong. And I will not be voting for this package if we do not
pull out DHS and have those reforms that we spoke of.
And I, again, want to just say: It is our turn. Now we must.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Moreno). The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, thank you so much, and what an honor it is
to be together with our colleagues from Minnesota to appreciate their
leadership and how they stood in the gap for Minnesotans who have
really suffered in these last weeks, to be together with so many
colleagues on the floor to talk about this most existential moment.
You don't have to be a spiritual or religious person to--when you see
a mother murdered and her last name is ``Good'', the murder of good--it
should make all of us step back and look in the mirror and ask what it
means. You do not have to be a spiritually attuned person to watch a VA
employee ICU nurse get 10 bullets in his back and step back and ask:
Who are we?
These images are going around the world, and people are not looking
at these images as who a particular person or administration is. They
are looking at this as: Is this who America is? And that is what this
debate is about.
I take this very personally. From birth to age 2, I was a Minnesotan.
I was born at St. Joseph's Hospital in St. Paul, MN. I still have
family connections in Minnesota.
I, then, was a Kansan until I was 26, and my more persuasive
Virginian wife convinced me to become a Virginian. And now, 42 years
later, I still have these strong feelings and ties about the State
where I was born.
And as I watch the events and I hear the pain and I get the
dispatches from friends and family who are in the midst of this sharing
with me the stories, much as my colleagues have shared them today, I
realize this isn't just about Minnesota. It could be anywhere in our
country.
Although, I will express this question: Could it be anywhere? Because
it does seem as if the administration is targeting this kind of rogue
violence in certain communities, not others. And when the Attorney
General of the United States, our Nation's chief law enforcement
officer, by letter suggests that the rogue activities in Minnesota
could stop if Minnesota would only turn over its voting rolls, it does
make you wonder, as my colleague Senator Smith asked: Is this really
about law enforcement?
But the fear that immigrant communities and others who want to
peacefully assemble and present grievances about government--a right
guaranteed in the First Amendment--that fear is something that isn't
just in Minnesota; it is in my community too. I live in Richmond, VA.
The Commonwealth has a population that is about 12 percent immigrant.
The church I go to is heavily a Congolese parish. It is a Catholic
parish. Many folks in the Congo are Catholics, and we have seen a
refugee population grow in my parish.
We have immigrant communities all over. The meeting I had right
before I came to the floor was with a Cub Scout group from McLean, VA,
and they talked to me about the rights of immigrants because so many of
them or their parents are immigrants.
And the fear in our immigrant communities is palpable even when there
haven't been roving patrols. Will they start tomorrow? You see reduced
attendance at childcare centers. You see reduced attendance at church
events because people hear rumors that, if they go, they might be
targeted. The fear is palpable.
What I want to just say, Mr. President, that I hope we will kind of
bear in mind, and this is: We all come to this place with different
life experiences, and a life experience that I have had that is, you
know, different than some is I have been a mayor and Governor and know
what it is to have a police force.
When I was the mayor of Richmond, we had a police force. When I was
the Governor of Virginia, we had the Virginia State Police.
Let me tell you something police forces don't like: They don't like
roving bands of people with masks and without IDs roving through their
communities without coordinating.
In Virginia, this kind of started a couple of months back in a couple
of our courthouses who are patrolled by deputy sheriffs. The court
function and jails are run by sheriffs in Virginia, and they are there
to provide security.
And in courthouses in Chesterfield and Albemarle Counties in
Virginia,

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they started to see masked, unidentified folks show up to grab people.
Now, these are courthouses that are guarded by deputy sheriffs with
weapons who are there to provide stability and security. And when there
are masked people coming into the courts to grab others who don't
identify themselves or coordinate with local law enforcement, you raise
the risk of a horrible--horrible--injury or accident or tragedy
occurring.
Now we see this happening in Minnesota and elsewhere.
At a minimum, the mayor and Governor in me says we should not be
allowing these roving patrols to run roughshod in local communities
without fully getting the approval and coordination with State and
local law enforcement authorities. Anything short of that treats State
and local law enforcement as if they are the enemies instead of
partners in trying to promote public safety.
The other thing that I would point out before handing it off to my
next colleague is something that is just so common. It is so common in
law enforcement at the State and local level. If there is an officer-
involved shooting in virtually every law enforcement agency in this
country, the officer involved in the shooting is immediately put on
administrative leave. That is not a judgment that they were wrong; it
is just a judgment that shooting is so serious that there should be an
investigation before that officer is allowed to return to duty. This is
standard operating procedure in tiny town police offices that have a
handful of officials in Virginia and elsewhere. Yet that is not what is
being done at the Federal level.
In fact, the Washington Post ran a wonderful story yesterday that
analyzed many instances of DHS officials shooting folks, and before an
investigation was even done, the administration was out vindicating
them, not putting them on administrative leave, and, finally, even
blaming victims, calling them domestic terrorists and assassins.
That is the last thing I want to say. The scale of the lie goes up
depending upon the depth of the shame and guilt feeling. So when
someone is killed and a key Cabinet Secretary jumps out--or a key White
House official--to label them as a domestic terrorist or an assassin,
clearly contradicting all the available evidence that every American
and every person in the world can see, you know that the lie is being
magnified to cover up the depth of shame and guilt that individual is
feeling.
It is time for us to do right by reforms, but it is also time to stop
lying. Stop lying about these people who are standing up and trying to
be good neighbors and protect their fellow man. Stop calling them
domestic terrorists. Stop calling them would-be assassins. Stop trying
to trash their memories, pour salt in the wounds of their parents and
their loved ones and their children to cover up your own lack of
responsibility and your lack of accountability.
We are going to hold you accountable. We are going to make sure that
you are accountable--not based on a promise of future action by this
administration.
We need to get the five bills done. We can get them done and then
turn to a DHS reform that is put in law, that is signed by the
President, so that when the President or his cronies decide later to
break it, we can go to court and enforce it.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
Mr. PETERS. Mr. President, on Saturday, America witnessed another
horrific tragedy in Minneapolis when Alex Pretti was shot and killed by
Department of Homeland Security law enforcement agents.
By all accounts--all accounts--Alex was a dedicated member of his
community. He served as an intensive care nurse at the Veterans Affairs
clinic in Minneapolis.
On Saturday, he was simply exercising his rights as an American--the
very same rights for those veterans that he fought to protect. He used
his First Amendment right of free speech to show up for his community
and record interactions between Homeland Security officers and his
neighbors. When agents became violent with a female protester, he
stepped in to protect her.
He also exercised his Second Amendment right to bear arms. Despite no
evidence that he was threatening anyone or holding anything but a phone
in his hands, officers still shot him repeatedly and killed him.
The American people have watched the videos. They have seen with
their own eyes the evidence of DHS's unjustified behavior and excessive
use of force. But mere moments after the shots were fired, DHS
officials jumped to the claim that Mr. Pretti was a domestic terrorist
and an assassin who wanted to massacre law enforcement.
I want to be very clear on this. Those statements are lies. They are
lies used to justify the unjustifiable actions of some DHS officers.
The blatant lies of DHS leadership and misconduct by the officers
involved in the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good are
indefensible, and they cannot stand. They violate the public trust and
stand in direct opposition to the values and the professionalism of
many Federal law enforcement officers who follow the law and serve with
integrity every day.
Since these tragic events, people from every corner of America have
made their voices heard. My office has heard from thousands of
Michiganders about their outrage at the fatal shootings of both Renee
Good and Alex Pretti.
The American people's message is loud and it is clear: They are fed
up with the Trump administration's mishandling of immigration
enforcement, and they are demanding--they are demanding--that we do
something about it.
Americans have every right to be enraged. I am outraged, and every
Member of this Chamber should also be enraged. This is certainly not
the country that I grew up in, and this is certainly not the country
that we can leave to the next generation.
In this moment, we have no choice but to stand up for our
communities, for Renee Good, for Alex Pretti, and for the very
principles that our country was founded on. That is why I will be
voting no on the bill before us unless--unless--DHS funding is stripped
out or unless critical reforms are incorporated into the bill.
If the leader put the other five appropriation bills on the floor
today, they would pass. They would pass with bipartisan support--
overwhelming bipartisan support. The DHS components have unique but
important functions beyond immigration enforcement--securing our
borders, combating human trafficking, seizing deadly narcotics being
smuggled into our country, and facilitating trade and travel--but
personnel from these components have been pulled from their core
missions and have instead been pressured to focus exclusively on
arbitrary quotas and removing immigrants from our country, even those
who pose no serious threat to public safety.

This corruption of DHS's mission has directly contributed to the
chaos and violence we have seen in Minneapolis and communities all
across our country. That is why Senate Democrats are calling for
commonsense reforms--reforms like ensuring DHS officers wear clear
identification so people know who they are dealing with in law
enforcement and can hold them accountable; requiring DHS personnel to
wear body cameras so we have proper recordings of their conduct in
immigration enforcement; and requiring proper investigations after
tragedies occur like the recent shootings of both Renee Good and Alex
Pretti.
These are just a few of the examples of commonsense practices that
strengthen accountability and help ensure the safety of both law
enforcement and our communities. Our local law enforcement personnel
already follow them, and we shouldn't expect anything less from our
Federal law enforcement.
There is no question that immigration enforcement is necessary, but
we must conduct it in a way that is both humane and safe. Clearly, that
is not how this Agency is operating today.
Now--now--is the time to act, and I urge our Republican colleagues to
join us in putting real guardrails in place and not just acting as a
rubberstamp for the Trump administration.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, first, I want to acknowledge my colleagues

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from Minnesota Senator Smith and Senator Klobuchar.
You have conveyed to us the deep pain and anguish that you feel and
that every Minnesotan feels about the shocking shootings that occurred
in your State. This follows on tragedies that occurred before this. The
pain of your community is the pain of this U.S. Senate. My deep
appreciation--and I know I express this on behalf of all of my
colleagues--to you for putting this in a human, real perspective. Thank
you very much.
Second, this is shocking. Two people got shot for no reason--
absolutely no reason. Renee Good was a 37-year-old mom of three kids.
She was protesting. That officer walked from the back of her car to the
side of her car to the front of her car and shot through the front
windshield and then moved to the side and shot two shots in the
driver's side window. That is what happened.
Alex Pretti was out with his cell phone camera observing what was
going on and was shocked, I am sure, to see that an ICE agent was
pushing a woman into a snowbank, and he came over to try to get between
them. There was a scuffle. He was in total subjugation by the officers
who had him on the ground. He was disarmed--never using, by the way, or
even threatening to use the gun that he had legally in his possession.
ICE officers--2 of them--shot him 10 times. Ten times. That is what
happened.
Why aren't we all just totally shocked? That is not acceptable.
Then that is all done with the authority of the State--with no
restraint.
Then the Secretary of Homeland Security, who is responsible for the
training and the discipline and the mission, blows this off and says
that these two people were domestic terrorists--no accountability, no
expression of sadness, no expression of remorse.
How is this acceptable to any one of us here? How is that acceptable?
Yet what we are hearing when we are saying ``Let's look into this.
Let's get some reforms in place that allow our citizens to feel safe,
for there to be accountability''--we are being told that it is too
complicated because we already have a bill and we will have to divide
it, and that means procedural hassles; that means, oh, the House will
have to come back.
Are we serious? That is called doing your job. It is called
accountability. It is called taking responsibility.
I want to pay tribute to the people of Minnesota. We are actually
having a discussion about inconveniencing House Members because they
have to get on a plane and come back if we act to do something that
every American knows we should do: Pass the bipartisan bills where we
have five bills done, and take on the burden of responsibility that we
have as a U.S. Senate to put reforms in an Agency that needs reform.
Folks in Minnesota--it is 20 degrees below zero--are out in the
streets. They are out protesting peacefully. They are out providing
coffee and cocoa and some warm soup to each other so they can get
through this. Why are they doing it? Do you know what? They care about
the right of assembly. They care about the First Amendment. They care
about their constitutional rights. But the reason they are doing this
is they care about each other. That is who they care about.
In this U.S. Senate, our job is to care about every single American.
We have an Agency that is totally out of control, with a leader that
is--you know, I would say incompetent, but the cruelty of that remark,
to dismiss two innocent people who died as ``domestic terrorists,''
tells me there is not an inkling of acceptance of responsibility that
goes with the enormously important job of being Secretary of Homeland
Security. So I am not going to vote and give a blank check when we are
not even willing to have a discussion about what the reforms are.

I want to say that I know every one of us here is shocked by what
happened. This is not a Republican or a Democrat deal. This is about
seeing two innocent people shot when they didn't need to be.
You know, one of the things that is so important for us if we have a
family and if we live in a community is to act in a way in which the
people around us can be confident that we have got their backs; that we
won't hurt them or harm them; that we notice what their struggles are
and that we will try to help.
You know, all of us here have such admiration for law enforcement and
the work they do--it is such an incredibly hard job--but more than
anyone else, the people who have contacted me in Vermont to express
their shock at what happened in Minnesota have been people in law
enforcement. They know the job is hard, but they have accepted the
responsibility to be a guardian, to be protective.
We can accept our responsibility, wherein we are the 100 people in
this country who are in this Senate, who have the opportunity to
provide some reassurance in safety and in confidence to the people that
each and every one of us represents.
So, yes, let's do our job.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mr. PADILLA. Mr. President, I join my colleagues who have spoken. I
say that, really, my heart goes out to my colleagues from Minnesota--
the senior and junior Senators from Minnesota--and the people of
Minnesota for what they have been through in these last few weeks and
how they have responded in these last few weeks as they have mourned
and as the country has been watching.
January 7 feels like so long ago now, but just a few weeks ago is the
day that I never would have imagined. That day, Renee Nicole Good--a
mother, a daughter, a poet--was out in her community, observing,
helping to document, as allowed by the law, what was happening when she
was alerted about these ongoing, indiscriminate raids in her community.
As several of my colleagues have said, the administration's response
to the Federal agent's killing of Renee Good was not one of ``well,
hold on; let's really assess what has happened here.''
It was one of blaming her. The response was so faulty by the
administration. Forget the investigations that should have taken
place--I will talk about that in a minute--but the President of the
United States and the Vice President of the United States responded to
an incident like that by messaging to Federal agents: Don't worry. You
have complete immunity.
First of all, that is not true. Second of all, it is the opposite of
the message that we should be sending if we are trying to deescalate
tensions and make sure that law enforcement abides by the law.
I remind us of that because, sadly, it is not shocking when we
reflect on what happened on January 24. This time, Alex Jeffrey
Pretti--a son and an ICU nurse at the local Veterans' Administration
hospital--was out, lawfully and peacefully observing and helping to
document more of this ICE and CBP activity in Minneapolis when he was
shot in the back and killed--two U.S. citizens dead at the hands of
Federal law enforcement in the span of 2\1/2\ weeks. They are dead
because ICE and the CBP have been encouraged by the White House to act
with impunity.
Colleagues, it was about 7 months ago that I stood here on the floor
to warn all of you and the American people that the Trump
administration, at the time--so this goes back to last June--that the
Trump administration was using Los Angeles as a test case. It was
testing how far Federal agents could go in this indiscriminate,
increasingly violent, and cruel mass detention and deportation agenda;
how far they could go before exporting this model throughout the
country.
I never in my life have wanted to say more than I do today that I
wish I were wrong, but for the better part of the last year,
communities across the country have been subjected to this relentless
aggression--Los Angeles; Washington, DC; Chicago; Portland; Charlotte;
others; and now Minneapolis. You have seen the videos. I have seen the
videos. We have all seen the videos. How dare this administration
slander the names of the dead and tell the American people not to
believe what we can all see so clearly with our own eyes? How dare this
administration act as if the laws passed by this body do not apply to
them?
So, yes, colleagues, it is time to say: Enough. This is not just
about immigrant families and immigrant communities now living in fear.
This is about

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all of us. No one in this country--immigrant, citizen, veteran--should
fear for their lives for exercising their constitutional rights, for
standing up for their neighbors. This is not a political or a policy
disagreement about immigration. This is about decency. This is about
humanity. And this is about the rule of law.
Instead of pursuing independent investigations and seeking to hold
officers accountable as warranted, this administration has doubled
down.
Let's take a moment on this because our colleague Senator Kaine from
Virginia talked a little bit about his experience as Governor and mayor
and what normally happens after an officer-involved shooting--normal
practice, standard practice, best practices after an officer-involved
shooting in a local agency, in a State agency. It is not just the
officer's being placed on leave. Initially, there is an administrative
review of what happened.
Was it not just consistent with policy but with the law and the
Constitution? And, if not, what is the consequence?
Absent that, under normal circumstances, we have the Civil Rights
Division at the U.S. Department of Justice that can conduct an
independent investigation and bring forth accountability as and when
warranted.
Sadly, that is not the case with this administration--not the
objective, internal review; not the Civil Rights Division at the
Department of Justice review. Instead, they tell officers, ``You have
complete immunity,'' and they double down. So the abuse has continued.
By the way, it is not just on the streets. The videos you have not
seen are of the abuse and inhumane treatment that continue inside some
appalling and inhumane private detention facilities, where, colleagues,
if you haven't heard, 32 detainees died last year--the most deadly year
for those in ICE detention facilities in a long, long time. An
additional six this month alone are already on track to exceed last
year's most deadly number. I am talking about the people held in
detention centers like the one that Senator Schiff and I visited just
last week in California City. Many there are being denied basic medical
care, even urgent medical care. People are being denied easy access to
legal counsel, to due process, to fundamental dignity.
And how has the Republican majority in Congress responded to this
cruel and vindictive mass deportation campaign? With silence--
inexcusable or unacceptable silence.
And for those who have not been silent, I have heard a cheering on of
what the administration is doing.
Colleagues, since last July, there have been dozens of incidents
involving excessive force by Federal agents, including at least 17
shootings. Instead of asking questions and demanding accountability,
our Republican colleagues here have applauded the administration and
chosen to give the Department of Homeland Security billions more
dollars, and now they are suggesting that DHS needs even more.
How much more must our communities and our country endure before our
Republican colleagues join us in saying ``Enough''?
How much more, colleagues, before you agree to impose the real
guardrails on a DHS that chooses to investigate itself, that stonewalls
oversight, that even fights court orders to preserve evidence in the
killing of an American citizen?
Not destroying evidence should go without saying. It shouldn't be
compelled by a Federal judge. It is just like having true, objective,
independent investigations after incidents like this should go without
saying.
But we are not living in normal times. We continue to see ICE and CBP
behave as though they are above the law because this administration has
told them they are and because Republicans in Congress have not told
them that they are not.
But we have an opportunity to change that; to collectively, on a
bipartisan and a bicameral basis, let those agents know that no one is
above the law. It is not just an opportunity but an obligation that we
have in this moment. Public safety depends on legitimacy, and
legitimacy depends on accountability and speaking the truth. Our laws
mean nothing if those who are assigned to enforce the laws believe that
the laws don't apply to them.
So, colleagues, let's realize that we are not powerless in this
conversation. Congress is an equal branch of government in the United
States of America, and it is about time we acted like it. That is why I
support imposing serious reforms and real oversight and accountability
on ICE and the CBP before this body provides them any more taxpayer
dollars.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I have served as my State's attorney
general. I have served as a U.S. attorney for Rhode Island. I used to
lecture at the police training academy in Rhode Island. I know a little
bit about police work, and I know bad police work when I see it.
What we are seeing in Minnesota is a level of violence, a lack of
deconfliction, and flatout unprofessionalism that is dangerous.
Trust me, it is not just me. Let's start with Minneapolis's own
police chief, who described ICE's behavior this way:

It looks very untrained. It looks unprofessional. It looks
very chaotic.

He described it as ``poor tactics and really unconstitutional
practices.''
He put some good context on it. He said:

Minneapolis Police Department went the entire year last
year, recovering 900 guns from the street, arresting hundreds
and hundreds of violent offenders, and we didn't shoot
anyone. This is the second American citizen that's been
killed, this is the third shooting within three weeks.

It is not just up in Minnesota. In Maine, a sheriff said that this is
``bush league policing.''
Another Minnesota sheriff said:

I am seeing . . . people being stopped, questioned and
harassed solely because of the color of their skin.

A Philadelphia sheriff said that these agents are ``made up, fake,
wanna-be law enforcement.''
A chief in St. Paul described ``traffic stops'' that are ``clearly
outside the bounds of what federal agents are allowed to do.''
A former police chief said:

Their tactics are unsound. I question their training, if
any.

All the way in Montana, a police chief said:

We do not do business in that manner. . . . When you see
those types of tactics being used, we don't use those.

In Texas again, the former head of the Combined Law Enforcement
Association said:

Newly recruited, masked agents no doubt damage and destroy
the reputations of our proud and professional officers.

A law professor and former police officer described their conduct as
``egregiously deviating from professional norms of policing.''
So what we are hearing out of law enforcement professionals around
the country is disgust with the lack of professionalism with which ICE
and CBP are discharging their responsibilities.
I will close by talking about deconfliction because that is probably
the most dangerous mistake that law enforcement can make. That is how
you get blue-on-blue violence. That is how things get dangerously out
of hand.
With respect to deconfliction, a sheriff in Maine talked about
``unmarked cars'' and masked individuals, ``men with guns in the yard''
frightening residents, and his office had no idea it was taking place.
They hadn't disclosed to local police that they were going to do a
weapons-out, armed raid in their jurisdiction.
In Brooklyn Park, the chief said that his own officers were being
pulled over, the deconfliction was so bad. He said:

If it is happening to our officers, it pains me to think
how many of our community members are falling victim to this
every day.

In Austin, TX, the chief described how they are not warned ahead of
time by ICE when they are going around. That threatens to create
dangerous misunderstandings between local and Federal law enforcement
Agencies.
We are short on time, so I am going to end there. But nobody in this
body should believe that what is happening, what we are seeing with our
own eyes on the streets of Minneapolis, is legitimate or professional
law enforcement. It simply is not. It has gotten out of hand, and
nobody knows it better than real cops.

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I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. President, in just 1 year and 1 week--that is, 373
days--Donald Trump and his administration have changed what it means to
walk down the street in America.
Three hundred and seventy-four days ago, an American citizen did not
need to worry about carrying a passport or worry that they would be
pinned to the ground for being unable to prove that their hometown was,
in fact, the only home they have ever known.
Three hundred and seventy-four days ago, immigrant families didn't
need to call on their neighbors or rely on the help of Good Samaritans
to grocery shop for them, to take their kids to school, to have access
to what we value in life--all because they are afraid to open their
door.
Three hundred and seventy-four days ago, standing up for your First
Amendment rights, your Fourth Amendment rights, even your Second
Amendment rights was not in itself a provocation in the eyes of the
Federal Government.
But in so little time, so much has changed. In this America, we see
masked agents hiding their faces from the world and even hiding their
identification, terrorizing communities across the Nation, smashing car
windows and dragging mothers and fathers from their vehicles in front
of their kids--in front of their kids--often taking those kids and
separating them from their parents, breaking down doors, and detaining
citizens and noncitizens alike.
As for warrants? No. Apparently, DHS lawyers now claim you don't need
a judicial warrant to break through the door of a U.S. citizen and haul
them out in their underwear in the dead of winter, only to later
release them without charge, without apology, only with newfound terror
courtesy of the U.S. Federal Government.
Agents with just 47 days of training are sweeping through American
cities; agents with barely over a month of training--just 47 days. And
why 47? Because it is a nod to the vanity of the 47th President rather
than allocated to the need to be instructed on how to, say, use, or
avoid using deadly force.

Agents with less training than a teenager getting their driver's
license are now badgering, beating, and even killing Americans on our
streets in the name of the President while his chosen enforcers smugly
walk through American cities cosplaying their favorite uniforms from
the 1930s and 1940s.
DHS is now building databases of Americans, detaining and even
disappearing people off of corners in Minneapolis, Chicago, Portland,
Nashville, Los Angeles, and far too many communities across the Nation.
The Trump administration demanded that Republicans deliver a $170
billion taxpayer-funded slush fund for these misbegotten efforts,
taking that money away from your healthcare and taking that money away
from food for hungry families to spend on weapons for enforcement
agents and billions on detention centers to imprison people who are
undocumented but who have committed no crimes and have no criminal
records at all.
This is the America that Donald Trump has created, but it is not the
America that we will accept. We will not accept the labeling of Renee
Good--a mother of three, a loving and caring member of her community,
caught on camera showing compassion to Federal agents even as she
protested them--we will not accept that she was killed and then later
falsely designated a ``domestic terrorist.''
We will not accept that Alex Pretti--a 37-year-old Veterans'
Administration ICU nurse--exercising his constitutional rights and
stooping to help a woman who had been pushed to the ground, can be
labeled as an ``assassin'' merely hours after being shot in the back in
cold blood nearly a dozen times.
These were not labels given by some arrogant agent in the field. This
was not some bad apple using this terminology amongst otherwise
upstanding immigration officials. No. These labels were applied by the
highest ranking officials of this operation in President Trump's White
House--the Cabinet Secretary overseeing these raids, Kristi Noem; the
architect of this campaign of fear and mass arrest and detention, the
``racist in chief'' Stephen Miller.
This impunity that we see on our streets, this violence--it comes
from the top; gaslighting amplified by the Vice President and the
President himself.
This brazen denial of rights and facts is in the water at DHS
headquarters, and it is increasingly clear that this has become the
culture of ICE and Customs and Border Protection.
That is why I am standing here this week to say clearly: not another
dime for this kind of lawless immigration regime. We will not add to
the slush fund that Republicans gave Kristi Noem and Border Patrol
Chief Greg Bovino last year to fulfill Stephen Miller's dystopian
vision of America. We require real reforms, in statute--not promises of
change, not Executive actions worth less than the paper they are
printed on.
Look out on the streets of Minneapolis, where two American citizens
have been gunned down in as many weeks, where tear gas flies through
the air and doors fly off their hinges under the banner of this
administration. In those streets stand Agencies backed by billions of
dollars still to be spent--billions that can arm them, billions that
can detain and oppress.
This is an America in regression, where the color of your skin could
be the only pretext for getting pulled over, detained, or worse--a
reality that has persisted for Blacks, Latinos, Asians, and others
notwithstanding the progress made in my lifetime.
As a child of the generation that shone a light on and helped pass
laws to end such racist tactics, for most of my life, we have made
strides to ensure that we moved past that America. But now we are
returning to an America that I do not recognize, nor is this an America
that I can accept.
We have the power in this body to do something about it, and until we
do, my vote will reflect my complete and utter rejection of this
lawless and cruel regime. This cannot become the status quo. This
cannot become the new normal for America, for Alex Pretti and Renee
Good, for the Californians detained without cause and without
convictions, like those suffering in detentions facilities like
California City whom I met, along with Alex Padilla, last week.
For all of them--for their dignity, for their children, for their
families, for their friends, for their safety--and for this country, we
must act.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.

Taxes

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I get it. I think most of us get it. A
lot of moms and dads throughout America tonight are going to lie down
and try to sleep and not be able to. And when moms and dads throughout
America lie down to sleep and can't, more times than not in America
today, they are worried about the cost of living. I get that.
These high prices started under President Biden. But that is not why
I am here today. I don't want to blame this on anyone. It is what it
is. I just know that you shouldn't have to sell blood plasma in America
to go to the grocery store. I just know that you ought to be able to
afford a home in America as part of the American dream. The costs have
gotten way out of hand. When you are having to pay $500,000--if you can
get a loan--to buy and live in a refrigerator box behind Outback,
something is wrong in our country. And don't get me started on the cost
of healthcare and health insurance and all the other daily expenses
that moms and dads have.
They are worried, and I understand they are worried. That is why I
want to talk for a few minutes, before I talk about Minneapolis--
because I do want to address that--that is why I want to talk for a few
minutes about taxes.
I know some may be thinking, you know: Why does Kennedy--Kennedy just
talked about the cost of living in America. Why does he want to talk
about taxes?
I know people are thinking: I don't like paying taxes.
They are thinking: You know, I would rather have to listen to O.J.
jokes for the rest of eternity than to have to pay taxes.
Nobody likes to pay taxes. It is the price we pay to live in a
civilized society.
But this year, we have some good news with respect to taxes, and it
is a

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result of changes to our Tax Code--the Presiding Officer knows this
well--that we made in the One Big Beautiful Bill.
We are told not to call it the One Big Beautiful Bill anymore. There
is a new name for it. But, frankly, I think the American people are
smart enough to know what we are talking about no matter what name we
give to it.
As a result of the changes that we made, and when I say ``we,'' I
don't take any joy in having to point out that this was done with only
Republican votes. We tried to entice our Democratic friends to join
with us. They chose not to. That is their choice. It is a free country.
But the tax changes that we made were made solely with Republican
votes, and I am proud of them. And I hope both Republicans and
Democrats take advantage of them.
As a result of these tax changes, the American people are going to
receive up to $100 billion in tax refunds--$100 billion--not million,
$100 billion.
What am I talking about? Many people, as the Presiding Officer knows,
who are in the hospitality business are no longer going to have to pay
for their 2025 taxes, taxes on tips. Not everybody. I don't want to
overstate the case, but many of our people in the hospitality industry
who made most of their income from tips, as a result of the changes we
made for 2025--``we'' meaning Republicans--are not going to have to pay
taxes on a portion of those tips.
Many folks in 2025--not everyone, but many people in 2025 who worked
overtime--are not going to have to pay taxes, income taxes, on that
overtime. That also is contributing to this $100 billion that is going
to be returned to the American people in tax refunds.
In our One Big Beautiful Bill, we also increased the standard
deduction. For a two-income household, we increased the standard
deduction by $1,500. It is going to mean a lot of money back in
people's pockets. The standard deduction for joint filers is now
$31,500.
As we were making these tax changes--and we, again, regrettably, did
it with only Republican votes. We had to. But as we made these tax
changes, we also put in a tax deduction for our seniors. People over
65--not everybody, but many Americans over 65--are going to get a new
$6,000 senior reduction.
What else did we do? Well, if you pay State and local taxes, real
estate taxes, for example, property taxes, we changed the deduction
from $10,000 to $40,000. So that means you have a higher deduction on
your taxes. It means your taxes are going to go down.
We increased the child tax credit. It is now $2,200 for every child
you have. We increased it by $200 per child. Many folks, again, and I
won't overstate the case, but many folks who have borrowed money to buy
a car and are paying interest will get to deduct a portion of that
interest that they pay on their automobile purchase as a result of the
changes we made in the One Big Beautiful Bill. And I could go on about
other changes we made for small businesses, one in particular. If you
are a sub S corp, subchapter S corporation, or you are a limited
partnership or what we call an LLC--in Louisiana, that stands for
Louisiana limited liability corporation, which means that you are taxed
directly on the income that your small business earns--we made
permanent 20 percent reductions or distribution of business income for
LLCs and LLPs and sub S corporations.
So if you add all of these tax changes up--and, again, I didn't talk
about all of the tax changes in the One Big Beautiful Bill, but if you
added the ones up that I talked about, that means an extra $100 billion
in people's pockets throughout America, Democrats, Republicans,
Independents.
And most people, most people have more money held out of their check
than they owe the IRS, and that is not unusual, particularly when we
make tax changes. I mention that because this means that $100 billion,
people are going to get checks from the Federal Government. They are
going to get money back. God bless them. They deserve it.
Now, I have got a couple of tips about how you can get that money
back quickly, if you are able to do three things:
If you file early, file your tax returns--if you want your money back
as quickly as possible, file your tax returns early.
No. 2, file electronically. I know for some that is a pain. I don't
much like it. I like to file the paper return. But some people like to
file electronically; some people don't. But if you do file it
electronically, you are going to get your money back from the Federal
Government more quickly.
The third thing you need to do is to tell the Federal Government that
you don't want a paper check; you would like your money deposited
directly into your bank account.
If you do those three things: file early, file electronically, and
tell the IRS that you want the money sent directly, electronically,
into your bank account, then you are likely to get your tax refund
within 2 to 3 weeks, your portion of that $100 billion, thanks to the
One Big Beautiful Bill that Republicans in the House and the Senate
passed.

That is going to help a lot in terms of dealing with the cost of
living in America, and I am very proud of our effort.

Department of Homeland Security

Mr. President, now let me say a word about Minneapolis. There is a
lot we know; there is a lot we don't know. I want to talk about three
things we do know.
No. 1, the loss of life in Minneapolis was a tragedy, and if you
can't admit that, you have a padlock on your heart. It was a tragedy.
We don't have all the facts. I know everyone has seen the videos, but
the people involved haven't been interviewed. There are a lot of facts
we have but a lot of facts we don't have, and I am not going to rush to
judge. I am not going to rush to judge.
President Trump has promised a full and thorough and transparent
investigation, and I thank him for that. But regardless of what we find
out, we all have to concede, we all should concede that the loss of
life in Minneapolis was a tragedy, and I am sorry it happened.
No. 2, this is the second thing that I know. You don't have to be
Einstein's cousin, you don't have to be a senior at Caltech to know
that illegal immigration is illegal. Duh. It is illegal.
And those of us who believe that no one is above the law--we all say
we believe that, I believe it--those of us who say that no one is above
the law have to concede that people in our country illegally are not
above the law either. The law applies to them as well. Our immigration
statutes are not second-tier laws. They matter just as much as the
other statutes that have been passed by the elected Members of
Congress. And just like the other laws, the immigration laws have
consequences and should have consequences if you violate them.
Now, so I guess what I am saying is I support enforcement of our
immigration laws. Now, how you enforce those laws, how you enforce
those laws matters. Those laws, like all laws, have to be enforced in
accordance with due process.
Those immigration statutes, like all laws, have to be enforced in
accordance with equal protection. Those laws have to be enforced in
accordance with a well-known Supreme Court case, 1968, called Terry v.
Ohio, which sets forth the standards--reasonable suspicion is the
standard chosen by the Supreme Court--by which someone can be stopped
and questioned when a law enforcement official doesn't have probable
cause.
Terry v. Ohio has to be followed. So No. 1, illegal immigration is
illegal. We should enforce our immigration laws, but how we enforce
them matters.
Third and final point, you have the right to protest in America. Let
me say that again: You have the right to protest in America. You do not
have the right to protest violently. And, in fact, violence as you
protest undermines the morality of the thing that you are protesting
over.
Let me say that again: Violence, if you choose violence when you
protest, that undermines the morality of the movement that you say your
movement is based upon. Do you know who else understood that? Dr. King.
King understood it. Gandhi understood it. Mandela understood it.
Violently protesting--not protesting--but violently protesting
undermines the morality that you say your cause is built upon. It is
also dangerous. It is dangerous, and it is stupid.
It is a 12-piece bucket of stupid because when you protest violently,
when

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you interfere with a cop or an ICE officer, it is not going to end
well. It is not.
Under the best of circumstances, these officers are trying to enforce
Federal law, and the people with respect to whom they are trying to
enforce Federal law are, in most cases--I am not going to say all
cases--but in most cases are criminals. Not criminals because they are
here illegally, though that, too, is a violation of our law, but
criminals because they have violated other laws. In many cases,
felonies, and those ICE officials, those cops are scared. They are
scared. They are dealing with someone who could be armed, someone who
could be dangerous.
So you have got a powder keg, and when protesters choose to protest
violently and harass those ICE officials and blow whistles in their
ears and block their way and spit in their faces and curse them and
curse their children, they are giving off sparks in a powder keg.
And it is not going to end well in many cases.
And the truth of the matter is, it has been my experience in life,
most--I am not going to say all--most cops will leave you alone unless
you do illegal stuff.
So as we go forward in America and try to enforce our laws in
conformity with the U.S. Constitution, as we go forward together in
America, and while we are respecting people's constitutional rights, we
respect our law enforcement officials who are doing a very difficult
job--as we go forward in America today, as the President has promised
to have a full and fair and transparent investigation of the tragic
loss of life in Minneapolis. I hope we can keep those three things that
I think all of us can agree upon in mind.
I am sorry we are at this point, but I believe that our future can be
better than our present and certainly than our past.
I yield the floor to my esteemed colleague.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Justice). The Senator from Wisconsin.
Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. President, I rise on behalf of the thousands of
Wisconsinites I have heard from in the last few days. My constituents
are not only saddened by what they see happening in Minneapolis, they
are angry. This weekend, we watched masked agents kill a second U.S.
citizen in Minneapolis in just 3 weeks. Alex Pretti, just like Renee
Good, should still be with us.
We also watched the Trump administration's reaction to this tragedy.
Instead of turning down the temperature, the Trump administration threw
gasoline on the fire and lied to the American people.
In the hours after Alex Pretti was shot 10 times by Federal agents,
the Trump administration, without knowing the facts, said that Alex was
a ``domestic terrorist'' and an ``assassin,'' and somebody who ``tried
to murder'' ICE agents. Those are despicable lies.
Fortunately, Alex's community and loved ones are setting the record
straight, and so am I. That is why I am here on the Senate floor this
evening. We have to remember Alex Pretti for who he was, not for who
the Trump administration wanted him to be to fit into their narrative.
Alex Pretti grew up in Wisconsin and graduated from Preble High
School in Green Bay. In recent days, his classmates have reached out to
me and his friends and his teachers to share with me and the world who
Alex really was.
Jose from Green Bay met Alex in the ninth grade. They became fast
friends, participating in theater and show choir together. Jose shared
about Alex that, ``even as a fellow student, I saw him as a role
model.''
JD, who also knew Alex in high school, wrote to me:

Everyone I knew looked up to him as a role model--
effortlessly cool and unfailingly kind. Everything I know
about his life since those days and even his final act aligns
completely with the person I knew--a genuinely good person
who sincerely wanted to serve his community.

Another classmate, Michael, described Alex as ``generous with his
time, welcoming by nature, and the kind of person who made you feel
included without trying. He deserved to grow older, to keep showing up
for people the way he did for me.''
And Alex did show up for people. He went on to become a nurse,
serving veterans at the VA Hospital in Minneapolis. His coworkers,
friends, and patients described him as a good man--someone who cared
about others in his community. We all saw Alex's last act was an act of
service, putting himself between a group of masked agents and a woman
who had been shoved into a snowbank.
He was not a threat. He was not an assassin. He was not a domestic
terrorist. This administration is asking Americans not to believe their
own eyes.
As his parents wrote:

The sickening lies being told about our son by the
administration are reprehensible and disgusting.

They implored all of us:

Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man.

Well, I, for one, plan to do just that. I will not allow the Trump
administration to lie and smear Alex. But I also plan on doing
everything I can to ensure that Alex and his family get justice. We
must get some accountability for what happened. No other American
should lose their lives because the Trump administration thinks that
ICE can operate with ``absolute immunity.''
Congress has a choice this week. My Republican colleagues can sign
over another blank check to Kristi Noem and ICE and endorse this chaos
and lawlessness, or Congress can do our job and stop these lawless,
masked, armed agents from terrorizing another community.
People want action. Alex deserves action. I intend to take that
action, and I call on my Republican colleagues to join me.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I come to the floor to join my
colleagues today to talk about the events of the last several days, and
to say to my colleagues here in the U.S. Senate on both sides of the
aisle: I have talked to many Washingtonians, and they are very worried
about what has transpired in Minnesota.
They are very worried about what has transpired in Minnesota because
they think that someone has lost their life that didn't need to lose
their life, and they think that the President of the United States,
instead of basically creating a system where that kind of overreach of
power would be investigated, instead he is basically accusing the
victim here--and basically, really, even attacking Second Amendment
rights.
So I am here to join my colleagues to say, what are we going to do to
fix this system? What are we going to do to make sure that tragedies
like this don't happen and that we investigate the truth--not make up
something about the situation minutes after it has happened?

I say this because my State has struggled with these issues of
justice, particularly civil liberties and the civil rights of
individuals. We had two tragic cases in our State. One, a Native
American was just carving on a corner, basically whittling away, didn't
understand, as he got up to move to another corner, that a policeman in
the neighborhood thought, ``What is he doing?'' and accidentally--
basically when the Native American failed to stop from just moving from
one corner to another to continue his whittling, was shot dead.
We had a case in Spokane where a disabled man basically went to his
daily ritual of going over to get a soft drink at a supermarket, and on
the way there, somebody said, ``I think he's acting a little strange,''
and called the police. And the police showed up, and as he was reaching
for a soda in the bottom compartment of the freezer, the police told
him to stop. And he didn't really understand what they were even saying
to him. What was he doing? He was just coming to get his daily soda.
And they beat Otto Zehm and killed him.
So yes, in the United States of America, since 1957, we have had a
Civil Rights Division, and we have had a Department of Justice that has
enforced the civil liberties of Americans by having oversight of police
departments that overreached and basically did something, like they did
in the Seattle case against the Native American carver John T. Williams
and in the Spokane case against Otto Zehm.

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Yes, the Department of Justice had an oversight division and a
consent decree with the Seattle Police Department and the Spokane
Police Department to get your act together and do training so that you
are not killing people that don't deserve to be killed.
And that is the same situation with Mr. Pretti. Mr. Pretti didn't
deserve to be killed in this situation, but let's at least have an
investigation. Let's at least have a Department of Justice to do
something about this. But that is not what the Trump administration is
doing.
The first Trump administration tried to roll back the requirements.
In fact, the then Attorney General basically said, ``I don't even want
to use this consent decree power, because it's one of the most
dangerous things, and it's an exercise of raw power.''
Well, the reason why the Department of Justice has this
responsibility is because it is their responsibility to make sure
somebody doesn't abuse power, particularly in a law enforcement
situation like this, and intervene on the civil liberties of Americans.
So that Department of Justice, literally in the first Trump
administration, basically did not do its job and tried to basically
subvert the responsibilities.
Now, here we are today in the second Trump administration, and what
are they doing instead of really trying to look at patterns of abuse
and patterns of malpractice or States in which law enforcement agencies
aren't properly using force in these instances? What are they doing
about this misconduct? Well, the second Trump administration makes the
first Trump administration look like it was going easy on this
situation.
Not only are they taking the money away from the Civil Rights
Division, they are basically saying, ``Look, we don't even want you to
do that job. We want you to go out and prioritize protecting other
issues instead.''
And basically, we have had most of the Agency and individuals who
were there doing the civil liberties work and doing this oversight
work--they are gone. So now, what we are seeing is that lawsuits are
being dismissed. Settlement agreements, you know, issues that really
would have been brought to light are just being dismissed.
So the reason I am asking this is because my colleagues now have a
chance to say whether they really believe in this function of the
Department of Justice and the rights of Mr. Pretti and Otto Zehm and
John T. Williams and whether you want to do something about it.
Now, I personally think that the Department of Homeland Security and
ICE should be, in this instance, investigated. I think they should be
investigated. And we should know the answers, and we should know that
we are upholding the civil liberties of Americans, particularly in the
right to express themselves and have free speech and go to a rally
without being--or go to express their views, in this case in Minnesota,
without being killed.
So the question is, what are we going to do about this use of force?
So my colleagues are out here saying, It is a tragedy. I agree it is a
tragedy. They are out here saying that this situation shouldn't have
happened. I agree. I don't think ICE should be in Minnesota. I
guarantee the Obama administration rounded up a lot of people and
deported them. I know because I had constituents who complained about
that.
But the Obama administration didn't go out and just try to make
quotas on people. The Obama administration didn't go out there and say,
We are not going after the violent people; we are just going to go
after anybody to make up the numbers. The Obama administration didn't
use force against peaceful protesters. They didn't do any of that. And
so now we are acting like that is the mission, and yet, the Biden
administration and the Obama administration did deport violent people
out of the United States. Yes, they did.
So what is different here is that we have crossed a line. We have
crossed a line, and we have allowed ICE to go here and prey on U.S.
citizens and basically, in this case, use this power of force. And my
only question now is whether my colleagues on the other side of the
aisle are going to stand up for the role and responsibility the Federal
Government plays in oversight, in investigation, and upholding the
civil liberties of Americans in the United States of America when these
incidents happen.
The rest of this is just debate. The rest of this about how ICE
operates, about how the Department of Homeland Security operates, about
what you want to do about immigration, whether you want immigration
reform, the rest of it is just debate.
The real question is, do you believe in these civil liberties of
Americans or not? And when police or power by the Federal Government is
used in an excessive way and it means the loss of life, do you believe
in having an authority that investigates that and is transparent with
the American people and holds that system accountable?
I know this: The Seattle Police Department is a better police
department because of those consent decrees, and so is Spokane. And the
incidents that happened in those two individuals losing their life may
not happen again because we went through that process.
The question is whether there is going to be another Alex Pretti
sometime soon, where another U.S. citizen loses their life because of
this overreach of power, because we are not investigating, we are not
protecting these civil liberties, and we are not understanding that we
have an administration that is diminishing the very Agency whose roles
and responsibilities are to oversee this.
So I want to know, do my colleagues believe in this? Do they believe
in this role or responsibility? Or do they not? Because I can tell you,
that is the only way we are going to move forward in the information
age. The information age has laid this bare. We might have had people
shot and killed by overuse of power, in many instances, in the 20s,
30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and beyond, but you didn't see it.
Now, you are seeing it now. You have got to deal with the reality. You
have got to deal with reality that is right in front of us.
So the only question is, do my colleagues really believe in enforcing
the civil liberties and civil rights of Americans by investigating this
situation, having an aggressive investigation and holding people
accountable?
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, let's be honest. Let us face up to
reality and let us acknowledge that most Americans understand that our
great Nation, once the envy of the entire world, is now in the midst of
a deep decline. And for the sake of our children and future
generations, we must end that decline and turn this country around in
very fundamental ways.
Not so many years ago, the United States of America was admired,
respected by people throughout the world for our generosity, for our
concern for the poor of the world, for our democracy, for our
Constitution, for our rule of law, for our way of life. We were
admired, respected. People around the world said: Do you know what? We
would like our country to be like the United States of America.
Tragically, that is no longer the case. I was just on the phone this
afternoon with an elected official in Europe who literally could not
believe what is happening to our country today. And I fear that
millions of people throughout the world--on every continent of this
world, in every country in this world--are looking at the United States
of America and saying: What in God's name is happening to that great
country?
But it is not only our standing in the world and our increased
isolation from other countries that I worry about. We used to have the
highest standard of living of any country on Earth. That was it.
America, strongest middle class in the world. We used to be a country
where the American dream said that our young people will do better than
their parents.
My dad came to this country at the age of 17, having dropped out of
school at the age of 14, from Poland, with the dream that his son--his
sons--would do better than he did. My mom graduated high school with
the dream that maybe

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her sons would have a college education.
That was the dream of millions of people: We work hard so that our
kids would do better.
The reality today, according to a number of studies, is that,
everything equal, unless we turn it around, our younger generation will
have a lower standard of living than their parents. They will own their
own home at a much older age than their parents.
And when we talk about America being in a state of decline and the
need to bring about fundamental transformation of this country,
understand that two-thirds of the American people, according to a New
York Times poll the other day--two-thirds of the American people now
believe that a middle-class lifestyle is out of reach. We used to be a
country of the middle class, and now two-thirds of the American people
say, no, the American middle-class lifestyle is out of my reach.
We used to be the best educated country on Earth, best public school
systems on Earth. That is not the case anymore. We used to have the
best healthcare system of any country on Earth. Not anymore. We used to
provide good, affordable housing for our people. Not anymore. We used
to have the most advanced transportation system in the world. Not
anymore. Just take a look at how the city of Washington is dealing with
the current snowstorm.
In many respects, our great Nation is falling further and further
behind other countries, and we must not allow that to continue.
The United States, our people, have faced horrific crises in the
past, going back to the very beginning, the origins of this country,
when a small number of people dared to have the dream and the courage
to take on King George III and the British Empire and the most powerful
military in the world because they wanted their independence, and they
wanted their freedom. That was a crisis, and they prevailed.
In the 1840s, there were people who were saying slavery is an
abomination. It is immoral. We can't talk about a Declaration of
Independence that says all men are created equal and enslave millions
of people. We have to end slavery. And they struggled and struggled,
the abolitionists, and it was a horrible civil war, where so many
people died. Finally, we ended the abomination of slavery.
The struggle continued with Martin Luther King, Jr., and the civil
rights movement and the end of segregation.
This country went through the Great Depression, where 25 percent of
our people were unemployed and government had to redefine itself and we
did that.
When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, December of 1941, we
were not prepared to fight a war in the East or a war against Hitler in
Europe. And yet, within a few years, because the country came together,
instead of building cars, we built tanks, and we built fighter planes.
We ended up winning that war. We won a war on two fronts.
Bottom line, in all of these crises and others, the Nation came
together and prevailed. We did it then, and I have little doubt, if we
do not allow people to divide us up by where we were born or the color
of our skin, we can, once again, overcome the crisis that we are in
right now, which, in my view, is the most serious crisis in the modern
history of our country.
Let me just say a few words about what is happening in Minneapolis
right now as I speak. Let me be very clear. America is not about and
must never be about a domestic military force called ICE, which as we
speak at this moment is occupying--a military occupation--of one of our
great American cities, Minneapolis, and is terrorizing the occupants in
that city.
America is not and must never be about Federal agents shooting
American citizens down in cold blood, breaking down doors to arrest
people, or sending 5-year-olds to detention centers--all in clear
violation of our Constitution. That is what takes place in
dictatorships, in authoritarian societies where there is not a rule of
law. It does not and it must not be allowed to take place in the United
States or any democracy on Earth.
So let me be very clear. ICE must get out of Minnesota now. ICE must
get out of Maine now. ICE must stop terrorizing the American people.
Not another penny should be given to ICE or Customs and Border
Protection unless there are fundamental reforms in how those Agencies
function and until there is new leadership at the Department of
Homeland Security and among those who run our immigration policy. To be
clear, Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller must go.

But Trump's movement toward authoritarianism is not just about the
use of his domestic army against the American people; it is about his
attack against Venezuela in direct violation of the Constitution and
international law, where he not only lacked congressional authorization
but where no one in Congress had any knowledge about what was taking
place.
Trump's authoritarianism is about disrupting the 100-plus-year
alliances we have had with our allies in Europe and, insanely,
threatening to seize Greenland from our longtime ally Denmark. Does
anyone in their right mind believe that the United States of America
should threaten violence against our longtime allies?
Trump's authoritarianism is about attacking Europe--every day, one
attack or another--because it is a continent of democratic countries
that are all very different, but they are democratic countries which
actually elect their leaders. Apparently and increasingly, Europe and
these countries will not simply do Trump's bidding--will not come to
him with all kinds of gifts--while at the same time, as he attacks
Europe every day--demeans Europe, insults Europe--he is busy cozying up
to his autocratic friends in Saudi Arabia who have helped line his
pockets with billions of dollars from cryptocurrency and real estate
deals. It is not a problem that the head of Saudi Arabia is a murderer,
who our intelligence Agency believed was responsible for the death of
Washington Post correspondent Jamal Khashoggi. He is our ally. He has
got a lot of money--a trillionaire family--the wealthiest family on
Earth--that can do the Trump family a lot of good. It is not a problem
that one of our allies is Binyamin Netanyahu, who has engaged in
atrocities against the people of Gaza and is now under indictment by
the International Criminal Court as a war criminal. He is a good ally.
Those are the kinds of guys we want, those who are war criminals and
trillionaires who put dissenters in jail--Saudi Arabia, a dictatorship.
Trump's authoritarianism is about his repeated threats to make
Canada--Canada--I live 50 miles away from the Canadian border--which is
one of our closest and most dependable allies, the 51st State. I mean,
just think for a minute. We have been allies for decades and decades--
close friends--and you go around insulting this country and saying: You
are going to become our 51st State.
What world does Trump live in? How does his mind tell him to do that?
Let's be clear. The American people want us to ally ourselves with
democracies around the world, not dictatorships, not authoritarian
societies. They do not want to be allied with or put American lives on
the line for dictatorships like those that exist in Saudi Arabia,
Qatar, the United Arab Emirates or, least of all, Putin's Russia.
Everyone in this Chamber, including my Republican colleagues,
understands, when Trump usurps the power of Congress, when he attacks
the courts, when he threatens and intimidates the media and
universities and perhaps, most significantly, when he brings criminal
charges against his political opponents, be they liberal Democrats or
conservative Republicans, that this man is a danger to everything this
country stands for. My Republican colleagues know this, and the time is
long overdue for them to begin speaking out against Trump's dangerous
movement toward authoritarianism. We can disagree on the issues--we do
disagree on the issues--but we should and must agree that this country
will not move toward being an authoritarian society, with more and more
power put in the hands of the President of the United States.
In that regard, let me applaud Chris Madel, who was a leading
Republican candidate for the Governor of Minnesota, who recently ended
his campaign because he could not defend the national Republican Party
in the face of what was happening in his own State of Minnesota.

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Mr. Madel said:

When U.S. citizens, particularly those of color, live in
fear, and U.S. citizens are carrying papers to prove their
citizenship, that is wrong. Driving while Hispanic is not a
crime, neither is driving while Asian.

Mr. Madel is right, and more Republicans need to speak out if they
care about protecting the values this Nation was founded upon.
When we talk about authoritarianism, we must also talk about the Big
Lie--the lies that are told over and over again, that black is white
and white is black. It is a constant barrage of lies that comes from
the White House. We can disagree on the issues, but you cannot have a
democracy when the President of the United States lies profoundly every
single day.
No, Mr. President, Renee Good was not a domestic terrorist. She was
the mother of three, sitting in her car when she was shot.
No, Alex Pretti was not a would-be assassin as Trump's administration
has suggested.
No, last night's attack on Representative Ilhan Omar, while she was
conducting a townhall meeting, was not staged. Somebody attacked her--
threatened her.
No, the January 6 insurrectionists were not conducting peaceful
demonstrations. They were attempting to overthrow the results of an
election.
No, the 2020 election was not stolen from Donald Trump. He lost that
election by over 7 million votes. Yet today--today--as we speak right
now, Trump's FBI has raided an election office in Georgia to seize
their ballots. This is, by the way, after the Attorney General of the
United States demanded that Minnesota hand over its voter rolls as a
pretext for ICE's stopping its assault on that State.
President Trump's unacceptable actions are raising the question in
the hearts of millions of Americans as to whether or not there will be
free and fair elections in 2026 and 2028.
But it is not just Trump's authoritarianism that concerns me and
millions of Americans very deeply. I worry very much about the growing
economic and political power of the oligarchs in this country--the
multibillionaires who are side by side with Trump, who were in the
front row when he got inaugurated. I think all of us will remember Mr.
Musk there, Mr. Zuckerberg, Mr. Bezos, and some 14 other billionaires
sitting there when he was inaugurated.
Today, in America, we have more income and wealth inequality than we
have ever had in the history of our Nation. Unbelievably, Elon Musk--
the wealthiest man alive--now owns more wealth than the bottom 53
percent of American households. One man--one man--now owns more
wealth--some $700-billion plus--than the bottom 53 percent of American
households. The top 1 percent now owns more wealth than the bottom 93
percent. CEOs of large, profitable corporations now earn 350 times what
their average worker makes.
Meanwhile, in America today while the very rich become obscenely
richer, 60 percent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. They
are unable to afford the skyrocketing costs of housing, healthcare,
education, childcare, groceries, electricity, or other basic
necessities. The very rich are becoming phenomenally richer while tens
of millions of Americans are struggling to pay for their basic needs.
Let us understand that the oligarchs--the multibillionaires--do not
simply put their money under their mattresses. Not only do they want to
own and control our economy, they are determined to own and control our
corrupt political system as well. As we all know, Mr. Musk spent at
least $290 million to elect Trump. Do you think you are living in a
democracy when one guy can spend $290 million to elect his buddy to be
President? The 100 richest people in our country spent $2.6 billion on
the 2024 election--100 people.
Yes. You average American, you get the right to vote, but
billionaires can spend hundreds of millions of dollars in super PACs to
defeat the candidates who stand up for the working class and elect
those people who stand with the oligarchs. That number--the amount of
money being spent in these super PACs by the oligarchs--is growing and
growing every day. I should point out that it is not just the
Republican Party; it is Democratic billionaires as well. This is a
bipartisan effort on the part of the billionaire class.
Just recently, a super PAC representing the crypto industry just
announced that it has $193 million in cash at its disposal for the 2026
election. In other words, do you have concerns about crypto? Well, you
are going to have to face a barrage of 30-second ads from
extraordinarily wealthy people.
Big Tech oligarchs in Silicon Valley have already pledged to spend at
least $200 million on a super PAC that is sympathetic to the AI
industry, artificial intelligence--an industry that threatens to
displace tens of millions of American workers. Are you worried about
AI? Are you worried about robotics? Are you worried about the fact that
tens of millions of jobs are going to be lost during the next decade?
Are you concerned about it? Do you want to have some regulations? Well,
guess what? These guys have got hundreds of millions of dollars to
spend on a campaign.
That may sound like democracy to somebody, but it does not sound like
democracy to me. It sounds like a very corrupt system owned by the very
wealthiest people in the world. That is why, if we are going to come
out of our decline--if we are going to turn this country around--
probably there is nothing more important that we can do than to end the
disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision, abolish super PACs
and move to the public funding of elections. If somebody wants to run
against me who might disagree with my ideas, fine--go for it--but we
should not have a system where candidates are backed by billionaires
who can outspend heavily those candidates who are standing up for
working people. That is not democracy; that is oligarchy. In a
democracy, elections must be about one person, one vote, not
billionaires buying politicians.
But that is not all.
When we look at what is going on in America--and it is important that
we do that--take a look at our broken healthcare system. We are
spending twice as much per capita on healthcare as the people of any
other nation. Yet we are the only major country on Earth not to
guarantee healthcare to all. We have got 85 million Americans who are
uninsured or underinsured, and over 60,000 people die each year because
they can't afford to see a doctor on time.
Do you want to turn that around in America? Do you want to end our
decline? We are the richest country on Earth, and we spend more on
healthcare per person than any other country. Let us have the best
healthcare system in the world--guaranteeing healthcare to every man,
woman, and child.
That is what we should be doing, and that is why we should pass a
Medicare for All single-payer system. And when we talk about America
being in decline, we are talking about the skyrocketing price of
housing and the fact that tens of millions of Americans cannot afford
to buy a home.
We are seeing young people right now living with their parents
because they can't even afford an apartment of their own, married
couples who will buy their own home at a much older age than their
parents.
Today, we have 800,000 Americans who are homeless--800,000, including
people a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol. And 20 million households
are now spending over half of their limited incomes on housing.
Let us reverse this decline. Instead of giving tax breaks to
billionaires, let's build the low-income and affordable housing this
country desperately needs. In the wealthiest country on Earth, it is
not a radical proposition to say that every American should be able to
live in decent, affordable housing.
When we talk about America being in decline, we are talking about the
crisis in our education system. Several decades ago, the United States
was the best educated country on Earth. The United States used to lead
the world in the percentage of adults with a college degree. We were
No. 1.
Today, we are in 11th place behind countries like Japan, South Korea,
Australia, the UK, and Canada. Today, the United States ranks 28th out
of 37 developed countries in math, 12th in science, and 6th in reading.
This is the United States of America, the richest country on Earth.
Our kids

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should be leading the world in science, in reading, in math, not being
in 28th place.
If we are going to come out of our decline and successfully compete
in a global economy, we need the best educated workforce in the world,
which means we need to revamp our educational system from childcare to
graduate school. Believe it or not--people don't know this--70 years
ago, major public universities in the city of New York, California,
great universities were tuition-free.
Maybe instead of spending a trillion dollars a year on the military,
we make sure that every kid in this country has the opportunity to get
a higher education because we make our public colleges and universities
tuition-free.
In New York City, in New Mexico, now there is significant movements
toward making childcare free and universal, and that is a lesson all of
us have got to learn right here in the Congress. That should be our
goal.
When we talk about America being in decline, we are talking about the
fact that we have a retirement crisis in our country today. In America
right now, over 20 percent of seniors are trying to survive on an
income of less than $15,000 a year.
Got it? Twenty percent of seniors are trying to survive on $15,000 or
less. One guy is worth over $700 billion.
Half of seniors are trying to get by on less than $30,000 a year.
These are the people who built this country. These are the people who
raised us. We need to treat them with respect and dignity. That is why
we should expand and strengthen Social Security benefits and bring back
defined benefit pension plans that guarantee a secure income in
retirement.
A great nation like the United States should not have the highest
rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country. We should not
have one of the highest rates of senior poverty of almost any major
country.
And when we talk about the decline in the standard of living in
America, the fact that 60 percent of the people in our country today
are struggling, as we speak, to put food on the table, we must
understand that in our country right now, Big Tech oligarchs are
working overtime to become even wealthier by throwing American workers
out on the street and replacing them with robots or artificial
intelligence.
Nobody knows exactly what the impact of AI and robotics will be, but
there are some very sophisticated studies that would suggest that tens
of millions of jobs will be replaced by AI and robotics, and we are in
no way prepared for that.
That is why I have called for a moratorium on new AI data centers
until we make sure that the economic gains of these revolutionary
technologies benefit the working families of this country and not just
a handful of multibillionaires in Silicon Valley.
AI robotics are neither good nor bad. It depends on how they are
utilized. If they can improve life for ordinary people, it is positive.
If they can reduce the workweek, it is positive. But if they simply
throw millions of people out on the street, that is not a positive.
In my view, we are living through one of the most difficult moments
in the modern history of our country. But the truth is that throughout
our Nation's history, we have faced great challenges as well. This is
not the first great and difficult challenge that we face.
We have been through an American revolution. We have been through a
civil war. We have been through a suffrage movement that demanded full
citizenship and the right to vote for our women. We have been through
the Great Depression, where 25 percent of our people were unemployed.
We have been through World War II. We have been through the Civil
Rights Movement and the effort to end segregation, and here we are
today.
At every moment of crisis in the history of our country, the American
people came together and chose democracy over authoritarianism, chose
justice over greed, and chose solidarity over division. They
understood, in the past--and we understand today--that when we stand
together, no matter how much money the oligarchs have, no matter how
much political power they have, we have the people.
At the end of the day, people coming together is far more powerful
than the billionaires and all of their money. If we summon that same
courage today, if we stand together against fear and hatred, if we
defend democracy and take on the power of the oligarchs, there is
nothing that this great Nation cannot accomplish.
That is how we end the decline; that is how we renew our democracy;
and that is how we build a future worthy of our children and
generations yet to come.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
Ms. SLOTKIN. Mr. President, I rise today because of what is going on
in Minneapolis. As we have all seen in realtime with our own eyes, Alex
Pretti, 37 years old, nurse at the VA, shot multiple times and killed
by Border Patrol while he was exercising his right to peacefully
assemble.
The video shows us what happened. He was disarmed at the time that he
was shot, defenseless, not a threat when he was shot and killed. Before
him was Renee Good, shot and killed by ICE agents in her car on January
7.
Separate from those 2, we have 32 people who have died in ICE custody
in 2025, including one in Baldwin, MI--more fatalities in 1 year than
in more than two decades.
These folks shouldn't be going through this, but the deaths that we
saw in Minneapolis are the culmination of something much bigger. We are
experiencing a cultural moment in the United States of America that
cuts to the heart of who we are as Americans, and it relates to the
behavior of Federal forces in our streets. It strikes to the heart of
who we are as Americans.
Now, this isn't about any one thing, but I do think that it is
important for Americans to understand that despite some of the rolling
back that the President has done over the last few days, ICE agents are
still in Minnesota, still acting 3,000 strong in ways that I believe
run against the American consciousness.
So I am going to list out some of the things that I have heard and we
have seen, and I want Americans to think about how they would feel if
these very things were going on in their own towns, in their own
States, in their own communities.
Imagine being pulled over and asked for your papers as you pull into
the parking lot at Target. Imagine Federal agents waiting at the top of
off-ramps from the highway where you have to stop, determining by
looking at you if you might be an illegal alien and asking you to pull
over and show your papers.
Imagine you are at the airport trying to depart on a flight to go
overseas and ICE agents are at the boarding area asking to see your
papers, and when you ask them: Are you just indiscriminately pulling us
aside and checking our status, they threaten you with a $10,000 fine
for obstructing Federal agents.
Imagine, in your kid's elementary school on the playground, agents
are shooting tear gas. Imagine being held at gunpoint in your own home,
taken to a police precinct in your underwear in subfreezing
temperatures and then released without an apology when they realize:
Oops. You actually are an American citizen.
Imagine agents with full kit on, no identifying information, masks,
breaking your car window when your 2-year-old is in the backseat.
Imagine peacefully protesting and having rubber bullets shot at you.
Imagine masked men detaining a 5-year-old who is coming home from
preschool. Imagine being pepper-sprayed as clergy while you are praying
out loud. Imagine tear gas filling your car on your way home from a
basketball game with your children in the backseat and doing CPR on a
6-month-old who stopped breathing.
Imagine being the family watching on video as your loved one is
beaten and shot repeatedly and killed because they were exercising
their Second Amendment right and being present in their First Amendment
right with freedom of speech.
And then imagine being grabbed off the street and taken to a
detention facility without your family or a lawyer knowing where you
are.
Every one of these things has happened in Minneapolis in the past 30
days. If you have a problem with any of

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those things happening to you, you should have a problem with those
things happening in Minneapolis.
It doesn't matter if you are a Democrat or Republican. This is not
about political party.
In my State, we have seen political protests over the last 5 years
for all kinds of political persuasions. And I want people to imagine
that if they will do this in Minneapolis, there is no stopping them--or
some future administration--from doing this to you for what you care
about.
Now, I think it is lucky that we grew up in this country, and we are
taught over and over about the values of freedom of speech, freedom of
peaceful protest. I think that it is important that young people are
taught these things and that they come to live in a place very deep in
all Americans that I know.
And because of that, I think Americans have kind of an internal
redline for authoritarian behavior; there are just some things that
look and smell and feel wrong, given our history and given our values.
I think what is most abhorrent about what is going on in Minneapolis
is that it runs against the fundamental freedoms of who we are as
Americans.
Now, the President, who ran, in many ways, on the issue of
immigration, has managed to piss off everybody--left, right, and
center. Whether you are Joe Rogan or Zach Bryan or everyone in-between,
the tide has turned, and the President knows it. That is why he is
slinking Bovino and other people out of town. That is why he is
changing his tune.
But what he says publicly is still fundamentally different from what
is going on today in Minneapolis. You still have 3,000 agents doing the
same list of things that I am talking about. It has not changed. So
until the actions change, words don't matter.
Now, Michiganders have been clear with me that there need to be
consequences for this kind of anti-American behavior, and that starts
with leadership. We have a cast of characters who are in charge of
policy related to immigration.
Let's start with Secretary Kristi Noem. She should resign. If she
doesn't resign, the President should do what he has done in the past
and fire her. And if she doesn't get fired, she should be impeached,
because while she is not the only one who is the brains behind these
operations, she was the one who got the big job. She was the one who
sat in front of many of us for Senate confirmation. And she has done
nothing to defend the values that she claimed when she held her hand up
and swore to protect them.
Now, I will tell you, back a year ago, I was one of those people who
voted for Kristi Noem. I voted yes on her nomination. I come from the
State of Michigan. We have major border crossings, some of the biggest
border crossings in America, and we are about to open one of the
largest new border bridges in the world, the Gordie Howe Bridge to
Canada. We need her. We needed her to staff that new bridge, to pay
attention when we had issues with CBP or Border Patrol, when we needed
more resources. She sat in my office. I invited her in. And she told me
how she was a former Governor. She had received Federal support through
FEMA. She knew what it was like, and she was going to uphold those same
things that she depended on as a Governor, when it came to being the
Secretary of Homeland Security.
So I don't regret that I tried to have a relationship with her. I
tried to say: Hey, as someone from a border State, we have got to make
this work. I have got to have a relationship with this person.
But she has proved, over and over again, up until this weekend, that
she does not deserve the title of Cabinet Secretary. This week, when
Alex Pretti was killed on the ground, shot 10 times, she didn't say: We
need an independent investigation.
She didn't say: We need to cool down and relax.
She didn't say: We need to put the DHS officers on administrative
leave and have some sort of accountability.
She said: He was a domestic terrorist. A nurse who worked at the ICU
for the Veterans' Administration was a domestic terrorist.
If you are a Cabinet-level Secretary and you jump to that, you don't
understand our system. And, certainly, the one time she has come in
front of our committee--one time since she was confirmed--she didn't
seem to understand basic concepts, like habeas corpus.
Now, she is not the only one who is the mastermind of the President's
border and immigration policy. If you want to understand the through
line between Trump's first administration, where he literally put
children in cages and purposely separated them from their parents as an
immigration policy, and what you are seeing in Minneapolis today, that
through line is Stephen Miller and his dark vision of America.
I do not understand this person. I do not understand how he could be
educated in this country and then spew these dark visions of who we are
as a people. You know, I think the thing that he said right after Alex
Pretti was killed was that not only was he a domestic terrorist, but he
was an assassin.
These people don't understand who we are, and they certainly don't
understand that the American public does not tolerate this kind of
authoritarianism.
So what do we need to do? We need accountability. We need the people
who are the masterminds of these policies to leave their jobs. Either,
again, Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem resign--that would be the
respectful thing--are fired by the President--they are boat anchors
around your neck--or impeach them, in the case of Kristi Noem.
But, certainly, for what this body needs to do this week, it seems
abundantly clear that we need to separate out the budgets for a bunch
of other Departments and Agencies from the Department of Homeland
Security. We cannot trust this administration to handle the deployment
of Federal forces in our streets without making some fundamental
reforms of the Department of Homeland Security.
And I am glad to see that, like dominoes, my Republican colleagues
are now saying: Yes, we should separate this out. Yes, I don't want to
defend DHS and ICE and have the government shut down because I will
just salute the President.
They understand, and I give them credit. I will take any millimeters
of bravery that I can get from the other side of the aisle to say: This
is not America.
And you better believe that my colleagues would be losing their ever-
loving minds if a Democratic President were doing this in some
Republican-run city--losing their minds.
So we need accountability for the people who are behind this. We also
need fundamental reforms of ICE. We can't leave the administration to
do it themselves.
So you separate the bill out, and then we can have a real
conversation. And all we are asking for--it is not the moon--is that
Federal agents who show up in these cities cannot play by different
rules than police who live and work in our communities.
You need to wear a body camera. You should not be masked, unless it
is for your health. You need to have insignia that shows you are
actually real law enforcement. You need to have a judicial warrant to
come into someone's house, not a warrant signed by some person at the
Department of Homeland Security, who may or may not just have political
dependencies on Kristi Noem and the President.
We are asking for the same things that the Michigan State Police or
the Nevada police have to do on every single day. We want our Federal
agents to abide by those same laws and rules because they fundamentally
lost the trust of the American people. They don't have it.
So we don't trust that the President is just going to learn his
lesson, slink out of Minneapolis, and not do this to another city. So
we need prevention. We need reform. We need to separate out the DHS
budget from the others so we can get to work and not shut down the
government because the President won't admit fault in Minneapolis.
And we need to fundamentally remember who we are as Americans. We
need to remember those values that literally we learned in the first
grade. We have fundamental freedoms that make us different than almost
every other country of the world, and we need to defend them
vigorously.
And, in fact, those people who are standing up and exercising those
rights

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are doing the most patriotic thing they can do right now. Standing up
and calling out authoritarianism when we see it is the most patriotic
thing that we can do as Americans.
I urge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to join us in
calling a spade a spade when you see it.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.

Anniversary of Flight 5342

Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, this is a solemn occasion for me and for
many people I know, and I rise this evening to recognize and honor the
67 lives we lost, 1 year ago tomorrow, on January 29, 2025.
On that night, Flight 5342 took off from Wichita, KS, and flew toward
our Nation's Capital with 64 passengers on board. In Washington, DC, a
Black Hawk helicopter with three Army soldiers would soon be in the air
as well. Flight 5342 was just minutes away from a safe landing at
Reagan National Airport when the plane and the Army helicopter collided
over the Potomac River.
Shortly after 9 p.m., I received a call with the news that a flight
from home--from Kansas--was involved in an accident in our Nation's
Capital. I made my way to Reagan National Airport that night. The banks
of the Potomac River were illuminated with lights from emergency
responders who were searching the icy waters of a crash site.
At the airport, I was joined by local leaders and the newly sworn-in
Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy. Our conversation that night
was one of many that would then span the course of the following year,
trying to understand how an accident like this could occur and how to
prevent it from ever happening again.
At the airport, we learned the tragic news that there were no
survivors. Of those who perished, seven were Kansans.
Kiah Duggins, a civil rights attorney and a Wichita native, was set
to begin teaching at Howard University School of Law.
Lindsey Fields, a professor at Butler Community College and the
president-elect of the National Association of Biology Teachers, was
traveling to our Nation's Capital to advocate for the issues that
mattered to her.
Bob and Lori Schrock, a prominent and very well-liked couple of
farmers from Kiowa, KS, were on their way to visit their daughter in
college in Pennsylvania.
Grace Maxwell, an engineering student from Wichita, was returning to
college after attending her grandfather's funeral at home in Kansas.
Dustin Miller, an IT professional who grew up in El Dorado and was a
lifelong Chiefs fan, told his mom he was going to try to make it back
in time to watch his team play in the Super Bowl.
PJ Diaz of Wichita was described by his loved ones as a world
traveler who had been to 49 States. He especially loved cruises and had
an extra-long cruise planned for later that year.
Sadly, 28 members of the U.S. Figure Skating community also lost
their lives--young athletes traveling back from the National
Development Camp in Wichita, with their coaches and family members.
Maxim Naumov, a 24-year-old U.S. figure skater, lost both of his
parents in the accident. In the wake of this tragedy, Maxim used his
love of skating to overcome this immense loss and now heads to the 2026
Olympic Games, just weeks away, to achieve his lifelong dream that he
shared with his parents. We will all be cheering him on.
A year later, the memory of this night--the deadliest aviation
incident that America had witnessed in nearly 25 years--is as painful
as it was when we first heard the news. The victims were husbands and
wives, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, friends and coworkers.
As we mourn the victims, we also remember the heroism, solidarity,
and love displayed that night. Hundreds of first responders worked
tirelessly through the night and into the coming days. Strangers
offered comfort, and people checked in on their neighbors.
Since January 29, the families of the victims have tried to find
meaning and purpose after the death of their loved ones and have worked
to eliminate the likelihood of an accident like this ever happening
again.
A family, in particular, that I would like to mention, Tim and Sheri
Lilley, lost their son Sam. He was the copilot for Flight 5342, the
plane.
Following the tragic accident, the Lilley family has used its voice
to become an advocate for safer skies, in honor of their son Sam.
I am grateful for the advocacy of the families who are gathered here
tonight in the Nation's Capital to remember their family members, to
mourn the losses, to comfort each other. I am grateful for the families
of the victims over the last year as they work to advocate for changes
at the FAA--Federal Aviation Administration--and congressional
legislation like the ROTOR Act.
Thanks to their support, the Senate advanced this critical
legislation last year. This was an important step, but our progress has
been stalled in the House.
The National Transportation Safety Board's hearing just yesterday
further confirmed that this legislation could have made a difference on
January 29 a year ago. We cannot afford to waste any more time. I
urgently insist the House of Representatives quickly pass this
legislation or amend it and pass it so we can find consensus.
I want to commend NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy and her team on their
thorough investigation of the crash. Their report will guide Congress
in the coming weeks in our efforts to ensure safety in the skies.
In addition to passing and implementing the ROTOR Act, Congress will
soon hold a hearing--after the NTSB releases its final report in about
2 weeks--to review the findings and recommendations. We need to
determine what, if any, congressional action is necessary to implement
these recommendations and make certain the FAA and Army are making the
recommended changes, provide funding for further modernization of our
aviation system, advance new technologies at the FAA, and train and
support air traffic controllers. We cannot--we should not--miss the
moment to act and ensure lasting change.
I cannot imagine the pain each of the families of the victims has
experienced every day since January 29. This week, their loss must be
felt especially hard as they face the anniversary of the crash.
Tonight, I want to remember those who perished--67 lives that ended
way too soon. We resolve to honor their legacy, work to make our skies
safer, and remember those we loved who lost their lives.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the names of the victims
of Flight 5342 be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

Honoring the Victims of Flight 5342

Isabel Cristina Martinez Aldana, Franco Aparicio, Luciano
Aparicio, Sarah Lee Best, Brielle Beyer, Justyna Beyer,
Jonathan Boyd, Jonathan Campos, James Clagett, Lars Raeder
Clausen, Christopher Collins, Casey Crafton, Pete Diaz, Kiah
Duggins, Andrew Eaves, Danasia Elder, Brian Ellis, Ian
Epstein, Lindsey Fields, Jinna Han, Jin Hee Han, Cory Haynos,
Roger Haynos, Stephanie Haynos, Alex Huffman, Asra Hussain,
Steven Johnson, Julia Kay, Sean Kay, Elizabeth Anne Keys,
Alexandr Kirsanov, Christine Lane, Spencer Lane, Samuel
Lilley, Alydia Livingston, Donna Livingston, Everly
Livingston, Peter Livingston, Rebecca Lobach, Pergentino
Malabed, Grace Maxwell, Charles McDaniel, Dustin Miller,
Vadim Naumov, Melissa Nicandri, Ryan O'Hara, Anthony Parente,
Vikesh Patel, Jesse Pitcher, Robert Prewitt, Bob Schrock,
Lori Schrock, Wendy Jo Shaffer, Evgenia Shishkova, Michael
Stovall, Olesya Taylor, Olivia Eve Ter, Inna Volyanskaya,
Angela Yang, Lilly Li, Edward Zhou, Kaiyan Mao, Yu Zhou.

____________________