Stop Sanctuary Policies and Protect Americans Act -- Motion to Proceed -- Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. President, this week we have been discussing and taking up legislation to address the problem of sanctuary cities. In fact, just earlier today, we had a procedural vote on a motion to proceed to actually get on the bill. It failed. It only had 54 votes. The threshold in the Senate to get on a bill is 60 votes. Democrats here in the Senate decided to block consideration of this bill and to have that 60-vote threshold in play, and as a consequence, it failed. We had 54 votes. I think only two Democratic Senators voted to proceed to this legislation, and I would argue that is very unfortunate because this is a piece of legislation which represents common sense and what I think the American people want us to be focused on when it comes to the issue of dealing with crime in our communities and illegal immigration in a way that ensures that those who come to this country and commit crimes aren't allowed to stay here.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, there are 334 jurisdictions across our country right now that have official policies discouraging cooperation with Federal immigration enforcement officers. Among other things, that means these jurisdictions regularly ignore what are called detainers, requests from the Department of Homeland Security to hold an individual for deportation. As a city prepares to release an illegal immigrant who has been convicted of or charged with a crime, the Department of Homeland Security will send a detainer asking that the individual be held for a brief period--usually 48 hours--until Federal immigration officers can take custody.

In a majority of the cities across the country, law enforcement would simply comply with this request and hold the individual until the Department of Homeland Security can arrive, but in sanctuary cities officials regularly ignore these requests and simply release these individuals from jail and back into the population at large--a practice that has resulted in the release of approximately 1,000 undocumented criminals per month. According to information from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 9,295 imprisoned individuals whom Federal officials sought to deport were released into the population between January 1 and September 30 of last year. They released 9,295 imprisoned individuals in just 9 months. Of those 9,295 individuals, 5,947, or 62 percent, had a significant prior criminal history or presented a threat to public safety even before the arrest that preceded their release, and many went on to be arrested again within a short period of time.

There is a terrible human cost to sanctuary cities' decision to refuse to cooperate with U.S. immigration law. There has been a lot of discussion on the floor about Kate Steinle. Kate Steinle paid that cost when she was murdered on a San Francisco pier while walking with her father on July 1, 2015. She was shot by an undocumented immigrant who had been convicted of no fewer than seven felonies--seven felonies--prior to the decision of the city of San Francisco to ignore a request from the Department of Homeland Security and then go on and release this man into the population.

Unfortunately, Kate Steinle is not alone. Marilyn Pharis of Santa Maria, CA, was raped and then bludgeoned by an undocumented immigrant who had previously been arrested for battery but had been released after the local sheriff's office decided to ignore a request to detain him until he could be taken into Federal custody.

A 2-year-old California girl--a 2-year-old--was brutally beaten by her mother's boyfriend, an undocumented immigrant with felony drug and drunk driving convictions, who was released on bail after the crime despite a request from Federal officials that he be detained.

In 2011, Dennis McCann was killed when he was hit and dragged by a car driven by a drunk driver with a blood alcohol content nearly four times the legal limit. His killer turned out to be Saul Chavez, an undocumented immigrant with a prior drunk driving conviction. After Dennis McCann's death, the Department of Homeland Security filed a request asking that Immigration and Customs Enforcement be notified if Chavez was scheduled to be released. Cook County, however, chose to ignore this request, and after being released on bail, Dennis's killer apparently fled the country. Four years later, Dennis's family is still waiting to see justice done.

Unfortunately, I could go on and on. Decisions to release undocumented immigrants convicted of crimes, instead of detaining them for Federal officials, have resulted in far too many tragedies like those of Marilyn Pharis and Kate Steinle, and too many families in this country are mourning as a result.

Cooperation between local and Federal law enforcement is essential to protecting Americans, and detainer requests from the Department of Homeland Security are a key tool that helps Federal officials make sure dangerous individuals are not going back onto our Nation's streets.

When cities and counties ignore these requests, they force immigration officers to attempt to track down undocumented criminals after they have been released into the community. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, this requires an exponentially larger expenditure of funds and manpower and success is not guaranteed. Immigration and Customs Enforcement needs the support of cities and local law enforcement if it is going to keep these individuals off our Nation's streets.

The legislation we have been discussing today would take a substantial step forward toward handling the threat posed by sanctuary cities. The Stop Sanctuary Policies and Protect Americans Act, which has strong support from law enforcement organizations and victims' families, will withhold Federal funds under three grant programs and redirect those funds to jurisdictions that comply with Federal immigration laws. It will also provide crucial legal protections to law enforcement officers that will allow them to cooperate with Federal immigration authorities without the fear of lawsuits.

This act also incorporates provisions known as Kate's Law, named after Kate Steinle. These provisions would increase the maximum penalty for illegally reentering the United States after being deported and create a maximum penalty of 10 years for reentering the country illegally after being deported three or more times. Kate's Law would also create a mandatory minimum sentence of 5 years for those reentering the country after having been convicted of an aggravated felony prior to deportation or for those who reenter the country after two previous convictions for illegal reentry.

What happened to Kate Steinle on that pier in San Francisco should never have happened. It likely could have been prevented if San Francisco had chosen to respect the Department of Homeland Security's request to hold her killer until immigration officers could pick him up.

I hope the stop sanctuary policies act will move forward in the Senate so we will be able to send a version of this legislation to the President. It is time we started ensuring that dangerous criminals like Kate Steinle's killer don't end up back on the streets. We have that opportunity today. We ought to vote to move to this bill.

What is truly remarkable and amazing is that we couldn't even get on the bill to debate it. It was blocked by our colleagues on the other side who prevented even proceeding to the bill--a motion to proceed, which takes 60 votes in the Senate. It would have been very easy to get on the bill and at least have that debate. If they didn't like the provisions in the bill, they would have an opportunity to amend it and discuss the bill as we should be doing in the Senate, but instead the Democratic Senators chose to block the consideration, even the very consideration of legislation that would go to great lengths to try and prevent the types of tragedies we witnessed this last summer with Kate Steinle and so many others who have fallen prey to acts of violence by those who are here illegally and have prior experience with the law, prior convictions, and who are clear dangers to people and families all across this country.

It is a tragedy we weren't able to get on the bill. I hope our Democratic colleagues will change their minds and allow us to proceed to this legislation, to debate it, to vote on it, to pass it, and to send it to the President for his signature.

CYBERSECURITY INFORMATION SHARING BILL

Mr. President, I also wish to speak in support of S. 754, which I think we will be discussing momentarily, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, or what is referred to as CISA, which the Senate is going to be debating this week. I commend Chairman Burr and Vice Chairman Feinstein for their bipartisan work to bring this bill to the floor.

It seems that every week we learn of another serious cyber attack against U.S. businesses and government agencies. The most devastating recent attack is the one against the Office of Personnel Management that compromised the background check information of more than 21 million Americans. The pace of such attacks appears to be accelerating. According to the security firm Symantec, last year alone, more than 300 million new types of malicious software or computer viruses were introduced on the Web or nearly, if my colleagues can believe this, 1 million new threats each and every day.

Just last month, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified before the House Intelligence Committee that ``cyber threats to U.S. national and economic security are increasing in frequency, scale, sophistication, and severity of impact.''

From my position as head of the Senate commerce committee, I have promoted the great potential of the emerging Internet of Things--which promises to yield improvements in convenience, efficiency, and safety by connecting everyday products to the Web--but I have also held several hearings on the cyber security risks and challenges that accompany an increasingly connected world. By increasing the sharing of cyber threat information between and among the private and public sectors, the bill would authorize the voluntary sharing of cyber threat information and would provide commonsense liability protections for companies that share such information with the government or their peers, when they abide by the bill's requirements. The goal is to help companies and the government better protect their networks from malicious cyber attacks by sharing information about those threats earlier and more broadly.

Similar bipartisan legislation was reported by the Senate Intelligence Committee last year that was never considered by the Democratic-controlled Senate at the time. This year the Intelligence Committee passed a bill by a bipartisan vote of 14 to 1, which should portend a strong bipartisan vote on the floor of the Senate.

The House of Representatives has also passed two bills to facilitate the sharing of cyber threats, so we are now within striking distance of finally enacting critical cyber security information-sharing legislation after several false starts in recent years.

I know some have questioned whether this bill provides appropriate protections for personal privacy and civil liberties. I appreciate these concerns, and I believe the bill's sponsors have meaningfully addressed them, including through modifications to be included in a managers' amendment.

This bill is not a surveillance bill. Among other things, the modified bill would limit the sharing of information to that defined as ``cyber threat indicators'' and ``defensive measures'' taken to detect, prevent or mitigate cyber security threats.

The bill also requires private sector and Federal entities to remove personally identifiable information prior to sharing threat indicators, and the Federal Government can only use the cyber threat information it receives for cyber security purposes and to address a narrow set of crimes, such as the sexual exploitation of children.

The bill also requires regular oversight of the government's sharing activities by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board created after Ð9/11 and by relevant agency inspectors general.

In the end, it is important to remember that CISA is about cyber threats--like the malware being used by criminals in hostile states--not personal information. Meanwhile, failing to enact this bill could actually make it easier for criminals in rogue states to continue collecting our personal information from vulnerable systems.

Let me be clear. This is not a silver bullet and it will not render cyberspace completely safe--no bill can do that--but CISA is an important piece of the ongoing effort to improve our cyber security.

Late last year, after a decade without passing major cyber security legislation, Congress enacted five cyber security laws that target other pieces of the cyber puzzle. I coauthored one of these--the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act--with former Senator Jay Rockefeller. This law ensures the continuation of a voluntary and private sector-led process at the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology, or what we refer to as NIST, to identify best practices to protect our Nation's critical infrastructure from cyber threats. The Cybersecurity Enhancement Act also promotes cutting-edge research, public awareness of cyber security risks, and improvements in our cyber security workforce.

CISA will work together with this new law and others to ensure that businesses have timely warning about current threats so they can better protect themselves--and all of us--from cyber attacks. It does so in a manner that protects individual privacy and avoids government mandates.

I look forward to the coming debate on the bill--including a healthy consideration of amendments--and I urge my colleagues to join the bipartisan sponsors and a broad coalition of stakeholders around this country in supporting this much needed legislation.

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