America's Small Business Tax Relief Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, as you may have heard a moment ago, one of the amendments that is being objected to from our end is an amendment that I have filed, and I will describe it briefly.

I wish to first describe the issue I am trying to address.

welfare flows to Cuba'' from October 1, 2015.

1, 2015] U.S. Welfare Flows to Cuba

(By Sally Kestin, Megan O'Matz and John Maines with Tracey Eaton in Cuba) They're taking benefits from the American taxpayer to subsidize their life in another country

Cuban immigrants are cashing in on U.S. welfare and returning to the island, making a mockery of the decades-old premise that they are refugees fleeing persecution at home.

Some stay for months at a time--and the U.S. government keeps paying.

Cubans' unique access to food stamps, disability money and other welfare is meant to help them build new lives in America. Yet these days, it's helping some finance their lives on the communist island.

America's open-ended generosity has grown into an entitlement that exceeds $680 million a year and is exploited with ease. No agency tracks the scope of the abuse, but a Sun Sentinel investigation found evidence suggesting it is widespread.

Fed-up Floridians are reporting their neighbors and relatives for accepting government aid while shuttling back and forth to the island, selling goods in Cuba, and leaving their benefit cards in the U.S. for others to use while they are away.

Some don't come back at all. The U.S. has continued to deposit welfare checks for as long as two years after the recipients moved back to Cuba for good, federal officials confirmed.

Regulations prohibit welfare recipients from collecting or using U.S. benefits in another country. But on the streets of Hialeah, the first stop for many new arrivals, shopkeepers like Miguel Veloso hear about it all the time.

Veloso, a barber who has been in the U.S. three years, said recent immigrants on welfare talk of spending considerable time in Cuba--six months there, two months here. ``You come and go before benefits expire,'' he said.

State Rep. Manny Diaz Jr. of Hialeah hears it too, from constituents in his heavily Cuban-American district, who tell of flaunting their aid money on visits to the island. The money, he said ``is definitely not to be used . . . to go have a great old time back in the country that was supposed to be oppressing you.''

The sense of entitlement is so ingrained that Cubans routinely complained to their local congressman about the challenge of accessing U.S. aid--from Cuba.

``A family member would come into our office and say another family member isn't receiving his benefits,'' said Javier Correoso, aide to former Miami Rep. David Rivera. ``We'd say, `Where is he?' They'd say, `He's in Cuba and isn't coming back for six months.' ''

``They're taking benefits from the American taxpayer to subsidize their life in another country.

One woman told Miami immigration attorney Grisel Ybarra that her grandmother and two great aunts came to Florida, got approved for benefits, opened bank accounts and returned to Cuba. Month after month, the woman cashed their government checks--about $2,400 each time--sending half to the women in Cuba and keeping the rest.

When a welfare agency questioned the elderly ladies whereabouts this summer, the woman turned to Ybarra, a Cuban American. She told Ybarra her grandmother refused to come back, saying: ``With the money you sent me, I bought a home and am really happy in Cuba.''

Cubans on the island, Ybarra said, have a name for U.S. aid.

They call it ``la ayuda.'' The help. Special status abused

Increasing openness and travel between the two countries have made the welfare entitlement harder to justify and easier to abuse. But few charges have been brought, and Congress and the Obama Administration have failed to address the problem even as the United States moves toward detente with Cuba.

Cubans' extraordinary access to U.S. welfare rests on two pillars of special treatment: the ease with which they are admitted to the country, and America's generosity in granting them public support.

Cubans are allowed into the U.S. even if they arrive without permission and are quickly granted permanent residency under the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act. They're assumed to be refugees without having to prove persecution.

They're immediately eligible for welfare, food stamps, Medicaid and Supplemental Security Income or SSI, cash assistance for impoverished seniors and disabled younger people.

Most other immigrants are barred from collecting aid for their first five years. Those here illegally are not eligible at all.

The Sun Sentinel analyzed state and federal data to determine the annual cost of taxpayer support for Cuban immigrants: at least $680 million. In Florida alone, costs for welfare, food stamps and refugee cash have increased 23 percent from 2011 through 2014.

Not all Cubans receive government help. Those arriving on visas are ineligible, and some rely on family support. And many who receive aid do so for just a short time until they settle in, as the U.S. intended. Cubans over time have become one of the most successful immigrant groups in America.

``They come to the U.S. to work and make a living for their family,'' said Jose Alvarez, a Cuba native and city commissioner in Kissimmee. ``I don't believe that they come thinking the government will support them.''

But some take advantage of the easy money--and then go back and forth to Cuba.

A public housing tenant in Hialeah, who was receiving food stamps and SSI payments for a disabled son, frequently traveled to Cuba to sell food there, records show. She admitted to a city housing investigator in 2012 that she ``makes $700 in two months just in the sales to Cuba.''

Another man receiving food stamps admitted to state officials ``that he was living in Cuba much of 2015.''

A recent arrival with a chronic illness got Medicaid coverage and turned to attorney David Batchelder of Miami to help him get SSI as well. But the man was ``going back and forth to Cuba'' so much that Batchelder eventually dropped the case. ``It was just another benefit he was applying for.''

Concerns about Cubans exploiting the aid are especially troubling to exiles who came to this country decades ago and built new lives and careers here.

Dr. Noel Fernandez recalls the assistance his family received from friends and the U.S. government when they immigrated 20 years ago, help that enabled him to find work as a landscaper, learn English and complete his medical studies. Now medical director of Citrus Health Network in Hialeah, Fernandez sees Cuban immigrants collecting benefits and going back, including three elderly patients who recently left the U.S. for good.

``They got Medicaid, they got everything, and they returned to Cuba,'' he said. ``I see people that said they were refugees [from] Cuba and they return the next year.''

State officials have received complaints about Cubans collecting aid while repeatedly going to Cuba or working as mules ferrying cash and goods, a common way of financing travel to the island.

Another way of paying for the trips: cheating. Like other welfare recipients, some Cubans work under the table or put assets in others' names to appear poor enough to meet the programs' income limits, according to records and interviews. Some married couples qualify for more money as single people by concealing marriages performed in Cuba, where the U.S. can't access records.

``Stop the fraud please!'' one person urged in a complaint to the state. Another pleaded with authorities to check airport departure records for a woman suspected of hiding income. ``It would show how many times she has traveled to Cuba.''

Florida officials typically dismissed the complaints for lack of information, because names didn't match their records or because the allegations didn't involve violations of eligibility rules. Travel abroad is not expressly prohibited, but benefits are supposed to be used for basic necessities within the U.S.

``Our congressional folks should be looking at this,'' said Miami-Dade County Commissioner Esteban Bovo Jr., a Cuban American. ``There could be millions and millions of dollars in fraud going on here.'' Money to Cuba

Accessing benefits from Cuba typically requires a U.S. bank account and a willing relative or friend stateside. Food stamps and welfare are issued monthly through a debit-type card, and SSI payments are deposited into a bank account or onto a MasterCard.

A joint account holder with a PIN number can withdraw the money and wire it to Cuba. Another option: entrust the money to a friend traveling to Cuba.

Roberto Pizano of Tampa, a political prisoner in Cuba for 18 years, said he worked two jobs when he arrived in the U.S. in 1979 and never accepted government help. He now sees immigrants ``abusing the system.''

``I know people who come to the U.S., apply for SSI and never worked in the USA,'' he said. They ``move back to Cuba and are living off of the hard-earned taxpayer dollars.''

He said family friend Gilberto Reyno got disability money from the U.S. and renovated a house in Cuba. The Sun Sentinel found Reyna living in that house in Camaguey, Cuba. He said he was no longer receiving disability, but Pizano and another person familiar with the situation said the payments continue to be deposited into a U.S. bank account. The Social Security Administration would not comment, citing privacy concerns, but is investigating.

Federal investigators have found the same scenario in other cases.

A 2012 complaint alleged a 75-year-old woman had moved to Camaguey two years earlier and a relative was withdrawing her SSI money from a bank account and sending it to her. Social Security stopped payments, but not before nearly $16,000 had been deposited into her account.

Another recipient went to Cuba on vacation and stayed, leaving his debit card with a relative. Social Security continued his SSI payments for another six months--$4,000 total--before an anonymous caller reported he had gone back to Cuba.

One woman reportedly moved to Cuba in 2010 and died three years later, while still receiving SSI and food stamps, according to a 2014 tip to Florida welfare fraud investigators. A state official couldn't find her at her Hialeah home, cut off the food stamps and alerted the federal government.

Former congressman Rivera tried to curb abuses with a bill that would have revoked the legal status of Cubans who returned to the island before they became citizens.

``Public assistance is meant to help Cuban refugees settle in the U.S.,'' Mauricio Claver-Carone of Cuba Democracy Advocates testified in a 2012 hearing on the bill. ``However, many non-refugee Cubans currently use these benefits, which can average more than $1,000 per month, to immediately travel back to the island, where the average income is $20 per month, and comfortably reside there for months at a time on the taxpayer's dime.''

Rivera recently told the Sun Sentinel that he interviewed welfare workers, Cubans in Miami and passengers waiting for charter flights to Havana. He said he found overwhelming evidence of benefits money going back, especially after the U.S. eased travel restrictions in 2009.

The back and forth undermines the rationale that Cubans are refugees fleeing an oppressive government, Rivera said. And when they return for visits, they boast of the money that's available in the U.S., he said. ``They all say, `It's great. I got free housing. I got free food. I get my medicine.' ''

Five Cubans interviewed by the Sun Sentinel in Havana said they were aware of the assistance and knew of Cubans who had gone to America and quickly began sending money back. Two said they believed it was U.S. government aid.

``I don't think it's correct, but everyone does it for the well-being of their family,'' said one woman, Susana, who declined to give her last name.

Outside welfare offices in Hialeah, the Sun Sentinel found Cuban immigrants who had arrived as recently as three days earlier, applying for benefits. They said family and friends told them about the aid before they left Cuba.

``Back in the '60s, when you came in, they told you the factory that was hiring,'' said Nidia Diaz of Miami, a former bail bondswoman who was born in Cuba. ``Now, they tell you the closest Department of Children and Families [office] so you can go and apply.'' Crooks collect in Cuba

Miami bail bondswoman Barbara Pozo said many of her Cuban clients talk openly about living in Cuba and collecting monthly disability checks, courtesy of U.S. taxpayers.

``They just come here to pick up the money,'' Pozo said. ``They pretend they're disabled. They just pretend they're crazy.''

SSI payments, for those who cannot work due to mental or physical disabilities, go up to $733 a month for an individual. Most other new immigrants are ineligible until they become U.S. citizens.

Some Cubans try to build a case for SSI by claiming trauma from their life under an oppressive government or the 90-mile crossing to Florida.

Diaz, the former bondswoman, said she has heard Cuban clients talk about qualifying: `` `Tell them that you have emotional problems. How did you get these problems? Well, trying to get here from Cuba.' ''

Antonio Comin collected disability while organizing missions to smuggle Cubans to Florida, including one launched from a house in the Keys, federal prosecutors said. Comin claimed he rented the home to celebrate his birthday--after receiving his government check.

Casimiro Martinez was receiving a monthly check for a mental disability--but his mind was sound enough to launder more than $1 million stolen from Medicare. Martinez was arrested at Miami International Airport after returning from a trip to Cuba.

Government disability programs are vulnerable to fraud, particularly SSI, with applicants faking or exaggerating symptoms. Some view SSI as ``money waiting to be taken,'' said John Webb, a federal prosecutor in Tennessee who has handled fraud cases.

While benefits are supposed to be suspended for recipients who leave the United States for more than 30 days, the government relies on people to self-report those absences, and federal audits have found widespread violations.

The government could significantly reduce abuses by matching international travel records to SSI payments, auditors have recommended since 2003. The Social Security Administration and Department of Homeland Security are still trying to work out a data sharing agreement--12 years later,

Jose Caragol, a Hialeah city councilman and Havana native, said aid for Cubans ``was meant to assist those who were persecuted and want a new life. The bleeding has to stop.''

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Mr. RUBIO. I will not read the whole article. But I am going to paraphrase from it.

By the way, as to the Democratic amendments that have been proposed and on which the Senator from California has just made a presentation regarding travel issues and pilot hours--she referred to the fact I have traveled extensively over the last year--they are issues I am actually very sympathetic toward. Perhaps we can work together to get her a vote on that amendment, because I think that is a legitimate issue.

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Mr. RUBIO. Let me now talk about the one I want to talk about. This is how the article begins. I talked about yesterday.

Let me back up and explain what people are facing. Today, if an immigrant enters the United States from another country legally and comes here on a green card, with 5-year residency, they cannot receive Federal benefits. If you immigrate to the United States from any country in the world with an immigrant visa legally--not illegal immigration, as illegal immigrants do not qualify for Federal benefits--a legal immigrant to the United States does not qualify for any Federal benefits. There is an exception in the law, however, and that is if you happen to be someone who comes from Cuba without a visa.

There is a law called the Cuban Adjustment Act. When the Cuban Adjustment Act was passed during the Cold War, it was passed so that Cubans who came to the United States fleeing communist oppression were immediately admitted to the United States. In essence, that is why there is really no such thing as an illegal immigrant from Cuba. If a Cuban makes it to the shores of the United States, they become legal in this country, and a year and a day after they have arrived, they are allowed to apply for a green card. But unlike any immigrant from any part of the world, they are allowed to receive Federal benefits because they are automatically presumed to be refugees. That is a status that I am not trying to change in terms of the Cuban Adjustment Act. I have said that I am open to that being examined, but I am not trying to change that law in my amendment.

I do want to discuss why we should automatically assume at this point that anyone who comes from Cuba is a political refugee. The reason why that now is in doubt is because many of the people who are coming from Cuba, supposedly as refugees seeking to flee oppression, are traveling back to Cuba 15, 20, 30 times a year.

There are people being oppressed politically in Cuba, absolutely. It is one of the reasons why I think the President's policies toward Cuba have been misguided, because they refuse to see that even after this opening to Cuba, the political situation on the island has deteriorated. It has gotten worse, not better. There are absolutely people from Cuba who are coming here as refugees. But we also cannot ignore the fact that many of the people coming from Cuba no longer are coming here for political reasons. The evidence is that shortly after they arrive, they are going back to Cuba 15, 20, 30 times a year. You do not normally travel back to a place where you are fleeing from oppression, much less repeatedly over an extended period of time.

So as a result, we now have a law that basically says that if you come from Cuba, you are automatically entitled to a full platform of Federal benefits.

This is how the article begins:

Cuban immigrants are cashing in on U.S. welfare and returning to the island, making a mockery of the decades-old premise that they are refugees fleeing persecution at home. . . .

Cubans' unique access to food stamps, disability money, and other welfare is meant to help them build new lives in America. Yet these days, it's helping some finance their lives on the communist island.

America's open-ended generosity has grown into an entitlement that exceeds $680 million a year and is exploited with ease. No agency tracks the scope of this abuse, but a Sun Sentinel investigation found evidence suggesting it is widespread.

Fed-up Floridians--

Where a lot of these Cubans are moving to-- are reporting their neighbors and their relatives for accepting government aid while shuttling back and forth to the island, selling goods in Cuba and leaving their benefit cards in the U.S. for others to use while they are away.

Some do not even come back at all. The U.S. has continued to deposit welfare checks for as long as two years after the recipients moved back to Cuba for good.

It goes on to talk about several people. For example there is a shopkeeper in Hialeah, FL, where a lot of these folks are coming and moving. He says he hears about it all the time. He is a barber. He has been in the United States for 3 years, and he said:

Recent immigrants on welfare talk of spending considerable time in Cuba--six months there, two months here. ``You come and go before benefits expire.''

The article goes on:

The sense of entitlement is so ingrained that Cubans are now routinely complaining to the local Congressman about the challenge of accessing U.S. aid--from Cuba.

What they are complaining about is that they are coming into the office. This is what a former aide to a former Congressman from Miami said: A family member would come into our office and say a family member isn't receiving his benefits. They would ask: Where is he? And they would say: He is in Cuba, and he isn't coming back for 6 months.

This is unreal. There are people coming into congressional offices complaining: We are having trouble getting access to our benefits. You ask them why, and they say it is because the person who gets the benefits is not in America; he is in Cuba and he can't get access to his benefits from Cuba.

One woman told Miami immigration attorney Grisel Ybarra that her grandmother and two great aunts came to Florida, got approved for benefits, opened bank accounts and returned to Cuba. Month after month, the woman cashed their government checks--about $2,400 each time--sending half to the women in Cuba and keeping the rest.

They kept for themselves a 50 percent commission.

When a welfare agency questioned the elderly ladies' whereabouts this summer, the woman turned to Ybarra, a Cuban American. She told Ybarra her grandmother refused to come back, saying: ``With the money you sent me, I bought a home and I am really happy in Cuba.''

That means your money--the American taxpayers' money.

Ybarra went on to say that the Cubans on the island have a name for this U.S. aid. It is called ``la ayuda,'' which means the help.

Cubans are allowed into the U.S. even if they arrive without permission and are quickly granted permanent residency. . . .

As I said earlier, under the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act, they are automatically assumed to be refugees without having to prove it.

They are immediately eligible for welfare, for food stamps, for Medicaid, and for supplemental social security, or SSI, and also cash assistance for impoverished seniors and for disabled young people.

But let's be frank, not all Cubans receive government aid. For example, if you come to the United States from Cuba on a visa--because there is a visa lottery and every year the government awards visas to people living in Cuba--you do not qualify for these benefits.

If, however, you arrive in the United States on a raft or if you fly on an airplane to Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, or Mexico and cross the U.S. border--as is now increasingly happening--then you do qualify for these benefits I have just outlined. So let's be frank, not everyone who is coming from Cuba is doing this. There are people coming from Cuba who are fleeing persecution, but many are taking advantage of the easy money, and then they are going back and forth to Cuba.

I will give you some examples cited in this article:

A public housing tenant in Hialeah, who was receiving food stamps and SSI payments for a disabled son, frequently traveled to Cuba to sell food there, records showed. She admitted to a city housing investigator in 2012 that she ``makes $700 in two months just in the sales to Cuba.''

And $700 a month is a lot of money in Cuba.

How does this work? They take the food stamp card. They go to the grocery store. They load up a van with canned goods. They travel back to Cuba. They just got that food with your taxpayer money. They travel back to Cuba with duffel bags full of canned goods, and they sell it in Cuba for a profit--$700 over a 2-month period.

Another man receiving food stamps admitted to State officials ``that he was living in Cuba for much of 2015.''

A recent arrival with a chronic illness got Medicaid coverage and turned to [his] attorney . . . of Miami to help him get SSI as well. But the man was ``going back and forth to Cuba'' so much that Batchelder eventually dropped the case. ``It was just another benefit he was applying for.''

This, of course, concerns people who came to the United States as exiles and are now watching this happen. There is a doctor whose name is Noel Fernandez, and he recalls when his family arrived here from Cuba that the U.S. Government helped them a little. When they immigrated here 20 years ago, he was helped to find work as a landscaper, he was helped to learn English, and he was helped to complete his medical studies. Today he is the medical director of Citrus Health Network in Hialeah.

Fernandez sees Cuban immigrants collecting benefits and then going back, including three elderly patients who recently left the United States for good.

``They got Medicaid, they got everything, and they returned to Cuba,'' he said. ``I see people that said they were refugees [from] Cuba and they return the next year.''

That is his quote.

State officials--

In my home State of Florida-- have received complaints about Cubans collecting aid while repeatedly going to Cuba or working as mules ferrying cash and goods, which is a common way of financing travel to the island.

How that works is, people know you are traveling to Cuba, and they have relatives they want to get money to or clothes to or whatever, and so they pay you. They actually pay you. They give you money and they say: Will you take this with you on your trip to Cuba and deliver it to the people we are trying to get it to? That is why they call them a mule. Well, from the money you get paid to take these things back to Cuba, that is how you pay for your plane ticket.

Another way of paying for these trips, by the way, is cheating. According to the Sentinel article:

Like other welfare recipients, some Cubans work under the table or put their assets in others' names to appear poor enough to meet the programs' income limits, according to records and interviews. Some married couples qualify for more money as single people.

Many of our welfare programs actually give you more money if you are not married because you don't have to combine your incomes. So because they were married in Cuba, they simply conceal the fact that they are married because the United States can't access those records. That is another way of cheating.

Now look, ``accessing benefits from [someone who is in] Cuba typically requires a U.S. bank account and a willing relative or friend stateside.'' By the way, that is just for now because as part of this opening to Cuba, the Obama administration is going to make it easier for there to be banking transactions with Cuba. So what we are facing here, my friends, is that in a very short period of time--once banking becomes regularized with American banks--they will not even need to rely on their relatives in order to get this stuff. All they are going to need is an ATM or debit card or a credit card secured to that account, and you--the American taxpayer--will deposit the welfare check, the SSI, into their bank account, and they will then be conducting transactions or withdrawing the cash from Cuba directly.

So they will not even need a relative to do it, but right now they still need that. ``Food stamps and welfare are issued monthly to a debit-type card and SSI payments are deposited into a bank account or onto a MasterCard.'' And soon they will be able to use that in Cuba. Then what you need is ``a joint account holder with a PIN number who can withdraw the money and wire it to you in Cuba.''

Another option is just to entrust the money to a friend who is traveling to Cuba.

Roberto Pizano of Tampa, a political prisoner in Cuba for 18 years, said he worked two jobs when he arrived in the U.S. in 1979 and never accepted government help. He now sees immigrants ``abusing the system.''

He says he has a ``family friend,'' and this family friend got ``disability money from the U.S.'' and with the disability money he ``renovated a house in Cuba.'' The Sun Sentinel found this man. His name is Gilberto Reyno. You know where they found him? They found him living in Camaguey, Cuba. Quoting from the article:

The Sun Sentinel found Reyno living in that house in Camaguey, Cuba. He said he was no longer receiving disability, but Pizano and another person familiar with the situation said the payments continue to be deposited into a U.S. bank account.

Here is another example that Federal investigators found, according to the article:

A 2012 complaint alleged a 75-year-old woman had moved to Camaguey two years earlier and a relative was withdrawing her SSI money from a bank account and sending it to her. Social Security stopped payments, but not before nearly $16,000 had been deposited into her account.

Another recipient went to Cuba on vacation and then stayed, leaving his debit card with a relative. Social Security continued his SSI payments for another six months--$4,000 total--before an anonymous caller reported he had gone back to Cuba.

One woman reportedly moved to Cuba in 2010 and died three years later, while still receiving SSI and food stamps, according to a 2014 tip to Florida welfare fraud investigators.

Five Cubans interviewed by the Sun Sentinel in Havana said they were aware of the assistance and knew of Cubans who had gone to America and quickly began sending money back. Two said they believed it was U.S. government aid.

That means this is now spreading through word-of-mouth. So you live in Cuba, you know someone who left for the United States, they qualified for these benefits, and they start coming back and bringing the money with them or sending it back to their relatives, and word gets around. That is why it is not a surprise to read in this article:

Outside welfare offices in Hialeah, the Sun Sentinel found Cuban immigrants who had arrived as recently as three days earlier, applying for benefits. They said family and friends told them about the aid before they left Cuba.

``Back in the '60s, when you came in, they told you the factory that was hiring,'' said Nidia Diaz of Miami, a former bail bondswoman who was born in Cuba. ``Now they tell you the closest Department of Children and Families [office] so you can go and apply.''

This is a quote from another bail bondswoman:

Miami bail bondswoman Barbara Pozo said many of her Cuban clients talk openly about living in Cuba and collecting monthly disability checks, courtesy of U.S. taxpayers.

``They just come here to pick up the money,'' Pozo said. ``They pretend they're disabled. They just pretend they're crazy.''

SSI payments, for those who cannot work due to mental or physical disabilities, go up to $733 a month for an individual. Most other new immigrants are ineligible until they become U.S. citizens.

Some Cubans try to build a case for SSI by claiming trauma from their life under an oppressive government or the 90-mile crossing to Florida.

Diaz, the former bondswoman, said she has heard Cuban clients talk about qualifying: ``Tell them that you have emotional problems. How did you get these problems? Well, trying to get here from Cuba.''

Here is one that should really gall everybody, though these are all bad stories.

Antonio Comin collected disability while organizing missions to smuggle Cubans to Florida, including one he launched from a house in the Keys, Federal prosecutors said. Comin claimed he rented the home to celebrate his birthday-- after receiving his government check.

Casimiro Martinez was receiving a monthly check for a mental disability--but his mind was sound enough to launder more than $1 million stolen from Medicare. Martinez was arrested at Miami International Airport after returning from a trip to Cuba.

While benefits are supposed to be suspended for recipients who leave the United States for more than 30 days, the government relies on people to self-report those absences, and Federal audits have found widespread violations.

So the only way you can find that someone is actually doing this is they have to call and say: Hey, by the way, I am now living in Cuba, and I am still collecting my checks. Well, that ain't gonna happen. This is an outrage.

Listen, my parents came from Cuba. I live in a community where Cuban exiles are a plurality of the people who live there. So no one can say this is an anti-immigrant thing or a mean-spirited thing. We have the support of every elected Cuban American Member of the House for this idea.

I myself come from a Cuban American family. This is an outrage. It is happening right underneath our noses. Who can be for this? Let me rephrase it. Who can be against doing something about this? We are talking about close to $700 million a year of American taxpayer money that could be spent right now to deal with the Zika virus issue that we are facing, for example. Instead, this money is being abused. It is being stolen.

So one would think: Wow, that is a commonsense thing; right? People here in the gallery, people at home--if anyone is actually watching C- span--would say: That is common sense. They will do something about it. Yet I can't get a vote on this amendment. I cannot get the Senate to vote on an amendment to stop this practice.

Here is the only thing I am asking. I am asking that if you come from Cuba, you have to prove you are a refugee. Prove that to us. I am not even saying we are not going to let you in. I am just saying that if you come from Cuba using the Cuban Adjustment Act, prove that you have been persecuted in Cuba. That is not hard to do. You were in jail; you were beaten. We know who the people are who are being persecuted. All I am saying is prove that you are a refugee, and then you will qualify for the benefits because we help refugees. But, apparently, that is too much to ask.

Here is the thing. Everybody here comes up to me and says: I am for your amendment. I support what you are trying to do. Great. Why can't we vote on it? We can't vote on it because if we give you your amendment, then we have to give the other side their amendments. And let me just tell you guys that this is why people are so sick of politics.

I don't want to get too much into the weeds on this, but suffice it to say I have spent from April 13 of 2015 through very recently traveling all over this country on another endeavor, and one of the things you hear from people is that they are just angry. They are just fed up. They think: Nobody whom we elect, whom we vote for, whom we send to Washington--nothing ever changes or happens. It doesn't matter. You can vote Republican, you can vote Democrat, or you can vote for a vegetarian. It doesn't matter whom you vote for. Nothing happens. These people don't do anything.

They are right. I have just come here today and laid this out. No one can argue against what I have just said--no one. I challenge any Member of this Senate to come here now--I will give the rest of the time I have apportioned to me--and tell me why changing this is a bad idea. But I can't even vote get a vote on an amendment to change this.

The excuses are long: Oh, we can't do it because we don't want to open the tax portion of the bill because then other people will want their amendments. This is crazy. This is nuts. We can't solve problems. We can't solve something as clear and simple as that. We can't even get a vote. If you want to vote against what I am proposing, vote against it. We can't even get a vote on an amendment like this. It makes no sense.

This is not a small issue. We are talking $700 million. This is not an issue of national coverage. It is not in the news every day. This is not controversial. This is bipartisan. The chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Congresswoman from Florida, is a cosponsor of this bill in the House. So this is not partisan. It is not about getting anyone elected to anything. I am not running for anything. This is about doing what is right.

This is about being able to go back to my home community and say to people: This abuse has been addressed. But if I go home tonight or tomorrow to Florida and I run into somebody at the grocery store, I can't explain to them with a straight face why the Senate will not give me a vote on this because it makes no sense. If I came to you and said: They are stealing $700 million a year from you, and here is a very simple way to stop it, you would say: Let's do it. We have to do it. But here they are saying: We can't do it. And no one will tell you why we can't do it, except for some procedural internal Senate thing.

This is ridiculous. This is why people are angry. This is why people are so upset. This is why people have taken on this attitude to get rid of everyone. And I have to tell you, it is hard to blame them after seeing what is happening here now. This is total and complete outrage.

There is another amendment being debated, by the way, by Senator Sessions. It is another one of the amendments that was denied a vote. It has to do with the entry-exit tracking system, which basically means that when you come into the United States with a visa--you get a visa to visit the United States for 90 days as a tourist. You want to go to Washington, you want to go to Disney World, you want to go to New York City, and you have 60 to 90 days to visit the United States. When you arrive, we check you in. But we never check you out. So we never know when or if someone has left.

As a result, today, of the 12 or 13 or 14 million people who are here illegally, about 40 percent or so of them are people who have overstayed their visas. They didn't cross the border illegally. They came on an airplane, and they overstayed their visa.

Everyone says they are in favor of a system that tracks entries and exits so we can crack down on these overstayed visas. Everyone says they are in favor of it. In 2013, the Senate passed a controversial immigration reform bill that I was a part of and we helped craft, and an entry-exit tracking system was part of that bill.

Everyone--Democrat, Republican, liberal, conservative--says they are in favor of doing that. But you can't get a vote on an amendment dealing with it. Again, it makes no sense. This place can't solve anything, and this is ridiculous.

So what happens when you don't solve things for a long time? The problems stack up. The problems stack up and people lose confidence. People lose faith.

Look, I understand this process. I know everyone is not always going to get everything. You are not going to achieve everything you want when you get involved in these issues, but these are commonsense issues. An entry-exit tracking system--of course that makes sense.

By the way, you have to do that on the FAA bill. You have to because that has to do with airports where most of the entry-exits are happening. This issue is drafted to this bill because this bill has a piece of it that deals with the Tax Code and finance. A moment ago, the chairman said we had a lot of debate. They had an open amendment process on the FAA bill, but there is a finance component to this bill that was not offered until it got here. That is what my amendment is drafted on, so I couldn't have offered this in a committee.

I think people come to Washington and watch this process; they hear me explain this thing. They are wondering, there has to be a catch, right? What is the other side of the argument? There is no other side of the argument. There is none. There is none.

Why should you, the people watching, the people here, why should anybody, why should the American taxpayer be giving money to people who don't live here to build houses in another country? That is what is happening right underneath our noses. Forget about passing it. You can't even get a vote on it, for reasons no one can explain.

Do you want to know why people are upset and frustrated with the political process? This is a small but important example of why people are so frustrated. I hope this will change. I hope it will change. I hope it will change on this bill because I don't think you can explain with a straight face why something like this can't pass or why something like this can't even get a vote on it. This makes absolutely no sense, but this is what is happening here every single day on a routine basis. When I say ``here,'' I mean in Washington. The result is, people start to scratch their heads and say: You know what. It doesn't matter whom we elect, nothing changes. That explains a lot about the frustrations that are going on in this country. I hope that will change. Honoring Assault Brigade 2506

Madam President, I want to talk about another topic briefly. It is also related to Cuba but on a much different note. It has to do with the Bay of Pigs, which is something that happened a while back. April 17 will mark the anniversary of a significant event in history. It is an event that many in our government over the years have been eager to forget and is often cited as a blemish on our history, but I beg to differ in some ways. The result wasn't what we wanted, but we have a lot to be proud of. I think it has become increasingly important to remember.

Fifty-five years ago this Sunday, on April 17, 1961, there were 1,500 brave volunteers who embarked upon a mission to liberate Cuba from Fidel Castro's oppressive grip. This force was primarily made up of Cuban exiles, but they were a diverse group from all backgrounds within Cuban society.

They knew they would be badly outnumbered and they would face extraordinary odds. Yet these men stormed the beaches of Playa Giron at the Bay of Pigs. They did it for what at the time was their country, Cuba. They did it for their families. They did it for freedom itself. Over the next 4 days, nearly 100 members of the Brigada de Asalto-- Assault Brigade 2506--lost their lives--nearly 100 members. Included in that number were four American pilots and five others who were executed. The majority were captured and imprisoned for many months and years and in inhumane conditions.

Though the Bay of Pigs invasion failed, it was a triumph of courage for the brave Cuban exiles at the mission's helm, and it serves as a reminder of an era when the U.S. Government actually embraced America's role as the watchman on the walls of freedom.

Since taking power those many years ago, the anti-American Castro regime has never relented in its attempts to undermine our security and suppress its own people. More than 1 million Cubans have voted with their feet, fleeing the island in search of political freedom or better economic conditions--we just discussed that a moment ago--often coming to the United States.

Many of these refugees are my neighbors, my friends, and constituents. My own parents left Cuba several years before Castro took over, but their lives were nonetheless marred by his rule as well. The relationships with family and friends and access to their homeland were abruptly severed.

For the nearly 1,500 Cuban exiles who made up the Assault Brigade 2506, Fidel Castro was not the leader of their country. He was what he has always been--a thief and an imposter. They knew liberty was a God- given right, and they needed to do all in their power to reclaim it.

Their story says as much about their own resilience as it does about America. The very building I stand in, and the proud body I am a Member of, would not exist were it not for men like them over 150 years before.

America's Declaration of Independence says of mankind's inalienable rights that ``whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.''

Those who undertook the Bay of Pigs invasion fought for their country, not against it. Their cause was a humanitarian cause, a noble cause, in many ways, an American cause. Many of those who were captured and eventually released and exiled to the United States came with nothing--not a penny--and in many cases no English skills. They went to work and embraced America's blessings, but they never forgot their homeland.

Some made it their life's work to promote the cause of a free Cuba. Others went to work on a different endeavor to provide for their families but dedicated countless hours as faithful volunteers of the cause. Many of the former members of the Brigade 2506 would take up arms for the United States, serving in our Armed Forces with the same bravery and distinction they showed at the Bay of Pigs. In doing so, they served as teachers to an entire community.

For example, today in Miami a Brigade 2506 monument and museum now exists as much to commemorate these heroes as they do to educate others. Far from being forgotten, the example of these brave men has inspired others to carry on their work. Their legacy lives, and it lives on among those of us who follow in their footsteps by making their cause of a free Cuba our cause.

Today the spirit of those who paid the ultimate price is alive and well in the brigade's Veterans Association and continues to stand firmly against the Castro brothers' dictatorship. Their spirit is also alive inside Cuba, represented by all those who stand up to the repressive regime and its beatings, detentions, and suppressions of speech. A strong dissident movement within the island refuses to be silenced, demanding change and the right of every human being to be free.

Sadly, this administration has betrayed that spirit of dissension by treating the Castro government as if it were democratically elected. The President's actions have only motivated the dictatorship to increase in its very nature, but as long as the spirit of the brigade lives on, the dream of a free Cuba will never die.

Following the Bay of Pigs invasion, in December of 1962, President Kennedy delivered a speech in Miami honoring those who fought. Accepting an honor from them in return, he accepted the flag of their brigade. President Kennedy said: ``I can assure you that this flag will be returned to this brigade in a free Havana.''

That assurance was not made by a man but by a nation. It came with no expiration date. I believe we as Americans owe it to the fearless men who fought at the Bay of Pigs to ensure that their flag, which last touched the shores of Cuba 55 years ago this week, is one day returned to a free Havana and that everything that flag represents--freedom, sacrifice, the dreams of the Cuban people--remains the cause of the United States.

To the veterans of Assault Brigade 2506, thank you for your service and God bless you.

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