National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I came to the floor a few weeks ago to bring to people's attention an abuse that is occurring in our welfare system, and it involves Cuban immigration.

Let me describe the situation we face today. If an immigrant comes to the United States from Cuba legally, entering the United States from another country--let me rephrase that. If an immigrant legally enters the United States from any country in the world, except for Cuba or Haiti, they cannot immediately receive Federal benefits. If you are a legal immigrant and came to the United States from Venezuela, Mexico, or Japan--you did your paperwork and paid your fees--you do not qualify for any Federal benefits for the first 5 years you are in this country. However, there is an exception for people who come from Cuba. Under the Cuban Adjustment Act, anyone who comes from Cuba legally or illegally-- if you cross the border and say ``I am a Cuban''--you are immediately accepted into the United States legally. I am not here today to talk about changing that status, even though there is a significant migratory crisis that is building, and I do think that issue needs to be reexamined.

Here is the exception to the law: If you come to the United States from Cuba, whether you entered across the border or entered on a visa, you are one of the only immigrants in America who immediately and automatically qualifies for Federal benefits. You don't have to prove you are a refugee or prove you are fleeing oppression. You don't have to prove anything. You are automatically assumed to be a political refugee and given not just status in the United States but a series of public benefits.

For decades this has been because U.S. law made the presumption that if you were leaving Cuba to come to the United States, you were obviously a refugee. I believe for a lot of people who are still coming that is true because they are fleeing a horrible and oppressive regime and have had nowhere else to go because in many cases they fear for their lives in Cuba. For some time now, there has been growing doubt about whether all of the people who are now coming from Cuba are, in fact, fleeing oppression. Or are they increasingly becoming more like an economic refugee?

From what we see in South Florida with our own eyes and also because of the investigative reporting by the South Florida SunSentinel, we know there are growing abuses to this benefit. The reason is that many people who are coming from Cuba, supposedly as refugees seeking to flee oppression, are now traveling back to Cuba 15, 20, or 30 times a year. That raises an alarm right away.

If you are entering the United States and immediately and automatically given status as refugees--in addition, you are being given access to a full portfolio of Federal benefits--because you are supposedly fleeing oppression, but then traveling back to Cuba 15, 20, or 30 times a year in many cases, it causes us to have a serious doubt about whether everyone who is coming here from Cuba should be considered a refugee for purposes of benefits, but today they are.

Even at this very moment, we are seeing a historic increase in the number of people who are originally from Cuba crossing the Mexican-U.S. border. We have seen an increase in the number of rafters. Last week there was a standoff between the Coast Guard and some Cuban migrants who went up to a lighthouse and wouldn't come down because they wanted to get the status under the wet-foot, dry-foot policy.

I think we can debate that issue. I am not here today to propose changes to the status, but I do think we have to ask ourselves: What about the Federal benefits? What about the benefits they are collecting which are specifically and exclusively intended for refugees and refugees only? Obviously, if you are traveling back to Cuba over and over again, you are not a refugee and therefore should not be eligible for these benefits.

The abuses we have now seen are extensive. The stories of people who are actually living in Cuba--they are living in Cuba but collecting government benefits in America, and their family is wiring the money to them. There are people who are collecting an assortment of benefits from housing to cash, and that money is being sent to them while they live in Cuba for months and sometimes years at a time. It is an outrage. It is an abuse. By the way, I am of Cuban descent and live in a community with a large number of Cuban exiles and migrants. Our own people in South Florida are saying that this is an outrage. They see this abuse. It is their taxpayer money, and they want something done about it.

Today we learned from the Congressional Budget Office, which analyzes these issues in-depth and determines how much they actually cost taxpayers, that the long-term cost of this abuse over the course of the next 10 years will be approximately $2.5 billion to the American taxpayer. A significant percentage of that $2.5 billion is going to people who aren't even living in the United States. We know from investigations that the money often ends up back in Cuba. We have seen people abuse the system over and over again by having a relative in the United States who goes to the bank every month, takes a cut, and sends the rest of the money to them. That is your money that is being sent to them.

The American people are a generous people, but right now those who abuse the system are taking American taxpayers for fools, and we need to stop it. That is why I am hopeful that today's report from the Congressional Budget Office will give us renewed momentum to end this problem and reform the system. The way to do it is by passing a law I have introduced with Congressman Carlos Curbelo in the House that ends the automatic assumption in U.S. law that assumes all Cuban immigrants are refugees. It says that in order to receive refugee benefits, they have to prove they are refugees or legitimately fearing for their lives if they were to return to Cuba.

This is how the process works: If you cross the U.S.-Mexico border and you are from Cuba or arrive on a raft, you will get your status and will be legal in this country, but you will have to prove you are actually coming because you fear persecution before you automatically qualify for refugee benefits. In essence, all I am asking is that people prove they are political refugees before they qualify for Federal benefits that are available only to political refugees.

Lest anyone think this is some sort of partisan trick, this is a bipartisan measure that my Democratic colleague, the senior Senator from Florida, supports. It has over 50 bipartisan cosponsors in the House, including the chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

I hope we can get this done, even if the best way to do it is on its own merits with a straight up-or-down vote or as an amendment included in a larger bill. With all the talk about paying for Zika virus funding, maybe this is one of the ways we can pay for some of that, but let's get it done.

Mr. President, $2.5 billion is still real taxpayer money, a significant percentage of which is being misspent on a loophole that exists in the law that most people don't even know is there. I truly hope we can address it. It makes all the sense in the world. Everyone is asking for it. There is no good-faith or reasonable reason to oppose it, and it is my hope we can address it before this Congress adjourns at the end of this year, or sooner if possible, and that we can put an end to these abuses once and for all.

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