Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of Motion to Proceed
Floor Speech
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Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I come to the floor today for a number of reasons, but first and most pressing is to call on and ask the administration to extend deferred enforced departure status for a group of Liberians. This is a unique situation. Senator Jack Reed was on the floor in the last hour talking about it as well.
Both the State of Rhode Island and the State of Minnesota have a number of Liberians who didn't just come to this country--they didn't come to this country illegally--they came to this country decades ago. They came because of a civil war in their country of Liberia, and then after that war was basically resolved, they were allowed to stay. So they are all registered in this country, they are working legally in this country, and they are in a special status called deferred enforced departure.
Ever since George H.W. Bush, Presidents--Democrats and Republicans; George Bush, of course, President Clinton, and President Obama--every one has allowed them to stay.
As my colleagues can imagine, since this happened back in 1991, these are people who have been working in our country for decades now. I met one who is 65 years old. Some of them are now 70 years old. They have obeyed the law. They have paid their taxes. They tend to be working in a lot of--of course, consistently--working in our assisted living facilities in Minnesota. They are working in our hospitals. Some of them had healthcare experience in Liberia before they came to Minnesota. They are a thriving community that has integrated well into our State and into Rhode Island. We are a State where the unemployment rate is somewhere around 3 percent and even lower in some of the areas where this community is working. It would literally be a big jolt to our economy--and not to mention immoral--if they were suddenly deported and lost the legal status they have had for literally decades.
Unlike some of the other things we talk about with people who maybe just came here--and I worked so hard on the Dreamers, to get them a path to citizenship--this is a pretty unique situation. We hope the administration will be practical about this. That is why Senator Reed and I are working on this issue. We hope to get it resolved quickly since their status is ending on March 31, which is just a few weeks from now.
Liberians are the only group of people and it is the only country with deferred enforced departure--or DED, as it is known--which is a temporary legal status that requires the President to reauthorize it every 18 months.
One idea is that the President could reauthorize it, and then they could look into it more. As we know, there is a lot going on in our country. There are a lot of changes right now within the Office of the Secretary of State and other things. So one idea would be that they could simply allow the program to continue for 18 months and then come to a conclusion on what they think they should do about it.
As I mentioned, in 1991, President George H.W. Bush first issued temporary protected status to Liberians in response to the nation's civil war. Since 1991, Presidents on both sides of the aisle have extended legal protection to Liberians in the United States under either TPS or DED--deferred enforced departure--because of civil wars, the Ebola outbreak, and other instabilities in their country. All Liberians covered by DED have been living in the United States since 2002. This isn't, as I said, new people coming in under that status; these are people who have been living here with that status for decades. As I mentioned, some are now in their seventies, and all of them have lived here legally. They have paid their taxes and contributed to our communities and worked at our employers. If DED is not extended by March 31, they will lose their legal status and work authorization and face deportation.
Minnesota, as I mentioned, has one of the largest Liberian populations in the country. Many of these people are business owners. They are teachers. They are healthcare workers. According to one organization, nearly 40 percent of Liberians in Minnesota work in our nursing homes as nursing assistants and other support staff. Imagine if we took thousands of people away just like that on March 31, because they wouldn't have legal status to work at the nursing homes where they have worked for decades.
I have also called for action on the Liberian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act--a bill that Senator Reed has introduced every Congress since 1999--and I have cosponsored this bill. The bill would actually provide permanent protected status, including a path to citizenship, for those Liberians who have obeyed the law and have been here in this temporary status for decades.
That is not what we are asking for today. We understand and we hope that negotiations are ongoing so that we can have a more comprehensive immigration bill. We are simply asking the administration to continue with the 18-month status that was started back in 1991 by a Republican President.
I met with a number of members of our Liberian community yesterday. They are experiencing extreme fear right now that their livelihoods will be lost and their families will be ripped apart. I am hopeful that we will be able to resolve this, at least for that temporary 18-month period.
Secondly, Madam President, on a different topic, I want to take a moment to discuss a bipartisan bill that I introduced this week that would help reduce the burden of relocation for military families.
When servicemembers relocate to comply with military orders, they and their families make sacrifices to help protect our Nation. Right now, there is a problem with the way the law treats some military spouses who make frequent moves, and the law, ironically, makes it even harder on them rather than easier on them.
Current law allows Active-Duty servicemembers to maintain one State of legal residence for tax and voting purposes even when military orders require them to relocate. That makes moving a lot easier. Unfortunately, this convenience does not apply to a servicemember's spouse unless they were living together at the same residence before they got married. In other words, if you were not living with your servicemember before you got married, you have to establish residency every single time your family gets moving orders from the military. From filing taxes to registering to vote, a military family then has double the paperwork and stress each time they move.
This is a loophole that must be fixed. Why would we make it harder for the spouses of those who are making a sacrifice by having their loved one serve overseas and not make it easier for them to vote and to pay their taxes and to basically be the citizen they deserve to be? That is why, on Tuesday, Senators Cornyn, Kaine, Kennedy, Manchin, and I introduced the Support Our Military Spouses Act--legislation that would ensure that spouses have the same residency protections regardless of their living arrangements before marriage. From titling a car, to filing taxes, to registering to vote, everything is a little easier when the law ensures that you can stay a resident of one State and that it is the same State as your spouse's. That is just common sense, and it cuts out a lot of redtape for military families.
The bill has the support of the Military Spouses Network, the Military Officers Association of America, and the Council of State Governments. This bill passed the House in July of 2017 with bipartisan support, and I am going to work with my cosponsors to get it done in the Senate.
We ask a lot of our military members and their families. When we can make life easier for them, we should. This is one simple thing we can do.
Finally, Madam President, I would like to mention the sanctions that were just announced against Russia for interfering in the 2016 election. It took 14 months, multiple indictments, and a poisoning in Britain, but the administration is finally imposing sanctions--the same sanctions that were passed by the Senate 98 to 2 and 419 to 3 in the House last year.
Sanctioning Russia for undermining our democracy is what we should do, but we must remember that it is not enough to protect ourselves from future attacks. There is no longer any doubt that our elections will continue to be a target for foreign adversaries. Intelligence reports make it clear that Russia used covert cyber attacks, espionage, and harmful propaganda to attack our political system.
Trump administration officials--not Obama officials, Trump intelligence officials--continue to sound the alarm that Russia is continuing its efforts to attack our democracy. The CIA Director said that he has seen no signs that Russia has decreased its activity and that Russia is currently working to disrupt the upcoming 2018 elections. National Intelligence Director Coats, who was once a Senator here, said that Russia is bolder.
It would be a mistake to think the sanctions passed today are all we need to do to address these warnings. They will no doubt help because if you do nothing, then you just embolden them to do more. It is the policy of the United States to defend against and respond to cyber threats to our democratic system, and we need to start acting like it. We need to be as sophisticated as those who are trying to do us harm.
We know that Russia attempted to hack into 21 States' election systems. In Illinois, they actually got into the voter data system. That is why Senator Lankford and I have led a bill to take an amount of money which is just 3 percent of one aircraft carrier and invest it in our States, to let them, on a decentralized basis, make their own decisions about the kind of equipment they want and to be able to upgrade it. Forty of our States have not upgraded their equipment in 10 years. Ten of our States do not even have backup paper ballots. What would happen if they were hacked, as they got so close the last time? There would be no way to prove what actually happened. You would have to vote again.
That is why we have Democrats and Republicans supporting this effort. Representative Mark Meadows, the head of the Freedom Caucus, is leading the bill that Senator Graham and I have--which is similar to the one I have with Senator Lankford--over in the House. Senator Coons from the Appropriations Committee has been a strong supporter of this effort, as have Senator Kamala Harris, Senator Graham, and a number of other people. This is a truly bipartisan effort because people understand that it is no longer going to be only traditional ways of warfare when we are attacked; it is going to be cyber. It is not going to be just election infrastructure. It is not going to be just government infrastructure. It is going to be our businesses, power companies--you name it. That is why we need to upgrade our cyber protection.
The last thing I would mention on this front, as we look to the next election and how we are going to protect our democracy, is the Honest Ads Act. This is a bill I have with Senator McCain, also cosponsored by Senator Warner, the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. This is based on the fact that we know Russia spent millions of dollars buying ads. That was reflected in the indictment of 13 Russians and what they did and how they plotted to disrupt elections and to spend money on political ads. A number of these ads were even purchased in rubles.
What Senator McCain and Senator Warner and I are trying to do is simply apply the same rules already in place to protect Americans in our elections by making sure that we know who is paying for the ads and what those ads are. Who is paying for the ads--those are the simple disclaimers you see on the ads where they say, whoever the candidate is, I paid for this ad. Who discloses the ads--that is simply when any radio station or TV station--you can go into the station or see it online and see what the ads are. That is not true right now of some of the most sophisticated companies, if not the most sophisticated companies, in America, companies like Facebook and Twitter, which have made millions and billions of dollars, companies that are profiting off of political ads.
It is no different from when a newspaper or a TV station allows someone to buy an ad. They make money off it, so it is their duty to protect the citizens, to make sure that the ads don't contain falsehoods, that the ads are not criminal, that the ads are known to everyone. That is all we are trying to do, is to apply the same rules of the game to what you see when you see political ads on issues or candidate ads.
The FEC did something just yesterday--but it was very narrow--about candidate ads. So what you see on candidate ads and issue ads--that you also see those same disclaimers and, most importantly, the disclosure on ads that are on social media companies. And I use those words carefully--``media companies.'' Newspaper print and radio--we love them--are media companies. Facebook and Twitter--we love them--are media companies. We are not talking about recipes and cat videos. We are not talking about free stuff that people put up. We are talking about paid political ads that need to be treated the same.
While we are pleased that these sanctions have been put in place, while it is good that the FEC is narrowly trying to do something within their jurisdiction about disclaimers on candidate ads, we must pass the Honest Ads Act, because if we think it was bad last election when $1.4 billion was spent on election ads, try this next one out: Forecasts are that $3 billion to $4 billion is going to be spent on social media ads against candidates on issues, and there is no way to track it. It is just going to go out to your Facebook page. You are not going to know if it is true, you are not going to know who paid for it, and the ads will just vanish.
I think Americans deserve something better, and I ask my colleagues to support the Honest Ads Act.
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