Strengthening America's Security in the Middle East Act of 2019--Motion

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCONNELL. 1.

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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, later today--on day 34 of this partial government shutdown--the Senate will be voting on a proposal to finally end it. We will be voting on the one plan--the only one on the table-- that would reopen the shuttered portions of the Federal Government. It is a pragmatic compromise that could end this impasse right away.

The choice is absolutely clear, and the Nation is watching. Members can vote to immediately reopen the entire government with a compromise package that the President will actually sign, or they can hold out for the Democratic leader's dead-end proposal that stands no chance of earning the President's signature and ending the partial shutdown.

The President's compromise would accomplish three things. First, it ends the shutdown and resumes pay for Federal workers right away. Second, it strikes a bipartisan compromise on the issue of immigration and border security with ideas from both sides. Third, it provides stable, full-year funding for the Federal Government, not another short-term bandaid.

First, ending the shutdown. We have heard from Federal workers whose lives are in disarray. We have heard about the family hardships caused by the Democrats' unwillingness to sit down and negotiate with the President. We have heard from those who have endured over a month without pay. We have heard from the men and women of the U.S. Coast Guard, air traffic controllers, TSA agents, and other Federal employees. Every American deserves a fully operational government. Taxpayers aren't getting special tax refunds for these weeks when services and Agencies have been diminished or are unavailable.

The President has been at the negotiating table, ready to talk and to fix it. Democrats have made the opposite political calculation, and our Nation is paying the price.

The way forward is simple. We all know the ground rules. We need a compromise that can pass both Chambers and earn the Presidential signature. That is the way you make a law in this country. The first proposal we will vote on today is the only legislation that exists with any chance of checking those boxes--getting the President's signature and making a law.

On immigration and border security, this legislation provides the resources the men and women who risk their own safety to defend our border tell us are necessary. In the past year, we have watched as apprehensions of family units at the borders have risen--more young people brought into danger.

They have seen more interdiction of illicit substances like heroin, methamphetamine, and fentanyl and higher rates of attempted crossings by gang members and criminals.

The need for more security on our border is not a partisan invention. It is a fact. It is a reality most Senate Democrats readily admit.

One Senate Democrat said: ``I'm willing to support more border security.''

Another said: ``Certainly, you need barriers. And we support barriers.''

Not to be outdone, a third said: ``I'm a huge advocate of border security.''

If they agree with the need, they should agree with this modest proposal. It would fund new enforcement and surveillance technologies, recruiting and training hundreds of new Border Patrol agents, and it would direct about one one-thousandth of Federal discretionary spending for physical barriers along the highest priority sections of the border--barriers like the ones that the current Democratic leader joined then-Senators Obama, Biden, and Clinton in supporting back in 2006; like the barriers constructed by President Obama's own administration; like the barriers in which many of my Democratic colleagues happily voted to invest billions of dollars during the last Congress.

These commonsense physical barriers were a bipartisan point of agreement until about 5 minutes ago, but the President went even further to win Democrats' support. For example, his proposal also provides for a 3-year legal status for certain individuals currently covered by DACA and TPS.

That is what this law provides: the border security we need, plus actual statutory authorization for DACA recipients, written into law, for the first time--not the unilateral hand-waving of the Obama administration.

Finally, this bill would complete the full-year appropriations that both parties worked very hard on last year. The last thing we need is another temporary measure. Last year's appropriations process left stable, bipartisan funding measures on the 1-yard line. We don't need to punt from the 1-yard line and set up another crisis just like this a couple of weeks from now. We need to finish our work and run these seven full-year bipartisan funding bills into the end zone--into the end zone--and finish last year's work.

Let me conclude by simply stating what will be on display in this Chamber today. The American people will see plainly which Senators want to make a law and clean up this mess and which Senators are content to continue making political points and nothing else.

Making law versus making points, that is a choice. Any one of my Democratic colleagues who rejects the compromise offer but votes for the Democratic leader's partisan showmanship will be saying the following: They will be saying that political fights with the President matter more--more--than Federal workers and their families, border security, DACA and TPS recipients, as well as government funding.

Let me say that again. If my Democratic colleagues reverse their voting records on border security, if they decide that spending one one-thousandth of Federal spending on Obama-style steel barriers has become totally impermissible just because President Trump is in the White House, then, they will be saying that political games outrank Federal workers, the Coast Guard, DACA recipients, TPS recipients, and all their constituents, as far as this Democratic Party is concerned.

Deep down, my friends across the aisle know this is not a reasonable reaction to a President of the other party. They know the Speaker of the House is unreasonable on these subjects, with her own Members and her own House majority leader openly contradicting her on national television, and that Senate Democrats are not obligated to go down with her ship.

They know that denying the President one-tenth of 1 percent for spending on needed border security is not worth hurting this many people. It is obvious what the Senate needs to do.

Today, we will decide whether we turn a new corner and begin putting the last month behind us or whether we will all continue to show up for work, stuck in exactly the same situation.

Only one bill does all the bipartisan things I discussed. Only one bill has any chance whatsoever of becoming law. So we ought to vote for it. Recognition of the Minority Leader

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