Colorado River Drought Contingency Plan Authorization Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I want to talk briefly about two subjects. The first is sexual harassment. More specifically, I want to talk about a bill I am going to be introducing. It is about the abuse of nondisclosure agreements across government.
There are victims of sexual harassment who are prohibited from talking about their experiences because of a nondisclosure agreement that is attached to a settlement and has been paid for by taxpayers or, in some cases, with private funds. Victims are silenced. Victims are silenced so voters can't find out about this disgusting behavior.
I have always believed that sunlight is the best antiseptic and the best disinfectant, and it is long past time, in my opinion, that we stop revictimizing people who wanted nothing more than to come to work every day and be treated with basic human dignity.
The title of my proposed law is the Stop Silencing Victims Act. It is really very simple. It would say that if you are a State or Federal employee or if you are a public official or a public employee and you are accused of sexual harassment and you settle that lawsuit--whether you settle it with taxpayer funds or private funds--then a nondisclosure agreement is prohibited in that settlement unless the victim wants to have a nondisclosure agreement. In other words, if you are accused of sexual harassment and you settle the case, the taxpayers are entitled to know about the settlement unless the victim decides otherwise.
I am going to be careful here. We believe passionately, as we should, in due process in America; that just because you are accused of something doesn't mean you are guilty of it. Some of my colleagues have suggested in the past that you are morally tainted if you don't automatically believe all accusers. I don't agree with that. I think you are morally tainted if you don't treat both the accuser and accused with respect and dignity and due process. So the purpose of my bill is not to take away anybody's due process. Just because you are accused of something doesn't mean you are guilty of it.
Having said that, I think we have to face the facts in America. We have had far too many instances of sexual harassment. We have seen it in Hollywood repeatedly. I don't know how the actors in Hollywood have time to make movies; they are too busy molesting each other.
It is not just in Hollywood. It is all across society. It is in the Halls of Congress. It is in the halls of State government. It is in the boardroom. It is all across America. For the first time in a long time, women who are usually--not always but usually--the victims of sexual harassment have started to speak up. I thank them for that.
My bill will further enhance their voice. If they make an accusation of sexual harassment and the alleged perpetrator is a State employee or Federal employee and the lawsuit is settled, no longer will you be able to have an agreement that says nobody can talk about it unless the victim wants to. Once again, I think this kind of transparency will help us fight a very serious problem in America because this is no country for creepy old men or for creepy young men or for creepy middle-aged men or for anybody--man or woman--who would use his or her power to obtain sexual favors from somebody in fear of them in power in the workplace or otherwise. Immigration
Madam President, I believe any President is entitled to surround himself with the advisers of his choice. I firmly believe that.
As you know, our recent Secretary of Homeland Security has been replaced. She and the President met on Sunday, and they mutually decided there would be a change at the top in Homeland Security. Secretary Nielsen decided to resign.
Shortly thereafter, her White House colleagues, her friends--the people she has worked with day in and day out to try to solve this crisis of illegal immigration into America--immediately became anonymous sources and proceeded to cut her to pieces off the record. Of course, our press, as it is entitled to do under the First Amendment, feasted on it. These were Secretary Nielsen's colleagues; the people she worked with on a daily basis.
This is America. Within reason, you can say what you want, but you ought to put your name to it. You shouldn't hide behind the label of an anonymous source. I believe, and I suspect the Presiding Officer does, too, that we should treat people with dignity and respect. I felt and still feel Secretary Nielsen's former colleagues did not show her dignity and respect. In fact, their behavior was classless.
I think Secretary Nielsen did the very best she could under difficult circumstances, for we do have a problem at the border. ``Problem'' is an understatement. In March, we had 100,000 people come into our country illegally. That is the most in 10 years. If that continues, we are going to set a record this year of the number of people entering our country illegally.
We are a nation of immigrants, and I am proud of that. Americans cannot be called anti-immigrant. Every year, we welcome a million people across the world to come into our country and become Americans. They do it legally. They follow the law--they are properly vetted; they get in line; they wait patiently. Then we welcome them in. We are a nation of immigrants, and I am very proud of that.
Unfortunately, we have another 500,000 to 600,000 people who don't follow the rules. They come into our country illegally. Illegal immigration is illegal. Even if you think it is a good idea--and I don't--if you care about the rule of law, which is one of the bedrock principles in America, then you would want to stop illegal immigration. It is just that simple.
I don't care who the President puts in charge of Homeland Security. I don't want to leave that statement in isolation or allow it to be taken out of context. Obviously, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security is a very important post, but I don't care which man or woman the President chooses, for we are not going to solve this problem until we do three things. Some brandnew, shiny, magical wonder pony is not going to gallop in and save us here. We have to solve this problem ourselves.
The first thing we have to do is to build a wall. I am not talking about a wall from sea to shining sea. We have 1,900 miles of border. I am talking about barriers that are strategically placed. You cannot seal a 1,900-mile piece of real estate without having a barrier. It can't be done. If you don't believe me, ask Israel. That is why it has a 400-plus-mile border wall with the West Bank. That is why Saudi Arabia has a border wall with Yemen. That is why India has a border wall as do Bulgaria and Malaysia. I could keep going. Border walls work. All border walls say is: If you come into our country, come in legally because we believe in the rule of law.
The second thing we need to do, as the Presiding Officer well knows, is to pass asylum laws that look like somebody designed the things on purpose because what we have now doesn't fit that description. If you are coming from Central America--from El Salvador, from Nicaragua, from Guatemala--all you have to do is make it to American soil, say the magic words, and you will be allowed into our country. You will be told: We are going to give you a court date. Yet we are so far behind in our immigration court that the court date will likely come in a year and a half or 2 years. You will be released into the country, and you will be told to come back for the court date. Some do. Many don't.
No other country that I am aware of has an asylum law as upside down as ours. You could drive all across Washington, DC, and pick the first person you find who is living under the interstate and say: You draft an asylum law for us. It would be better than the asylum law we have right now.
The U.S. Senate ought to be debating America's asylum laws right this second. I am not saying the other things we are doing--we are in the personnel business--aren't important, but there is not a single issue right now that is more important. Congress needs to do its job, and the Senate ought to be debating this issue right now. I don't know how it will turn out. How about we just surprise ourselves for a change and do something intelligent by putting the issue on the floor of the Senate and by letting us debate it and offer amendments. We might be surprised at what we can achieve.
The third thing we are going to have to do to solve our problem is to convince our friends in Mexico and our friends in Central America--El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua--to work with us in terms of solving this problem. What I would like to see the President do is to call an immigration summit. He has declined to do it, but I am going to keep talking about it until I persuade him to call an immigration summit. Invite the President of Mexico and the President of the Northern Triangle Central American countries. Let's come together, and let's talk about the problem.
There are some bad people coming across the border. Some of them are from Central America. The President is right about that. We have gang members, drug dealers, criminals, child sex traffickers, and adult sex traffickers. Yet all of the people coming across are not bad people. They are coming because they are scared. I read an analysis the other day of a poll conducted by Vanderbilt University. It was the most expensive, thorough poll that one could do. They didn't call people on the telephones; they talked to people in person. It was a representative sample.
This poll found that between one-third and one-half of the people with whom they talked who lived in Central American countries--the so- called Northern Triangle countries--had been victims of crime within the past year, usually of extortion. That is the problem in these Central American countries--the gangs are running the countries. In many cases, the police and elected leadership are complicit. I mean, imagine how bad things would have to be for you to take your child and your spouse and decide ``I am going to leave where I am and walk, with the clothes on my back, 500 to 1,000 miles to another country because that is how bad things are where I am right now.'' That is the case with many of the people in Central America.
I don't know the answer. I think we should start with a Presidential summit--not representatives of the President's but a Presidential summit of the President of the United States, President of Mexico Lopez Obrador, and the Presidents of the Northern Triangle countries. Let's see what we can do to try to solve this problem.
There is precedent for this. Back in the late 1990s and well into the next decade, we had a terrible problem with drug cartels and cocaine coming into this country from Colombia. We didn't solve that problem overnight. We solved it by working with Colombia to develop what we called then Plan Colombia. We sat down with the President of Colombia and said: We will work with you. We will even provide some of the funding in return for specific commitments--one being to stop growing cocoa leaves, for example. It has taken a decade, but we have not completely solved the problem. Yet, if you visit Colombia today, it is a different country.
Let me say again--and I will end on this note--that I am not anti- immigration, and I don't think most Americans are. We are a nation of immigrants, but illegal immigration undermines legal immigration. Some of my colleagues don't agree with that. They don't make the distinction between legal and illegal immigration. Some of my colleagues, I am convinced--and it is their right, for this is America; believe what you want--believe that illegal immigration is a moral good. I don't. I think illegal immigration is illegal, and I think it hurts our country. We are not going to solve this problem until we control the flow of people from Central America, until we revise our asylum laws, and until we build a barrier.
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