Commerce, Justice, Science, Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, Interior, Environment, Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Act, 2020

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I listened carefully to the Senator from Texas, my colleague--and we have worked together and will continue to. For the record, there is something that I think needs to be mentioned.

It was a year ago, maybe even longer, that the attorney general from his State of Texas initiated a lawsuit with more than a dozen Republican attorneys general to eliminate the Affordable Care Act--all of it, the protection when it came to preexisting conditions, lifetime limits, allowing members of the family to keep their children on their policy until they reach the age of 26.

These States attorneys general, starting with his State of Texas, said: Get rid of all of it. Eliminate it. And then President Trump said: We will join in the lawsuit. Let's eliminate it completely.

So when I hear these pleas on the floor that we are all for the principles in the Affordable Care Act, not a single Republican Senator voted for it, and now there is an effort by the attorneys general and the Trump administration to do away with it.

Is it because they have a better idea? No. I am sure you remember that moment not long ago when our departed colleague, John McCain, came to the well of the Senate and was the deciding vote to save the Affordable Care Act. The point he made is still valid. The Republicans have no alternative. I want to make sure the Affordable Care Act is better. There are some parts of it that need to be improved, but to eliminate it as this lawsuit would from the Trump administration? That is a step backwards.

There are two other points that I would like to make. When it comes to our current healthcare system, it has many positive things: wonderful doctors and hospitals, amazing technology and medicine.

But there are also some built-in flaws in the system. Let me give an example, one simple story. I met a woman the other day. Her sister is an OB/GYN. She got married, pregnant, about to have twins, couldn't be happier, but the babies came early. And so this doctor went to the hospital to deliver her babies, her twins, and they needed to be put in the neonatal intensive care unit of the hospital, which of course she did.

Good news. Three or four weeks later, they were ready to come home. They came home, and of course, everyone was happy to receive them. But they weren't happy to receive the bill for hundreds of thousands of dollars. What was it for? It turns out that, at the hospital, the doctor was in network for the woman who was delivering the baby. The hospital was in the network for delivering the baby. But the NICU was a separate entity that even this doctor didn't know it wasn't in network.

Her babies went to this lifesaving intensive care unit in the hospital, and she received a bill for hundreds of thousands of dollars--a surprise bill. Is that right? Of course, it is not. And here is a professional, a medical professional, who frankly could not ask all the right questions, obviously, and became a victim of the system.

Let me tell you one other story, when we talk about the current state of the cost of medicine. I go to Rockford, IL, and I meet a young woman, and she introduces me to her mother. Her mother is a waitress, a hard-working lady, never took a day off in her life. But she did have some health insurance, and her health insurance covered her daughter until her daughter reached the age of 26, and then her daughter was on her own.

The problem was her daughter is diabetic, and her mother understood that now the cost of insulin, which had been covered by the family health insurance, was an individual personal burden for her daughter to pay, and the cost of insulin had gone up dramatically during the girl's young life.

In the last dozen years or so, the cost of insulin has gone from $39 for a vial--one of the most commonly used types of insulin called Humalog made by Eli Lilly--from $39 a vial to $329. The mother was in a panic. Her daughter was working part-time and just getting started, still suffering from diabetes. Her mother was afraid she would not be able to afford the insulin, so her mother, a waitress, was taking her money and putting it aside to buy vials of insulin, so if her daughter started to run short, she would be able to provide her with the insulin.

What is the cost of that same product in Canada? $39--$329 in the United States; $39 in Canada. What is the difference? It is the same drug made by the same company in the United States. The difference is the government of Canada stepped up and said: We are not going to let you do this. We are not going to let you run the cost of insulin to the high heavens at the expense of people who live in Canada. And Eli Lilly said: We will play by your rules, if that is what the Canadian Government says.

So when I hear Senators, like my friend from Texas, get up and talk about this terrible invasion of government into our rights, that lady, that mother in Rockford would certainly like to have her government-- our government--step up and give her a chance to have affordable insulin so she could have peace of mind for her daughter. It is not too much to ask. The RELIEF Act

Mr. President, the reason I came to the floor is because I wanted to respond to my friend--because it is a critical topic--but the reason I came to the floor is to discuss an issue which is not uniquely American, but is truly American.

For 528 years now in this place called America, we have immigrants coming to the shores of our Nation. Starting and following Christopher Columbus--if you buy that side of the story, and I do--we have had millions come to our shores and they have become part of America. With the exception of Native Americans and indigenous people, they have come from every corner of this earth to be part of what we call the United States.

You would think, with that history, that we would have a pretty clear idea of what our policy should be when it comes to immigration. Sadly, you are wrong. We have the most broken immigration system imaginable. I have studied it for years and continue to. It is almost impossible to understand all of the twists and turns in our immigration system.

Seven years ago, there were eight of us--four Democrats and four Republicans in the Senate--with the leadership of Senator McCain, Senator Schumer, and many others, who came together and rewrote the entire immigration code, the entire immigration body of law. It took us months of meeting every single night, hammering out compromises, agreeing to provisions. Then we went to the Judiciary Committee, and hundreds of amendments were offered. Senator Sessions of Alabama, I think he offered dozens by himself. He wasn't too happy with the bill.

But we went through that lengthy process, came to the floor of the Senate, and faced even more amendments. At the end of the day, though, it passed. I believe it was 68 votes on the floor of the Senate. We passed comprehensive immigration reform, sent it to the House of Representatives, and unfortunately, the Republican leadership would not even consider it. They didn't even bring it up for a debate or for an amendment.

So we are stuck today with a broken system, and we are also stuck with a system that is rife with politics. I would say, and I think no one would contradict us, no President before Donald Trump has really made such an issue of immigration--no one.

It has been an issue in the past, but this President, from the beginning of his campaign until the current time, has hammered away at immigration constantly, calling those that came from Mexico murders and rapists and so many other things that he has done--I can go through the long litany of things that have happened. It is pretty clear that, when it comes to the policy of immigration, that this administration has fallen down and falls short when it comes to immigration.

Today, I want to address one aspect of this. I am the ranking Democrat on the Immigration Subcommittee. Coincidentally, the chairman of that Subcommittee in Judiciary is the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Cornyn, who just left the floor.

So far this year, 10 months into this year, our Subcommittee on Immigration, despite all the problems, all of the challenges, has had one hearing--one hearing. It is a good thing that we are not paid for the work that we do because, frankly, we have done little or nothing.

The Senate Judiciary Committee in the same period of time has only voted on one immigration bill. The Republican majority limited debate to only 1 hour and didn't allow a single amendment to be offered. It is hardly an ambitious effort to make a body of law better.

It is time for the Immigration Subcommittee to go back to work. Today, I sent a letter--joined by every Democrat on the Judiciary Committee--asking the Republican Chairman of the Immigration Subcommittee, the gentleman from Texas, to hold a hearing on one serious problem in our immigration system: the green-card backlog.

In our broken immigration system, there are not nearly enough immigrant visas--legal visas known as green cards--available each year. As a result, many of the immigrants to this country are stuck in crippling backlogs for years, sometimes decades.

Close to 5 million future Americans are in line waiting for green cards. Many are living and working in the United States on temporary visas, while many are waiting abroad, separated from their families who are living in the United States.

Under current law, only 226,000 family green cards and 140,000 employment green cards are available each year. Children and spouses of lawful permanent residents count against these caps, which further limits the availability of green cards.

The backlogs are really hard on families who are caught in immigration limbo. For example, children in many of these families ``age out'' because they are no longer under the age of 21 by the time the green cards are available.

That is why I have asked the Senator from Texas, Mr. Cornyn, to hold a hearing on this issue to consider several pending bills dealing with this green card backlog. I have asked him repeatedly. I have asked Senator Graham, and I have asked Senator Lee, who is engaged in this debate. This will help the Senate to understand the impact of each of these proposals before us, to try to reach an agreement.

That is how the Senate, incidentally, is supposed to work, where the committees gather, bring in witnesses, have an open debate, agree on a bill, move it forward to the floor, open it to debate on the floor. In 2013, as I mentioned, I was part of a bipartisan group that showed it can work. We need to show it again. Then, our bill went through extensive hearings and debate.

Unfortunately, the senior Senator from Utah, my friend, Mr. Lee, has tried to avoid regular order on this question. He does not want it to go to committee. I hope he will reconsider. He has come to the floor several times to attempt to pass his legislation, S. 386, without any debate or chance to offer any amendments. Because he has chosen this approach, I have come to the floor today to speak about his legislation and mine.

My concern with Senator Lee's bill is simple. The solution to the green-card backlog is obvious: Increase the number of green cards. But S. 386, Senator Lee's bill, includes no additional green cards. In fact, it has carve-outs for special interests--which are not in the original version of the bill that passed by the House--and that will cut the number of green cards that are available to reduce the backlog. Without any additional green cards, S. 386 will not eliminate the backlogs for the immigrants, particularly those from India--and there is a large number, over half a million, the nationality with the most people in the employment backlog. It will dramatically increase backlogs for the rest of the world if we go by Senator Lee's bill.

Ira Kurzban is one of the Nation's experts on immigration law. He took a look at Senator Lee's bill, and he said the backlogs will be longer and larger because of it. In fact, over 165,000 Indian immigrants currently in line for these visas will still be waiting 10 years from now.

Mr. Kurzban has also made it clear that the Lee bill puts some Indian immigrants to the front of the line--because they have been waiting the longest--at the expense of every other country.

From 2023 until well into 2030, there will be zero EB-22 visas for the rest of the world. None for China, South Korea, Philippines, Britain, Canada, Mexico, every country in the EU and all of Africa. Zero. It would choke off green cards for every profession that isn't IT--healthcare, medical research, basic science, all kinds of engineering; chemists, physicists.

That is why dozens of national organizations representing many immigrant communities oppose the bill introduced by Senator Lee. Groups representing Arabs, Africans, Asians, Canadians, Chinese, Greeks, the Irish, Italians, Koreans, South Asians, and many, many more have come out in opposition to the Lee bill. More than 20 of these groups sent a letter in opposition.

In light of this attempt to pass the Lee bill and the problems it has run into, I am offering an alternative to this legislation. My alternative is basic and straightforward. It would eliminate the green card backlog and treat all immigrants fairly.

The RELIEF Act, which I introduced with Senator Pat Leahy and Senator Mazie Hirono, will treat all immigrants fairly by eliminating immigration visa backlogs. The RELIEF bill is based on the same comprehensive immigration bill I described earlier. It would lift green card country caps, but, unlike S. 386, the RELIEF Act would increase the number of green cards to clear the backlogs for all immigrants waiting in line for green cards within 5 years. Compare that to S. 386, the Lee bill, where more than 165,000 Indian immigrants currently in line will still be waiting 10 years from now.

The RELIEF Act will also keep American families together by treating children and spouses of legal permanent residents as immediate relatives, just as the children and spouses of citizens are, so they won't count against the green card cap. My bill would protect aging-out children who qualify for legal permanent resident status based on a parent's immigration status. Unanimous Consent Request--S. 2603, the RELIEF Act, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the time with no intervening action or debate.

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I am sorry for this objection. I thank the Senator from South Dakota for coming to the floor on behalf of the Senator from Utah. I have been in communication with the Senator from Utah. I hope he will join me in asking for a hearing. This is an issue which literally affects hundreds of thousands of people living in this country, many of whom have been here for years and decades. Practicing physicians in my hometown of Springfield are affected by this debate. They want to know what their future will be and the future of their children.

I am trying to find a reasonable way to work out a compromise on this, and I stand ready to do so. I hope Senator Lee will join me in asking Senators Graham and Cornyn to have a hearing before the Judiciary Committee. I want to extend this invitation to Senator Lee to join the Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats who signed a letter with me today requesting this hearing.

I am happy to sit down and discuss this issue with the senior Senator from Utah or any other Senator. If we work together in good faith, I believe we can reach a bipartisan agreement on legislation that can pass both Chambers and be signed into law.

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