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Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, it has been a little more than 7 months since Russia launched its illegal invasion of Ukraine, and the destruction that has followed is unbelievable. We have all had a chance to bear witness to the brutal reality of Russia's invasion as Ukrainian forces have recaptured territories like the city of Izyum.

Soon after the city was liberated, Ukrainian forces discovered mass graves filled with hundreds of bodies, including children. Some of the bodies had their hands tied behind their backs and their skulls crushed, and many showed signs of torture. The images that have emerged from Izyum prove what we have suspected for some time: The mountain of evidence of Russian war crimes is sky high.

These photos illustrate what the Ukrainians are finding in recaptured territory. They are sending out people to redig mass graves to find out just what happened to members of their family and neighbors and their friends.

The same thing is illustrated by this photo as well. In the shadow of this beautiful church, they are finding mass graves left behind by the Russians.

Today, I had the honor of presiding over a hearing of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, focusing on the role we must play in the United States in holding Putin and his thugs accountable for these heinous war crimes. The message was clear: Our Nation must continue the legacy we began with the Nuremburg trials by ensuring that Russian war criminals are brought to justice. And a critical step in doing that is to make sure that the perpetrators of these atrocities find no safe haven anywhere in the world, let alone in the United States.

That is why I have introduced the Justice for Victims of War Crimes Act with the ranking Republican Member, Senator Grassley. It closes a shameful loophole in American law that has allowed war criminals to escape justice. Our legislation updates the War Crimes Act so foreign war criminals who try to flee to America can be prosecuted, even years after their crimes were committed. It is only a starting point, but I hope we can build on it to finally enact the law in this country prohibiting crimes against humanity. This is an opportunity to send a clear signal to war criminals, like those in Russia today who systemically attack civilians, that America is going to hold you accountable for your crimes. Immigration

Madam President, on a related topic, at our brightest moments, America has not only held war criminals and tyrants accountable; we have also provided refuge to their victims. Many of us in Congress can attest to that fact.

In fact, it is exactly how my family arrived in this country. Back in 1911, my grandmother left Lithuania in search of freedom. She boarded a ship carrying two things in her arms: a bag with her Catholic prayer book, published a year before the Czars outlawed its printing in Lithuania, and her 2-year-old daughter, my mother, Ona.

The moment my grandmother stepped foot on American soil, her life changed. From that moment on, she and my mother were protected by an incredible shield: the U.S. Constitution, along with the rights and protections it guarantees.

But for Lithuanians, securing those same rights has not been so easy. The country struggled under Soviet occupation for nearly 50 years. Even after the Lithuanian people proclaimed their independence in 1990, their liberty wasn't guaranteed. In January 1991, 9 months after Lithuania held its first free elections, Soviet tanks rolled into Vilnius in a ruthless, last-ditch effort to crush the country's new democracy. Thirteen Lithuanian martyrs were killed that day.

I would like to think it was the sacrifice of those 13 Lithuanians, and millions who also suffered under communism, that inspired the current Governor of Florida to establish a new holiday earlier this year. It was entitled Victims of Communism Day. In his own words, Governor DeSantis created this holiday with the goal of ``honoring the people that have fallen victim to communist regimes.'' In announcing this holiday, he asserted that ``Florida will stand for truth and remain as a beachhead for freedom.''

That is an admirable aspiration, but, sadly, it is one that the Governor of Florida has failed to live up to because, when it comes to standing up to ruthless dictators of our time, like Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro, Governor DeSantis and his allies are nowhere to be found. Instead of offering safe harbor to victims of Maduro's regime, these very same Governors have chosen to abandon and abuse their families.

This is no way to honor the victims of communism and political repression. It is a cowardly failure of leadership that violates our Nation's basic values.

When news first broke that Governors Abbott of Texas and DeSantis of Florida were using refugee families fleeing desperate conditions in Venezuela as political pawns, I couldn't help but wonder: What if it were my own family?

The families fleeing Venezuela are seeking refuge from the same menace that the victims of communists faced decades ago: political persecution and state-sanctioned violence. Under Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela has been a failed criminal state awash in human misery. It is so dangerous that the State Department warns Americans to avoid traveling to that country, and the people of Venezuela suffer every day under rampant corruption, human rights violations, hunger, and criminal mismanagement. I saw it for myself when I visited Venezuela a few years ago, just before Maduro's latest sham election.

Since then, things have grown worse. Hospitals are devoid of basic medical supplies, kids and parents are too hungry to go to school or work, and Maduro's barbaric regime is being propped up by some of the most repressive powers of the world, like Russia and Cuba.

A recent United Nations report found that Maduro and his cronies have been systemically repressing Venezuelans and gruesomely torturing their political opponents. These horrors have driven nearly 7 million Venezuelans to leave that country in desperation and fear. To put that in perspective, that is more than the number of Syrian refugees and nearly equal to the number of Ukrainian refugees fleeing active war in those countries.

Despite what some Republicans have claimed, families fleeing Venezuela are not ``illegals'' or ``invaders.'' They are victims of the same ruthless tactics that once defined the Soviet Union. Instead of helping these families, Governor DeSantis and Governor Abbott declare holidays and have chosen to exploit their fear and confusion.

I met with a few of the families who were unwittingly placed on migrant buses to Chicago by Governor Abbott of Texas a few weeks ago. One of the people I met was named Carlos. He and his wife and two little girls were sitting at a table, and we were able to talk to them for about a half hour and ask questions.

Carlos was a hard worker in Venezuela, but the country's political and economic crisis was so severe that his job couldn't keep food on the table. His family was on the brink of starvation.

So on May 15, Carlos and his wife, along with those two beautiful little girls, decided to literally flee for their lives. They embarked on a 5-month journey, much of it on foot, to the Texas-Mexico border. It was a nightmare of violence, theft, and exploitation. Carlos told me that, at one point, he thought he would die, while spending 9 nights in a Panamanian jungle. By the time they were rescued by a local military force, all of their money was gone, their cell phones had been stolen, and they were penniless.

But they pressed on and eventually made it to America. They filed their claim for asylum. We are honored that they were brought to Chicago, though the circumstances were not good.

To me, Carlos is living proof that we have more work to do in ridding the world of violent repression and totalitarianism. These evils didn't suddenly disappear with the fall of the Soviet Union.

I actually share the Florida Governor's belief that America has the responsibility to stand in contrast to dictators like Maduro and Putin by actually defending truth and freedom. But that responsibility is far bigger than declaring a holiday, because it is one thing to speak out against the evils of communism or voice opposition to Maduro, but talk is cheap. The real test for our values begins when the victims of tyrants like Maduro arrive at our doorstep in search of freedom. I am sad to say that Governor Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott have literally failed that test. To add insult to injury, these Governors not only refused to help these families fleeing Venezuela; they wasted taxpayers' dollars on a political stunt that only made the problem worse and made us, as a nation, look weak and, to some of the world, look cruel.

Here is the reality. The most powerful way to stand up against dictators like Maduro is by honoring America's legacy as a beacon of freedom. That means coming to the aid of families like Carlos's-- families who are applying for asylum the right way and seeking a fair shot in America, like our own families once did.

In fact, we need workers. We have 11 million unfilled jobs in this Nation and 5 million unemployed Americans. Let's put young, able-bodied people like Carlos to work in jobs that Americans don't want. Let's get them on the books and give them their fair shot so they can finally enjoy the security and safety for their families that was denied to them in their home countries. They will contribute to a better America.

Time and again, immigrants have shown us that they rise to the occasion, work harder than most, and achieve things unimaginable. They can do it again, and they will. Let's prove that America was and is better than the cold, iron fist of authoritarianism.

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Mr. DURBIN. I was a little bit surprised. I wasn't aware of this bill. We have been members of the same committee, the Judiciary Committee, for 21 months, and the Senator from Arkansas has not raised the bill during that period of time. But it is his right to come to the floor today and ask that it be considered. I would like to tell you why I am going to object to this.

If you serve in Congress for any period of time, you become a student of the terrible drug problems of America. I recall a period of time in the House of Representatives when we had crack cocaine appear in the United States for the first time. It scared us because it was cheap; it was deadly; addictive; and for the women who were pregnant who had taken it, it did harm to the babies they were carrying. So we decided to make sure that we were going to do the right thing in our War on Drugs.

What we said was--listen closely--the penalty for crack cocaine would be 100 times the penalty for the use of ordinary cocaine--100 times. The penalty for using cocaine in general was already serious. One hundred times, we said, for the War on Drugs. I voted for it. I thought, finally, a message will come from the Congress that, if you touch crack cocaine, you are going to be in for it. We expected that fewer people would do it because of the fear of that criminal sentencing and that the price of crack cocaine would go up because the demand was limited.

Guess what happened--exactly the opposite, exactly the opposite.

More and more people used crack cocaine, and the price on the street went down to dirt level. The result was we started filling our prisons in a way that we had never seen before in the history of the United States: 500 percent of the prison population of just 20 or 30 years ago increased in that period of time.

We learned the hard way that getting tough wasn't always the smart way to deal with drug addiction. We thought about it, and we changed the law several times. I have been party to changing it. I voted for the original version, and it failed. We had to do better.

Then something happened that was dramatic--opioids. Out of nowhere came opioids, and what used to be a problem of drug addiction and death in the inner cities of America became a problem of drug addiction and death in the suburbs of America, in the farm towns of America--all over America. Interestingly enough, America started looking at our drug laws and our drug addiction and saying: What are we doing wrong here? What is wrong with this situation?

As a consequence, a lot of attitudes changed. People got away from the old ``just say no'' routine and started asking serious questions: How do we deal with drug addiction? How do we stop this addiction? It is not easy to stop it, but God knows we need to. So we have seen a transformation with the arrival of opioids.

Now, the Senator from Arkansas is correct. People are lacing these opioids with fentanyl, and fentanyl is deadly; there is no question about it. We should take it seriously, and we do. As a matter of fact, each judge, when imposing a sentence for crimes already involving fentanyl, is pretty serious about it. I just heard the Senator from Arkansas describe a situation in which someone in Minnesota got life in prison for the sale of a fentanyl product. So it is clear that it is not being ignored, nor should it be.

Intentionally selling fentanyl is already a crime all over the United States. Representing that fentanyl is something else is exactly the kind of aggravated factor a judge takes into account in the sentencing. I don't believe this bill is a serious effort to deal with the problem in light of what we know today.

Let's start with the fact that it creates a new Federal death penalty offense.

Well, I have to tell you that I have watched a lifetime--a political lifetime--of death penalty cases and have seen the result. I have my serious doubts that that is the best way for America to go. I think the gentleman from Arkansas realizes it. I am the lead sponsor, along with 20 others, of the Federal Death Penalty Prohibition Act--to repeal it once and for all. So I am concerned about any legislation that imposes the death penalty.

It also creates mandatory minimum sentences that don't allow judges to consider the individual circumstances in a case.

That is straight out of the failed doctrine of the War on Drugs--a mandatory minimum. Tie the judge's hands. Put people in jail, and basically say there will be unlimited amounts of time that they will spend there. People were getting 20- and 30-year sentences for the sale of narcotics like crack cocaine, and we soon realized that it didn't make sense over the long haul. It was 20 years for a single drug sale, which goes up to mandatory life in prison if a defendant has any prior felony conviction, no matter if it has zero relationship to drugs or is based on a defendant's immigration status.

I don't believe that is the right way to go. It wasn't with the War on Drugs. We learned the hard way. I want to get tough on the drug sales, and I am sure the Senator from Arkansas feels the same way. We approach it differently. I have the experience of trying to take the hard position on this issue and of seeing that it failed when it came to crack cocaine.
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Mr. DURBIN. The Senator from Arkansas' views on immigration are well- known. He has been consistent in opposing immigration, but it is interesting to me that people like him who oppose immigration always, at the end, seem to go after the same people: mothers and children.

We saw it with the cages the kids were kept in. We saw it when kids were forcibly removed from their parents at the border during the Trump years. We have seen it time and again, and now we see it with the Governor of Florida and the Governor of Texas putting mothers and children on buses and busing them hundreds of miles away from where they were picked up, whether there is any contact there or not. Mothers and children are always a focal point of anti-immigration rhetoric, and, once again, this bill does that.

I agree completely when it comes to stopping transnational criminal organizations, but to focus the bill on innocent spouses and children, including minor children, and make them the target of the bill seems to me going beyond any reasonable law enforcement.

There is a narrow exception in the bill that allows a spouse or child to be admitted to the United States if they can somehow convince the consular officer that they did not know or could not reasonably have known of their spouse's or parent's membership in a criminal organization. But there is no exception for battered spouses or children who are often victims of these organizations themselves. And the bill gives what appears to be unreviewable discretion to these consular officers to decide whether an innocent spouse or child has renounced the organization.

These transnational criminal organizations must be sanctioned and stopped, but this is not the way to do it, going after mothers and children.

I want to make a point, since the Senator concluded after my last statement that I am somehow soft on crime. Can I go through a short list here of bills that I voted for to get tough on crime?

Let's take a look at this bill, the American Rescue Plan. That American Rescue Plan passed in the U.S. Senate and provided billions-- billions--of dollars to State and local communities for police and crime protection--more money for police and crime protection from this Senate to those communities. I voted for it. The Senator from Arkansas voted against it.

Then the Congress passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. In that bill was a $430 million investment in our ports of entry, helping DHS to screen vehicles for fentanyl. You see, these drugs come through ports of entry. This idea of a backpack full of drugs being hiked over the border by someone in the middle of the night, that is not where the bulk of these drugs come from. They come through the ports of entry. So we put a $430 million investment to make those ports of entry even stronger and tougher.

I agree with that completely, helping the Department of Homeland Security to screen vehicles and stop fentanyl from coming in. I voted for that. The Senator from Arkansas voted no. Who is soft on crime?

Then we passed the March Omnibus appropriations bill--tens of millions of dollars in increased funding for hiring police officers and technology upgrades at the border to detect and seize fentanyl and other illicit cargo. I voted for that. The Senator from Arkansas voted against it. Who is soft on crime?

And when we passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the most serious bipartisan step Congress has taken to end gun violence in 30 years, I voted for it. The Senator from Arkansas voted against it. Who is soft on crime?

The American people can see which party is passing legislation and actually funds law enforcement, addresses crime and violence in a thoughtful way. And they can see, when the bills come up on the floor, one party gives the speeches; the other party gets the votes.

I am going to continue to vote to support the police and put an end to this drug crisis in America in a thoughtful and sensible way.

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Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, passing legislation is difficult at any stage in American history. It is increasingly difficult when it is a 50-50 Senate. You have to work it. You have to be willing to sit down with someone from the other side of the aisle and find a cosponsor so that you have a bipartisan bill.

I have seen that work. In fact, I was part of it. It was Senator Chuck Grassley and I who put together the FIRST STEP Act, which was part of prison reform--significant prison reform--in this country.

Who signed the FIRST STEP Act? President Donald Trump.

Soft on crime? What we did was work out something that was bipartisan, sensible, and really makes a difference, and makes certain that people currently serving in prison will one day be released--most will--and not return to crime when that happens. I think that was time well spent, but it took a bipartisan effort.

I could have come to the floor every day of the week and offered my best idea on how to fight crime, but if you can't pass it on a bipartisan basis in the Senate, it doesn't work.

It takes a lot of hard work and a lot of patience and compromise to make a real change in the law. Even if you think you have the best idea on Earth, you have to work at it.

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