Securing America's Borders Act

SECURING AMERICA'S BORDERS ACT

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Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, this is a historic moment in the Senate. These who are witnessing this debate may think it is just another debate on another bill, but it is not. This is a debate that has been in the brewing--at least in the making, I should say--for decades. Senator Kennedy of Massachusetts has been speaking out about meaningful immigration reform for decades. It has eluded us. There are times when we have done temporary things of some value, but we have never come to grips with the fact that the immigration laws in America have broken down. We are in virtual chaos. Borders are out of control, employers are hiring people without adequate enforcement, and there are 11 million or 12 million amongst us who are in undocumented or illegal status, uncertain of their future.

This is controversial. We have to come to grips with it. But it is rare in the history of the Senate that we consider a bill that touches so many hearts and changes so many lives in America as this immigration reform. We are literally going to define America's future with this bill. We are going to make it clear whether we are going to hold to the values that have made us a great and diverse nation.

There are people amongst us, some you may see and not know--people you sit next to in church; families who bring their children to school with your children; the worker at the daycare center where you leave your precious kids every morning; the practical nurse who is working at a nursing home caring for your aging parent; the people who cooked your breakfast this morning at the restaurant, who cleared the table; those who will straighten your room after you leave the hotel--many of them you may not know, but look closely. Many of them will be directly affected by what we do in this Senate Chamber. What we do will change their lives. What we do will give them a chance to come out of the shadows, to emerge from the fear of detection, to finally have a chance to be part of America. We don't make it easy for them. It is a long, hard process to move from where they are today to legal status tomorrow, but at least we are addressing it and doing it in an honest fashion.

This morning's vote on cloture is on a bill which I think is the best approach. That is why I will vote for cloture. Some will disagree. But we know, even as I stand here, there is another agreement underway. It is promising. It embodies the basic principles of the bill that emerged from the Senate Judiciary Committee. That bill included the Kennedy-McCain substitute, an approach which offers a pathway to legalization for the millions who are here in America.

I salute Senator Specter who spoke before me. He was one of the four Republicans who stood with eight Democrats to bring that bill out. It was not a popular position on his side of the table. The majority of Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee oppose this bill. When it came to the floor, the leaders on the Republican side of the Senate condemned the bill. Yet today we find ourselves in a much different place.

I give special credit to my leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada. In the beginning of this week he said, We are going to stand fast for the values and principles of this bipartisan bill. He has taken a lot of heat on the floor of the Senate and outside, resisting amendments that would cripple and destroy this process and derail our efforts to finally have comprehensive immigration reform. Were it not for Senator Harry Reid on the Democratic side of this aisle standing fast, I don't know that we could have reached the point we have reached today. But we have reached it, and it tells me that we finally have come together in a bipartisan fashion to deal with an issue that affects so many millions across this country.

It is not over. Even if the cloture vote, as we call it in the Senate, passes tomorrow on the compromise, this can still be derailed. There are still Senators, primarily on the other side of the aisle, determined to derail this agreement. They will offer crippling, devastating amendments. We need to stand fast on a bipartisan basis to resist those amendments. Those who pledge their fealty to this bill can prove it with their votes. Don't say you are for it today and vote for a devastating amendment tomorrow.

Secondly, what we decide here will go to a conference with the House. The House approach is so different and it is so wrong. The House Republican immigration bill by Chairman Sensenbrenner does not reflect American values. To say that 12 million amongst us will be branded as felons under the Federal law, to say that Good Samaritans, nurses and teachers and volunteers and people of faith, will be charged as criminals under the Federal law is unthinkable and unacceptable and is not consistent with American values. We will walk into a conference with that point of view among the House Republicans. If we do not hold fast to our belief that we need a bill that is fair, a bill that is honest and tough, a bill that is consistent with American values, we will come back with a terrible outcome.

We need a commitment from the Republican majority in the Senate that we will not even consider a conference report that moves in the direction of the Sensenbrenner bill in the House. That is unacceptable. It is unacceptable for us to criminalize millions of people.

With that commitment, and if we stand true to the values of McCain-Kennedy and the bill produced by the Senate Judiciary Committee, we will finally bring our neighbors and those who live amongst us out of the shadows.

I yield the floor.

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, today is the day before the departure of Capitol Hill Chief of Police Terry Gainer, a man who has served us so well.

I have known Terry Gainer for almost 20 years. He served as superintendent of the Illinois State Police and left that position to become one of the leading officers in the District of Columbia Police Force. He was then asked to become chief of the Capitol Police Force. I knew that the people making that decision had made a very fine choice. Chief Gainer proved me right.

Terry Gainer grew up in Illinois, served his country in Vietnam, returned from that war a decorated veteran. His service did not end when he left the military. Prior to his position with the Illinois State Police, he spent 16 years with the Chicago Police Department. With his extensive experience at the highest levels of police work, his reputation for professionalism and his tireless commitment to the security of our Nation's most honored building and those who visit and work within it, Terry Gainer brought the Capitol Police Force to a new level of professionalism.

In the words of one of their officers, Chief Gainer transformed the Capitol Police Force from an inside operation, where the officers were often viewed many times as security guards, to a well-known, highly visible, professional law enforcement team. That change took place at a critical moment in our Nation's history. The threat of terrorism became very real and the vulnerability of the building in which I speak became very obvious. Today, the well-trained group of men and women protecting our security today in this hallowed building are among the finest in the Nation, and we are extremely fortunate to have them.

As a Member of the Senate whose life was made safer because of Chief Terry Gainer's leadership, I am indebted to him for his singular service to Congress and to our country. The Gainer legacy on Capitol Hill is written in a police force proud of its mission and committed to serve and protect. Chief Gainer deserves the gratitude of the Capitol family for his fine service. He will be missed.

(The remarks of Mr. DURBIN pertaining to the introduction of S. 2573 are located in today's RECORD under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

SCOOTER LIBBY

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, the last item I would like to speak to is one that is now in the news for the last several hours. It has been noted that in the court papers filed by Lewis Scooter Libby before the Federal court that he has made some amazing disclosures. You will remember that Mr. Libby was Vice President Cheney's chief of staff who was indicted recently over the Valeri Plame incident. The Valeri Plame incident involved a situation where someone told Robert Novak, a columnist, about the identity of a woman who was working undercover to protect the United States. That disclosure was made through White House sources which Mr. Novak attributed them to and has been investigated since by Patrick Fitzgerald, who is a special prosecutor on this case and the U.S. attorney for the northern district of Illinois.

As a result of his investigation to date, Mr. Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, has been indicted. Now today there are disclosures that in his court papers he has made some statements which are troubling. Before his indictment, according to CNN.com, Lewis Libby testified to the grand jury investigating the CIA leak that Vice President Cheney told him to pass on the information and that it was President Bush who authorized the disclosure.

According to the documents, the authorization led to a July 8, 2003, conversation between Mr. Libby and New York Times reporter Judith Miller. There was no indication in this court filing that either President Bush or Vice President Cheney authorized Mr. Libby to disclose Valeri Plame's CIA identity, but the disclosure in documents filed Wednesday means that the President of the United States and the Vice President put Lewis Libby in play as a secret provider of information to reporters about prewar intelligence on Iraq.

The authorization came as the Bush administration faced mounting criticism about its failure to find weapons of mass destruction, the main reason the President gave for the invasion of Iraq.

Mr. Libby's participation in a critical conversation with New York Times reporter Judith Miller on July 8, 2003, occurred only after the Vice President advised the defendant, Mr. Libby, that the President of the United States specifically had authorized Mr. Libby to disclose certain information in the National Intelligence Estimate. That is what is in the court records. That is what was disclosed today.

At the time the National Intelligence Estimate was prepared, I was a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. I recall it very well because as we were preparing for the invasion of Iraq, one of the senior staff people on the committee came to me and said: Senator, something is unusual here. We never make an important decision, let alone an invasion of a country, without what is known as a National Intelligence Estimate. We bring together all the intelligence agencies of our Federal Government, ask them to compare notes, and reach a conclusion as to what we are likely to find if we move forward. It has not been done.

This was in September. The vote on authorizing the invasion of Iraq was weeks away, and we still hadn't brought together the best minds of our intelligence community to determine what we were likely to find once there. So I wrote a letter to George Tenet, head of the Central Intelligence Agency, requesting this National Intelligence Estimate, as well as Senator Robert Graham, who joined me, as chairman of the committee, in making the same request. Within a few weeks, the National Intelligence Estimate was prepared and given to us.

There has been a lot of review of that estimate ever since. Some people say it was a shoddy job. It was slapped together. It had footnotes that didn't make sense. It was the basis of our intelligence for going to war. But the one thing I can tell you is, the minute it was handed to me in the Intelligence Committee, I was told: This is top secret. This is classified. You disclose this at your own peril. You will be subject to criminal prosecution if you do. It is one of the burdens of serving on that committee. You are reminded of that constantly, that no matter what information you absorb, you cannot speak to that information when you leave that closed room.

Now we learn that according to Mr. Libby, now under indictment, he was authorized by not only Vice President Cheney but President Bush to disclose information in the National Intelligence Estimate to the press. The allegations that are contained here suggest that information was being disclosed in order to overcome criticism that the American people had been misled about weapons of mass destruction.

I have to tell you, as a member of that committee, we looked at the preparation of this intelligence leading up to the war, and we were disappointed. Our intelligence agencies did not do the professional job we expected of them. I can't explain to you exactly why. Some of it has to do with lack of technology, lack of sharing information. Some of it, they were just plain wrong.

Their guess and best estimate as to what we would find in Iraq was plain wrong. Despite all of the hyperbole about weapons of mass destruction, still today, not a single weapon has been found. Despite all of the suggestions that somehow Saddam Hussein was part of the tragedy and disaster of 9/11, absolutely no connection has been established. Despite all of the threats of mushroom clouds from Condoleezza Rice and others, it turns out there was no evidence of nuclear weapons in Iraq.

That information was wrong. The American people were told that we have to go to war, we have to risk the lives of American servicemen because of a threat that didn't exist. Where are we today? We are still there, and 130,000 American soldiers, as I stand here safely, are risking their lives for America in Iraq. As of this morning, 2,346 American soldiers have died in service to their country. We stand in awe of their patriotism and courage, but we have to ask some hard questions.

The hard questions go to this point: How and when will this war end? When will the Iraqis reach the point where they accept responsibility for their own country? We can no longer afford to be misled about the threat to the United States and what lies ahead in Iraq. The people I spoke to on my recent trip to southern Illinois got it right. One of them said: Why aren't we going to the Iraqi Government and saying that over 3 years ago we sent in our soldiers to depose your dictator, a man whom no one respected; we deposed him so that you could take control of your own country. We put American lives on the line so you could hold free elections. We gave you a chance to start your own government. When are the Iraqis going to stand up for themselves, their own country, and their own defense? How many years have we been promised that we are so close to the day when the Iraqi Army will be able to take the place of the U.S. Army? I will believe it when the first American soldier comes home and is replaced by an Iraqi soldier ready to stand and die for Iraq, as our soldiers do every single day.

Sadly, we don't know when that day might come. The President comes before the American people several weeks ago and what does he say? ``Be patient.'' Be patient as more American soldiers are endangered and lose their lives. Be patient as we face a situation with no end in sight. It is hard to counsel patience. When asked directly when will the American soldiers be coming home, what did the President say? That will be up to the next President--the next President.

The Iraq war has lasted almost as long as World War II. If we have to wait 2 1/2 more years for American soldiers to come home, it will be one of the longest conflicts in our history. Is this what we bargained for when we invaded Iraq? We know now that the so-called coalition of the willing involved a lot of countries, but primarily it involved American lives. It is American soldiers who are standing and fighting in vastly greater numbers than any other country that is involved.

Let me tell you that the families who wait at home anxiously want to know the same answer to the question I pose: When, Mr. President, is this war going to end? When are we going to turn over the responsibility to the Iraqis?

When will we replace American soldiers with Iraqis who will stand and fight for Iraq? This last week I was in Illinois and visiting with friends of mine who work in railroad unions. I talked about this issue, and a fellow followed me out of the room and said: My son is headed over there next week. He started crying. This strong fellow who worked for the railroad all his life was a father whose heart was broken knowing his son was going into this danger. How many families have had to watch that happen and waited anxiously and expectantly at home for the letters and e-mails and phone calls? How many, sadly, have received the tragic news that they were one of the 2,346 families who lost someone they loved very much in that country?

Mr. President, as I read the allegations in the newspapers from Mr. Libby, former Chief of Staff to Vice President Cheney, they were disclosing secret, classified information from a national intelligence estimate to the press in the hopes of bolstering the President's popularity. It is a grave disappointment. We can do nothing less than to investigate this. We need to find out if this did occur. If it did occur, the President and Vice President must be held accountable--accountable for misleading the American people and for disclosure of classified information for political purposes. That is as serious as it gets in this democracy.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, let me salute those on the floor who have been so instrumental in bringing us to this point.

I look over and see Senator Martinez, who has worked very hard to find a bipartisan compromise which I now support. I thank him for that leadership.

I say the same of Senator McCain and Senator Graham and so many others who have gathered here today. They are people of good will who generally want to pass a bill, as I do. The same can be said for many on our side of the aisle who have spent an extraordinary amount of time trying to find this common ground.

But let's be very blunt about where we are at the moment. It is 8:15 on Thursday night. Tomorrow is the last day of the session before a 2-week recess.

Clearly, if we don't reach some agreement as to how we are going to deal with this bill when we return after the Easter recess, it really is a troubling situation. I hope it is not a situation that would jeopardize the bill. We are trying to come up with a reasonable number of amendments. Yesterday, we calculated there were 228 amendments filed to the pending bill. It is physically impossible to deal with that number of amendments. We know that. As the whip on this side, I have faced 100 or more amendments and had to try to talk Members out of them. At this point, we are trying to reach a reasonable number.

We have been given a list of potential amendments on the Republican side. I will tell you that almost without exception, they are authored by Senators who have expressly stated on the floor they want to defeat this bill. So at some point, we have to acknowledge the obvious. Senators should have the opportunity, I suppose, to express themselves, but if the purpose of the amendments is just to drag this out once we return to the point where it never passes, we have done a great disservice.

It was not that long ago that we gathered on the floor of the third floor of this Capitol in the press room congratulating ourselves on what we had achieved on a bipartisan basis. Supposedly there was a bipartisan will to move forward. We need the same thing now. And we need to acknowledge that every Senator who wants to offer every amendment cannot be allowed to do so, if we are ever going to complete action on the bill. Both sides have to be reasonable in the amount of amendments that will be offered or nothing will happen.

The final point the Democratic leader, Senator Reid, made, is equally important. We want the conference committee to be a working committee that understands the bill. The clearest way to achieve that is to have the Senate Judiciary Committee, with 10 Republicans and 8 Democrats, represent our interests, if the bill ever passes in the Senate. We think it is going to be an arduous process facing a House where the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee has passed a bill far different than the one we are considering in the Senate today. I don't think that is an unreasonable request by the Senator from Nevada. It reflects a two-vote plurality for the Republicans, as is usually the case, and brings the people to this conference committee who have worked on this bill the longest and the hardest. That is what we put on the table.

I sincerely hope that before we adjourn this evening we can announce an agreement to move forward. If we don't, I fear that tomorrow there will be a race for the airports without this resolved, and we will wait for 2 weeks in the hopes that when we return we will have the same spirit of bipartisan cooperation. We may and we may not. We shouldn't miss this chance, this historic opportunity to seize this moment and to pass comprehensive immigration reform which starts with enforcement of our borders, enforcement against employers who are misusing those who are undocumented, and a legal pathway so that those who have lived in the shadows and in fear for so long finally have a chance to prove themselves, in a long and difficult process, that they are in a position to be legal participants as part of our great democracy.

Tonight may be the test as to whether we can achieve that. I hope before we close down the session tonight, it is with the good news that we have reached a bipartisan agreement; otherwise, I am very concerned about the fate of this legislation.

I yield the floor.

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