Securing America's Borders Act--Continued

SECURING AMERICA'S BORDERS ACT--Continued

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask the distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee if the offering of amendments during the course of a bill's consideration on the floor is the usual procedure to determine where consensus lies and in determining what the will of the Senate ultimately is, and whether the refusal of the Democrats to allow votes on these amendments is obstructing the work of the Senate?

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, the answer is decisively, obviously, yes.

Mr. CORNYN. And, Mr. President, if the Senator would yield for another question.

Mr. SPECTER. I do, on the same condition.

Mr. CORNYN. We are running up against a Friday deadline with a 2-week recess of the Senate long standing, and if we are unsuccessful in allowing any votes on amendments which are necessary to move this bill forward, where do you believe the blame would lie for the Senate's inability to successfully finish its work this week on this comprehensive border security and immigration reform bill?

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I would respond by saying the blame would lie with those who have lodged objections to very reasonable unanimous consent requests, several of which we have heard here this afternoon.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, if the Senator would yield for a final question.

Mr. SPECTER. I do, on the same condition.

Mr. CORNYN. Isn't it true that this bill for the first time manifests a tremendous Federal commitment to live up to the Federal Government's responsibility to provide additional Border Patrol agents and additional technology along the border to enable the United States of America to finally secure its borders and potentially prevent the incursion of criminals, even terrorists, and that each day that goes by, because of our inability to complete our business here on the floor, potentially exposes the country to further jeopardy in that regard?

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, my answer to that question is in the affirmative.

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I know the Senator from Connecticut cares passionately about conditions. So do I, and so do all the Members of the Senate about trying to find a solution. We have dramatic differences between the solutions which have been proposed here and those which have been proposed by the House. But the way I interpret what the House did, it is to send a message to the Senate that first and foremost we need to build a foundation of border security to stop the people streaming across our border--yes, in search of a better life, but we know that mingled amongst those people who come here for economic reasons because they have, perhaps, no hope and no opportunity where they live, there may be a criminal. There may be a terrorist. While there are many people who do care passionately about trying to find a comprehensive solution to this problem, the kind of slow-boating we have seen so far during this debate isn't helping us get to that solution.

In fact, we have had three votes on amendments since this bill came to the floor. To those who say: Yes, we want to find a solution; yes, the bill that is on the floor is a good start, but maybe it is not perfect; the best way for us to proceed is to have some votes and to have some debate--that is the way this body, sometimes noted as the greatest deliberative body on Earth, is supposed to work. That is the way democracy works. I may win some of those votes. I may lose some. But let's have debate. Let's build a consensus in the country by building a consensus in this body about where we ought to go to find a solution, and then let majorities govern. Let's reconcile our differences with the House and then send a bill to the President that he will sign that is consistent with our values, consistent with our security interests, and consistent with our economic interests. That is what I want to do.

I believe many on the floor of the Senate want to do that. But what we have seen by the fact that the Democratic leadership has objected to allowing us to set aside pending amendments or have votes on pending amendments up until this point is that we have had three votes, and we are running out of time. The leader has allocated 2 weeks to debate this bill and hopefully to finish it by Thursday night or Friday, when we begin the next 2-week recess. But I am getting the distinct impression that the desire is not so much to pass a bill but, rather, to block the kind of democratic process I just described a moment ago from even occurring, to prevent Senators from offering their suggestions by way of amendment and offering those to the Members for an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor. It bears some resemblance to some of the obstruction we have seen in the past, particularly when it comes to judicial nominations. It prevents the Senate from working its will. It prevents us from protecting the American people.

When I say ``protecting the American people,'' I am advised that today, according to current numbers on illegal immigration across our borders, we have about 2,300 people coming each day into our country across our broken borders. Last year, it was 1.1 million people, but today and each day that we fail to protect our borders, each day we fail to deal with this very complex but urgent and important problem, we have 2,300 more people coming across our broken borders. I hope and pray that it is not someone who is bent on doing some harm to innocent life.

We know in a post-9/11 world that those who would exploit our broken borders could, if they had the desire, perhaps commit another heinous act like 9/11 within our country. We know that recently, there were those from this body who were investigating the possibility: Can you smuggle the ingredients of a dirty bomb across our borders? Indeed, they were able to do so by producing false identification. So we know America is vulnerable. But how irresponsible would it be to block the ability of this body to consider this bill, to pass it in due course, and to get it on the President's desk?

I fear there are those who want to jam this bill, as it is currently written, down the throats of those of us who have a different idea or prevent us from having those votes which are important to letting the process work. None of us has the authority to dictate to others what kind of legislation is going to pass out of this body. I am afraid that is what we are seeing. Those who preferred this particular approach in the Judiciary Committee bill are trying to jam it through the Senate, trying to deny those of us who have different ideas from presenting those ideas and offering them for a vote on the Senate floor.

This particular motion to table the amendment Senator Kyl and I have proposed is illustrative of the important changes and improvements that need to be made to this bill. Indeed, if you compare this to 1986, the last time Congress passed an amnesty that failed completely, you will see a lot of similarities between the bill on the floor and that amnesty in 1986--except, believe it or not, the bill that is presently before the Senate is even worse. In 1986, the law said that if you are a convicted felon, if you have committed three misdemeanors, you are not eligible for amnesty. This bill on the floor does not provide that exclusion from the general grant of amnesty.

Furthermore, there are some who say: OK, convicted felons, people who commit misdemeanors, but don't exclude from the grant of amnesty the 4- to 500,000 people who have had their day in court, who are so-called absconders, who are under final orders of deportation, because it wouldn't be fair to exclude them from this general grant of amnesty.

I disagree. I believe if you have had one bite at the apple or if you have had your day in court, you have had due process of law but you have demonstrated your unwillingness to comply with the lawful order of a court, then you should not be given amnesty so that you can remain in this country because if you are demonstrating by your very first acts, once you have come to this country, that you have no respect for our laws, then how are we to expect that you will ever have respect for other laws that are important for public safety and for the welfare of the American people?

Among these 4- to 500,000 people who would be included as absconders that this motion to table seeks to prevent us from excluding under the general grant of amnesty, in 2004, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention and removal operations removed 165,000-plus aliens from the United States. Of those 165,000-plus, 65,000 had been previously formally removed or deported at least one time before. So not only are the people who are sought to be excluded from this general grant of amnesty guilty of violating our laws, many of them are guilty of violating it on a serial basis.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Two minutes remains on the Senator's side.

Mr. CORNYN. I urge our colleagues not to table this important amendment, that we have an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor as soon as possible.

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