Motion to Discharge--S. Res. 195

Floor Speech

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Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I move to discharge S. Res. 195 from the Committee on Foreign Relations, as provided under the previous order.

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Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise to discuss S. Res. 195, which is a vote on a motion to discharge that will be the next pending vote in the Senate.

It is actually a pretty simple bill about very basic concepts: Do you believe in the Constitution or not? Do you believe in the rule of law or not? Do you believe in due process or not? Do you believe that final orders of the U.S. Supreme Court should be respected or not? Those are the questions at issue on S. Res. 195.

Our President, President Trump, has entered into an agreement still shrouded in some secrecy with the President of El Salvador, President Bukele, to deport American residents into El Salvador and imprison them in prisons in a country that has been charged by the United States and others with gross human rights violations.

The Congress that is in charge of appropriating taxpayer dollars should want to know the circumstances of this imprisonment and whether U.S. law is being followed. The $6 million payment to the El Salvadoran prison likely violates human rights law in accord with many experts who looked at the details as they emerged, and that is where we begin. These are dollars that Congress has appropriated, but the precise mechanism for the transfer of these moneys and the President's authority to both spend the money and carry out the deportations is questionable.

The U.S. Supreme Court, in the case of one of these individuals who it admits was deported by mistake--and there are many others similarly situated--is defying an order of the Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a nine-to-nothing ruling that the administration should facilitate the return of Mr. Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Thus far, nearly a month later, that has not occurred.

This is about fighting lawlessness. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution, to which we all pledge fealty, is pretty straightforward:

No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.

That was the clause that the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously interpreted to mandate the return of Mr. Abrego Garcia.

The President was asked recently whether he had an obligation to uphold the Constitution, which he swore an oath to in the witness of all of us on Inauguration Day. He was asked if he had to uphold the Constitution. Just within the last week, he said he did not know. We know the answer to that question, but the President does not. The particular country to which these American residents have been deported, El Salvador--this now goes back a year--has a track record of imprisoning individuals--innocent individuals. The last thing any of us should want is an innocent individual in prison, especially if that innocent individual is an American.

But this is the punch line: The President has indicated that this is not just for those who are here with questions about their legal status. President Trump has said ``homegrowns'' are next. Trump doubles down on sending American criminals to foreign prisons. We have a prison system in the United States--local jails, State prisons, Federal prisons. The notion of sending American citizens to foreign prisons without scrutiny is truly shocking, and that is the reason that I filed the resolution.

What is this resolution?

It is a privileged motion--available to any Senator--directing the administration to produce a human rights report about a nation--in this case, El Salvador. S. Res. 195 directs the Secretary of State to produce a report to this body that would be available not only to us but to the American public about the human rights record in El Salvador, and a couple of the clauses of the resolution, I think, are specific about this particular case.

The report should contain information about the treatment of citizens or residents of other countries, including the United States--non- Salvadorans--who are being detained or imprisoned in El Salvador, including any opportunity provided to such citizens or residents to demonstrate that they are being wrongfully detained or imprisoned.

We should all want to know whether Americans detained in El Salvador have an opportunity to demonstrate that they are wrongfully imprisoned. The report will require that.

The report would require an assessment from the Secretary of State of the conditions in El Salvador's Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, including an assessment of allegations of torture and other gross violations of human rights.

Remember again that the Trump administration has acknowledged that at least one of the individuals who was deported was deported mistakenly. He has been in prison for some time. If he is not there now, he was for some time in CECOT. We should want to know whether Americans in prison there are subject to torture or to other gross violations of human rights.

The report should include a description of any actions that the U.S. Government has taken to ensure that the Government of the Republic of El Salvador releases U.S. citizens being detained or imprisoned in El Salvador in compliance with U.S. court orders regarding their return.

Finally, the report would require information--a description of actions--the U.S. Government is taking to provide due process in compliance with U.S. law for relevant persons detained or imprisoned in El Salvador.

Why would anyone in this body, in understanding this record--the forceable deportation of American residents, some admittedly deported by mistake and whom the Supreme Court has ordered returned into El Salvadoran prisons--why would anyone in this body not want to get a human rights report about the conditions of that confinement, particularly given the fact that President Trump has indicated that he may intend next to send U.S. citizens into those same prisons?

This information will be very relevant to important decisions that we take in our relationship with El Salvador and also in our decisions we take with respect to the Appropriations Act. So I urge my colleagues to vote for S. Res. 195.

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Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I will conclude prior to the vote just by saying this is a very basic resolution.

Everyone in this body, knowing that Americans have been deported without due process to a prison in a foreign country that has a grievous record of human rights abuses, should at least want to get information about the circumstances of that confinement, about whether that prison is according American residents any semblance of due process and whether the United States is undertaking efforts to ensure that that country and that prison are following final orders of the U.S. Supreme Court.

If you support the rule of law, if you support due process, if you support the Constitution, if you support human rights, if you support final orders of the U.S. Supreme Court, you will support S. Res. 195.

I now ask for the vote. Vote on S. Res. 195
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