Directing the Removal of United States Armed Forces From Hostilities Within or Against the Islamic Republic of Iran That Have Not Been

Floor Speech

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, we are at a critical moment. It is a crossroads for the American people.

The President is waging a war of choice. It is really a war of impulse, a war of whim and illusion without the support of the American people and without approval from the U.S. Congress, representing the American people. Meanwhile, the costs of food and fuel--gasoline at the pump and produce at the grocery store--all have soared. Healthcare is unaffordable. Gas prices are going to continue to skyrocket.

The Secretary of Energy told us just last weekend that prices will not come down appreciably before the end of the year. Of course, since then, he has contradicted himself. His chain was yanked by the President. But the reality is--and we need to stay in touch with reality--that the costs of living for the everyday American are skyrocketing out of sight.

Instead of doing something to lower those costs, Senate Republicans just introduced a budget resolution to give $140 billion to ICE and the CBP without any reform and without any changes in practices or policies that will make them legal and humane. In fact, Senate Republicans are willing to work overtime to deliver huge tax breaks to billionaires and siphon hundreds of millions--in fact, billions--to ICE with no strings attached.

When it comes to lowering costs for Americans, helping working families, or making good on our promises to veterans, Republicans say: We can't afford it. In fact, Senate Republican leadership has continuously refused to advance bipartisan legislation to deliver for combat-injured veterans that I have advocated for repeatedly and twice asked for unanimous consent on the floor of this body to pass. Why? They claim we can't afford those benefits.

Let's be very clear. The Major Richard Star Act will cost $1 billion a year for the next 10 years. We are spending $2 billion a day on the Iran war, and that figure probably is lowballed. The benefits equate to 1/14th of the money Republicans want to send to ICE. The same Republicans who say we can't afford the time or the $13 billion to ensure our combat-injured veterans receive their full earned benefits will keep us here all night to spend $140 billion on ICE and CBP.

My legislation, the Major Richard Star Act, would finally deliver to some 50,000 combat-injured veterans their full military benefits. Currently, they are receiving a dollar-for-dollar reduction of their VA retirement pay for every dollar of compensation for disability. That is just plain wrong. They have earned both retirement pay and disability benefits. One should not be docked dollar for dollar for the other. In fact, it shouldn't be reduced at all. Most of this body--79 of my Democratic and Republican colleagues--agree. They joined the legislation. But the bill is still blocked from a simple floor vote by Senate Republican leadership--the same leadership that is willing to bend over backward to pass another partisan law to fund ICE.

Meanwhile, the President continues to send more servicemembers into harm's way. Thousands more are heading to the Middle East right now. But it falls on deaf ears for Republicans that claim veterans initiatives like the Major Richard Star Act are too expensive while they push hundreds of billions into Trump's rogue Agency or a war of choice.

It seems to me Republicans can always find more money for tax cuts. They can always find more money for benefits that go to the billionaires, but not so much when we are talking about working families or veterans.

The simple fact is--and remember this point if you remember nothing else of what I say here--the cost of our taking care of veterans is the cost of war. It is one that always must be paid. When we send a servicemember into war, we are incurring an obligation. We have made a promise. Those injuries result in disability benefits that should not be reduced, nor should retirement pay, just because they are injured. In fact, they should not be punished for being injured. The President may think veterans are suckers, but that is not what the American people think.

As Memorial Day approaches, prove to veterans and Americans that you really do appreciate their service. And remember that words, without actions, are meaningless--totally meaningless.

And that is why I have introduced an amendment to strike the reconciliation instruction and focus on providing for our combat- injured veterans who were forced to retire because of their injuries. Give them the benefits they earned, the benefits they deserve, the benefits they were promised.

Today, we have an opportunity to act and to do something meaningful for the thousands of combat-injured veterans who have sacrificed on our behalf. I urge my colleagues to make the right decision and support this amendment to advance the Major Richard Star Act.

It isn't lost on me that while I am speaking here, urging for the passage of an amendment that would help our veterans, the Trump administration is actively harming them. Over the past year, the Trump administration has begun deporting procedures for 34 former members of the military and 248 relatives of former military members. This number doesn't include the countless former military members that have been swept up into detention by roving patrols and lawless arrests.

These individuals are real people. They are veterans who chose to wear the uniform. They are not abstract entities. They are not numbers or statistics. They are people who raised their right hand, willing to give their lives for our country, veterans who served and sacrificed so that we could celebrate Memorial Day, so that we could stand here and speak as we wish and worship as we would like in the days ahead.

Take William Vermie, for example. He is an Army veteran, a Purple Heart recipient, who served as a combat solder in Iraq. On January 13, 2026, he was on a public sidewalk, observing ICE arrest two young men in his neighborhood. He was tackled. He was arrested. He was driven to detention. He was held in a cell for 8 hours.

Or George Retes, a disabled Iraq War veteran who was detained for 3 days and 3 nights after being arrested on his way to work--on his way to work. He has a job. He is a citizen. He is a veteran. He was arrested and detained.

Family members of U.S. servicemembers and veterans have fared no better. U.S. SSG Matthew Blank recently married his wife Annie and brought her to his base, Fort Polk, LA, to begin their lives together. Within hours, ICE entered his base and detained Annie, who was brought to the United States as a toddler and has applied for DACA status. Annie was released only after public outcry shamed the administration.

Last June, Narcisco Barranco, the father of three marines, was clearing his weeds when immigration agents attacked him from behind and placed him in deportation proceedings. Mr. Barranco has no criminal record. He has been in the United States for 3 decades.

And just this week, Sergeant First Class Serrano's wife, Deisy Rivera Ortega, was arrested by ICE during her appointment at an immigration office in Texas.

None of these people sought to hide or conceal themselves or run. They were there. And she was at an appointment at an immigration office in Texas. She had been in the United States for over a decade and has legal protection that prohibits her deportation to El Salvador and allows her to legally work. She was at the immigration office, interviewing, as part of an application for parole in place, a program specifically designated to offer protections to military spouses and their parents.

This stuff is just unbelievably cruel. It is illegal. It is inhumane. But it is also savagely mean and wrong. To encourage the men and women of our armed services to apply for protection for their spouses or their parents, only to have those applications entrap their loved ones, spirit them away to detention, and wreak havoc in their lives--is that the America that we want?

It is not the America I recognize as my country, nor would most Americans.

These servicemembers, veterans, and their family members were not convicted of any crime. They were not committing any crime. They were doing the right thing--in the offices of the U.S. Government, some of them--when they were tackled, arrested, and detained by the same government that gave them so much to serve.

Marine Corps cadets could not even enjoy their graduation this year without fear after the Marine Corps issued a warning that ICE agents would be conducting ``enhanced screening and lawful immigration status inquiries'' outside the Parris Island base, prior to graduation events.

What did that mean? Marine Corps privates, graduating from Parris Island--and I have been there--had to fear that their relatives coming to watch their graduation on that drill field could be arrested and detained.

Some cadets were forced to forgo celebrating because they feared for their loved ones. That is not how we honor courage and sacrifice. That is not how we plan to commend the individuals who choose to serve. Such efforts will not help us to recruit the next generation of brave and bright men and women for our military. It only demonstrates how little the Trump administration values people who put their lives on the line.

As Republicans propose sending another $140 billion to ICE and CBP, let's ask them whether they share the same disregard for our troops and veterans. I hope they will join me in saying: Enough is enough.

The absence of reform, in connection with this huge amount of funding--$140 billion--is absolutely reprehensible and unacceptable. It is unconscionable to shovel more money--$140 billion--without fundamental changes that will stop the abuses and many others of the kind I have just described.

I ask my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to join me in saying: America is still the land of the free and the home of the brave because of the brave who protect the free. And let us cherish those freedoms and make them real, not just in rhetoric but in the reforms we demand of the U.S. Government when it is engaged in lawless and reckless conduct.

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