Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, thank you, and I thank my colleague from Texas for his specifics there, and I know he is trying to make the bill a better bill. I have to say, as I understand it, this is the very same amendment that was defeated in committee. It was defeated by a bipartisan vote of 12 to 6. It was defeated for two reasons.

Let me take a step back. The two reasons are, one, its cost goes through the roof, and there is no way to pay for it in the Cornyn amendment. It is estimated it could be, in the original amendment, as much as $25 billion. Now, maybe the number of border agents was reduced. I do not know if my colleague has done that, but that is a huge expense, and an unnecessary expense because our bill, the proposal that is before us, does a huge amount on border security for much lower cost. Mr. President, $25 billion is a lot of money.

Second, we do have triggers in our bill, but they are achievable and specific because this bill is a careful compromise. We want to do two things. We want to have border security, absolutely. I have always said a watch word of this bill is that the American people will be fair and have a commonsense approach to both future legal immigration and the 11 million who are living here in the shadows provided, and only provided, we prevent future waves of illegal immigration.

We do that in three ways. One is the E-Verify system. We both agree that should be in place before there is a path to citizenship. One is fixing up exit-entry. The way my colleague has fixed up exit-entry, it could take 20 or 25 years before it is in place. We cannot, should not, and will not tell those who have waited in the shadows for so long that they should wait for 25 years. Those are the estimates. We can do this on the ports and in the air, but we need a better system, which we have worked on, for land entry.

Finally, at the border itself, we have put a large amount of money in there. We have been guided by Senators McCain and Flake--because the Arizona border has more people passing through it than any other--as to what we should do.

We emphasized the ability to put in new technologies--drones that can track everybody who crosses the border and track them on land. We do it for a lot less money. But, unfortunately, one of the triggers that my colleague, my good friend from Texas, has put in place would make a path to citizenship--even if all the other metrics were put in place--iffy, possibly yes, possibly no. That is unacceptable. We need to do both.

Should there be a new person who comes into office, should there be a different Senate, a different House, under the proposal of my colleague from Texas, not one single person could achieve citizenship, even if we had improved the border in many different ways.

So I would say to my colleagues, we certainly want to improve the border, but we cannot improve that border and put in place triggers that are not specific and achievable. We can measure whether there are 20 drones at the border. We can measure whether we have X miles of fence. But if we say, then, that it has to be at this certain rate every year, we are taking away that path to citizenship, through no fault of those who have tried to implement tougher border security.

So I say to my colleague, we cannot accept his amendment, plain and simple. We welcome proposals on border security. I know there are many on the other side. I have spoken to four or five who are working on those proposals, but the very same amendment, the very same proposal that was defeated in committee by a bipartisan vote of 12 to 6 is not going to revitalize an immigration bill, which has plenty of life already. It is not going to strengthen a bill. It could indeed kill it.

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Mr. SCHUMER. So I would urge that we go back to the drawing boards. If the Senator from Texas has a different proposal, obviously, I would look at it. This one is, unfortunately, one that we have tried, rejected, and will not lead to either comprehensive immigration reform in the broader sense or a path to citizenship in the most immediate sense.

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, it is quite arguable that the entire trust fund is used up by those 6,500. That would mean no drones. That would mean no helicopters. That would mean none of the other things. It may mean no fencing that we add to the border. So my colleague from Arizona is exactly correct.

The cost here--my good friend from his side of the aisle, Senator Graham, estimated this morning that the total cost would be $18 billion. I think if you add a type of land-based exit-entry, it goes up another $7, $8 billion. We do not have that kind of money.

So I would suggest to my colleague that if he wants to add 10,000 Border Patrol--which most experts have told us will not do close to as good a job as the drones and the helicopters and the more mobile assets. And the reason is very simple. He knows as well as I do. He knows the border better than I do. We do not have roads on most of the border. What is Border Patrol going to do? There are no roads. They are impassable. A drone flying 10,000 feet above can see every person who crosses the border, track them inland, and if they go to a gathering point 25 miles inland, they pick them up there.

So the bottom line is that not only is the cost of this amendment probably exceeding the trust fund by itself, but it will take a highly efficient way of preventing people from crossing the border and replace it with an inefficient way that no experts I have talked to--again, maybe my colleague has--no expert I have talked to says the best way to control people from crossing the border illegally--which I desperately want to do--works better with a huge amount of personnel, unallocated. We do not even know--if I ask my colleague where they are going to be assigned, which sector, where they are going to work, I bet there is no answer to that.

The bottom line is very simple. We have carefully thought this through. We think we have maximized the effectiveness for about one-third of the money our colleague is talking about. It is only one of many reasons this amendment was defeated by a bipartisan group, a majority in committee.

So let's move on. Let's move on. Let's look at how we can make the border more secure. I am open to that. But this amendment, as I said, for a variety of reasons is a nonstarter.

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Mr. SCHUMER. I would just say this: No, 1, this amendment--we are only on the third day of the bill. I have said over and over that I welcome suggestions on how to improve the bill. No one says the bill by the Gang of 8 is exactly right. In fact, as Senator Leahy well knows--our chairman of the Judiciary Committee--we accepted a large number of amendments, many of which came from the other side, in committee. We will do the same thing here. But this particular amendment is not 3 days old.

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Mr. SCHUMER. I thank my colleague for those questions, and they are all pretty obvious.

No. 1, we have costed this out. CBO will judge whether we are correct. We have made the bill revenue neutral. In fact, we have a slight surplus. The huge cost of 6,500 border agents without any allocation where they would go--do you know what. If this were another bill, my colleague from Texas and all of his colleagues would say we are wasting billions of dollars with no plan. He is exactly right on that point.

On the second point, I have said, until I am blue in the face, sometimes from some criticism from some of the people who are my allies out there, that I am willing to look at changes in this bill. It is so unfair and patently false to say any one of the Group of 8 said we can't change the bill. We welcome changes to improve it. What happened in committee proves that.

The third point, I would say to my colleague, the way the Senator from Texas constructs the trigger, there will be no one who will ever achieve a path to citizenship because he leaves out turnbacks. If we don't have turnbacks--the 90 percent causes us trouble even with the way it was done in other areas, with other suggestions. If we leave out turnbacks, people who are turned back or caught, and we say go home, we will never get to 90 percent.

To say the proposal of the Senator from Texas allows a path to citizenship--it makes it virtually impossible. Therefore, again, I would say I wish to improve border security. I am open to suggestions. I wish to improve this bill in every area. I know my colleague from Arizona, my colleague from Colorado, my colleague from Illinois, the rest of us welcome that, and we have shown it time and time again.

This amendment, I don't think, advances moving the bill forward. It doesn't work on border security because of its expense, its lack of specificity, and it is taking away the very technology we need. It doesn't create a path to citizenship in any way. It doesn't allow one.

Finally, its cost is through the roof. Whatever CBO says, 6,500 new border agents is a multibillion-dollar proposition, unpaid for. I know my colleagues on the other side rue the day when we vote for unpaid-for obligations.

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Mr. SCHUMER. I thank my colleague, and I agree with the sentiments.

I reiterate one final point. The Cornyn amendment, as proposed, asks for a 90-percent success rate in terms of effectiveness on the border, but it eliminates the turnback part of it.

That would mean now that it would be virtually impossible to get to that 90 percent 1 year from now, 5 years from now, 10 years from now, because one of the most effective things we do on the border is turn people back. We don't catch them after they cross the border. They get up to the border, we find them when they get to the border and say go home.

It fails on both counts. It has been debated. It has been studied.

I would plead with my colleagues who want more border security: Let's move on.

The Senator from Utah has amendments on taxes and on benefits. The Senator from Ohio has amendments on E-Verify. Many of my colleagues have amendments on many other issues. We are open to debate and discussion on the core principles that the eight of us agreed to. That is an agreement among the eight of us, and the rest of you can disagree with that--we think most of you will agree with those core principles. So be it. Aside from the basic core of the bill, we welcome changes, suggestions, and improvements. We look forward to a healthy debate.

To bring up an amendment that has been rejected and basically turns things on its head, because there will be no path to citizenship for anybody, and because you are just sort of, if you will, with all due respect, throwing money at a problem without specificity as to where the money goes, that doesn't move the debate forward.

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Mr. SCHUMER. I thank my colleague.

Reclaiming the floor for a brief minute, I know my colleague from Utah has been offered time to speak on his proposal, so I don't want to take too much more time.

I wish to say once again that we welcome suggestions. The Senator from Arizona is right. We carefully looked at the border. This wasn't fly-by-night. Every one of us, certainly not only myself, wants to see that border as secure as possible.

It so happens that 6,500 more Border Patrol agents, if you asked the experts, they wouldn't know what to do with them. Large sections of the border have no roads, have no way to station Border Patrol agents there; whereas, helicopters, drones, and mobile forces work.

It was my colleague from Arizona who actually taught me that on a trip to the border. He used his military expertise to help us figure out the most effective way to seal the border effectively.

When I hear of the amendment from my colleague from Texas, I don't get what the logic is behind it, frankly. I certainly don't get the logic on his trigger.

It is fair if we want to make sure the border is secure, but if we use triggers--as some might, and I am not saying that my colleague from Texas intended that--but if triggers become a way to avoid a path to citizenship--without saying directly I want to avoid a path to citizenship because I don't want to vote for it--that is not going to work and we will not move forward.

This Nation desperately needs us to move forward as Democrats and Republicans together. Let's continue the bipartisan spirit we have had. Let us move forward together to make this bill better, make our country proud of us, and keep America the leading power economically and every other way.

I yield the floor.

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