Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I know the parties are working on a unanimous consent agreement for the next tranche of amendments to come forward. I expect and hope mine will be one of them, but it is not quite completed yet. So rather than ask for unanimous consent to call up my amendment now, what I would like to do is just talk about it a little bit and explain to my colleagues what is in it.

We call my amendment the RESULTS amendment because it is necessary, because in the current form of the so-called Gang of 8 bill, it does not include any genuine guarantee of border security. My colleagues don't have to take my word for it. All they have to do is take a look at the chart behind me. Senator Durbin, one of the four Democrats and four Republicans who were responsible for coming up with the so-called Gang of 8 bill, said in January that in that bill, a pathway to citizenship ``would be contingent upon securing the border.'' He said that in January. I think a lot of people took him and others at their word, only to find out otherwise in June, 6 months later--June 2013--when he was quoted as saying that the gang has ``delinked the pathway to citizenship and border enforcement.''

What that means is the underlying bill gives a promise--another hollow, unenforceable promise--and, based upon our experience, I think the American people would be justified in saying they are asking us to trust them at a time when there is a genuine trust deficit with regard to the Federal Government. We have heard too many promises. We want guarantees that these promises will be delivered on, and that is what my amendment is all about.

In the underlying bill, all we have is--first of all, we have a 100-percent situational awareness requirement and a 90-percent apprehension requirement of people who are crossing the border illegally. But all that is required in the underlying bill is the submission of a plan and substantial completion of that plan for which nobody has seen the contents. That is 10 years from now. I don't think anyone would be out of bounds in saying there may be good intentions--people may actually believe what they say, but how can we possibly know that some unwritten plan that is going to be in place 10 years from now will actually be successful in accomplishing the very goals that were set out in the bill?

My amendment is slightly different because it embraces those same standards, including 100 percent situational awareness and 90 percent cross-border apprehensions, and it says a person can't transition from probationary status to legal permanent residency until it is certified that they have accomplished those goals. What that does, simply stated, is--it doesn't punish anything, but it lines up all of the incentives for those of us who want to secure the border and have a border immigration system that actually works and incentives for those for whom a pathway to citizenship is the holy grail; that is what they want more than anything else. So it realigns incentives on the right and the left and gets us in a position where we can actually look the American people in the face and say we have as close as humanly possible a guarantee that these promises will ultimately be kept.

My amendment requires the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and the Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Homeland Security inspector general, in consultation with the Government Accountability Office and the Comptroller General, to jointly certify that the following triggers are met before registered provisional immigrants can adjust to lawful permanent residency or green card status. First, as I said, the Department of Homeland Security has to have achieved and maintained full situational awareness of the entire southern border for not less than 1 year. That means the Department of Homeland Security has the capability to conduct continuous and integrated monitoring, sensing or surveillance of each and every 1-mile segment of the southern border or its immediate vicinity.

Some may say: Full border situational awareness? How are we going to do that? Are we going to link Border Patrol agents arm to arm across a 2,000-mile border? Are we going to just build a fence, as some have advocated, along the 2,000-mile border? The fact is we are going to use the best technology and the best strategy to make sure the resources our U.S. military has deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq and which have been tested along the southern border are available for border control, so that by virtue of radar, eyes in the sky, dirigibles, and unmanned aerial vehicles, a combination of these connected to the sensors on the ground will make sure the Border Patrol knows what is happening along the border when people try to cross and enter illegally. Then it is up to them to hit the 90-percent operational control requirement in both the underlying bill and in my amendment.

The Department of Homeland Security is required to achieve that operational control for not less than 1 year, meaning it has an effectiveness apprehension rate of not less than 90 percent in each and every sector of the southern border.

I saw this morning that Senator McCain said he expects to have a letter from the head of the Border Patrol which states that standard is imminently doable, given the proper resources. So if it is imminently doable, then I would like to suggest, contrary to what the majority leader said a few days ago, that this amendment is not a poison pill. This amendment would give the American people the confidence that we are actually going to do what is technologically feasible and which I believe they have a right to expect if we are going to be generous in the way we treat the 11 million people who are here and provide them not only an opportunity to apply for probation and to work, if they qualify and if they maintain the terms of that probation, but if they are successful, to ultimately apply 10 years hence for legal permanent residency for those who want that and who have played by the rules.

The third trigger in my amendment is one that maintains the underlying provision requiring the Department of Homeland Security to implement an E-Verify system nationwide. The current situation is such that individuals who want to work may have fake documents claiming to be somebody they are not--maybe it is somebody else's Social Security number--in order to get hired. But the employer is not expected to be the police; they are not expected to be able to look behind these documents. We know that massive identity theft and document fraud occur in such a way as to circumvent the efforts to enforce our system and to restore legality into the system when it comes to people who come to this country and want to work here. So that is the third one.

The fourth one, in order to fill a gaping hole in the bill with respect to interior enforcement, the RESULTS amendment requires the Department of Homeland Security to initiate removal proceedings for at least 90 percent of visa overstays who collectively currently account for 40 percent of illegal immigration. I think it surprises a lot of people to learn it is not just our porous borders, it is people who enter the country legally who simply overstay their visa and melt into the great American landscape, unless they happen to get caught for committing a crime of some kind, and they typically are not identified or detained. This is simply unacceptable, and my amendment is designed to guarantee that the Department of Homeland Security will implement a procedure which has been required for 17 years now. President Clinton signed a provision into law requiring a biometric entry and exit system.

When a person enters the country on a foreign visa, they are required to give fingerprints--that is their biometric identifier--but there is no way and no means by which to check whether a person has left the country when their visa has expired.

This is designed to deal with that 40-percent source of illegal immigration.

My amendment authorizes the creation of a southern border security commission similar to the one in the underlying bill, but does so in a way that respects the Constitution and federalism.

My amendment removes Washington, DC, appointees from the commission and allows State Governors to immediately begin advising the Department on gaining operational control of the southern border. I think this is very important because while I have heard colleagues here in the Senate who have good intentions--but I think sometimes their only consciousness of what the border may look like is derived from movies they have seen or novels they have read--this requires consultation with the people who know the border communities best, and that is the people who live there and the State Governors who govern States on our U.S.-Mexico border.

My amendment also requires the Secretary of Homeland Security to issue a comprehensive southern border security strategy within 120 days of enactment. People who are listening may say: I thought the Department of Homeland Security already had a southern border security strategy. And if it does not, why in the heck not?

Well, this would compel the Secretary--who, amazingly to most people in my State, when she declared the border is secure, nearly provoked laughter, as much as anything else, because it is patently and demonstrably not true--but this amendment would require such a strategy within 120 days of enactment of the bill and chart a course for achieving and maintaining full situational awareness and operational control of the southern border.

The Secretary would also be required to submit semiannual reports on implementation. This amendment would also streamline and improve the strategy required under the underlying bill. For example, it combines the southern border security strategy and the southern border fencing strategy for administrative clarity and economies of scale.

It also addresses an oversight in the underlying bill by requiring the Department of Homeland Security to develop a strategy to reduce land port of entry wait times by 50 percent in order to facilitate legitimate commerce and encourage lawful cross-border trade.

This is something that is not sufficiently appreciated. Mexico is our third largest trading partner. Six million jobs in America depend on cross-border trade with Mexico. Why in the world would we want to do anything that would make cross-border lawful trade worse? Right now, by failing to update our infrastructure at the ports of entry--and to make sure we have adequate staffing here--there are huge wait lines which prove very useful to the people who want to smuggle drugs and people across the border. So this would have a way of separating the legitimate trade and traffic from the people who are up to no good: the drug dealers, the human traffickers, and the like.

There is a question that has arisen, as you might expect, about how we are going to pay for all this. That is a good question, and it is an important question. My amendment creates a comprehensive immigration reform trust fund similar to that in the underlying bill. Ultimately, the goal is for fees and fines to fund this entire piece of legislation. But my amendment combines all border security funding streams and makes $6.5 billion of these funds available immediately for implementing the southern border security strategy.

The RESULTS amendment increases the number of Border Patrol agents and Customs and Border Protection officers by 5,000 each. Some people have mistakenly said I want to add 10,000 Border Patrol agents to the border on top of the 20,000 who are already there. Well, that is not entirely accurate. We want 5,000 more because if you have this great technology--which is going to give you eyes in the sky; 100-percent situational awareness--when this technology identifies people trying to cross the border, you have to have somebody to go get them and to detain them. That is why Border Patrol agents are important. In some parts of our 1,200-mile border in Texas alone, there are huge stretches of land that are vulnerable to cross-border traffic. That is why the Rio Grande sector in South Texas is now the single most crossed sector.

The other day, when I was in Brooks County--Falfurrias, TX--the head of the Border Patrol sector in that area told me that in 1 day they had 700 people coming across the border whom they detained. We do not know how many got away, but they did detain 700 people. Madam President, 400 of them came from countries other than Mexico. In other words, Mexico's economy is doing much better, and it is less and less incentive for people to cross into the United States to work if they have a job where they live. But in Central America things are pretty bad right now. So 400 out of the 700 in 1 day came from Central America. Literally people could come from anywhere around the world if they have the money and the determination to penetrate our southern border. So it is important we have increased numbers of Border Patrol agents as well as Customs and Border Protection officers to help facilitate legitimate commerce and to detain people trying to cross illegally.

By the way, the underlying bill already has a provision for additional CBP officers--Customs and Border Protection officers--and my amendment would increase that number by 3,500, and add 5,000 Border Patrol agents to it.

The RESULTS amendment also improves emergency border security resource appropriations by ensuring that deployment decisions are consistent with the comprehensive strategy and not done in a piecemeal, disconnected sort of way. It is important that we have a combination of not only boots on the ground, infrastructure, but also that technology I think we would all agree upon, much of which the American taxpayer has already paid for because it is being deployed by the U.S. military in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq. What we need to do is transfer some of that to the Homeland Security Department--another part of the Federal Government--and to implement it to help provide that situational awareness and enforcement.

My amendment also authorizes $1 billion a year for 6 years--it does not appropriate it; it authorizes it--in emergency port of entry personnel and infrastructure improvements. I already touched on that a moment ago. But the whole idea of the underlying bill is to provide a guest worker program, a legal means to come and work in the United States. The idea is that will allow law enforcement to focus on the bad actors. This has the similar rationale.

The RESULTS amendment further improves the land ports of entry by allowing the General Services Administration to enter into public-private partnerships to improve infrastructure and operations.

This amendment also repurposes the Tucson sector earmark in the underlying bill to the full southern border to help ensure that effective border security prosecutions are increased in every sector, not just in one, in Tucson.

By making improvements to the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program--the so-called SCAAP bill--my amendment would help ensure that State and local governments are swiftly and fully compensated for their assistance in detaining criminal aliens who have been convicted of offenses and who are awaiting trial.

One of the great frustrations in my State--given our common border with Mexico and the failure of the Federal Government to live up to its responsibilities when it comes to border security--is that much of the cost of that is borne by local governments and local taxpayers in counties along the U.S.-Mexico border, particularly when it comes to education, health care, and law enforcement.

This SCAAP provision in my amendment would help make sure that in the law enforcement area State and local law enforcement officials are indemnified and, indeed, encouraged to help cooperate in detaining criminal aliens who have been convicted of offenses and are awaiting trial.

My amendment would also create the southern border security assistance grant program to help border law enforcement officials target drug traffickers, human traffickers, human smugglers, and violent crime. Again, the Federal law enforcement agencies cannot do it by themselves, and local and State law enforcement in Texas do not expect them to, but they do expect a little bit of help, financial help, particularly, when it comes to overtime, when it comes to equipment that is necessary to supplement the Federal effort or to fill the gap when the Federal Government leaves a gap in law enforcement efforts.

My amendment would also remove a controversial provision in the underlying bill that would prevent the emergency deportation of serious criminals.

My amendment would remove a controversial disclosure bar that would prevent law enforcement and national security officials from obtaining critical information contained in legalization applications filed under this bill. My amendment would allow these officials to request and obtain information in connection with an independent criminal, national security, or civil investigation.

This is directed at one of the biggest problems in the 1986 amnesty Ronald Reagan signed, because he signed an amnesty for 3 million people premised on the idea that we were actually going to enforce the law and we would never need to do that again. But so much of that amnesty was riddled with fraud and criminal activity because of the confidentiality provisions which prohibited law enforcement from investigating and detecting fraud and criminality. If we want to maintain the integrity of the provisions of this bill, we need to make sure our law enforcement officials are not blinded, but that they actually have the ability to investigate these matters for a criminal, national security, or civil investigation.

My amendment would allow Citizenship and Immigration Services to turn over evidence of criminal activity or terrorism contained in legalization applications filed under the bill to other law enforcement agencies after the application has been denied and all administrative appeals have been exhausted.

This would greatly work to reduce the potential for mass fraud that occurred in the 1986 amnesty bill, and it would allow the application process to maintain its basic integrity and ensure that national security is protected.

My amendment would also give American diplomatic officials more flexibility to share foreigners' visa records with our allies by clarifying that the State Department may share visa records with a foreign government on a case-by-case basis for the purpose of determining removability or eligibility for a visa, admission, or other immigration benefits--not just for crime prevention, investigation, and punishment--or when the sharing is in the national interest of the United States.

My amendment would further improve the public safety by denying probationary status--something called RPI, or registered provisional immigrant status--to any person who has been convicted of a crime involving domestic violence, child abuse, assault with bodily injury, violation of a protective order under the Violence Against Women Act, or drunk driving. These are serious offenses, and the consequences are often tragic. The underlying bill would allow the vast majority of illegal immigrants who have committed these crimes to automatically become registered provisional immigrants and, ultimately, hold open to them the possibility they could become American citizens. I think we need to draw a very bright line between those whose only offense is to try to come here for a better life and those who have shown such contempt for our laws and American law and order that they commit crimes. We should not reward them with a registered provisional immigrant or probationary status.

My amendment also removes an unjustified provision in the underlying bill that would allow repeat criminals with multiple convictions to automatically obtain legal status, so long as they were convicted of the multiple offenses on the same day. I know that sounds very strange, but in the underlying bill, if you commit multiple offenses on one day, they do not count as separate offenses for purposes of the bar--if you commit three misdemeanors or a felony. So my amendment would fix that.

My amendment would also remove a dangerous provision in the underlying bill that would allow the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security unfettered discretion to waive this criminal activity prohibition and to allow people to gain legal status, even if they are repeat criminals who have been convicted of three or more offenses.

My amendment would strike a controversial provision allowing deportees and persons currently located outside the United States to qualify for probationary status. I do not know how many people have actually focused on this provision. I think most people thought this was for people who were in the shadows in the United States whose only offense was simply a violation of our immigration laws to come here and work. But this underlying bill would allow people who have already been deported and who have committed crimes already to reenter the country and to qualify for probationary status. My amendment would change that and fix that.

My amendment would require the Secretary of Homeland Security, through her designees, to conduct interviews of applicants for RPI status who have been convicted of a criminal offense in order to determine whether the applicant is a danger to the public safety.

Now, I can imagine that somebody might have committed some misdemeanor offense, but upon further inquiry and examination they may not be deemed a threat to the public safety. That is what the purpose of that interview requirement would be. We also close a judicial review loophole that would allow dangerous individuals to remain in the United States after their RPI application has been denied by the Department of Homeland Security.

Finally, my amendment would take a hard line against human smuggling and the transnational criminal organizations that are the primary movers of people and drugs across the southern borders. I do not know how many of our colleagues really understand this now, but this is a major business that is primarily occupied by organized crime. It is the drug cartels. It is what we sometimes call transnational criminal organizations and the people who work for them.

They are the primary agency moving people, drugs, and contraband across the border. That is what my amendment is designed to attack--increased penalties for human smuggling and the transnational criminal organizations that facilitate them. My amendment adds aggravated penalties for human smuggling that is committed by repeat offenders which result in death, result in human trafficking, or include involuntary sexual conduct.

I had the humbling experience the other day when I was in south Texas in meeting a young lady who is from Central America. Her parents paid $6,000 for her to be smuggled into the United States and to be reunited with relatives in New Jersey, only to find out that did not work out too well, and she had to rejoin the person who brought her across the border, the human smuggler, who promptly prostituted her and put her into involuntary servitude where she was afraid to escape lest she be deported and have to leave the country.

There are innumerable human tragedies which occur day in and day out under the status quo, which is one reason why I believe we need to fix our broken immigration system, and particularly our porous border, that allows these predators to prey on innocent young women like this young woman I met from Guatemala, and to basically commit them to human slavery in the United States in places like Houston, where she worked in a bar and was prostituted out numerous times a day. Because she felt so vulnerable, she believed the only way she could actually stay here was to submit to the demands of this sexual predator.

My amendment respects the victims of abuse of human smuggling by requiring the Department of Justice to ensure that information about missing and unidentified migrant remains found on lands near the southern border is uploaded into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. We provide state and local officials with resources to identify the victims.

This is another experience I had when I was in Brooks County recently in south Texas, where just last year alone they found 129 dead bodies--human remains--that they were unable to identify because these were people simply left behind by the human smugglers who basically did not care anything about them--only for the money they would provide, which once provided, they could care less about whether these people actually made their way into the United States, particularly if they were slowing down the rest of the group.

My RESULTS amendment disqualifies persons who have used a commercial motor vehicle to commit a human smuggling offense from operating a commercial vehicle for a year. We ban repeat human smugglers from operating commercial motor vehicles for life. This is a penalty that will have teeth in it and deter this heinous crime. My amendment creates special penalties for illegal immigrants convicted of drug trafficking or crimes of violence.

Now, we understand that, again, some people have come across our borders without observing our immigration laws who want nothing but a chance to work. But if people have come across the border and engaged in drug trafficking or criminal violence, they deserve the special penalties provided for in my amendment. My amendment would create a new crime for illegal border crossing with the intent to aid, abet, or engage in a crime of terrorism. Again, this is something I wonder whether my colleagues really understand because they do not live along the southwestern border.

We have had people from 100 different countries, including countries of special interest as state sponsors of terrorism, come across our southwestern border. When I was in Falfurrias the other day, the Border Patrol showed me rescue beacons which, if you get sick enough and dehydrated enough and exposed enough to the elements and just want to give up, you can hit the beacon and the Border Patrol will come and rescue you.

They are listed in three languages: English, Spanish, and Chinese. I asked the Border Patrol: Well, Chinese, that seems a little bit out of place in south Texas. They said: Well, for $30,000, if you are from China, you can hire someone to smuggle you into the United States. So, as we have heard from both the Director of National Intelligence and the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, this vulnerability along our southwestern border is literally a national security vulnerability, and one reason we need to adopt my amendment.

My amendment closes loopholes in current laws that allow drug cartel mules to transport bulk cash and launder money with near impunity. So what happens is, the drugs come from the south of the border to the north of the border. Then the transaction is made by somebody buying those drugs. The cash has to make its way back. We have developed pretty sophisticated means through a wire transfer process to identify when large amounts of cash are transferred by wire. But there is also a huge trade in bulk cash, where literally cash is transferred in bulk across the border south in order to launder it with near impunity. My amendment would address that problem.

My amendment targets money-laundering efforts through stored value cards and blank checks. So why do it on the wire? Why do it in bulk cash if you can just do it through a gift card you can buy at a local grocery store or blank checks? These are tactics that are frequently used by cartels to transport criminal proceeds across the southern border and launder money.

In sum, my amendment goes beyond promises and platitudes. It demands results. Again, it realigns the incentives for everybody to make sure the Department of Homeland Security hits the standards in this bill of 100 percent situational awareness, 90 percent operational control.

These are not my standards alone. These were standards that the Gang of 8 wrote initially into their bill. Their bill offers promises but no real enforcement means to make sure it actually happens.

Under my amendment, people who applied for registered provisional status are not eligible for legal permanent residency until the American people have the assurances that the border security measures, the E-Verify provision, the biometric entry-exit system, all those things have been done.

That seems like a small price to pay with a generous gift that the American people are being asked to confer upon people who have entered the country illegally or who came in legally and overstayed their visa in violation of our laws. Now, this is what a real border security trigger looks like. Unfortunately, some of our colleagues do not want a trigger at all. Above all, they want a pathway to citizenship regardless of whether we have secured our borders.

We have tried that before--in 1986. We have also promised people since 1996 that we would implement a biometric entry-exit system and have never delivered that. The 9/11 Commission identified the need for a biometric entry-exit system as a national security imperative in the 9/11 Commission report. We still have not done it. So why in the world would the American people, at a time when their trust in the Federal Government is at an all-time low, why in the world would we simply say trust us once more. We are going to promise you the Sun and the Moon and the aurora borealis, but we are not going to have any means necessary in the bill to actually require the implementation of those promises. By the time the empty promises are realized, we know there will be 11 million people on registered provisional immigrant status and potentially on the way to legal permanent residency and citizenship.

CNN reported a poll today that said 6 out of 10 Americans in their poll were OK with providing people humane and compassionate treatment, including an opportunity to earn legal status in this country if they could just be assured that the borders would be secured and our laws would be enforced. My amendment accomplishes exactly that.

As I have repeatedly emphasized, my amendment uses the same border security standards as the Gang of 8 bill. Again, the difference is that in my amendment it has a real trigger that is based on demonstrable results, while their so-called trigger can be activated whether or not our borders are ever secured.

To put it another way, their trigger demands border security inputs. My trigger demands border security results or outputs. We have now had 27 years of inputs since the 1986 amnesty, and we still do not have secure borders. It is long past time to demand results, or outputs, and not just more hollow promises.

One final point about immigration reform. Whatever legislation we pass in this Chamber will head over to the House of Representatives. If we want the Senate bill to have any chance to become law, then we have to include real border security provisions and a real border security trigger. Our House colleagues have made that abundantly clear.

In other words, my amendment is not a poison pill. It is an antidote because it is the only way we are ever going to truly get bipartisan immigration reform, something which I hope and pray we will because the status quo is simply unacceptable.

I yield the floor.

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Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I come to the floor to say a few words about Rosoboronexport, the Russian State arms dealer which has been supplying the Syrian Government with deadly weapons and thereby facilitating mass murder. Last November I sponsored an amendment to prohibit the use of taxpayer dollars in America to enter into contracts or agreements with Rosoboronexport. My amendment had strong bipartisan support, and it passed unanimously. Yet just yesterday, as President Obama met with Russian leader Vladimir Putin at the G8 Summit in Northern Ireland, we learned the Pentagon signed a brandnew $572 million contract with Rosoboronexport to buy MI-17 helicopters for the Afghan Army.

How did the Obama administration get around the prohibition in my amendment? They argued that the Rosoboronexport contract was in our national security interests. In other words, they want us to believe we are promoting U.S. security by doing business with a Russian arms dealer who is helping an anti-American, terror-sponsoring dictatorship commit mass atrocities. Unbelievable.

Last year the Pentagon agreed to audit the contract with Rosoboronexport and make good-faith efforts to find other procurement sources for the Afghan military. Now they are refusing to complete that audit on the grounds that Rosoboronexport simply has refused to cooperate.

Meanwhile, my office has learned that Army officials within the Non-Standard Rotary Wing Aviation Division, whose primary focus is the Mi-17 program, are the subjects of an ongoing criminal investigation. This, obviously, raises troubling questions about whether the terms of the new Mi-17 procurement contract resulted from criminal misconduct.

I want to take this opportunity to say once again that American taxpayers should not be indirectly subsidizing the murder of Syrian civilians, especially when there are perfectly good alternatives to dealing with Rosoboronexport. If the Pentagon continues this relationship, it will undermine American efforts to stand by the Syrian people.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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