Keystone XL Pipeline Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, I rise today on the important issue of
funding the Department of Homeland Security and to urge my colleagues
to come together and pass a clean appropriations bill with regard to
this agency.

The Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, is charged with border
security and immigration enforcement. DHS's role extends far beyond
immigration. The agency is also responsible for aviation security,
emergency management and response, counterterrorism, and cyber
security.

Democrats and Republicans have long worked together to make sure our
hard-working Federal officers on the border, in our airports, and at
our ports can continue their critical work that keeps us safe.

Now the Republican-controlled House would irresponsibly risk shutting
down the Department of Homeland Security to score political points over
the President's immigration actions. Today I object to the effort to
shut down DHS over the President's immigration Executive action because
it is not only an irresponsible strategy from a security point of view,
but it comes with a real cost in the everyday lives of students and
parents.

Funding for the Department of Homeland Security is set to expire
February 27. The President has been clear that he will veto any policy
riders that undo his Executive action and harm millions of students and
their families. The House Republican bill forces us to choose between
shutting down the Department of Homeland Security or deporting children
and families. This is an untenable choice.

Looking at the votes in the House, it is clear some Members of
Congress would on the one hand say our immigration focus should be on
securing our border, while on the other hand they risk turning off the
lights at Border Patrol stations because they disagree with the
President's immigration policies.

Last year I led a congressional delegation to McAllen, TX, and to
Lackland Air Force Base to see the humanitarian crisis on the border
firsthand. My colleagues and I were heartbroken after seeing children
as young as 7 years old in Customs and Border Protection facilities.

But what we also saw were hard-working border agents doing the best
they could under difficult circumstances in an already stressed
immigration system. These agents should know that we in Washington are
going to give them the resources they need to do their jobs, not
irresponsibly shut down the Department of Homeland Security, for whom
they work.

Instead of threatening to shut down the government's primary homeland
security agency, we should be working together to once again pass
bipartisan, comprehensive immigration reform. Republicans and Democrats
agree our immigration system is broken.

With his Executive action President Obama took a step to bring
millions across the country out of the shadows and keep U.S. citizens
and their families together. Congressional action that puts families
first is needed if we are to permanently fix our immigration system.

The President's Executive action helps millions of people across
America by allowing certain students and families to register, work
legally, and pay their taxes. His action is rooted in the reality that
our immigration enforcement officers need to exercise discretion on
whom to go after with limited resources and in a broken immigration
system.

Those who oppose the President's action, which is reflected in the
House Republican bill, say that the President and enforcement officers
must act with absolutely no discretion. This position contemplates and,
in fact, supports the removal of nearly 12 million undocumented people
from our country. This is paramount to a policy of mass deportation.

If mass deportation were enacted, DHS would need an exponential
increase in funding and resources. Billions in increased spending
without any permanent fixes or reforms is not a viable option. Even if
we somehow have the resources to enact the policy of mass deportation,
doing so would devastate our economy, removing millions of hard-working
people who would no longer be working, running businesses, buying our
goods and products. That would lead to over $2.5 trillion of economic
loss to our country in just a decade.

Mass deportation is not a serious solution for immigration reform. It
simply is not possible for DHS to remove every undocumented person from
this country.

Passing the House bill would just make life even harder for these
people, many of whom are already some of the hardest working people in
our Nation.

As I mentioned, there are nearly 12 million undocumented people
living in communities across America. Many have been living here for
years or decades. They are parents, they are small business owners, and they are our neighbors and our children's classmates at school.

They are people such as Bianca, a woman who lives in Hawaii with her
family. After moving to the United States on a visa over a decade ago,
Bianca met her husband. They moved to the place where they had always
dreamed of living--Hawaii, naturally--and began a family there.

Bianca's work visa and her husband's work visa were temporary, and
like many immigrant families they faced a tough decision to remain
after their visas expired and to continue building a life here in
America. Bianca and her husband started with nothing. Today they have
two small businesses on Oahu and four American children--children born
in the United States. Their businesses employ American citizens. They
pay their taxes, and they work hard to provide for their families and
be engaged in the community.

Because of the President's order, Bianca and her family no longer
live in fear every single day of being torn from the life they have
built in Hawaii.

The House Republicans' mass deportation policy is a serious proposal
in only one respect. It would result in serious, negative consequences
for our economy, our government, and millions of families in our
country.

In contrast, prioritizing deporting felons, not families and
students, is simply common sense, and that is what the President's
Executive order does.

Now is the time when we should be working together on commonsense and
comprehensive immigration reform that the vast majority of Americans
support. Comprehensive immigration reform is supported by 70 percent of
the American people. In the past Congress, nearly 70 percent of the
Senate supported our bipartisan immigration bill.

Our bipartisan bill was a compromise. It strengthened border
security, modernized our system, addressed visa backlogs, and allowed
millions of undocumented people to step out of the shadows, get in
line, and work toward becoming American citizens. Comprehensive
immigration reform would have spurred economic growth in our country by
over $100 billion per year while helping to bring down the deficit.

The only thing that kept this bipartisan reform bill from becoming
law was the fact that Speaker Boehner refused to give the bill an up-
or-down vote in the House. Recklessly shutting down the Department of
Homeland Security will not fix our broken immigration system. Undoing
the President's Executive action will not fix our broken immigration
system. We must work together, and we must fund the Department of
Homeland Security so that they can continue to protect our country, and
we must come together to pass commonsense reform that Americans
support.

Both sides of the aisle agree that we are a nation of immigrants and
our immigration system is broken. We don't need to shut down the
Department of Homeland Security or round up and deport millions of
families and individuals.

We can start that process with a clean DHS funding bill, and I urge
my Republican colleagues to bring one to the floor quickly.

I yield the floor.

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