Intrinsically linked with at least some of the arguments being made by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. And what were trying to do its fairly simple. Year trying to fund our service members, were trying to fund our veterans. We want to get a longterm authorization for the chip program. The chip Program Actually expired last year but there were sufficient funds on account to continue funding, but theyre running out. In states like North Carolina and other states, this program is going to start being shut down if we dont get muchneeded resources. Were talking about a multiyear reauthorization for the plan. And of course continuing to Fund National institutes of health, which is a critically important part of us combating diseases, finding treatments and cures. Thats all were trying to do with this spending bill. The other thing were trying to do is create a bridge for the month so we can get our colleagues on both sides of the aisle talking and hopefully get some certainty in terms of funding going out into next year and if it was up to me and senator lankford for several years. But it would be good to get some longterm certainty in the fun funding process because right now these continuing resolutions are killing us. Were living paycheck to paycheck. It creates all kinds of inefficient processes. Its wasting taxpayer dollars. But weve at least got to start with you understand ifing the government tonight. At midnight tonight if we dont act on a continuing resolution, then we will be shutting down the government. I for one am going to vote for the continuing resolution, like i have for every resolution for the last three years ive been here because i believe we need to pay our bills, fund our service members, know that the civilian employees can come back to work on monday and we need to do a better job of actually getting together and coming up with centered solutions that gaining enough support on both sides of the aisle to do that. Now i want to talk about why were at the shutdown. Were mainly at the shutdown because some members actually actually, hold up just a minute some members want to put all of our government funding at risk, all of the funding i was talking about here at risk, because we have not yet reached an agreement on Immigration Reform. Now, senator lankford and i have spent a lot of time on this. In august of last year we introduced through september the succeed act, which was an honest effort to get into the discussion on how we could come up with a longterm solution for the daca population. And we got with senator durbin, we got with senator graham, a number of other members, to try to negotiate out our concerns differences. We made some progress. Now ill bring you forward to a couple of weeks ago. We met with the president two weeks ago on a thursday, republican members that included myself, senator lankford, and other mergers and we told the president that we thought we were making progress. Senator graham was in the meeting as well that we were making progress, but we thought to really get the deal done, we needed a bicameral, bipartisan meeting. The president thought it was a good idea, and he hosted the first meet that following tuesday. The majority of the meeting was televised. People could see the discussion going on, people saw a little of good interchange. There were clearly gaps but we thought we were making progress. And what we agreed in that meeting it is what there were four main pillars. The idea of comprehensive Immigration Reform sounds good except its failed every time theyve attempted it. We decided that we should start with a more i think more focused effort to address some of the Border Security concerns and certainty for the daca population. Sounded like a good idea, so we decided that we would have the numbertwo leaders in the house and the senate, the democrats and republicans, four people, get together the following day and develop a schedule so that a subset of that group of a couple of dozen people that met with the president could get together and work ought our differences. And we knew going into it senator lankford and i knew going into it that in order to compromise, we were going to have to accept positions that were, well, short of what we wanted but thats the whole purpose of compromising. Nobody gets everything that they want. So were looking forward to what we had hoped was going to be a schedule coming out of the whips the democrats and the republicans, the four that were in the meeting and that never happened. What we instead found out is on thursday a subset of the group, without talking with any of us, decided to have a meeting with the president and see if they could offer their solution. And thats what a lot of them have been talking about on the floor. They said our solution is ready to go. Weve got bipartisan support. We can let it go. Well, last night i finally got the full text of their solution. I want to share it with you all here. There it is. It is a title. It is nothing. There are no specific provisions. There is enot a bill filed. Theres no evidence that theyve spoken with people to try to bridge the gaps. Its completely counter to what we agreed to do that tuesday a week or so ago. So im asking my colleagues to recognize that people like me and senator lankford care about the daca population. We want to provide them with certainty. We also want to make sure that we put balance into the proposal so that were not here again ten years from now, so that we can make sure that we have something of enduring value. We dont want to do something quick where maybe you play gotcha, you put some pressure on someone an get a bill passed because theyre always at risk of being reversed. Weve already taken hits back in our states. There are people that think we should have never even had this discussion but we care about the daca population. We care about Border Security. We care with Homeland Security and a number of things that have to go together so that we provide a solution but then we also make sure its highly unlikely that senators 10, 12, 15 years from now are in the same place. Before i turn it over to senator lankford, i want to go back and talk little bit about why Border Security should be argued on compassionate grounds. I was down in texas back in february. I spent a week down there with senator cornyn and some of the other members. I was all along the border. I met with Border Patrol agents, some of them had been shot had, we had stories of some of their colleagues who had been killed. I was in laredo where they showed me the door of a helicopter that had just been shot through a couple of weeks earlier from someone just cross the rio grande in what they called luwuebe, la ray lowe dough. There is a compassionate basis for trying to keep our Border Security and c. I. S. Agents safe. There is also a compassionate case for knowing whos crossing the border and where they are. Why . Because 10,000 people have died 10,000 people have died crossing that border the last 20 years, almost 1,000 of them kids or miners. That doesnt include the number that get killed. The way it works down there is they have these human traffickers or smugglers who charge thousands of dollars to get somebody across the border. Sometimes they get across. Oftentimes they dont. The cartels that run the different plazas, the geographies across the southern border if you go through this plaza, you bettering paying a toll or youre going to die. Men, women and children were killed. To send a message, they kill these people. If weve 10,000 die here, they die because we didnt know they were there. We didnt have the Situational Awareness that were trying to get done with the Border Security provisions that are in a compromise bill that weve offered. I can also talk about the millions of doses of drugs that cross our border every week week. Every week millions of doses of poison cross our border. Now, we talk about the opioid epidemic. , and we know a vast majority of the opioids, the heroin, the fentanyl, the different variants of opioids that are coming across the border, are coming from south of the border. Either by water or over land. So if thats not a compelling case of compassion nat, a compassionate case for marrying Border Security with what were trying to do with Immigration Reform, i dont know what is. Were not talking about a wall. Were not talking about a 2,300mile wall. Ive been chris sited for years because i sit on the judiciary committee. Weve had a umin of hearings that would weve had a number of hearings that would never make sense. People, technology, infrastructure is what Border Security called it. Were asking for the baseline funding and build it out over time. Walls where it makes sense, fences, and reconnaissance in some places. Thats all were asking for. There is a deal to be struck here very cuckly. But you dont do it by going around a process that two days before you agreed to participate in. I i want to thank senator lankford because he has done an trod ordinary job an extraordinary job and i want to thank our staff because they have done an amazing amount of work to do something that was embased by senator durbin, but then things broke down because they wanted to talk about the daca program and they didnt want to talk about the impactful, compassionate solution that i think we would get 60 votes for. Senator lankford, i would like to get your thoughts and comments and yield the floor to you. Mr. Lankford madam president. The presiding officer the senator from oklahoma. Mr. Lankford senator tillis and i have come to the floor today because we have some incredible frustration and want to bring some facts out to the conversation. I absolutely agree for the federal grieve for the federal workers in my state and there are some phenomenal people that do an amazing job that most people wont know about where they get up every day to serve the people. There are folks in the military who every day serve the american people. There are civilians around them, though not listed as federal employees, are connected to what were doing with the federal task for people. They are trying to figure out this afternoon what will happen to them this weekend and next week. They are frantically getting together in offices all over oklahoma and all over america trying to piece together the now whats of a government shut down distracting them from doing the things that need to be done that they were backlogged on, for what . This focus on lets do a government shut down over not having to have real discussions about daca and immigration is not only not accurate, but its also something that is already in process that somehow is being short circuited. All of these federal workers and all of these civilian employees going through this turmoil trying to figure out why daca is not resolved and that it is at the beginning of march, is confusing everyone. Let me walk everyone backwards for a few months here. In september the nation was surprised when President Trump announced he is not going to renew daca. He wants a legislative longterm fix for daca. That very day that he made that announcement, i released out a statement saying, in america we do not hold children accountable for the actions of their parents. We dont do that in american law. Just a couple of days after that, the president called me late one night and he said, hey, i saw your statement in a report about that and we talked about 20 minutes late that evening talking about this policy and getting a longterm solution for daca for the kids that have to renew every two or three years, he wanted some permanence for them and have solutions for Border Security that werent controversial a couple of years ago. To say we need to deal with Border Security and with daca. Can we put this together . The president at the time i told the president that senator tillis and i are working to get something put together. Because for the last 15 years the dream act has come up before the house and senate and for 15 years it has failed every single time. The dream act failed when there was a democrat senate, a democrat president , and a democrat house of representatives. That bill is not going to pass. We knew that so we went to work saying, what is a better solution that will provide some semblance of performance on this . Our conversation was a lot of the pushback of why the dream act has not passed in the past is that a lot of americans feel like i understand this group of individuals have grownup in our country, pledged allegiance to our flag, speak english, this feels like home to them, but its not home, they wanted them to have that opportunity but they didnt want them to, quote, unquote, cut in line. So we put in a process to say, here is a way that those individuals could be naturalized citizens of the United States, but they have to go throw a process just go through a process, but the exception would be that they are already here and wouldnt have what daca provided. Daca provided two years of we wont arrest you, but no legal status. This would provide immediate legal status and an opportunity after ten years to earn naturalization. That had never been offered like that before. We worked through all the details of that and laid out a proposal and said, this is a section of a larger bill. We feel like this is a way to get past what has blocked the dream act year after year after year and what has been a major frustration for those concerned about the dream act. We want to be able to resolve this but it has to be resolved with Border Security attached to it. I didnt think it was an unreasonable request. I was surprised to hear about it because in the previous gang of eight version there was a large section in it about Border Security. So i assumed this would be a nonissue to be a part of had those issues together. It seems irresponsible toll deal with the daca issue and to not address how did that happen in the first place, to say that we have a secure border and say we dont need to address anything would be to ignore 12 million examples in our country of that rule being violated, either through visa or through coming across the borders who came to our country illegally. We have a very receiving country. Half a Million People cross our southern border every day. A Million People a day legally become citizens of the United States many we are not a country that is antiimmigration, we just want it done the right way. We think the law should apply to everyone equally all the time and dont like anything circumventing the law. September 5, the president makes the announcement, within days we have conversations with the president about it. He agrees there should be something sha a longterm that is a longterm solution. Within two weeks senator tillis and i release out our bill. Thankfully in our conference senator cornyn is also working through Border Security to be able to partner with this, at the same time senator cotton and senator perdue are also working on other areas dealing with chain migration, knowing this could be partnered together for a final bill. They are individual titles of a larger proposal. We were bringing those out. In october the president of the United States released a long report that said what he would like to have in the bill with great detail in it saying this is what he expects the bill should look like when it is resolved. Now it is october. He said, we have to get this resolved, we have three different bills, the president has released out something, and we want to start negotiation. In november we are in negotiations with a p Bipartisan Group and with a Bipartisan Group and every day in the Bipartisan Group the democrats only want to talk about daca. Our staffs meet every day, we meet every other day, as members going through it every day and every day its daca and we say there are other aspects, and every day they say, lets work on daca some more. So in september i asked when are we going to get to talk about Border Security . We have to talk about that. Guess what happened, the next meeting i wasnt invited to attend. Neither was i invited to the next one and neither was senator tillis. Our staff finds out they are meeting and we say we want to get to a bipartisan agreement. They wont tell us when or where they are meeting. We didnt tuck away from negotiations. Walk away from negotiations. We were kicked out of negotiations because we believed this needed Border Security and daca. For a group that said basically we dont want to deal with Border Security, they were no longer interested in us, which brings us to a stalemate of getting this resolved. Which brings us to two weeks ago. The president invites us over in a bipartisan, bicameral conversation and said that we have to get something. And with 26 members from both parties we made an agreement, there will be four areas of this final agreement and these are the negotiators to put it to pull it together, the whip from the republican and democrat from the house and senate. They were supposed to get it done. That was on tuesday. The group went back to the president and said we have to lets try this. I know on tuesday we agreed to do the other process, but we have another idea to kind of end run the whole process. Clearly, that said a lot of us to say were trying to do a bipartisan deal. Were trying to work this through the process. Were trying to be good faith in this and so far there have not been goodfaith negotiations on Border Security at all. We cannot deal with the issue of individuals that are in our country illegally, even if we as americans see them as neighbors, friends, and future citizens of our country and ignore what happened in the first place. That would not be responsible of us. Now, there are some that want to say this is because you are simply a racist, which is infuriating and inaccurate and belittles the conversation. To stand up and say the only reason you think this is because you are a racist is trying to shut down the conversation, not engage in it. These are my friends and neighbors as well. Were legislators and we have a responsibility to solve issues, not belittle each other and not make false accusations. There are millions of people that have crossed our border to be able to work or connect with family. I fully understand that. Many of them live around my place, go to church with me. I get that completely. But there are also many people that cross our borders because of crime, and we would be foolish to ignore that reality as well. There are people that cross that border to be able to traffic drugs, to be able to traffic in terrorism, to be able to move people, human trafficking, labor trafficking. We should have a secure border setup for that. Again, this used to not be a partisan issue. In 2006 senator schumer, and at that time senator obama, voted for the secure fences act which put in 650 miles of fencing on the southern border. Let me say that again. Senator schumer and senator obama, and a lot of other Democratic Senators that are still here, voted for the secure fences act in 2006 to put in 65r southern border because this didnt used to be a partisan issue, and it shouldnt be today. Border security is not partisan, its national security. The proposals that have come out at times amaze me. Lets actually get serious about trying to resolve these issues. Basic Border Security issues should involve not just fencing in some areas, or walls in some areas or technology in some areas, adding additional manpower in other areas, those are reasonable things along the border that every country in the world is organizing, but it also involves dealing with some of the gaps in our law that if someone crosses into the United States, things need to be addressed. For instance, the removal of multiple fell anymore criminal aliens. Why is this controversial . This shouldnt be a controversial issue at all but for some reason it is. Ending the practice with greater fines and penalties of people who smuggle in people for profit. Why would that be controversial . But for some reason it is. Dealing with additional judges because we have 600,000 people in a backlog in our immigration courts, 600,000 people in our immigration courts in a backlog, why would it be controversial not to have to deal with a backlog . Why would it be controversial to say were behind on family members that have petitioned to be a part of this country but were, get this, 20 years in a backlog. Why would that be controversial to say we need to divert some of our attention to catching up on the backlog . There are a lot of issues that we need to deal with and this is a complicated issue, but for other members, can i just say, were very close to negotiating this and people if people will do goodfaith negotiating, but to say were going to shut the government down and do it our way and do an end run seems absurd to me and it seems absurd to the federal workers in my state who are now going through chaos this afternoon because some people wanted to end run around the process that was already in place. Lets finish the process, not try to create some artificial cliff and chaos to try to say, do it my way or ill shut the government down. Lets finish the process. There are willing partners on both sides, and there are reasonable proposals to be able to finish out what weve already started and worked months on to be able to get to this process. I thank senator tillis for the engagement he has on this, because he and his team have worked exceptionally hard. His team and the my team have worked exceptionally hard. We want to get them right. Senator cornyn and his team have worked exceptionally hard on these issues. Lets do it an get it right. But lets not shut the government down while were in the middle of negotiations because wikimedia pant want because people want to be able to have it their way. With a that, i would yield back. Mr. Tillis ill close. I see senator cornyn here who has done an extraordinary job. It was senator cornyn who hosted the trip that i made down to the border that gave me an incredibly important perspective for the case on Border Security. I just want to leave maybe a final comment for the daca population. Some people say, whats the crisis . Weve got until march 5. I understand that every single did a that you wake up and that date seems like today. I know that we need to move more quickly. Quite honestly, we could have gotten this done a couple of months ago, if people had engaged, recognized their differences, accepted a compromise. Were doing everything that we can to get it done much sooner than march 5 because we understand that there are teachers, there are e. M. T. s, there are some 00 some 900 serving in the military, there are hardworking people, kids in schools. Theres hundreds of thousands of good people in and a proposal that weve put together over a million that we want to welcome into this nation because theyre great citizens, they love this country. Theyre productive citizens, and i want them know that we know that. I want them to nona there are dozen of republicans i want them to know that there are dozens of republicans prepared to vote on a compromise bill thats balanced, that brings Border Security and provides certainty to the daca population, and were going to do everything we can, every day that were here, to make sure that we deliver on that promise. Madam secretary or madam president , thank you, and i yield the floor. Mr. Cornyn madam president . The presiding officer the majority whip. Mr. Cornyn let me say publi publicly what ive said privately to senator tillis and senator lankford. Thank you for your leadership. Theyve done an extraordinary job trying to come up with a solution to the issue, the problem, the challenge that theyve already described. Youd like to put a little add a little color to some of that, but a theyve done extraordinary work but theyve done extraordinary work to try to come up with a compassionate but yet Legal Framework by which we can resolve this issue. You know, to me ive been in the senate since 2002, and ive been through the immigration wars more times than i care to count. And we keep working very hard on this issue, and we always seem to come up short. But i come from a state that is one of the most diverse states ethnically in the country, and thats because weve been a big job creator and a lot of people have been moving there, looking for opportunities. And we have a large hispanic population. It makes sense, were texas, after all. Used to be part of mexico. But about 38 of my constituents are hispanic, and i know thats a large part of the population were looking at what it comes to the dreamers. About 124,000 dreamers in my state. And others who are eligible who, frankly, are in a little bit of a box not knowing how to deal with their situation. But when i think about immigration i think about the two great pillars that have made our country great. One, were a nation of immigrants. We have benefited from the fact that people have fled religious persecution. They have fled poverty. They have come to the United States to experience a sort of freedom that our country that is guaranteed to each and every one of us. And the opportunity to pursue the american dream. That, to me, is one of the great things that has made our country the envy of the world. But the other part and the part that i think sometimes people tend to overlook and forget is, what makes America Great . We are a nation of laws. We are a nation of immigrants, and were a nation of laws. And when we forget either one of those, i think we risk damaging this wonderful inheritance that weve gotten from our parents and our grandparents and people that have gone before us. So i view this responsibility that we all share together here in the congress as a sacred trust. We are the stewards of that inheritance and shame on us if we dont do everything in our power to pass that on to the next generation and beyond. Now, i think by way of a little bit of background, i think sometimes people get with its just natural, i guess. We become familiar with these terms like daca. People may be listening on tv. They think, what the heck is daca . Its easy. Its deferred action for childhood arrives. They go, what . What is that . Or you may say were talking about the dreamers. Thats what senator durbin and others talk about. Because there is a something called the dream act thats been introduced and advocated for. Basically what we are talking about are children, now young adults, who were brought into the United States by their parents, and their parents came into the country illegally. That is, they didnt comply with the normal process of plying for applying for citizenship. And they came into the country, and we all understand why, what motivates a lot of people. A lot of people just they think, well, im just going to shortcircuit the process, jump to the head of the lining. But the fact of the matter is and i think senator lankford said this in the United States we dont hold children responsible for the mistakes of their parents. And so these children now young adults who maybe are able to pursue an education, many of whom have become very accomplished, simply are in a box and i think we have a moral obligation, we have an obligation to ourselves and to our great country, to try to take advantage of the talent that they have to offer and to help them become fullfledged participants in this great country of ours. But i remember being over at the white house in 2012 after the november election. Speaker boehner was there, congressman mccarthy, the majority leader, was there. Senator mcconnell, the Senate Majority leader, was there and i was there. President obama was there. Along with his staff. And the president had for some time threatened to try to deal with this population, this sympathetic population that were talking about here that we want to try to provide some assistance to, that he was frustrated by the law pace of congress and so he was just going to do it by himself. Thats what we mean when we talked about deferred action for childhood arrivals. President obama decided to take and he run around Congress Congress that has the primary responsibility on immigration matters under the constitution and to do it by himself. Well, you know, haste makes waste sometimes. And what happened is these 690,000 i think at one point it was at many as 700,000 who signed up for this daca, which allowed them some security by also gave them access to a work permit, can you imagine what their reaction was when the federal courts held that what president obama did was not legal, it was illegal . So when President Trump came into office, he did, i believe, the right thing and said, you know what . The courts have spoken. This is not something the president can do by him or herself. This is something that Congress Needs to get involved in. So he kicked it over to congre congress. Thankfully, he gave us some time to act. And now i believe the date is march 5, after which daca beneficiaries or recipients can no longer apply for a twoyear period of deferred action. And thats exactly the right thing to do because it has precipitated this debate, its precipitated the negotiations, and its precipitated a reality check for many of our democratic end froms that, you know, we are a nation of immigrants, but we are also a nation of laws. And one reason i believe this president was elected is because people were enormously frustrated with the lack of Border Security, with the failure to enforce our immigration lurks and with immigration lurks and with to enforce our immigration laws, and with president obama endrun. Senator tillis and senator lankford have been leaders in the effort, again put an incredible effort to come up with a lawful but compassionate solution and one that respects both of the pillars of our leg circumstance a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws. And thats why its so offensive to me for the democratic leader to decide hes going to ignore the needs of all of the children i think its roughly 9 million children that benefit from the Childrens Health insurance program. Hes going to give our military the back of his hand and military families by holding our needed support for them hostage so that they can somehow force us to deal with this daca situation today or last night. And if we dont do it, theyre going shut down the u. S. Government. Now, these 690,000 young men and women are truly should be the subject of our compassion, but why would we hold 320 Million People hostage to try to get a solution for these 690,000 when were already hard at work to try to negotiate in good faith an outcome . It just makes no sense at all to me. Now, i appreciate the meetings that we had, that senator tillis alluded. The one at the white house, i think it was on tuesday was that last week . Seems likes a year ago. But President Trump invited the press into this bipartisan, bicameral meeting, and ordinarily what happens after the press comes in and takes pictures and asks a few questions, theyre ushered out. The president but President Trump let them stay in the room, in the cabinet room for about 4550 minutes. It was the most incredible experience ive ever had, certainly in that sort of context, dealing with sensitive issues like immigration. And i think it was a very positive meeting because it provoked the instruction by the president for majority leader mccarthy, the democratic whip, senator durbin, the majority whip, senator cornyn, and steny hoyer, the minority leader in the house, we were instructed to do what senator tillis described earlier come up with a solution to this problem that addresses the daca population, how do we show some compassion, how do we get these young adults out of a quandary not of their making, but also to deal with Border Security . I happen to come from a state that has 1,200 miles of common border with mexico. Senator tillis described his experience there with senator heller. I was happy to host them because i think seeing it is worth 1,000 words. And hopefully they enjoyed the experience and learned something from it as well. But the u. S. Texas i mean, the texasmexico border is about 2,000 miles long. What the Border Patrol has told she they need various tools to be able to secure the border. They need infrastructure like the secure fence act that vietnamed on in 2006 that we voted on in 2006. Then who have senator obama voted in favor of this secure fence act. Some people called it a wall. Some people call it a fence. Some people call it tactical infrastructure. Whatever you call it, a barrier, it is an essential component of Border Security at some parts of the border. But its only part of the system. The system needs to include technology, whether it is unmanned ariel vehicles, ground sensors, aerostats that we saw high in the sky to try to protect our country against Transnational Criminal Organizations that exploit our porous border to import poison for our people, drugs, illegal drugs, that traffic in children or sex or other illicit purposes, or import their gang members into the United States only to wreak havoc on the communities here in the United States. And you know the object of most of the mayhem associated with that porous border are the immigrant communities in the United States. People act as if theres no negative downside to this porous border and illegal immigration. But i will tell you that frequently the devastation thats wreaked on americans, People Living here in the United States is in immigrant communities where these folks do most of their harm. So we are working very hard to try to come up with a solution here. Its frankly insulting that the democratic leader would try to jam this through and hold hostage all these other very important programs when were working in good faith to try to meet that march 5 deadline. I have every confidence we will. Every confidence we will. But its little more complicat complicated. The border that is. One of the things that secretary nielsen, the secretary of the department of Homeland Security, has pointed out is that because of a provision of u. S. Law, if you immigrate illegally into the United States from mexico, for example, the boarder patrol can offer you the opportunity to return back rather than process you for illegal immigration and later deport you. But not if you come from a no noncontiguous country like central america, guatemala, el salvador, for example, honduras. So what weve seen is thousands of people coming across our southern border exploiting that loophole in our law. Let me give you one example. I asked secretary nielsen the other day. I said, if theres a 17yearold man, you may call him a boy but no all practical purposes he is a man but hes not yet reached 18, and you know from his tatt tattoos frequently thats how gang members are identified by the Border Patrol and Law Enforcement official, from the tattoos that they bear that you know that theyre a member of the ms13 gang, one of the most violent gangs emanating from central america, actually los angeles as well but many of them have migrated back to central america. And many of them prey on children back there but come up here as part of the Drug Distribution network into the United States. If you know this is a member of ms13 but they are 17 years old, is there anything you can do under existing law to bar them from the country . She said no. Under the law theyre required to process that person because he is a minor technically, even though hes a man for all practical purposes. And then health and Human Services must then place him with a sponsor in the United States. Might be a relative. Doesnt have to be a relative. The Previous Administration didnt even vet those sponsors adequately. We dont know how many children who were placed with those sponsors may have been preyed upon, trafficked, recruited as gang members or otherwise abus abused. But this young man, 17 years old, member of ms13 would then be placed with a sponsor in the United States and be told if he had claimed asylum, to come back in a couple of years for your Court Hearing before an immigration judge. Senator lankford, i believe, stated that hundreds of thousands of people are backlogged for hearings before immigration judges. We need more immigration judges. But in the process, theyre told to show back up for a Court Hearing years in the future and only about 10 show up. 10 show up. I used to say this was sort of an intelligence test. Tongue in cheek. If you showed up, you flunked the intelligence test because what most people do is they exploit that vulnerability to simply melt into the Great American landscape and become a danger, frankly, to the communities where they that they ultimately settle in. So this is serious business. My constituents in texas, all 28 million of them, they want a compassionate solution for these daca recipients. I mentioned there are 124,000 of them that signed up and there are others that were eligible who did not sign up because theyre afraid of the government. They come from places where the government is their oppressor frequently so they have a hard time trusting government even when the government is trying to help them in the United States. But my constituents want a solution but they are sick and tired of the federal government failing to do its job on the border. An International Border is by definition a federal responsibility, but the taxpayers in texas are required to pick up the tab when the federal government doesnt live up to its responsibilities. And thats been the status quo for as long as i can remember. And its, frankly, galling to hear politicians here in washington say well, we need to do something to help immigrants, and im happy to do it as the occasion as the occasion rises where its appropriate, particularly like the daca recipients. Others i think need to be deported as soon as we can because frankly theyre a danger to the rest of the law abiding lawabiding communities here in the country. But its frustrating to hear people just talk about that one one of those two pillars that i mentioned earlier. They say yeah, were a nation of immigrants. We should welcome immigrants, but they dont want to do anything about our porous borders. They could care less about making sure we have enough Border Security to protect us from the drugs, the traffickers, and the violence that finds its way into communities all across our country. So heres the problem. Funding for the federal government expires at midnight tonight. And a partial Government Shutdown will occur if we dont pass a continuing resolution. Our colleagues in the house did their job. They passed a continuing resolution to keep the government up and running til february 16. Now, i really had a hard time believing what i heard my friend senator schumer say last night. He said we need to kill this continuing resolution because we need to pass another continuing resolution because continuing resolutions are bad for the military. Well, he lost me on that argument. Because it makes no sense. It is true that continuing resolutions are bad for the military. Thats why we need to get back into a regular appropriation process, but does he think a shutdown is good for the military . You think a shutdown is good for the nine million children who depend on the Childrens Health insurance program. I think hiez priorities are i think his priorities are completely out of whack. In my home state, to take one example, the Army Medical Command said that 2,539 civilian employees at joint base san antonio will be subject to furlough, representing 188 million in salaries. 12,000 texas guardsmen wont be able to drill either. Im aware of the presiding officers distinguished service in the guard. She knows what im talking about. They wont be able to train. They wont be able to prepare for deemployments to save to protect the homeland. And, of course, they wont get paid. Its estimated that 200,000 texans will be furloughed with a Government Shutdown. So its not just the folks who live in the d. C. Area here in washington, virginia, and maryland where we have a lot of government employees. People across the country will be negatively affected, too. Our democratic colleagues to hold the military funding and Childrens Health insurance hostage is a complete and shameless reversal of what they claimed in the past. Complete and shameless reversal. In 2013 the senior senator from illinois said that a shutdown is, quote, no way to run a country, close quote. He decried what he called political brinksmanship saying we need to stop manufacturing one crisis after the next. Well, i wish he and his colleagues would look in the mirror and listen to their own previous comments. America needs them to. The truth is, as the Senate Majority leader has said, our friends on the other side of the aisle do not oppose a single thing in the bill that the house passed yesterday. They dont oppose anything in the bill. The Senate Majority leader is right that this should be an easy yes vote for every senator in the chamber. The bill continues government funding, prevents a needless shutdown, and as i said, extends a key Health Insurance program for vulnerable children. How in the heck did we get here . How did the democrats decide that no was the right answer. Well, we worked hard last month and this month to determine long spending caps that would bring stability caps back to government funding. One of the biggest issues was to try to make sure we funded our military in a way that helped them prepare and get ready to fight our nations wars or better yet, to prevent future wars by demonstrating the kind of strength and leadership that people have come to expect if the United States military. But our democratic leadership made it clear they would stall a final agreement on those spending caps til this unrelated issue of deferred action for childhood arrivals weve been talking about, daca, which doesnt expire til march 5 and they were going to hold all the rest of that hostage until it was resolved. They made it clear they were willing to shut down vital programs for the rest of the country because we havent agreed on how to resolve that issue. But were working hard on it. I had another meeting here today on that. Ive actually had three meetings today on that topic. And were going to get it done before the deadline. And while that issue is important and affects roughly 690,000 people, our country is made up of over 320 Million People. People who pay taxes, people expect the federal government to work for them. They sure dont expect to be not paid or laid off or furloughed if youre a government employee. If youre a citizen expecting the government to provide some service but because the bills arent being paid because democrats have shutdown the government, youre being denied access to the services that you have a right to expect, too. Our democratic colleagues are engaged in a dangerous game of chicken. They could well crash the government just to appease extreme elements in their party. And all of it, every bit of it, is absolutely unnecessary. Lets call this what it is. Our colleagues playing favorites and turning their backs on military families and the security needs of the american people. I think after theyve had a good nights sleep last night, they probably woke up this morning think, what have we done, how do we get out of this . Thats why i know the president called senator schumer, the democratic leader, over to the white house earlier today. The report i got was senator schumer said lets have another shortterm continuing resolution maybe til next tuesday. Well, that wouldnt solve anything. That would make none of this better. It would just continue the chaos and leave all the things we need to settle unsettled. Well, the president did the right thing. He told him look, you go back and you talk to the speaker and the Senate Majority leader, and you guys work that out. This is what youre getting paid for. Get her done. Thats good advice. But the threat of a shutdown by the democratic leader and his colleagues ignores the overwhelming majority of this country that they suddenly feel are not as important as the few that theyre focused on, the daca recipients. All Senate FinanceCommittee Democrats voted for a fiveyear schip expansion extension in october. So theyve now actually voted against or threatening to vote against a program that Senate Democrats on the finance committee voted for. I guess in the immortal words of john kerry they were for it before they were against it. Have they forgotten that if democrats shut down the government, nearly nine million kids could lose their chip coverage . And why . Because we havent yet been able to come up with an agreement on something, an immigration issue. But our deadline isnt until march. Not today, not yesterday. Its march 5. We expect to get it done earlier. Have they forgotten the 78 of defense workers that could be furloughed . Laid off. Active duty troops as well as guard and reserve members would not get paid. In virginia, theres some 178,000 federal workers. In maryland there are over 145,000. I hope theyre on the phone calling their senators and their congress people. Those are two states that are both represented by members prepared to shut down the government tonight. In texas, as i said, there are some 200,000 federal employees, and all of them will be affected. And everybody else who depends on them to protect our state and our communities or to provide services that benefit everybody else, theyre going to be negatively impacted too. Paychecks could cease. Services will be disrupted all because of an unrelated immigration issue that wont get resolved if the government shuts down. Thats whats so maddening. Shutting down the government wont solve that problem. I think theyre out over their skis and theyre trying to figure out how do we get this thing back and save face in the process. Theyre realizing that this is a very bad judgment call and that their action was entirely disproportionate to resolving the issue they want to resolve, and one that were determined to resolve with them in due course. Lets recall that the 2013 shutdown resulted in the furlough of 850,000 employees and billions of dollars of lost economic productivity. So when the senior senator from california said yesterday that the results of a shutdown are extremely dire, she wasnt being hyperbolic. She wasnt exaggerating when she talked about the big risks that lie ahead if we dont act. Well, i pray that she and her democratic colleagues stop stalling, stop playing favorites, and stop daring us to engage in a game of chicken. Ill say it again one last time, madam president. We have been negotiating in good faith on a solution for the daca recipients, and we will continue to do so. But shutting down the government will not solve that problem, and millions of people, including our military, Law Enforcement, and Emergency Personnel could lose their paycheck if democrats follow through on their threat. So the time to stop playing games is now, and we urge them no, we implore them, do not shut down the government. I yield the floor