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13Senate Resolution 591: Recognizing the 30th Anniversary of the First Flight of the F/A-18 E1 Super Hornet From Lambert Field in St. Louis, Missouri, and the 30 Years of Service of the F/A-18e/F...
Thirteen bills and two resolutions were introduced, as follows: S. 3708-3720, and S. Res. 590-591.
Page S344
Measures Reported
S. 272, to improve the safety of infant formula through testing of infant formula for microorganisms and toxic elements, with an amendment in the nature of a substitute. S. 921, to direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services to issue guidance on whether hospital emergency departments should implement fentanyl testing as a routine procedure for patients experiencing an overdose, with an amendment in the nature of a substitute. S. 1157, to direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services to conduct a review to evaluate the status of research on lung cancer in women and underserved populations, with an amendment in the nature of a substitute. S. 2132, to amend title 18, United States Code, to prevent and mitigate the potential for conflicts of interest following government service, with an amendment in the nature of a substitute. S. 2169, to require the development of a comprehensive rural hospital cybersecurity workforce development strategy, with an amendment in the nature of a substitute.
Page S343
Measures Passed
F/A-18 E1 Super Hornet 30th Anniversary: Senate agreed to S. Res. 591, recognizing the 30th anniversary of the first flight of the F/A-18 E1 Super Hornet from Lambert Field in St. Louis, Missouri, and the 30 years of service of the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet to the United States Navy and to allies of the United States.
Page S355
Measures Considered
Consolidated Appropriations Act--Agreement: Senate continued consideration of the motion to proceed to consideration of H.R. 7148, making further consolidated appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2026.
Pages S301-34
A unanimous-consent agreement was reached providing for further consideration of the motion to proceed to consideration of the bill at approximately 10:30 a.m., on Thursday, January 29, 2026.
Page S356
Statements on Introduced Bills/Resolutions:
Pages S347-48
Adjournment
Senate convened at 11 a.m. and adjourned at 7:19 p.m., until 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, January 29, 2026. (For Senate's program, see the remarks of the Acting Majority Leader in today's Record on page S356.)
Every speech and line is the Congressional Record's own text, read from GovInfo. Speakers are matched to members by GPO's own metadata. Referandom places each turn on the Clerk's video by matching its words: 20 of 93 spoken turns were found. Turns without a time are still listed; they just can't seek.
Legislative Session
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the Senate resumed consideration of the motion to proceed to H.R. 7148, which the clerk will report.
The senior assistant executive clerk read as follows:
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader is recognized.
Mr. President, this past Monday was the start of tax filing season. Now, I know most Americans aren't usually excited about the start of tax season, but this year, there is less reason for dread because thanks to the Working Families Tax Cuts, most Americans are going to see a lower tax bill. That means bigger tax refunds for a lot of Americans, as much as $1,000 more than last year, according to some analysts.
The Working Families Tax Cuts is literally putting more money in Americans' pockets. As the American people file their tax returns this year, they will see the numerous ways the Working Families Tax Cuts benefit them.
Thanks to this legislation, Americans can count on more money in their pockets for the long term. For most Americans, tax relief starts with their tax rate and the standard deduction, which over 90 percent of taxpayers in this country claim.
In 2017, Republicans lowered tax rates across the board and just about doubled the standard deduction. In our landmark bill last year, Republicans made that relief permanent, and then we raised the standard deduction even further.
On top of that, we created a bonus deduction for seniors, an additional
Then there is the significant tax relief we delivered for families. In 2017, Republicans doubled--doubled--the child tax credit. Last year, we raised it even further to $2,200 per child. And then, we linked the child tax credit to inflation, which means its value will keep pace with families' actual costs, and again that is also permanent.
Parents will also have the opportunity to open new investment accounts for their newborns when they file their taxes this season. Those accounts provide another tax advantage option for parents to invest in their children's future. The money can be used after kids turn 18 for their education, to start a business, to buy their first home; in short, to take advantage of opportunities available to them and get a head start on their American dream.
Those are retroactive to 2025. So parents who had a baby last year can apply for one of these accounts when they file their taxes this season. Hard-working Americans are the ones who benefit from Republicans' landmark tax relief bill.
Perhaps the biggest boost goes to those Americans who earn tips and overtime pay. Waiters, busboys, hairstylists and barbers, Uber, Lyft, and taxi drivers are among the hard-working Americans who will be able to deduct their tips on their taxes this year. That will reduce their tax bills and let them keep a lot more of the money they earn.
The same is true of workers who put in overtime throughout the year. Police officers, firefighters, paramedics, and nurses work important jobs, and that often means they have to work extra hours during the week or come in on holidays. Well, thanks to the Working Families Tax Cuts, they will be able to keep more of the overtime pay they earn for that extra time away from their loved ones.
I don't have to remind anybody about the inflation crisis started by Democrats 5 years ago. Higher prices have affected everybody. But relief is on the way. Affordability starts with more money in your pocket, and that is exactly what the Working Families Tax Cuts delivers.
Whether you are just getting started or you are raising a family or you are trying to enjoy your golden years, the Working Families Tax Cuts has something for you. Republicans wrote this bill with hard- working Americans in mind, and that is who is going to see the benefits this tax season and in the years to come.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant executive clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. President, it has been 4 days since Alex Pretti was murdered in broad daylight by Federal agents in Minneapolis, and there has been zero accountability from Donald Trump for this horrendous act. Donald Trump said yesterday he wants to deescalate things in Minneapolis. But as of today, the Trump administration has taken zero meaningful action to make that happen--zero.
As of this morning, ICE is still roaming the streets in Minneapolis with little restraint. Operation Metro Surge, which is what ICE and Border Patrol call their surge in the city, is not slowing down at all. In fact, let me read a statement that came out yesterday from Acting Assistant Chief of the Border Patrol. Here is what the Acting Assistant Chief of the Border Patrol said:
Translation: ``Stand back and stand by.''
Trump is not deescalating things in Minneapolis as he claims. On the contrary, his administration is telling ICE and Border Patrol to ``stand back and stand by.'' That is dangerous. ICE needs to leave Minneapolis at once before another tragedy happens. It is the right thing to do, both for the residents of Minneapolis and for law enforcement. But that is just one step of many.
Donald Trump has likewise failed to call out the vicious lies that his own administration told in the aftermath of Alex Pretti's murder. Yesterday on FOX News, a DHS spokesperson refused to deny the characterizations that Alex Pretti was a domestic terrorist--refused to deny those characterizations. It is absurd. A simple answer for the DHS spokesman would have been: No, he is not a domestic terrorist. We were wrong, and it won't happen again.
That is what normal people with normal discourse--Democrat, Republican, liberal, conservative--would do. But in this administration, where lying is their trademark and it spreads from the top down, lying is OK. It is too much to ask of this administration to reject and retract this vicious lie about the late Mr. Pretti. It is a disgrace.
And as for President Trump, it is not enough for Donald Trump to meekly suggest he disagrees with the words of Stephen Miller calling Pretti an assassin. Donald Trump is the President, and he needs to act like it. He needs to send a message and make an example of his deputies who deliberately lie to the country in moments of crisis.
But you can see, again, Donald Trump lies all the time. We see it every night on the news, and so all the people below him believe it is OK to lie, too, even vicious lies like the one cast at Mr. Pretti. Instead of holding his own administration accountable for lying about Alex Pretti, Donald Trump continues to blame Alex Pretti for his own death. He said yesterday Pretti should not have been carrying a gun.
The President seems to have forgotten the words of the Second Amendment, ``the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.'' Apparently for Donald Trump, if you are a Trump supporter, it is OK to be a lawful gun owner, but if you are against Donald Trump, it is not. You don't have that right.
Finally, it is outrageous that Kristi Noem still has a job in the administration after Federal officers murdered two American citizens in just 2 weeks. And it is even more disgusting that on each occasion, Kristi Noem lied about what took place.
For the good of the country, Donald Trump needs to fire Kristi Noem at once. Noem is a liar. Noem is incompetent at her job, and she must go.
Many Republicans here in Congress agree that Kristi Noem has lost the trust of the American people. Donald Trump needs to recognize that the tide has turned against her and that her presence does far more harm than good at this point. Donald Trump needs to show Kristi Noem the door and send her packing.
Mr. President, now let's turn to the Senate. Tomorrow, the Senate is scheduled to take the first procedural vote on a six-bill funding package. The right way forward is simple: Five of these bills are ready to go, and the Senate should pass them as soon as possible. If Leader Thune agrees to split these bills, just as Johnson did in the House, Senate Democrats are ready to join Republicans in passing them and funding 96 percent of the Federal Government.
But the DHS bill, the sixth bill, needs more work in the aftermath of Pretti's death, Good's death, and the awful abuses we have seen from ICE across the country.
Until ICE is properly reined in and overhauled, the DHS funding bill doesn't have the votes to pass the Senate. Let me say that again so the White House hears it. Until ICE is properly reined in and overhauled, legislatively, the DHS funding bill doesn't have the votes to pass the Senate.
Now, Leader Thune knows that, and so I urge Leader Thune not to put all six bills, including DHS, on the floor but rather split them so we can focus on what we can pass right now. Time is short. We shouldn't waste time on failed votes right now or else the government will shut down.
I know both sides recognize we need to act in response to the awful tragedies that have taken place in Minneapolis, and Senators--Democrat and Republican--are talking and sharing ideas.
But given how little time we have left before the funding deadline, the first right step for the Senate is for
The bottom line is simple: The American people support law enforcement. They support border security, but they did not support ICE terrorizing our streets and killing American citizens.
ICE needs to be held to the same basic standards that any law enforcement agency is asked to follow.
Republicans must work with Democrats on legislative fixes to ensure ICE is reined in and overhauled to protect public safety.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority whip.
Mr. President, all across the country, people are starting to fill out their tax returns. Usually, this is a time of the year that the American people dread but not this year. This year, it is different. It is different because of legislation that we passed and that was signed into law on the Fourth of July.
The reason it is different this year is the American people will be getting bigger and bigger tax refunds than they have in the past. This financial relief is the direct result of the Republicans' Working Families Tax Cuts law. The tax cuts are dramatic. Republicans pledged to cut taxes. We did it for middle-class families. These are people that need a much needed boost in the money in their pockets. We delivered.
The Tax Foundation estimates that the average refund this year will be about $1,000 higher than it was last year--$1,000 for each one of these refunds. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent believes that the refunds will be even larger than that. In total, American families will receive this year in refunds about $100 billion more than last year. This is money going directly into the pockets of American families. Working families know best how to use that money. Families know what money they want to spend, they want to save, they want to invest. Let's let the American people make that decision, not the government.
Republicans' policies mean Americans keep more of the money they earned. That is what they have been telling us for years. And all of these policies were signed into law as part of the Working Families Tax Cuts law: a permanent lower tax rate on Americans; a permanent increase in the standard deduction; a permanent increase in the child tax credit--$2,200 for each child each year; no taxes on tips for waiters or barbers or bartenders or other tip workers; no tax on overtime for nurses and firefighters, police officers, coal miners, linemen; higher payments for millions of seniors living on Social Security.
Importantly, all the tax changes that I just mentioned apply retroactively. It is on last year's earnings, so the benefits are going to be realized in this year's tax returns. That means that Americans are paying lower taxes not just in the future but right now, today, and just about every single taxpayer in America is going to benefit.
Republicans' Working Families Tax Cuts law breaks Americans free of the punishing taxes of Joe Biden's unaffordable economy. That was an administration of high prices and high taxes. America hasn't experienced such a dramatic turnaround since Ronald Reagan reversed the failures of Jimmy Carter.
Moreover, last year, Republicans blocked the Democrats' goal to raise taxes by $4 trillion. Every single Democrat in the U.S. Senate--every single Democrat in this Chamber--voted to increase taxes by $4 trillion. Had Democrats succeeded, our Nation wouldn't see this largest tax cut; they would have seen the largest tax increase in American history--a $4 trillion tax increase. Not a single American would say that a $4 trillion tax increase was something they could afford, but the Democrats wanted to force-feed it down the American people's throats.
Democrats are proven to be the party of high taxes. It is getting worse. Last week in Virginia, they swore in a Democrat Governor. In the State of Virginia, Democrats now control the house, the senate, and the Governor's mansion, and they are determined to steer it hard to the left. Virginia is a roadmap to the radical policies that Democrats want to pursue nationwide.
So what do they want to do? They want taxpayers to fund instate tuition for illegal immigrants. There they go again. The Democrats--the people that wanted to defund the police, the people that shut down the government to support illegal immigrants--now want to send instate tuition to illegal immigrants.
Democrats want to raise taxes anywhere they can think of it. They are going to do it in barbershops, nail salons, drycleaners, and gyms.
Mr. President, in your home State of Montana, how do you think this would fly there?
Democrats want to raise sales tax by 11 percent on all firearms and ammunition. That is what the Democrats are doing now in their effort in Virginia. That is their model. That is where they are heading. They even want to introduce a backdoor carbon tax--a tax that would increase families' electric bills by over $1,000 a year. That is going to wipe out the refund increases families are going to get. The State of Virginia wants it taken away from the benefits people are receiving.
It is astonishing. You can't believe this. They want to ban gas- powered leaf blowers because they don't want to use the gasoline. Don't use gasoline. At the same time, they want to tax the battery-powered lawn equipment. So you can't use gas, and you have to pay more taxes when using batteries.
These are far-left policies, and these things just prove the Democrat Party remains radical, extreme, dangerous, and scary. That is where they want to take the country. This is what their record reveals, whether they are the radicals now that have taken over the government in the State of Virginia, whether they are in New York City, whether they are in California, or the Democrats right here in this Congress.
Fortunately, for the pockets and purses and paychecks of Americans, Republicans are focused on making our country more prosperous. We promised to deliver prosperity for all Americans. That is exactly what we are doing. And the bigger refunds that Americans are going to see this year prove it.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. President, for the Trump administration to stomp to death the 1st, the 2nd, the 4th, the 5th, and the 10th Amendments to the Constitution is not immigration enforcement. It is a totally lawless abuse of Federal power.
The First Amendment guarantees Americans the right to make their voices heard and to document lawlessness by the Federal Government. It guarantees the right to peacefully assemble and protest against those abuses.
The Second Amendment guarantees the right to bear arms. Regardless of what you think about current gun law, there is no justification for murdering a man who was lawfully carrying a firearm.
The Fourth Amendment protects the American people against illegal search and seizure of their property. That includes private data and information. I will touch more on that in a minute.
The Fifth Amendment guarantees the right to due process. Instead, Trump's masked agents are now stopping people across the country and saying: Papers, please.
Then they get thrown into unmarked vehicles, herded into detention centers, and deported to dangerous conditions without due process.
The 10th Amendment limits Federal Government overreach, and it protects States' rights. The recent events in Minneapolis--the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti--demonstrate exactly how the Trump administration is breaking the law and trashing the Constitution.
Mr. Pretti was exercising his First Amendment rights to peaceably observe and record abuses--abuses by ICE agents. He was exercising his Second Amendment right to lawfully carry a
Renee Good was sitting in her car, exercising her First Amendment right to peaceably observe the actions of Federal agents. She was shot and killed in broad daylight.
In both instances, there is ample video evidence to disprove the Trump administration's idea that these Americans were domestic terrorists who were covering up lawful killings.
I warned, when Trump began deploying Federal agents to our cities, that lives would be at risk. That is now the reality. So our country needs appropriate Federal law enforcement to identify and remove those who committed violent crimes. What is not needed is an American Gestapo rousting tourists, immigrants, and naturalized and native-born Americans, alike, with guns to their head.
Shooting unarmed Americans on the street is not immigration enforcement. It is intimidation. It is a blatant attempt to suppress free speech and anybody who tries to stand up to Trump's abuse of Federal power.
Trump's ICE and CBP agents have clearly been trained in fear tactics, instead of in legitimate law enforcement.
I have said it before, and I want to say it again before the Senate: Kristi Noem and the political appointees at DHS have got to go.
So I am calling on ICE and CBP agents in our streets to get out of our communities. I am pushing for legislation to get them out of schools and hospitals, places of worship, childcare centers, courthouses, and additional public spaces.
I am also calling for the end of ICE locking people up who don't need to be, including the end of family detention and privately run immigration detention centers. And I call on the Border Patrol to go back to ports of entry and get out of the business of terrorizing our communities miles away from duty stations.
If an individual has committed a local crime, then local law enforcement can step up.
It is far past time that these armed agents who have now murdered two American citizens and shot more under disturbing circumstances are sidelined.
ICE and CBP agents certainly have proven they can't be trusted in our communities with weapons and firearms, as we have seen. If you listen to Trump and his crowd, they seem to think it is the American people who ought to be disarmed.
I think most people around our country understand we need to overhaul immigration to continue the rich history of welcoming immigrants and refugees as we secure our border and enforce immigration laws, but that is not what Trump's lawless activities are about. Right now, ICE is destroying the rule of law, not protecting it.
I have made it clear that I cannot and will not support more Federal funding for Trump's ICE unless there is an end to these killings and abuses and accountability for everybody involved. In its current form, ICE is no longer an immigration enforcement Agency; it is Trump and the administration's personal Gestapo. There can be no more funding for ICE when it kills people on the streets, incites violence, and defies the law.
When Democrats have the opportunity, we will investigate and publicly prosecute anybody complicit in these murders, from Kristi Noem to Mr. Bovino, all the way down to the ICE and CBP agents who pulled the trigger on Renee Good and Alex Pretti. It is also important to investigate the agents who have subjected immigrants, including children, to extraordinary cruelty.
Before wrapping up, I want to touch on something else that has been missed with regard to the abuses, and that is data privacy.
For years, I have come to this floor to sound the alarm on the growing appetite of ICE to exploit legal loopholes that allow the Federal Government to buy up troves of Americans' most private information, including geolocation data. We now see exactly how the Trump administration is abusing that information. ICE is using Palantir apps to collect biometric data and run protesters through facial recognition systems. This amounts to labeling people as domestic terrorists just for exercising their First Amendment right to peaceably protest and report on Federal agents. It is a clear threat to the constitutional rights of Americans, and I am working with Senator Markey and others to stop these abuses.
Second, ICE is buying Americans' private location data from sleazy data brokers through a legal loophole that allows the government to get around the Fourth Amendment. This isn't a red issue or a blue issue; it is a constitutional issue. The American Government has no business in purchasing the location data of American citizens. So I have proposed the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act. That would put a stop to the government being able to buy up troves of Americans' personal data from anybody who has got a credit card. We ought to be pushing to get it passed into black-letter law as soon as possible so that Agencies like ICE don't have access to the personal information of millions of Americans.
Finally, my investigators exposed that ICE is using government data from State motor vehicle departments and other Federal Agencies. It has refused to answer questions as to how that data is being used. So we are leading a fight here in the Senate to rein them in.
I have warned States that care about their residents: They had better stop sharing DMV data and enabling ICE abuses. ICE is using this information to target Americans on our streets.
My view is that it is important for the Senate to recognize that data privacy is now a life-and-death issue in America. As long as Trump's agents are shooting American citizens dead on the street, this administration having access to our private location data and other information is a threat to everybody's safety.
I will close with this. My parents fled the Nazis during the very real threat of growing authoritarianism in Germany. What the Trump administration is offering us is, indeed, the authoritarian playbook: Attack the weakest in order to cow the rest of us.
My family knows a thing or two about watching a democracy slide toward authoritarian rule. I know a little bit about what comes next.
The American people have a right to feel and be safe. No one should be forced to live in a country where they are terrified that Federal agents might bust their door open in the middle of the night. I hope that all Americans who have a chance to follow this discussion and learn about it, in the days ahead, will speak out and that all Americans will never, never, never yield their liberties.
Mr. President, it has certainly been an eventful several days. Of course, across the country, people are still shoveling out roads and sidewalks from the dramatic snowfall we had, and, of course, many of us have struggled to get back to work because of disrupted flights. Some parts of Texas, believe it or not, had as much as 10 inches of snow. I know that is not a big deal in the great State of Nebraska, but it is a big deal in Texas because Texans cannot drive on the snow and ice. Anybody who has seen some of the videos of people trying to drive on the ice in Texas knows we are not used to that.
But a severe snowstorm was not the only thing to hit our country over the last weekend. As we all know too well, an ICU nurse for the VA named Alex Pretti was killed in an interaction with Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis. We are still learning more about what transpired that day, but, unfortunately, what we see too often when tragic events like this occur is that people jump to conclusions early without knowing all the facts.
Regardless of what we don't yet know, what we do know is that it is always a tragedy when a human life has ended.
I applaud President Trump for taking the steps to review this and for sending Tom Homan to Minneapolis to try to deescalate and restore law and order in that State. The President has also indicated that he has talked to Governor Walz and that they are working toward a productive solution to what has become an untenable state of affairs in Minneapolis.
One thing is absolutely clear: We need better collaboration and cooperation--maybe a little more cooperation
When State and local officials, like the Governor of Minnesota and the mayor of Minneapolis, use their positions of authority to vilify Federal law enforcement officials, bad things can happen. The Governor of Minnesota has compared Federal agents to a modern-day Gestapo. How reprehensible and irresponsible is that, particularly coming from a guy who wanted to be the Vice President of the United States. Obviously, Governor Newsom in California has used similar language. Governor Walz has described his State as fighting a war against the Federal Government, and he called the Trump administration's enforcement operations ``dangerous'' and ``sensationalized.''
I will tell you what makes situations like those that happened in Minneapolis two times now where American citizens have lost their lives--what makes that more likely to happen is when Governors and mayors, people who are supposedly in positions of responsibility, actually encourage people to interfere with law enforcement operations. And we know that now, on at least two occasions, they can end with tragic results. This is completely unacceptable conduct by a Governor and a mayor. What they should do is stop their sanctuary policies. We don't see the same sort of law enforcement operations in Texas or in Nebraska; we see it in sanctuary States and sanctuary cities, where local and State law enforcement are denied the chance to collaborate and cooperate with Federal law enforcement authorities. What happens in States like Texas, which does cooperate with law enforcement, is when somebody is detained, let's say, by the police in the local jail and if they find out they are wanted by ICE, they will simply transfer them from the local jurisdiction to the custody of ICE so that ICE doesn't have to go out on the street and conduct raids in order to detain people who are not lawfully here in the United States.
All this may seem like fun and games to blue State Governors and sanctuary city mayors until somebody gets hurt, but now, as I said, two people have tragically lost their lives. We have the Governor and the mayor cheering people on to do more of the same.
This has to deescalate, and I am optimistic that Tom Homan, given his long career as a professional law enforcement officer, somebody applauded by President Obama for his work but obviously who also has the confidence of President Trump--I am glad he is there in Minneapolis, talking to the mayor, talking to the Governor, and hopefully trying to get them to tone down their rhetoric and not encourage more actions which could also result in tragedy.
While we are waiting to learn more details--yes, still waiting to learn more details--about what exactly happened, I believe State and local officials have an obligation to tone down their rhetoric because what they are doing is they are vilifying the brave men and women who actually are enforcing the laws that Congress has passed. They are calling them Nazis or the Gestapo.
Of course, maybe you should expect this from the same crowd that called for defunding the police--how did that work out?--or for abolishing ICE. Abolish ICE? Are these people who want no enforcement of our immigration laws? Well, apparently so.
ICE--Immigration and Customs Enforcement--and Customs and Border Protection officers whom I know personally and know well by reputation have an incredibly difficult and dangerous job to do, especially in the face of well-organized and paid-off leftwing agitators.
But again, underlying all of this, are the sanctuary city policies implemented by Governor Walz and others that have prevented law enforcement officials from conducting their work in a safe and orderly fashion.
We have seen what happens when the local police are instructed not to protect ICE officers and Border Patrol agents doing their job as happened in Chicago. Ordinary citizens have been encouraged to interfere with law enforcement operations. The incendiary rhetoric from the Governor encouraged ordinary citizens to put themselves into harm's way.
Ultimately, the confrontations between citizens and law enforcement culminated in last week's incident that ended in tragedy, and I sincerely hope--I know we all do--that this does not happen again. None of us want to see lives lost, whether at the hands of law enforcement or at the hands of criminals.
What happened to Alex Pretti was tragic, but we also need to remind people what happened to Laken Riley, Kayla Hamilton, and Jocelyn Nungaray, that what happened to them was also tragic and could have been prevented. Their deaths could have been prevented if the immigration laws currently on the books had simply been enforced. Each of them were killed by people who had no business being in this country illegally and committed these murders because of the Biden administration's open border policies that just opened the door to anybody and everybody who wanted to come to the United States.
That is what sensible enforcement of our immigration laws is designed to prevent, to allow people into the country who play by the books, play by the rules, and follow the law whom we welcome into this country.
The United States still is the most generous country in the world when it comes to welcoming immigrants. We naturalize roughly 1 million people a year who raise their hand and pledge allegiance to the United States and their willingness to support the Constitution and laws of this great country.
Legal immigration is a great boon and great advantage the United States has, but illegal immigration has been an unmitigated disaster.
As I think back on the Biden era of open borders, what breaks my heart is the fact that 500,000 children were welcomed into the United States, so-called unaccompanied minors, placed with sponsors, frequently unvetted and without adequate supervision or followup, and were simply lost. We don't know whether they were recruited into gangs, used for sex trafficking, or forced into involuntary labor.
Those half-a-million children were victims of this open border, lawless immigration policy of the Biden administration. President Trump was elected based on a promise to secure the border, which he has done, but we also need to make sure that people who have exhausted all of their legal remedies or have criminal records need to be prioritized and removed from the country.
Right now, there are roughly 280,000 people who are in that category. But to have the Governor and the mayor encourage people to interfere in a lawful enforcement operation can result in tragedy, as we have seen.
We now know that these two tragedies are being exploited by Democrats in the Senate who refuse to pass the normal appropriations bills that have now passed the House and have come here in order to pay the bills, keep the lights on, and keep the government operational. They are using these incidents to threaten another closure, another shutdown of the Federal Government like they did a short time ago--the longest shutdown in American history.
Democrats are using this tragedy as a scapegoat to try to force changes to government funding that they know cannot be done in the time we have left before the current continuing resolution expires.
This is nothing but an excuse--a lame excuse--by Senate Democrats to delay and disrupt the work that the American people elected us to do. We know that Senate Democrats have used this playbook recently, and the American people have seen how it ends.
It solves nothing. When the government reopens, you have the same problems you had beforehand that you just are ignoring or kicking the can down the road, and it imposes an unnecessary burden on so many Americans who don't get paid, who get furloughed.
It created not only financial hardship for millions of Americans, but this was all for what? To simply make a political statement. But I hope for the sake of the Texans I represent, the 32 million Texans, that Democrats have learned something from their recent lesson. We are using their livelihoods--holding their livelihoods as a hostage for political purposes. This is not the
In order for President Trump to continue the work he started to restore trust between local and Federal officials in Minnesota, the Department of Homeland Security--and, yes, that includes ICE and Border Patrol--must be funded.
We can have conversations about what additional oversight is required, what additional laws we should consider, but not at the expense of shutting down the government.
Again, what happened over the weekend was a tragedy, but it is not a reason to punish 330 million Americans by shutting down the government as a political stunt.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following Senators be permitted to speak prior to the scheduled recess; myself for up to 10 minutes, Senator Kelly for up to 5 minutes, Senator Murray for up to 10 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. President, I rise today to remind us of what we commemorated yesterday: Holocaust Remembrance Day.
During the Holocaust, the Nazi regime and its collaborators systematically murdered 6 million Jewish men, women, and children. Two- thirds of Europe's Jewish population was killed in concentration camps, death camps, ghettos, and mass shootings. Entire communities were wiped out, centuries of Jewish life and culture erased.
On Holocaust Remembrance Day, we remember not just the numbers but the individuals. Each one represents a world of possibilities that were destroyed. And yet, we are living in a day and age where Holocaust deniers are growing in number, and anti-Semitism is on the rise.
In 2024, the FBI recorded its highest number ever of anti-Jewish crimes, nearly 2,000 crimes accounting for nearly 70 percent all religiously motivated hate crimes.
This is unthinkable and totally unacceptable. Jews make up only 2 percent of our U.S. population. Yet they bear the brunt of religiously motivated violence.
The United States-Israel relationship serves vital American interests. Israel is our most reliable democratic ally in the Middle East and shares intelligence that has prevented terrorist attacks on Americans here on our soil and against American interests worldwide.
Our military cooperation advances technology that protects American servicemembers. Israel's Iron Dome and other defensive innovations were developed with U.S. partnership and now inform our own defense systems.
A strong Israel helps counter Iranian influence and terrorism that threatens not just the region but American citizens at home and abroad. This relationship is built on shared values, democracy, the rule of law, and human rights in a region where these principles are rare. Supporting Israel's security is supporting American security.
You can visit Civil War cemeteries, Revolutionary War cemeteries, World War I and II cemeteries in Europe, Vietnam war cemeteries clear up until today and see the Star of David on some of those gravestones. You can see them out at our famous cemetery here in Washington, DC, where people who served our Nation and gave their last measure of devotion--and there are Stars of David among all of them.
This is an important American value that we must acknowledge and make sure never happens again.
Finally, I want to say a few words about responsibility. ``Never again'' must be more than words. It must be a commitment backed by action. We must speak up when anti-Semitism rears its head on our campuses, our streets, and online.
We must distinguish between legitimate political discourse and hate disguised as activism. And we must protect Jewish students who should feel safe pursuing their education. We must stand with the Jewish people--both here and in their ancient homeland--when they face existential threats.
History will judge us not by our words today but by our actions tomorrow.
Mr. President, like every American, over the past few weeks, I have watched the videos of Americans being shoved and beaten and pepper-sprayed and shot and killed by Federal immigration agents.
Over the weekend, Americans watched what happened to Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, a U.S. citizen, an ICU nurse at the VA who took care of veterans. He was shot and killed by Federal agents for no good reason. His family lost someone they loved, and it all happened in the blink of an eye.
Before that, it was Renee Good. Renee was a mother and a wife. She was shot and killed in her car, and her family will never see her again.
Two Americans are dead at the hands of their government. That should demand the highest levels of accountability. It is that simple. Instead, this administration has lied to the American people. They have slandered these Americans as terrorists. They have told us not to believe what we see with our own eyes.
They blamed Alex Pretti because he was in lawful possession of a firearm. They have tried to block the investigations into what happened. We also know that these are not isolated incidents.
Just the other day, ICE conducted a series of workplace raids at a sports bar in Phoenix, places where families go to just have some wings and watch a game.
The agents wore masks and tactical gear, and I watched a video of ICE officers doing a driveby, spraying a woman in the face who was just standing on the sidewalk.
They sprayed her with mace. She was not doing anything wrong. They violated her constitutional rights. These are the actions of a rogue Agency that is storming cities, violating the constitutional rights of Americans, and creating volatile situations where tragedies happen.
This is not making Americans safer. It is clearly doing the opposite thing, and it has to stop. I am the son of two police officers. From a very young age, I learned that law enforcement should exist to serve and protect people.
We can enforce our laws without this chaos. We can enforce our laws without Federal agents killing people--killing people in the streets of American cities.
We should demand that, as Senators, as Republicans and Democrats, as Americans. We should all demand better. And we should use our power to make that happen. That is why I will not vote for the Department of Homeland Security budget this week, because that Agency needs an overhaul from the top down and the bottom up.
That is why the head of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, and the guy who everybody knows is actually making the decisions and calling the shots and running the show, Stephen Miller--both of them should be out of jobs because they have lost the trust of the American people.
And that is why I introduced the Stop Excessive Force in Immigration Act to rein in and stop this abuse of power. This bill sets limits on the use of force and the use of firearms by immigration agents.
It restricts the use of tear gas, flash-bang grenades, and pepper balls. It requires body cameras to be used, and it restricts the use of face masks. It requires accountability and transparency so that when somebody is hurt or killed, the American people will get some answers. This is pretty basic stuff. It should be what all Americans expect from law enforcement, and it should be something that both Republicans and Democrats alike can support, because I believe that we are better than this. I believe we can keep communities safe without this chaos. But that depends on all of us stepping up right now, at this moment, before another American ends up dead in the streets.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Mr. President, there are two simple truths here: One, there is absolutely no reason for a shutdown. Five of the bills before us, covering 95 percent of the remaining budget, everyone agrees we can pass. And, two, after
What we have seen happening in Minnesota and all across the country is simply un-American. Trump and Noem sent ICE and Border Patrol into Minneapolis, not on a targeted mission to retrieve actual criminals but to go door to door terrorizing communities and asking to see the papers of anyone who doesn't fit their idea of what an American looks like.
Secretary Noem and her masked agents are haphazardly dragging off people with no criminal record, people who are here legally, people who are citizens. And, of course, they are even dragging off children.
No one has to take my word for it. We all saw them march a man--a citizen--out of his house in the freezing cold in nothing but his underwear. We all saw them cart away a 5-year-old with his Spiderman backpack and a bunny hat on. And when people protested peacefully, the Trump administration cracked down with a level of force as brutal as it was unjustified.
Again, no one needs to take my word for it. We all heard about the family who had their car tear-gassed on their way back from a basketball game, and their baby stopped breathing and needed emergency care. We all watched the woman who was dragged out of her car on the way to a doctor's appointment. We all saw that unforgettable photo of an unarmed man pinned on the ground with one of Trump's Federal officers pepper-spraying him directly in the face.
We all bore witness to the murder of Renee Good, and then, last weekend, we all saw the horrific killing of Alex Pretti, a lawful observer, exercising his rights, murdered in cold blood by Federal agents.
And how did Trump's team respond? They lied about what we all saw with our own eyes. They slandered Alex as a domestic terrorist. This man was a VA nurse. He was beloved by his patients.
They falsely claimed that he wanted to massacre law enforcement when he was simply exercising his constitutional First Amendment rights.
They said he attacked law enforcement when he was only helping a woman who law enforcement had assaulted. They said he brandished a gun when he never touched it. In fact, he was already disarmed when they shot him in the back.
And yet, right now, the only Department they will let investigate this tragedy is the Department that was responsible for it.
That cannot be how things work in this country, not if we are going to keep the democracy that we all cherish. We need real, independent investigation. We need real accountability, and we need real reforms. And until that happens, until we begin reining in this out-of-control Department, we cannot pass the DHS bill as it stands.
The DHS bill needs to be split off from this larger package, and that needs to happen so we can prevent other parts of the government from shutting down while we work to reform the DHS bill.
Now, I want to be straight with everyone: Not passing the Homeland bill will not stop ICE right now. Why? Because Republicans already gave ICE tens of billions of dollars without a single Democratic vote when they passed their ``Big Ugly Bill.''
As the junior Senator from Kentucky has pointed out, even without the DHS bill, ICE will have many times its annual budget because of the bill the Republicans passed last summer.
But splitting off the Homeland bill does ensure that Congress is forced to reckon with this issue. It does give us the opportunity to take much needed action to protect Americans from this out-of-control Department. And to be clear, this is not just what Democrats are demanding; it is what the vast majority of Americans are demanding.
People in this country are absolutely horrified. They are outraged that our government is gunning down U.S. citizens on the street with impunity. And this just cannot continue.
With each hour that goes by, we are seeing more and more Republicans agree that the status quo is unacceptable, that there must be change, and that Congress must do something. We, Congress, must do something, and there is a very reasonable and straightforward path here now.
There is a legislative package of six funding bills at the desk right now, right up here. Five of the funding bills in this package we all overwhelmingly agree on. We all agree on cancer research. We all agree on childcare funding. We all agree on funding roads and bridges and housing. We agree on paying our troops and supporting small businesses and so much else that is in those bills. And, by the way, the House, in fact, passed those five bills overwhelmingly.
So let's just remove Homeland Security and pass the remaining five bills without delay. There is no reason to wait, and we can get to work right away to negotiate a Homeland bill that includes the reforms and the accountability everyone knows is needed.
I am here. I am ready to roll up my sleeves and get to work with Chair Collins and our colleagues to craft a bill with serious oversight and accountability so we can simply rein in the abuses that we are seeing.
But if the Republicans refuse to work with us on DHS and refuse to put up the remaining five bills for a vote in the meantime, they will be choosing to shut down the government across all of the Agencies impacted, cutting off funding for lifesaving clinical trials; paychecks for troops, air traffic controllers, and so much more.
We should not let that happen. So let's pass the five bills ahead of the Friday deadline. Let's focus separately on DHS, where it is clear that accountability and reform cannot wait.
We do this all the time--move forward on the areas where we have an agreement and keep negotiating on the other. That is what needs to happen here and now.
And, look, if the House has to come back to prevent a shutdown, so be it. That is part of the job they have.
Back in 2018, after the Senate cleared a spending bill and we went home for the holidays, President Trump did a 180 and had the House change the bill and send it back to us.
Do you know what we did? We came back, and we voted.
That is it. That is our job. That is what the House can do. So there is no need for a shutdown. There is no need for a delay. And there is every need for serious reforms.
Mr. President, on January 23, people from all over our country came to Washington, DC, to celebrate the 53rd annual March for Life. These peaceful movements are exercising their free speech, their free association, and their right to petition government for redress of grievances--all First Amendment constitutional rights. They exercise this through using the Constitution to express their views.
This year's theme of the March for Life was ``Life is a Gift,'' so they were inviting folks to embrace the joy of innocent human life in the womb. They marched in solidarity with mothers who deserve better than abortion; who deserve life, love, support, and encouragement. They marched, hoping for a day when all people see babies as the blessings these babies are, for a day when the word ``abortion'' is unthinkable.
So I say to this group of marchers: Thank you. You came to Washington on January 23 for the 53rd year in a row to call attention to the value of life. Thank you for your faithful example of what it means to be pro-life.
In Congress, we must do all we can to support mothers and their babies, and I
Mr. President, I come to the floor to say bon voyage to a very talented and trusted employee of mine who has worked hard for the people of the State of Iowa. When I say bon voyage, as I will say later, he probably has the prospects of being a college professor, a think tank researcher, or maybe even a diplomat.
So, today, I come to the floor to pay tribute to a trusted, loyal member of my staff whom I am honored to say has been a member of Team Grassley for 25 years, and I am glad to have him here on the floor with me right at this minute.
James Rice will leave his post as my legislative director at the end of this month. He has devoted the past quarter century in service to the people of Iowa here in the U.S. Senate. Now, he didn't start out to be the important staffer he is right now because he started as an intern in 1997. That summer, he even served in some positions that don't get a lot of attention because they are behind the scenes.
He served as boots on the ground during my sixth Foreign Ambassadors Tour. For over two decades, I organized every other summer an Ambassadors trade tour across Iowa. I invited members of the foreign diplomatic corps here in Washington, DC, along with their spouses serving here in the Nation's Capital, to join me for a weeklong road trip to showcase my home State's people, our products, and our places.
From securing overnight stays in the homes of Iowans to keeping the trade delegation on schedule visiting farms, factories, and always ending at the Iowa State Fair, this devoted team player, James, was among the many helping hands working behind the scenes to make the week run smoothly. That just might be why James first got bitten by the foreign policy bug that has fostered his interest and expertise in foreign affairs and international unity and diplomacy and why he has been a valuable adviser to me on foreign affairs.
James is a native of Davenport, IA, majoring in political science, history, and government. After graduating from Drake University in Des Moines, he joined my staff here in Washington, DC, 3 years after being an intern in the year 2000.
James has referred to the Grassley team as the embassy for Iowa. With tireless conviction, he managed his work with proficiency. James exemplifies the Biblical ``Parable of the Talents.'' He has been a good and faithful servant to the people of Iowa. I will miss his very scrupulous attention to detail and ability to finesse bicameral, bipartisan victories for Iowa. I could always count on his counsel and valued his wisdom.
James has an uncommon mastery of parliamentary procedure here in the U.S. Senate, an encyclopedic knowledge of Iowa, and, of course, he shares my love for history.
As legislative director, James cultivated exceptional depth of knowledge in his policy portfolio, including education, foreign policy, and the rules of the U.S. Senate.
When I hire people to join my staff, I tell them I expect them to do their job the Grassley way, and that means adopting my approach to representative government, which is to treat people with respect, do your homework, and go the extra mile for the people of Iowa. James worked tirelessly to provide outstanding constituent service.
One of my priorities as the senior Senator for Iowa is to respond to every phone call, letter, and email I get from Iowans. James was instrumental in his leadership to revolutionize my constituent correspondence operation. Some may say that he was a tyrant over what we call in the office ``old mail.'' To that, I would say he was doing just as I asked: ensuring Iowans receive a thoughtful and timely response to their questions and concerns.
During my 45 years of holding county meetings in each one of the 99 counties--during those meetings, I want to make sure things are going right in my office. I say ``Write me a nasty letter'' if they haven't heard back from me regarding their email or their postal mail or if they left their name and address in a telephone call. They get a written response. So, thanks in large part to this man's meticulous efforts, that doesn't happen very often, that I am told somebody did not get a response to their letter.
As legislative director, he mentored scores of legislative correspondents over the years, many of whom climbed the staff ladder to become legislative assistants or pursue careers off of Capitol Hill. He also cultivated longstanding relations with Iowans, particularly educators from across the State as well as Ambassadors from across the world.
A rock-ribbed conservative, James practices what he preaches. He is a warrior for freedom and liberty. Each year, he has hosted a tea in our office in October to celebrate Margaret Thatcher's birthday because he so admired her as a leader and Prime Minister of Great Britain.
In another quirk, James also spearheaded an annual observance of St. John's Day--a summer solstice celebration in Estonia. That is when the Estonian people celebrate Victory Day to mark the defeat of the German troops in their war for independence in 1919. This goes to show that James doesn't do anything halfheartedly. Although a dyed-in-the-wool Iowan, he is a dual citizen of Estonia. In fact, he loved the Baltic nation so much, he built a house there.
As I mentioned, James is leaving my staff and his Senate service at the end of this month. He will dive into academia and passion for foreign policy to obtain a doctor of philosophy in statecraft and strategy at the Institute of World Politics, where he also earned a master's degree.
I told him I liked his speeches so much that I hope he will continue to keep me in mind when he feels a speech coming on to bring much needed historical context to these modern-day problems that we face around here.
So, James, Barbara and I wish you all the best, a great future, and we thank you for your decades of service to the people of Iowa.
When you announced your departure to your fellow staff members, you said you will always be a part of the Grassley family, and I couldn't agree more. I like that you will do just that--be a member of the family.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. President, ``Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man''--those are the words of Michael and Susan Pretti, the parents of Alex Pretti, who over the weekend was killed by masked Federal agents in Minneapolis. I am here to be part of getting the truth out.
Masked Federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, an American citizen, in broad daylight. Alex was an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital--a nurse for veterans. He was a son, a brother, a friend, a caretaker. And he was killed while he was trying to help a woman who had been pushed to the ground by a Federal agent.
The last words that Alex spoke on this Earth were ``Are you all right?''
Those are the words of a good man trying to help someone who had been knocked down by an out-of-control ICE agent. Do not let anyone tell you otherwise.
And Mr. Pretti was not the first. Seventeen days earlier, ICE agents shot and killed Renee Good, a 37-year-old American citizen and mom dropping off her kid at school. She had stuffed animals in her glove compartment. While ICE agents cursed at her, her last words on this Earth were: ``I'm not mad at you.''
There have been more incidents. ICE agents detained Liam, a 5-year- old boy who was literally ripped off the streets by the strap of his Spider-Man backpack--a preschooler.
In Massachusetts, Marcelo Gomes da Silva, a high schooler, was arrested by ICE on his way to volleyball practice. And Rumeysa Ozturk, a student at Tufts University, was cornered by six masked agents, shoved into an unmarked van, and taken to a detention facility in Louisiana.
It goes on and on and on, story after story after story.
The people ICE grabbed up, the people they shot are not threats to you and me. They are not violent criminals that Trump promised to go after. They are not, as Trump said, ``the worst of the worst.'' No, these are our neighbors. They are our friends. They are our colleagues. They are people who treat us when we are sick. The risk is not from them. The risk increasingly comes from out-of-control ICE agents who can't follow the basic training manual that our local police, our State police, and our National Guard are all trained to follow.
This invasion by ICE is not making anyone in America safer. If we don't put a stop to it, these masked agents are going to kill more people. We are at the turning point in our country. What we do next now is in front of the U.S. Senate, in front of my colleagues here today.
This week, we are tasked with funding the government, and one part stands out. Last summer, Trump and the Republicans lavished ICE with $75 billion. That is more than their annual budget for 7 years. And maybe that is why ICE is handing out $50,000 recruiting bonuses. In this budget, Trump and the Republicans want to reward ICE with an additional $10 billion in funding. That is right. Donald Trump wants us to write another check, hand it over to ICE, and let them keep rolling in the dough.
But here is my view: I am a no. I am a hell no.
We cannot give one more penny to Trump's ICE while its masked, poorly trained agents terrorize people all across this country. It is time for the U.S. Senate to step up and stop ICE's violence. We must stand united, and we must fight back, and we must do it now.
I want to be clear. If it were up to me, Congress would completely overhaul ICE, strip the Agency down to studs, repeal billions in Trump's bloated spending, and end these abuses entirely. I am going to keep fighting for that.
But there are also some immediate commonsense steps that we can take right now. Here is some of what I am fighting for: One, end ICE's violence. No more roving patrols and profiling people on the street. No mere treating people like they are guilty just because of their skin color or because they speak with an accent. No more threatening people with guns just because they are recording what is going on.
Two, follow the law. ICE must follow the same rules as everyone else in law enforcement. Get a warrant from an independent judge before barging into people's homes and snatching people from their families. And make no mistake, there should be real consequences for anyone who knocks down someone's door without a real warrant. This is the United States of America, and the last I checked, the Constitution still matters. We must enforce it.
And, three, accountability. It is about time that Border Patrol and ICE wear a damn badge. No more masked secret police.
Let me say it again. No more masked secret police.
And real accountability means accountability for Renee Good; it means accountability for Alex Pretti; it means accountability for every other victim of these Federal agents. DHS must cooperate with State and local officials for real independent investigations of these shootings. End these coverups. We need transparency and accountability for victims of ICE's violence.
Part of the reason that ICE's officers can act like they have no oversight is that Donald Trump and the Republicans in Congress prefunded ICE for years in their One Big Beautiful Bill. As things stand right now, ICE can skate by for years without getting a budget and without any oversight from Congress.
You know those healthcare cuts that are closing hospitals and causing people's health insurance premiums to spike? That is the money that is now being used by ICE to terrorize our communities. That is wrong. Congress has the power to claw back those funds. Congress needs to use that power and take back that money so that Congress has meaningful oversight over an out-of-control ICE.
And that should just be the start.
I am urging every single Senator--Democrat and Republican--to vote no on this budget bill and stop bankrolling ICE's abuses.
I want to put a finer point on this. Republicans control the White House. Republicans control the Senate. Republicans control the House of Representatives. Democrats are ready to rein in this rogue Agency, but we need Republicans in Congress to stop this violence as well.
I know that there are Republicans right now who are seeing what we are seeing in Minnesota, and they know it is wrong. It is time to speak out. Silence is complicity. Grow a spine. Show some backbone. Being disturbed doesn't change anything, and the ICE agents who are waving around loaded guns know that. Republicans in the Senate have the power to do something and to start righting these wrongs. Help the Democrats put meaningful constraints on ICE. Help our people be safe.
To everyone who is angry, I am angry too. I am furious. And I am here in the Senate to fight back for you. But it is in moments like this that we must resist the urge for that anger and fear to take over. It is time to turn our anger into action.
I want to end with this. I saw a post by Alex Pretti's student that I wanted to read excerpts from into the Record. This is all a direct quote:
Like many of you, I see the video of his death, and I am gutted. I see him lying on the ground as two ICE agents pump a total of 10 bullets into him. I see his lifeless body on that cold Minneapolis street, and I feel sadness and anger and horror down to my bones.
But here is what gives me slivers of hope. It is every single person who is speaking out and who is refusing to stay silent in the face of these injustices. It is the post from his last student. It is the hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans who haven't been baited into violence, but, instead, who continue to show up and peacefully protest. They are a reminder that now is the time to dig deep, stand up, and say clearly what ICE is doing is wrong, and we can stop it. We must stop it.
It is time to get ICE out because if we don't speak up, we are complicit in this violence. If we don't speak up, we are giving our OK to a Federal Agency that is openly and aggressively violating the Constitution. If we don't speak up, we are giving up on our democracy and our country.
It is time to speak up. It is time to make meaningful change. And that change starts right here, right now in the U.S. Senate.
First, I want to thank my colleague from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Senator Warren.
That was a powerful, moving, absolutely necessary speech, and I am glad I was here to hear you deliver it. Thank you.
Mr. President, earlier this month, the Nation watched in horror as social
Now, fresh on the heels of that tragedy, another one has struck. This weekend, Federal agents gunned down yet another American in Minneapolis, Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse in a VA hospital in Minneapolis.
I am going to show a photo of that scene, which is graphic, but I am afraid it is necessary to appreciate the horror of the moment.
This photo shows the last second when the ICE agent killed Alex Pretti on the streets of Minneapolis. In his right hand is his camera, and his left hand is holding the ground--no gun obvious, no effort to resist obvious. This was a moment when this man lost his life. He was characterized afterward as an assassin, as a domestic terrorist. The photo tells the story.
The killing of Alex Pretti has further intensified tensions in a city already reeling from the President's aggressive campaign of terror. What was the Trump administration's immediate response when they heard of this second killing in Minneapolis? It was not to bring down the temperature but, instead, to rush to the American people with one message: Don't believe your eyes. Don't believe what you are seeing. It is the same playbook they used after the killing of Renee Good and after other Federal immigration officer-involved shootings and incidents.
Following the fatal shooting of Ms. Good, President of the United States Donald Trump falsely claimed she ``violently, willfully and viciously ran over [an] ICE Officer.''
In response to the killings of both Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem labeled their actions as ``domestic terrorism.''
Attorney General Pam Bondi, in a letter sent to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, effectively tried to blackmail the State, demanding that the Governor of Minnesota turn over the voter rolls of that State in exchange for Bondi's efforts to pull back Federal immigration enforcement officers. In a court hearing earlier this week, an attorney representing the State described Bondi's request as a ``ransom note.''
Why has this President targeted this city and other democratically led cities?
Trump claims he is targeting these cities because local elected officials have released ``violent criminal illegal aliens'' from State custody. The claim does not hold up. Governor Walz eloquently refuted it in a recent column in the Wall Street Journal.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Wall Street Journal editorial ``Tim Walz: The Un-American Assault on Minnesota'' be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record as follows:
Governor Walz noted that, in Minnesota, the State's department of corrections honors all Federal and local detainers by notifying ICE when a person in custody is not a citizen.
Governor Walz wrote:
If the President wants to work together in reducing crime, count me and Governor Walz in, but these lawless immigration operations are establishing a reign of terror--first in Chicago, now in Minneapolis- St. Paul--eroding constitutionally protected civil liberties while indiscriminately rounding up people for the crime of just happening to be Black or Brown. Even the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal--no liberal publication--agrees. In an editorial yesterday, they noted that, since October, 73 percent of the individuals taken into ICE custody had no criminal conviction. Only 5 percent had a violent criminal conviction.
Do you remember the rants at all the rallies? We are talking about rapists and murderers and terrorists, the criminally insane and child predators coming into the United States, and now we are going to expel them. That was the promise--the ``worst of the worst'' over and over again. But when you listen to the statistics that show how few of the people who have been detained or tortured are actually in that category, you realize that it is not the worst of the worst. They are innocent people who are being victimized by ICE and this administration. Donald Trump is hell-bent on punishing his political opponents in the blue States of America and those who didn't vote for him in the last election. We see the cost.
I have come to the floor before to share the stories of U.S. citizens who were arrested in Chicago by immigration agents during Operation Midway Blitz.
Take Elianne Bahena and Jax Lopez--two U.S. citizens who worked for a local alderman in the city of Chicago, my friend Michael Rodriguez of the 22nd Ward. They were arrested by Border Patrol agents in Chicago and were held for hours without any explanation after they exercised their constitutional rights to monitor immigration enforcement in the area.
According to a recent report from the Chicago Sun-Times, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Chicago has brought 32 nonimmigration criminal cases to court that are related to ICE Operation Midway Blitz. Do you know how many convictions there have been in those 32 cases? None, not one. This represents precious time and resources that have been wasted on baseless efforts by this Agency to punish peaceful protesters that could and should be focused instead on keeping the streets safe, on child exploitation, on human trafficking, and on public corruption.
The time for accountability is now. I have been calling for DHS Secretary Noem to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee for almost 1 year. She couldn't find the time. She is just way too busy. In the last calendar year, she didn't show up at all. Now she tells us that it is possible her schedule may loosen up and that she might be able to come before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 5 weeks, on March 3, if she happens to still be the DHS Secretary then. With all the violence and death surrounding DHS, the Secretary is in no hurry to account for her mismanagement of this national crisis. She expects us, in the meantime, in the days ahead, to rubberstamp her recordbreaking budget.
Over the weekend, I announced my opposition to DHS funding. I will not vote to fund the illegal DHS and ICE operations that terrorize the city of Chicago, Minneapolis, and so many other communities. The deaths of innocent Americans and the detaining of thousands of innocent people are a national disgrace. We need to work on a bipartisan basis to pass the five appropriations bills that have been sent to us by the House and then work to rewrite the DHS bill to address well-documented abuses witnessed by the American people. Anything less than this approach is a nonstarter with me.
If the government shuts down yet again, it will be because congressional Republicans have refused to place guardrails on this reckless President and the ICE Agency. In the meantime, I urge my colleagues to join us in the endeavor before Kristi Noem and her squad take another innocent life.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that The Wall Street Journal editorial ``Mass Deportation by the Numbers'' be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record as follows:
Mr. President, I rise today as we debate funding for the Department of Homeland Security. It is a debate that 100 Americans allowed into this Chamber will have a chance to do, but that really is being had by millions of Americans across the country in their living rooms and their group chats, in the comments on social media. There are a lot of things that we debate here that fly under the radar that, maybe, impact a lot of people but are not on their minds. This is on everyone's mind. Whether we write another check to fund the Department of Homeland Security isn't just front page news--it is the thing that people who haven't picked up a newspaper in years are talking about.
Why is that?
It is because people can feel that something is wrong in this country, and they know it has to be stopped.
People can watch the videos of the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of Federal agents and see that something is wrong and that it isn't over. They can watch these videos of masked men who are roaming through neighborhoods or are physically assaulting people who are peacefully protesting and see that something is wrong. They are absolutely right in that feeling. How can you watch any of that and not see that it is wrong?
I hear from people whom I know--some friends of mine--who are telling me that they are now carrying their passports around with them because they are afraid of getting stopped and being targeted by Federal agents. I have heard from constituents who are anxious, who don't feel safe leaving their houses, who are afraid of door knocks at their houses, and are just afraid that this moment of fear will never end.
The tragic irony of this is that we are nearly 25 years in from the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security--25 years from another moment when people felt an incredible level of anxiety and unease. I was in college when 9/11 happened. It was a moment that led me toward public service. It was a crisis that brought me into a career in national security, working to keep our country safe. One of the things I have learned is that safety isn't our ability to project force or the tools we have at our disposal. Those things can make us safe, but if they are used improperly, they can make us less safe and less secure. And that is exactly what we are seeing from this administration. It is what Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, Tom Homan, and Kristi Noem are doing every day. They are using the tools that were meant to keep us safe and are distorting them to grow their own power, to fuel their own corruption.
What we are debating here today is whether we should continue to fund their efforts to use these tools against the American people and for their own twisted agenda. And, to that, there is a simple answer: We must say and vote no. We need to vote no on funding the DHS as this bill currently stands because it is not going to make us more safe and secure.
Everyone in America who has been carrying this feeling around with them for the past few days and weeks knows that. They know that they have been lied to by this administration. They know that the masked men who are flooding into our communities are not accountable to them. They know people like Stephen Miller, whom I have often called and said that he is the most dangerous person in our country, are not accountable to them. The American people are tired of it, and they are tired of the lies. They see right through them. They are tired of feeling like they have no say in this horrible feeling of insecurity and uncertainty.
How is it that, in the richest, most powerful country in the world, we have this much unpredictability and this much anxiety that hangs over us? But that can end today; that can end right here because, even though the millions and millions of people who are struggling to make sense of this moment aren't able to get into this Chamber and have a vote, there are 100 of us who do and who represent all of the other Americans in this Nation.
There are things that this administration can do today to restore that sense of safety and security. For instance, they can pull ICE and CBP agents out of their operations in Minnesota and in Maine and deescalate the fear that American communities are facing. The provocations are dangerous right now and the concern of powder kegs of what is going to happen next. It is not that we see this in the rearview mirror with the murder and the killing of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. People are wondering: Is this just the beginning? Is this going to continue and for how long? Is it going to get worse? That is the fear that people are feeling, which is something that this administration can immediately bring down if they pull these agents out.
This administration can also allow and clearly articulate the need for independent investigations into the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti--actually, in terms of all 12 of the shootings that DHS agents since September of last year have conducted. That deserves the same level of transparency and accountability. The reason we need this is that there is no trust right now. There is no trust right now from the American people in having DHS or this administration as a whole investigate themselves. It is antithetical to our understanding of transparency and accountability if that is the case. So we demand true independent investigations.
This administration can also fire their leaders who have clearly zero credibility--zero credibility--with the American people right now-- Stephen Miller, Tom Homan, Secretary Noem, and others--who have purposely weaponized our government for their own political agendas. The American people demand accountability. Forward movement as a nation in these troubled times cannot happen while having these administrative officials still in power, still in their jobs.
There are many other things we need to think through, but these are three things that can happen right now by this administration to show that we can try to turn a corner on this incredibly chaotic and dangerous moment for our country.
But even if that all happens, we owe it to the American people to take a stand, we owe it to them to give them the security they deserve, and we owe it to them to vote no on this appropriations bill.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. President, I appreciate the remarks of my friend from New Jersey. Mine will sound very familiar.
Listen, ICE is out of control right now. They are killing American citizens. They are endangering the safety of our cities--in particular, Minneapolis. They are just lawless.
This Nation was horrified when they saw the video of Alex Pretti, exercising his First Amendment rights, gunned down in cold blood, but I will be honest: They were just as terrified by the response from the administration. Almost within minutes, before any investigation took place, this young man, an ICU nurse who cared for veterans, was being called an assassin, was being named as a domestic terrorist.
It is chilling to the American public that the people in charge of our Federal Government would lie this willingly, this casually. It is chilling that anyone who opposes this President or participates in organized protests is immediately labeled a ``terrorist.'' That is what happens in despotic, totalitarian countries--anyone that opposes the regime is labeled a ``terrorist.'' That is not what is supposed to happen in the United States of America.
So the focus of this country right now is squarely on Minneapolis.
By the way, there has been a lot of ink spilled over the last 24 hours about the administration's deescalation in Minneapolis, substituting one leader for another. Tom Homan is not an avatar of reasonableness, listening and parsing the President's words as he tries to distance himself a little bit from the most outrageous things that people like Stephen Miller have said. But if you talk to our colleagues from Minnesota, they will tell you that nothing has changed. Today is just like yesterday.
In a nursery school today, there is blinds down, recess canceled, signs on the door: All of our staff have been vetted by ICE. We have no one illegal here.
Kids don't know what is going on as they are ushered in by escorts to their nursery school classroom. They are made to feel like prisoners inside. Why? Because there are masked, armed men hunting them--and not hunting people who snuck into the country; hunting people who are here legally--who are here legally.
I want you to understand that as much as we are watching Minneapolis, as much as we are feeling for those children locked in their nursery school classrooms today, fearing the bad men outside that are trying to take them away and send them to prison, it is not just Minneapolis.
Last week, I went down to Texas to inspect two facilities, one of which is entitled ``the baby prison,'' ``the baby jail.'' It is where they put the 2-year-old kids. I didn't show up unannounced. I am the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations subcommittee that funds Homeland Security. We all have a constitutional right to do oversight, but I have the title, I have the responsibility. I gave them a day-and-a-half notice, and I was still denied entry. Why? Because they are hiding something. Thirty people have died in ICE custody and detention in the last year.
So, instead, I went to a courtroom in San Antonio, an immigration courtroom, and I sat in on proceedings for half a day. What I saw was just absolutely outrageous. It is not on cameras--the country is not watching it like they are watching Minneapolis--but it is just as inhumane, and it is just as illegal.
The people that show up to this courtroom in San Antonio are immigrants who are complying with the law. These are people who came to the United States, immediately applied for asylum--many of them made an appointment through an official government website to show up and apply for asylum--and they have been showing up for all of their hearings and court appointments since.
So I would watch as these individuals or families walked in, went through their legal court proceedings, knowing that outside that door were half a dozen civilian, plainclothes ICE officers waiting to disappear them.
That is what happens in San Antonio. The individual who is here legally shows up as part of their court process. They walk out the door, and they are grabbed by ICE, put on a bus that is waiting outside, and they are never to be seen again. They go to one of these detention facilities. They are basically not allowed to see a lawyer. Sometimes, their family doesn't even know where they are. They are very quickly sent out of the country, either to the nation that they came from, where they rightfully fear potential violence, or to third countries. Families are split up.
While I was there, I was asked to accompany two young parents and their 2-year-old daughter out of the courtroom to see if maybe, because they were talking to a U.S. Senator, ICE wouldn't take them--a 2-year- old. The lawyer said: If you weren't here, one of two things was going to happen--that 2-year-old was going to end up in jail with their parents or they were going to separate the parents from the child-- separate at least the father from the child.
That is inhumane. That is wrong. And that is why people all across this country are demanding that if we are going to fund the Department of Homeland Security, we only fund a Department that is acting lawfully and morally.
What we are asking is reasonable and impactful. What we are saying is that these roving patrols in Minneapolis, the profiling of people just based upon their skin color or their accent, the show-me-your-papers enforcement, has to end.
ICE and CBP are fundamentally not trained to do that kind of work-- just roaming the streets, trying to find people who they believe to be in the country illegally. We need warrants, and, in fact, that has been the practice until this administration. The practice up until now had been that you had to get a warrant in order to try to lock up somebody who you believed to be here illegally.
And the roving patrols and the profiling.
Second, no more secret police. This is the United States of America. This is the United States of America. We don't allow in this country masked, unidentified men to be wandering up to you on the street and ripping you into a car. We need masks off. We need body cameras on.
Lastly, we need accountability. Man, it looks like there was a crime committed. It looks like that was murder. But the only way you will know is if you have an impartial investigation and, potentially, prosecution. That always happens at the State level. It can't be some whitewashed, secret process inside the Department of Homeland Security. No. Our justice in the United States of America happens in public; it does not happen in private. We aren't Russia. We aren't Saudi Arabia. Justice is administered in a court of law through a process that the people can see, and that should apply to you whether you are an ICE officer or whether you are just a citizen of Minneapolis.
So think about what we are talking about here--really reasonable things that, frankly, should unite Republicans and Democrats.
I have a much longer list of reforms that I want. The illegality is just off the charts at the Department of Homeland Security, but I understand that we are not going to be able to get common ground on that long list. So what we endeavor to do is put on the table three things that we can find common ground on, that we must find common ground on because to defend this--for Republicans' position over the rest of this week into next week to be no reforms, no changes on how ICE operates--it is unsustainable. It is not close to where the center of this country is.
So what we are talking about are three reasonable projects: Stop the roving patrols of our cities, no more secret police, and accountability. I believe we can find a way to get that done.
I know there is an instinct here--and we suffer from it too--if Democrats are for it, then Republicans just have to be against it, and if Republicans are for it, Democrats just have to be against it. I fall prey to that instinct. But this seems to be a moment where the country has just decided that what is happening in Minneapolis is wrong. The country would like us to come together on a series of reforms that will make it less likely that there will be another murder in cold blood of an American citizen.
Right now, we are on a pace for it to happen again. ICE is still there. There are more ICE officers in Minneapolis than there are police officers. The police aren't even doing their job any longer because all they do is respond to the problems that are being created by untrained, unqualified ICE officers.
I think we can find a way to come together on a set of reforms that the American people are demanding.
I guess I draw my inspiration from that trip I took to Texas.
Late one evening, I met with a group of families that had recently been detained, and they all had little kids--little kids that were in what they call baby jail. I met with two boys--elementary school-age boys about 8 years old and 10 years old--that had been locked up for 6 weeks. Six weeks these little kids had been locked up for nothing. They were complying with the law. They and their father were going through the legal process of applying for asylum. They were told to show up for court. Their mom dropped them off. Their backpacks for school were still in the back seat. The two young boys and their father went into the courtroom for their appointment that they were told to show up for, and they never came back to the car. Their mom had no idea where they went.
It ended up that they were in detention, that the little kids had been put in prison. They called their mom every day as Christmas approached and said: Mom, maybe tomorrow they will let us out. Maybe the next day. Christmas is coming up, Mom. I don't want to be here for Christmas.
Well, they stayed right through Christmas, and they didn't get out until just a week ago. These children were alive on the outside, but you could tell they were dead on the inside. One of the two little boys--the older of them--sat during our time together, and he just stared straight ahead. He didn't make eye contact with anybody. His brain, you could tell, had been poisoned by the inhumanity that had been visited upon him by a policy that makes no sense other than for the purpose of torturing these kids.
This is the United States of America. We shouldn't stand for that. You can enforce the laws of this Nation without putting kids through that kind of hell, without the kids of Minneapolis today languishing in nursery schools with the doors locked, with no recess and the shades down.
We were sitting around a round table, and on the other side from the two dead-eyed children who had just left 6 weeks' detention was another child. He looked about 10 to me.
The two boys who were in detention told their mother in all those phone calls that maybe their greatest worry was that their friends were going to forget about them.
Mom, I have been here for a week.
Mom, I have been here 2 weeks.
Mom, I have been here for 6 weeks. What if I go back to school and none of my friends remember who I am?
This is what goes through the brain of an 8-year-old who has been in jail for nothing--for nothing--for 6 weeks.
Do you know what happened? Their friends didn't forget about them.
That other little boy sitting on the other side of the round table-- 10 years old--was one of their friends, and he noticed that his two friends were missing day after day after day, and he remembered that they were in immigration proceedings. So this 10-year-old boy went to his teacher and his mom and said: I think something is wrong. I think my friends might have been taken.
The teacher and the mother reached out to a local legal aid agency, and that legal aid agency tracked down the boy and the father, and eventually, the two boys and the father were let out.
That 10-year-old boy, their friend, had compassion. He believed in right versus wrong. But he also believed that he wasn't powerless. He believed that he could do something to help find his missing friends. For him, that was alerting adults, because he knew that maybe they would help.
And I am sure he was nervous about speaking up, about going to talk to his teacher, because doing the right thing often comes with risks. But to him, doing the right thing was worth the risk. To him, he knew he wasn't powerless in the face of the immorality that he feared had happened to his friends.
And I just tell you that story because it is a lesson for us. It is a lesson for us to not feel powerless, for Democrats to stand up for what we believe in, to not settle for less than a Department of Homeland Security that complies with the law; and a lesson for Republicans, who I know fear retribution by this President when they stand up for what they believe is right, rather than what Donald Trump says is right.
We aren't powerless on the Democratic side, and you aren't powerless on
Mr. President, on Saturday, the Nation learned the name of Alex Pretti. Alex was an ICU nurse at the Veterans' Administration, fulfilling our Nation's sacred promise to care for our wounded warriors. Many have probably seen the video of him paying final respects and honors to one of our fallen veterans.
Alex was also a neighbor who cared deeply about his community, and because of those values, Alex was an observer, recording and bearing witness to the actions of ICE and Customs and Border Patrol as they descended upon his hometown, stopping and detaining individuals without judicial warrants.
We all saw video of Alex's final moments, when he stopped to help a fellow observer, a woman who had been pushed by Federal agents, before those agents sprayed him with chemicals, disarmed him of the gun he legally carried, and shot him in the back, firing 10 shots in less than 5 seconds. We all saw this on video--in fact, multiple videos from multiple angles from other civilians on the street that day bearing witness.
But this administration--the Trump administration--immediately lied to us. And when I say ``us,'' I mean the American people. They called Alex a ``domestic terrorist.'' They called him a ``would-be assassin.''
This administration must think the American people are really stupid, telling them not to believe their own eyes. This was the killing of an American citizen exercising his constitutional rights, and you would think that that by itself would spur a reckoning with the actions of the Department of Homeland Security.
But this isn't one isolated event. This isn't even the only killing committed by DHS agents in Minnesota this year. On January 7, a Minneapolis mom, Renee Good, was shot and killed as she attempted to drive away from immigration agents who aggressively approached her, contrary to DHS's use-of-force policy, and, ultimately, killed her, and then prevented her from receiving immediate medical assistance.
They lied about her case, as well, accusing her also of ``domestic terrorism,'' despite the evidence that people across this land could see with their own eyes.
This is not a case of just a few untrained bad apples. It is the result of an out-of-control Federal Agency that has directed its agents to act with impunity, to detain and deport scores of people who pose no risk to our communities in so many cases and have no criminal records, including small business owners, pastors, parents taking their kids to school, neighbors walking their dogs, children.
This is an intentional policy coming out of the White House--from Donald Trump to Stephen Miller, to the Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem. JD Vance, the Vice President, said the agent who shot Renee Good was ``protected by absolute immunity.'' That is what the Vice President of the United States said. He should know better.
And they have deliberately cut funding for offices at DHS that monitor the conduct of immigration officers to protect civil rights and civil liberties. They are giving agents a license to kill with impunity.
Secretary Noem should be fired immediately--if not fired, impeached.
Stephen Miller has now tried to point the finger at others, when he has been the ringleader in the White House.
He should be fired.
DHS operates at the direction of the White House and the President with orders to meet arbitrary quotas, to detain and deport not just the worst of the worst but anybody. They conduct masked raids in unmarked vehicles and refuse to show identification. They arrest people without warrants, use force to enter homes, and lock people up without due process. They sweep up citizens, legal immigrants, and immigrants without deportation orders.
And when they are confronted with their abuses, they lie. They tell us not to believe what we see with our own eyes.
I want to salute the people in Minneapolis and across the country, including in Maryland, who are taking videos and working to hold these Federal forces accountable. Think about what would have happened if there was no video in these cases. These videos have complicated the Trump administration's effort at a coverup, even as the Trump administration refuses to work with State and local law enforcement to investigate these killings.
In my State of Maryland, DHS lied about the circumstances surrounding a nonfatal shooting, and they were exposed in their lies because of a local county investigation that showed that DHS was plain wrong.
DHS has restricted access to detention centers, preventing congressional oversight into inhuman conditions, where we know at least 30 people have died in custody, including one death in Texas that has been ruled a homicide.
And as they view the actions of peaceful protestors and observers as a personal offense, they have reacted with violence and labeled them domestic terrorists for practicing their constitutional freedoms and rights.
In Minnesota, these Federal agents hurled chemical irritants at peaceful crowds who are simply exercising their First Amendment rights to freedom of assembly and peaceful protest. They view whistles as weapons. In Portland, they claimed to be threatened by people wearing frog costumes.
My colleagues, Republicans in Congress, have fueled this surge in illegal activity by exploding the DHS budget with $165 billion as part of what Donald Trump called the Big Beautiful Bill. Remember, that is the bill where the richest people in the country were given permanent tax cuts. That is the bill that made deep cuts in healthcare for tens of millions of Americans. And in that bill was also this huge slush fund for DHS.
ICE, by itself, is now the Nation's highest funded law enforcement Agency and has more funding than the militaries of most countries in the world--including Italy, Israel, and Brazil. ICE, by itself, has more funds than the armies of those countries, and now they are spending those funds to hire more agents and are putting more of them out on the streets with limited training.
They are preparing to turn warehouses into so-called processing sites and detention centers, including one in my home State of Maryland, doing it against the will of the community. We see DHS spitting in the face of local communities across the country.
In Maryland, we had a rally with hundreds of people on a very cold day, sending a message to ICE and to the Trump administration that the people in that community did not want a warehouse for detainees right there. Within days of that demonstration, the Trump administration-- ICE--signed a deal for $100 million of our taxpayer money to purchase a warehouse where they say they can keep up to 1,500 detainees.
I can tell you Maryland taxpayers don't want their money going to that purpose, and I will bet you the great majority of taxpayers around this country don't want to see their tax dollars used in that way as well.
And now, despite the fact that they are already clearly misusing these taxpayer dollars, as American citizens are killed on the streets, our fellow Republicans, our Republicans in the Senate, want to give them even more in the bill that would be up on this floor this week--in fact, another $10 billion more for ICE and over $18 billion more for Customs and Border Patrol, while refusing to rein in these abuses-- another blank check for lawless activity, another blank check that results in the killing of Americans, another blank check with no accountability.
That would be madness. We cannot green-light the actions of an Agency that is already terrorizing our communities and executing our neighbors with billions of dollars in new funds without any regard to their constitutional rights.
Again, President Trump said he was going to go after ``the worst of the worst.'' That has not been their focus, and we can see it with our own eyes.
And we cannot accept the administration's claim that these agents have some kind of absolute immunity and are free from the consequences of their actions. That is why an independent investigation into the killings of Renee
We must do that, but it is not enough to take the word of the Trump administration that they will do that. We can't simply trust an administration that has repeatedly lied to the American people, as if, this time, they will try to do better.
And, again, we wouldn't be here, probably, but for that video. The administration would have thought that it got away with its lies.
So let's not be naive. We are not going to give away our responsibility as legislators to put real reforms right into the DHS bill to prevent this lawlessness, to prevent these killings, to protect our freedoms, and to assure real accountability.
Our most important job is protecting the life and liberty of the American people. It is sadly too late to protect Alex Pretti and too late to protect Renee Good, as they should have been protected, but it is not too late to act on behalf of the rest of the American people.
So, this week, we have before us a package of appropriation bills that includes the work of six appropriations subcommittees--including Defense; Transportations and Housing; Labor, Health and Human Services; Foreign Operations; and Financial Services. These are not perfect bills, and I have serious concerns with some of them that I would like to see addressed. But it is also clear that there is enough support in this body to pass them. We could pass them today if they were separated out.
In fact, when those bills went through the House of Representatives, they considered the Department of Homeland Security bill on its own merits. They didn't bundle it in with everything else and say: You know, you have got to vote for this whole package at one time.
So the House, after they passed it individually, they pulled all those bills together and sent them in a bundle over here to the U.S. Senate. But, my goodness, that doesn't mean the U.S. Senate has to take it that way from the House. This is supposed to be an independent branch of the Congress. I don't know why we would surrender our responsibilities to the House of Representatives. And they should get right back into Washington if we change this bill and pass it to prevent a shutdown of those Agencies. That is their responsibility.
The House needs to perform its duties, and we need to perform ours. And ours involve making sure that we separate out those five appropriation bills that I mentioned from the Homeland Security appropriations bill. In fact, I would argue that we should also take-- as part of the package of five bills, we should take FEMA and TSA and the Coast Guard, which are part of the DHS bill, and we could send all of those back to the House for immediate passage to go on to the President.
But, instead, Republican colleagues here are wasting time. We could take up that package today, if there was the will to do it among my Republican colleagues. But, right now, instead, we are holding all of those other Agencies--the Defense Department, Health and Human Services--hostage to holding onto the Department of Homeland Security bill that needs to be changed dramatically.
I don't think that a single person in this body would argue against deporting those who have committed serious crimes--``the worst of the worst''--but that is not what this administration has been focused on. Nothing about this has been targeted. And Trump's ICE has not focused, as they promised, on ``the worst of the worst.'' They are stopping and arresting people who are citizens, who are legal residents, who have legal pending asylum claims, just because of how they look or their accent. And they are wreaking havoc on communities across the country, including on peaceful protestors, two of whom have now given their lives to protect our freedoms.
And do you know what? They are not just using their own agents as part of this indiscriminate dragnet. They are bringing in other Agencies as well, distracting them and redirecting them from critical missions. Senator Warner released data that showed nearly half of the FBI agents in its largest field offices have been redirected to immigration, away from fighting drug trafficking, terrorism, and violent crime.
It is time for us in the Senate to do our job. This isn't going to go away with the couple hours of extra training, personnel reassignments, or administration statements. Let's make this a moment for real change and not give DHS another huge blank check.
I, for one, will not vote for one more dime for this lawless DHS operation that we are witnessing at this time.
Mr. President, we are at an inflection point in this country, and what happens over the next few months will ring onward, far into the future.
We have all seen the scenes in Minneapolis--the riots, the violence, the bitter chaos. You have seen the headlines, the TV monologues, the nightly news reports, and the pundits' spin. If you weren't paying close attention, it might seem like all of this noise just exploded out of nowhere, a month or two ago.
But the story of what is happening in Minneapolis didn't begin last month. It didn't even begin last year when President Trump took office. It began on January 20, 2021, the day Joe Biden became President. The Biden administration did something that has no precedent in American history. They intentionally opened our border to a full-scale invasion and actively sought to block any attempt to fight back.
Millions upon millions of illegal aliens entered our country illegally, flooding in from some of the most violent places on Earth, in direct violation of constitutionally enacted immigration laws passed by multiple Congresses and signed by Presidents of both parties. It was the most egregious betrayal of Federal law in American history.
Trump ran and won on fixing this. It wasn't some minor footnote in his platform; it was one of the most fundamental defining policies of his 2024 campaign. If you went out in the street and grabbed 10 Americans at random in November of 2024 and asked them what Donald Trump was running on, just about every single one of them would give you the same exact answer: the economy and illegal immigration.
Here is the thing: He won. Donald Trump won. Let me repeat that for my Democratic colleagues. He won. He won the electoral college. He won the popular vote. He swept all the battleground States running on the promise to end the invasion and send the illegal immigrants back home. The promise was one of the key reasons the American people sent him back to the White House. That was democracy in action.
You know, we hear a lot of talk from the other side about democracy. Well, if democracy means anything at all, it means that this administration must be allowed to carry out the agenda the American people voted for--enforcing our immigration laws, securing the border, and deporting immigrants who are here illegally.
This is not a new concept, by the way. Democratic Presidents for the past 20 years have done this. But the other side never had any intention of letting this happen. President Trump moved forward with his agenda. They were never going to let us enforce our immigration laws against those who had broken them.
Why is that? Well, because mass migration is not just one policy preference among many of today's Democratic Party; it is the policy priority, the fundamental organizing principle of their entire agenda. It is the foundation of their platform and the final end of their world view.
Not one single Democrat has called on leftists in the streets to stop impeding law enforcement with their cars or to stop physically attacking law enforcement--not a single one. They have zero interest in lowering the temperature. At this point, it is so obvious, it almost feels silly to say.
In Minnesota and here in DC, Democrats are actively and intentionally adding fuel to the fire.
The mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, has claimed his city is ``invaded, under siege, occupied.''
The Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota, Peggy Flanagan, declared that ``our neighbors are being disappeared. . . . It is just called kidnapping'' and publicly called upon Americans to ``put your body on the line'' and ``not go silently into the night.''
Governor Tim Walz compared the ICE presence in Minnesota to a Nazi occupation and likened residents of Minneapolis to Anne Frank. On Monday, Walz published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal declaring that the ``Trump administration's assault on Minnesota is a campaign of organized brutality against the people of our state.'' Just last week, he stood behind the metal gates of the Governor's mansion with a bullhorn and told the crowd of protesters outside to go and cause ``trouble.''
These aren't unique examples; they are par for the course. Over the last month, we have heard similar things from just about every powerful Democrat in this country. I don't know what is in each and every one of their hearts. I don't know that. I don't know if they really believe that we are at war or that ICE is the Gestapo or that Minneapolis is under Nazi occupation. But whether or not they believe it, many of the people who hear them and are listening to them do. Now, many of those people are taking these ideas to their final, logical conclusion. That is exactly what the people in power on the left actually want. They want the confrontations. They want the chaos. They want their conscious political strategy. That is what this is, their conscious political strategy. They have decided that leaning in and ratcheting this up as far as it can go serves their political and ideological interests, so they are all in.
By the way, might I just point out that they are about ready to shut the government down again. They shut it down the first time because they wanted healthcare for illegal immigrants. Now they are willing to shut the government down, including FEMA funding and TSA funding, because they want to stop deportations of illegal immigrants. It is the single organizing principle of their party right now.
Think about that for a moment. Really sit with this. Think about what it says about the kinds of people we are dealing with at this point.
In a better era of American politics, we used to say things like: We all want what is best for the country; we just have different ideas about how to get there. When you hear statements like the ones that I just rattled off, it seems harder and harder to believe that right now.
These radicals are people who fundamentally do not believe America deserves to be a sovereign nation, a nation that gets to decide who comes here and for how long and when you have to leave. These radicals have opposed the efforts in Minnesota and across the country to take criminals off of our streets--criminals like Kou Lo Vang, a criminal illegal alien from Laos convicted of first-degree murder; Phuc Trong Nguyen, a criminal illegal alien from Vietnam convicted of possession of a weapon and rape; Pedro Ornelas, a criminal illegal alien from Mexico convicted of sexual assault and rape; Abdi Gelle Mohamed, a criminal illegal alien from Somalia convicted of sexual abuse of a minor. That is just a small sample of the last few weeks of arrests in Minnesota.
These radicals are people who will cynically wax poetic about democracy in one breath and then deploy organized mob violence as a weapon to undermine the express will of the people when democracy doesn't go their way.
My colleagues on the left are currently threatening to shut down our government, shut down the Department of Homeland Security, if they don't get their way.
What is their way? They demand we defund law enforcement Agencies like ICE and CBP. They demand we force ICE agents to dox themselves so that their families can be harassed and threatened in their homes. They demand that we cripple Federal law enforcement's ability to enforce our immigration laws.
This is not about oversight; it is about paralysis. And the objective is mass amnesty, rewarding those who broke the law and punishing the men and women sworn to enforce it.
My colleagues on the left are smart enough to know about the trail of American victims that mass immigration has left in its wake, but they made a conscious decision to sneer and roll their eyes and pretend like it is all just a hysterical rightwing fantasy to advance their agenda.
What is really going on here? Well, it is a desperate and intentional thirst for power at all costs--padding their numbers by importing new voters and illegally adding people to the census rolls to distort congressional apportionment in the electoral college, even if Americans are less safe and it destroys our way of life in the process.
I want my Republican colleagues in particular to hear me on this. Nobody wants to see American citizens being shot and killed. On a basic human level, it is a tragedy. Every time a life is lost, it is a tragedy. The lives lost in Minnesota have been tragic.
But what we are seeing in the streets of Minnesota--it is not on ICE, it is not on the Border Patrol, and it is certainly not on President Trump. If it were, we would be seeing the same chaos in every city where ICE and Border Patrol carry out these operations, but we are not.
There have been large-scale deportation operations in red States all across the country. Most Americans probably never heard of them because they went off without a hitch. In fact, when we measure ICE arrests in each State last year against the State's share of the national illegal alien population, 21 out of the top 25 States are red. Only 3 blue States, plus Washington, DC, crack the top 26. One of those States was Virginia, which had a Republican Governor who was willing to work with ICE at the time.
A recent analysis found that just nine counties account for nearly two-thirds of all violent confrontations with ICE in America over the past year. The number of violent confrontations in those counties was twice as high as the total instances of anti-ICE violence from the remaining 3,134 counties combined. Anti-ICE violence was 590 times more likely to occur in those 9 counties than in any other county in America. All nine counties are deep-blue sanctuary jurisdictions run by Democrats.
We hear the left tell us that ICE and Border Patrol are agents of chaos and terror. The data tells a very different story. It is not ICE or Border Patrol that is causing this terror; it is the militant leftists and their enablers in the Democratic Party.
Yet, in the face of all of it, the agents of ICE and Border Patrol continue to do their job, courageously carrying out their duty and running towards the fire. They are not villains. They are American heroes. They are on the frontlines of the fight to save our country, and we owe them absolute, unequivocal, unflinching support.
I want to close by reading a message from a DHS agent on the ground in Minneapolis that was shared earlier this month. Here is what he wrote:
Mr. President, that is courage. That is heroism. It is a heroism that the cowards hiding behind their guarded mansion gates will never understand.
The ICE and Border Patrol agents are risking death every day. The small men who sneer and bark at them from the sidelines are not men of virtue but men who defy our rule of law.
The deportations must continue. Sanctuary cities must end. The era of fake deals is over. There will be no fake ``comprehensive immigration reform'' because a nation does not need new laws to enforce the ones it already has. President Trump demonstrated a basic truth of self- government: Law without enforcement is not law at all.
Congress criminalized illegal entry. The executive branch is obligated to enforce it. And that is exactly what will happen--the systematic removal of those who violated Federal law by entering this country illegally--no theatrics, no apologies, no amnesty, just enforcement.
So protest all you want, but let law enforcement do their jobs-- enforcing the immigration laws that Republicans and Democrats passed. Let our men and women in law enforcement get home safe to their families.
I asked my colleague from across the aisle if he would pause for a question not to address all the lists of particulars he threw out to all 47 of his colleagues on this side of the aisle but to simply make one point. That is, he said, that Democrats want to shut down the government.
Did he forget that Republicans are in charge of this Chamber? Did he forget that all 47 of us here said that we are willing to vote today on the five spending bills? Did he miss that somehow?
Republicans are in charge of the Oval Office. They are in charge of the House of Representatives, and Republicans are in charge of the Senate.
Yes. When I complete my remarks, I will be happy to address the question.
We are ready to vote now on those five bills. So, if there is a shutdown, it is clear where it is coming from. It is coming from the Republican leadership and the President of the United States of America.
I have been profoundly disturbed by what I have seen in the way that the agents from Customs and Border Protection and ICE have acted across this country. I held 17 townhalls in very conservative, Republican counties, in super red counties, in blue counties, in purple counties. People came out from across my State to say they are shocked and that they are disturbed by what they are seeing happening across our entire Nation.
They came to my townhalls to say one simple thing: No more must this conduct occur. So I have come to the floor now to say: No more. No more rogue patrols of Federal agents accosting people based on the color of their skin or their accents. No more intrusions and violations in the sensitive places like churches, mosques, synagogues, schools, daycare centers, hospitals, courthouses, and polling places. No more secret police tactics in which agents hide their personal identities, hide their Agency identity, cover their faces, use unmarked vans so people don't even know if they are being confronted by someone who has legitimate authority. No more Federal agents arresting people and, in fact, knocking down doors without warrants.
May I remind my colleagues that there is a Constitution of the United States of America and that it says you cannot knock down doors without a warrant?
It is shocking to see a memo from this President saying the executive branch can tell other parts of the executive branch they can violate the Fourth Amendment and knock down doors--violating a fundamental premise of the privacy and security and freedom of the people of the United States of America.
No more blatant lies from Kristi Noem when citizen victims have been assaulted. She is quick to immediately say they are terrorists or they are would-be assassins when she has absolutely no evidence to support that, and immediately you know there will be nothing close to an independent or fair investigation. Immediately you know she is making it up because she hasn't collected the information. Then the videos come out, and they show that she lied to the American people not once, not twice, not three times, but time and time and time again. The American people have witnessed the truth with their own eyes thanks to the citizens who were responsibly videotaping the interactions.
No more corrupt Federal investigations that blame ordinary citizens for ICE thuggery. No more blocking Members of Congress from touring immigration facilities or stonewalling congressional oversight. No more abducting children off the street, including a 5-year-old in a hat with little puppy ears on it.
No more terrorizing our community. No more executions of our citizens like Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
Colleagues, ICE has failed to follow the law. They have failed to honor the Constitution. They have destroyed their own legitimacy and integrity. Democrats have said: We are ready to vote on all five of the spending bills that do not involve ICE. Do it right now.
Republican leadership says: Hell no. We want to shut down the government.
Wow. Then they want to blame Democrats. Let's have an honest conversation about who is responsible if there is a government shutdown, and that lays across the aisle to the right.
The DHS bill must be separated because these issues must be debated and addressed. If the goal of my Republican colleagues is to avoid a debate over the misconduct of Customs and Border Protection and ICE, then they are not fulfilling their responsibilities as representatives of the citizens of the United States of America, who value their freedom, who value their privacy, who never want to see the Federal Government knocking down their doors without a warrant.
Kristi Noem has so failed in her honesty with America. She must go.
As the Senate eventually considers the Department of Homeland Security bill, they must enact serious, meaningful reforms, including ending the roaming patrols with all the violations they have been involved in, unmasking the secret police, ensuring accountability and fair investigations.
Let me remind you that in Trump's so-called Big Beautiful Bill--you remember the one. That was the bill that cut nutrition, that cut healthcare, making it far more expensive for mega millions of Americans in order to give $75 billion to ICE, kind of advanced funding it for, like, 5 years into the future. And they want additional money for ICE now with no debate on the floor of the Senate? They want to suppress a legitimate conversation about defending the privacy and rights of all Americans and about defending our Constitution? No, absolutely not.
So, to every Senator, in recognizing they already have--ICE that is-- mega millions in their pocket or, actually, billions--$75 billion--not one more dollar for ICE thuggery.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. President, I want to thank Senator Smith and my colleagues for being here today to stand up for the State of Minnesota, for our Nation, and for our Constitution.
In the last year, we have too often come to the floor to discuss tragedies in our State. This summer, an assassin killed our friend Melissa Hortman, the former speaker of the Minnesota House, and her husband Mark. We were, once again, shaken to our core when a mass shooter attacked Annunciation Catholic Church right in the middle of mass--children in their first week of school--when 2 children were murdered, with 21 more people injured, including 18 kids.
In recent weeks, Minnesota has, once again, been at the center of America's
Her wife said this: ``Kindness radiated out of her. . . . She literally sparkled'' and asked everyone to ``honor her memory by living her values: rejecting hate and choosing compassion.''
We also honor the memory of Alex Pretti, a VA intensive care nurse who did one of the most selfless jobs people can think of: caring for our veterans, often in their final hours. He was a man described by his friends and family as a kind-hearted soul.
Both Renee and Alex should be alive today.
It is not just these horrific killings. The administration, through its surge of thousands of ICE and Border Patrol agents to Minnesota-- outnumbering the 10 largest metropolitan police departments combined in the Twin Cities and outnumbering the sworn officers in the Minneapolis- Saint Paul departments by 3 to 1--has repeatedly violated the constitutional rights of the people of Minnesota. The fact is that anyone who cares about federalism, about freedoms, about liberties should be horrified by what is happening.
If you care about the Constitution, I say to our colleagues on the other side of the aisle: You should be horrified because what is happening in our State has been a violation of the First Amendment--the right to assemble--and the Second Amendment. Alex was a lawful gun owner, but he was immediately criticized for that when, in fact, the video showed very clearly--very clearly--because eyes don't lie--that his gun was firmly in its holster and that it was taken out by Border Patrol agents.
They have been violating the Fourth Amendment, ramming into people's homes without having a judicial warrant. Agents have been demanding, without even reasonable suspicion, that Minnesotans show proof of citizenship just based on how they look.
This administration is also going after the Fifth Amendment--the right to due process--as it has denied detainees' access to counsel. As the chief judge in the district of Minnesota--a former clerk to Justice Scalia and a George Bush appointee--has made clear, they have been defying court orders.
So I say to our Republican colleagues: If you are a defender of liberty, you must defend it when it counts, not just when it is convenient.
Federal immigration agents bashed upon a door and detained a Hmong elder, who is a U.S. citizen and whose mom was one of the most loved nurses who took care of our troops during the Vietnam war. They held him at gunpoint without a warrant. They took him out of his home in his underwear. He had nothing but Crocs on his feet. They put him in a car and drove him around for an hour. Then they later discovered they had the wrong guy. In fact, the guy they were looking for had been in jail all along.
We have all seen the photos of 5-year-old little Liam, who was standing there, scared in his blue rabbit hat with floppy ears and Spider-Man backpack, as agents apprehended him.
This administration sent a 2-year-old to Texas despite there being a pending court case. The order was issued, but they didn't want to wait for that. They sent the 2-year-old to Texas when her mom was waiting back in Minnesota. Thanks to the late-night work of my staff and several local lawmakers, she has been reunited with her mom. But it should never have come to this. A court case was pending, but it was disregarded.
In another instance, a U.S. citizen was forced to the ground, placed in a choke hold, and held in a detention center for hours. He offered multiple times to show his U.S. passport but was ignored.
This has gone so beyond any original reason for Federal agents. It has gone well beyond the fraud investigation. That was a good reason to bring people to help, but that is not what this was--not the 2-year- old, not the 5-year-old, not the Hmong elder. It has gone way beyond apprehending violent offenders--not the 2-year-old, not the 5-year-old, not the Hmong elder.
This has turned into a Kristi Noem- and Greg Bovino-driven shock and awe public spectacle that is meant to intimidate our State. In fact, Pam Bondi, on the same day Alex was killed, sent a letter to the Governor of Minnesota, saying the administration would remove these 3,000 ICE agents if Minnesota would violate the privacy of its citizens by turning over their personal voter data--something Republican secretaries of state in States like Georgia have refused to do. The Justice Department has actually sued 24 States for refusing to turn over the data, including, as I mentioned, Georgia and also New Hampshire. Three district court judges have dismissed these cases. It is clear that our State is being targeted, but they have tried to get this data in 24 States. They say: We will bring out the ICE agents if only you will just give us that data.
There are 3,000 Federal officers in Minnesota, and I cannot state it more unequivocally: ICE must leave Minnesota. Law enforcement has made this clear. They can't do their jobs--they can't do their jobs. They can't investigate burglaries. They can't help on some complex cases because they are being called to people's homes all the time because of the ICE agents hanging around homes of just regular citizens, in parking lots chasing people down.
Local businesses, business leaders have come out and said: Enough. Police chiefs in our State have joined together. Police chiefs across the Nation have joined together and said: We believe in proper police procedures and the rule of law. But the biggest story out of this is the everyday people, the ordinary people doing extraordinary things.
They have rallied together, brought food to their neighbors, drove other kids to school, showed up for small businesses and marching 50,000 strong. I was there. I saw it. Fifty thousand peaceful marchers in 10-below weather.
You know, 250 years ago, our Nation declared independence from a King. Our Nation was born from the deep revulsion to the idea of an illegal occupation, a standing army of British troops literally taking over our streets, demanding to see papers, acting with cruelty, resorting to violence.
In those times, newspapers shared what was happening. Well, today, Americans are seeing it firsthand on video. Americans heard Renee Good's final words to the officer who shot her: ``I'm not mad at you.''
They saw Alex spend his final moments trying to help a woman who had been shoved to the ground. His last words: ``Are you OK?''
And just as Americans fought for liberty 250 years ago, they are standing up for liberty now. People across the country are speaking out against this cruelty. And, of course, it is good that Bovino was removed. Other people have to be removed too. Kristi Noem shouldn't be in her job anymore. But mostly we need these ICE agents out of Minnesota, and we hope that happens soon. Border Patrol, they began that removal, but the ICE agents have to get out of Minnesota. It is a very dangerous situation.
I spoke with Alex's parents the next day after we lost him. Through the tears, they talked about what he was like, and they wanted the world to know the truth and how much it hurt them to have senior administrative officials call him a domestic terrorist, call him a would-be assassin.
Alex's sister said:
We must stand up. And so we are asking our colleagues--they know the White House. We have all done our best here--but to tell them it is time for those ICE agents to come home. There must be new leadership in the Department of Homeland Security now, and there must be major reforms to these Agencies before this Congress should approve another cent.
First, we need to stop these roving bands. This means coordination with State and local law enforcement and no more bounties that encourage immigration officials to detain individuals even without cause.
We need proper training and a code of conduct that includes transparent investigations and meaningful accountability for when agents break the law or violate the Constitution. This also means use- of-force policies that are the same for local police.
Immigration agents, like all law enforcement, should comply with the Fourth Amendment.
This bounty system--we have had stories. We have hundreds of cases in our offices right now where people were stopped: a White guy, Latino. They said to the Latino: Where are you from? The Latino says: I was born in America. They put him in the car, drive him a few blocks, let him out or take him to the detention center and then let him go.
Bonuses? Bounties? The masks should come off, and the body cameras should go on.
There must be thorough, objective, and independent investigations into these killings. The Justice Department refused to cooperate with local investigators in Minnesota after Renee's death, and over a dozen career prosecutors in Minnesota and Washington resigned rather than take part in a miscarriage of justice.
After Alex's killing, the Federal Government blocked State law enforcement from accessing the crime scene. I know because I got panicked calls--because I used to be a prosecutor in the county--about what was going on.
A Federal judge, appointed by Donald Trump, had to issue an order preventing the Federal Government from destroying evidence.
I am opposed to this ICE funding bill, and I am very appreciative that people are starting to talk about reforms to this Agency. But the money that was passed this summer, $75 billion, making this Agency bigger than the FBI--that was wrong. I opposed it, and so did my Democratic colleagues.
The costs continue to mount. Right now, our Federal, State, and local governments are spending an estimated $18 million a week on the surge in Minnesota alone, and what do you get out of it? Two out of three of the shootings resulting in death in Minneapolis--two out of three--were caused by Federal agents.
I appreciate Senator Schumer. I appreciate my colleague Senator Smith and so many others for saying no to this, and I truly appreciate that a number of our Republican colleagues have started to say that what ICE is doing is wrong. A few have said Kristi Noem should no longer be in her job.
ICE needs to leave Minnesota.
It was in 1776 when future First Lady Abigail Adams wrote to her husband John Adams describing the retreat of British ships from Boston, saying their numbers were so large ``they looked like a forest.'' But despite their force, it was the determination of those demanding liberty that won that day.
For Minnesotans right now, every corner, everywhere that you drive-- really, it is not just the city; suburbs, shopping malls, rural areas-- they see an ICE agent. The people are scared every single day, and it feels like that forest, but out of that forest comes these people of our State that are willing to stand up, citizens that are willing to stand up to help people they may not even know because they understand what is at stake for the liberties of this country.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. President, I thank my colleague Senator Klobuchar and all of our colleagues who are joining us on the floor this afternoon.
We are here today because we have a full-blown, dangerous emergency unfolding in Minnesota.
It is happening right now as I speak, and we need your help to end it. America needs your help. The Nation has been appalled by what we have seen happening in our State of Minnesota, the stories that have captured everyone's attention.
Two innocent U.S. citizens, Alex Pretti and Renee Good, shot and killed on the street in broad daylight by Federal agents just as they were trying to help their neighbors and document with their telephones what was going on, the brutality of it.
A 5-year-old in a Spider-Man backpack, Liam Conejo Ramos. So Liam is coming home with his dad and the agents are there and Liam is trying to get inside. The agents try to use Liam as bait to lure the mother outside.
Liam is still in detention. He is still in Texas--a 5-year-old, 1,000 miles away from home.
Colleagues, my head is so full of stories, so full of stories that might not have gotten all the attention but tell the tale of the brutality and illegality of Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota.
This is about a U.S. citizen, a young man, who is walking out of his place of work to get lunch, and he sees an ICE agent. He is concerned. He is afraid that he might get targeted so he turns around and walks the other way. The ICE agent runs after him and tackles the guy. He is a U.S. citizen, throws him to the ground, injures him, and detains him for hours, all the while this young man has documents to prove who he is.
It is about a teenager in Willmar, MN. Willmar is a smaller regional center in Minnesota. It is place where the Jennie-O turkey processing plant is. It is an incredible community.
Here is a teenager in Willmar who is stopped by ICE. She is beaten. She gets a concussion, and she is detained for 2 days, and she is a U.S. citizen.
So imagine--it is hard to imagine this. But imagine you are in your neighborhood, and there are those roving vans of Federal agents. They have no identification. They drive around in black Suburbans. They have masks over their faces, and at the drop of a hat, they just leap out, and they go after people. They are restraining them. They are hitting them. They are spraying them with chemical agents, and then people are just shoved into Suburbans and driven off.
And nobody really knows what happens to them. This is happening in Minnesota, if it isn't happening in your neighborhood. I want people to understand this is not just Minneapolis-St. Paul where so many of the TV cameras have been.
It is Rochester, MN, where the schools are reporting a huge falloff of kids going to school because they are so afraid. Their families are so afraid to send them to school.
It is in Mankato, MN, which is in the southern part of the State. It is another regional center, a farming community. I heard today on the public radio station that the local immigrant rights organization is getting 400 calls a day from people who are trying to figure out what their rights are, what to do: A family member of mine is detained. I don't know where they are.
This is happening in dozens of cities.
So what we have here, colleagues, is a campaign. It is a campaign not about public safety; it is a campaign about fear and intimidation. This is about secret police roaming in our cities with no identification and no name tags.
What they do is they overtly target individuals because of the accent that they have, the skin color that they have. I am not just imagining this is their motivation because these agents are telling people this is what is going on.
I mean, this is the story of a Hmong woman that I met in Hmong Village just last week who, in tears, is telling me that her son has been detained. He has been gone for days and days and days, and she doesn't know when she is going to get him back.
Where is he?
This is about ICE agents going to a suburban restaurant in the Twin Cities, having lunch, and then after lunch, they go into the kitchen to detain the folks that are working in the kitchen.
We are seeing this happen every single day; battering down doors, breaking car windows. There literally--there is no pretext. There is no warrant. They are targeting people, not because they know that they have committed some crime, but because of what they look like.
There is this thing that we have in the Twin Cities now. They are called ghost cars. What is this? This is a car that is left in the street, the middle of the street sometimes, the door open, the engine running, the keys still in the car, and nobody is there. People know what happened. ICE came and got whoever was driving the car and took them away.
You know, if you are going through a legal immigration process in this country, you go through a process, and it is your obligation--your legal obligation--to check in with the Federal authorities.
What is happening now is that you are getting--folks are getting-- legal residence getting a letter to appear. They have a choice. They know that if they don't comply, they are breaking
These are not, my colleagues--these are not what you hear from this administration about the so-called worst of the worst. These are people that are active, contributing members of our community. These are legal residents who hold green cards who are being flown to Texas with no legal representation, no access to counsel.
And you know what happens sometimes? They get down there; they go through another screening; and the Federal agents say: OK. Sorry about that. We made a mistake. And they just dump them on the streets of Houston or wherever they may be.
No documents, no identification--how are they going to even get home? That is happening in this country right now. And if they are not released, because not everyone is released--if they are not released, people have died in custody. People with no criminal record have been deported to countries that they have never even known.
So this is happening in Minnesota, but this is not just Minnesota. I think, because Minnesota has resisted so strongly and because the tactics of Operation Metro Surge have been so brutal, we have gotten so much of the attention, but this is not just a Minnesota problem.
I ask you, colleagues, to consider how these dangerous and poorly trained and unaccountable ICE agents have been treating Americans who have been exercising their constitutional right to peacefully speak and to demonstrate. These Americans have been intimidated. They have been taunted. They have been beaten. They have even been killed.
We have seen the images of people being maced at point-blank range. You can see this in the final pictures of Alex Pretti before he is killed.
We know that they are tracking demonstrators with facial ID technology, following them home to intimidate them. And, in fact, I have heard stories from demonstrators who have been led home by ICE agents--so that those agents are communicating: We know where you live. We know who you are. We want you to be quiet--pepper balls, tear gas.
And this is not just happening, colleagues, in situations of civil unrest. I am not talking about riots here. I am talking about a family that is trying to get home. They have six kids in the car. They have been at basketball practice, and they end up with a can of tear gas thrown under their car. It explodes. It lifts the car up off the ground, and that family ends up in the emergency room. They need to be decontaminated from the poison.
Now, I am telling you these stories because I want you to understand a very important thing: What is going on in Minnesota is not about public safety. It has nothing to do with public safety. In fact, what is going on in Minnesota is hurting public safety. As Senator Klobuchar said, police chiefs of suburban communities have come forward and said: This is not sustainable. This is dangerous.
A police chief told the story about how one of his own officers, who was off duty, was stopped for no reason by ICE agents, and they threatened to get her out of the car and take her away before she finally tells them. She decides: I have to tell them that I am a police officer. And they leave her alone.
This is about people dialing 911 because an ICE agent is at their home, and they are so scared about what to do.
So I want to be clear: We are pro-public safety in Minnesota. We have worked often with Federal authorities to catch bad guys and lock them up. But we need ICE out of Minnesota. What is really going on here is a systemic and organized campaign of fear and intimidation.
This is government police, sanctioned at the highest levels of our government, completely unbound, beating and attacking and detaining and arresting and killing American citizens. This is what America looks like with an authoritarian government, with no laws.
But here is what is happening not only in Minnesota but around the country. Our constituents, the Presiding Officer's constituents are watching these videos, and they are hearing these stories, and they are reading these reports. And what is happening is a sense of moral outrage is rising up, that feeling that you have in your gut when you-- that feeling of anguish and anger and disgust, when you know that you are seeing something that is just wrong. You know that it is wrong and that you can't look away from it.
And we are uplifted by this moral outrage and the incredible courage of Minnesotans, but we know what we are seeing here. And people are responding everywhere. I have talked to hundreds of people, over the past few weeks, about what is going on in Minnesota--people who are organizing mutual aid to get groceries and diapers to families; but smalltown folks that hate to see this happen to their neighbors; and local mayors and farmers and small businesses; Democrats, Republicans, people who aren't political at all; law enforcement officers, faith leaders, Second Amendment supporters, and civil libertarians.
And there is the man in the truck that I saw when I was in Minneapolis, taking groceries to people on Monday. He is in the truck, and I drive up. He is, at first, kind of concerned that I might be ICE. Then he is worried that I am going to think that he is ICE. And we start to talk, and he said of the President: I voted for him. I told my kids. I talked my kids into voting for him. And I am so upset. I am so embarrassed. I never thought that this would happen. This is so messed up.
This, colleagues, is the coalition of the horrified, the people who see this and feel a sense of moral outrage, people who are bound together not by politics or faction or identity but by that feeling in your gut that what you are seeing is wrong and that we have to do something about it, that this can't be how we operate.
So that brings us to here, today, in this august Chamber of the U.S. Senate, and we ask ourselves: OK, what do we do? What is our place here?
We have all worked really hard to get here, and we all are here, I believe, because we love this country. And I suspect that almost all of us who serve in this Chamber understand. They see the threat. We see the threat that this poses to the very underpinnings of our country.
And I am so grateful to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, Republicans and Democrats, who have spoken out, who have called for a fair and impartial investigation, who have called for changes of leadership. I agree with that. That is all really important.
But, colleagues, that is not going to be enough to stop this. This is a crucial moment in our country, not just for Minnesota but for our entire country, and our answer to the question of what we do in the face of this illegality, this brutality--our answer to all those people, all those constituents who feel that sense of moral outrage, who are begging us to stand up for them--our answer can't be that we are not going to do anything. It can't be the status quo. It can't be: Well, the procedures of the Senate and the House make it really impossible for us to get something done. So there is really not that much we can do right now.
That is not acceptable.
But, colleagues, I can see a path forward. And, look, I want to be really clear. In my view, we need to start over with the Department of Homeland Security. I think it should be ripped down to the studs and that we should start over. But that is not the question for today. That is not the question for right now. Right now, we need to take immediate, commonsense steps to stop the worst of the violence and the violations that Americans are suffering.
So, to be clear, I will not vote for any funding for DHS, if we do not take action to stop this emergency unfolding in my State.
And I truly believe that we can find agreement on both sides of the aisle for a path forward. It will not solve all of these problems, but we can address the worst of the assault.
We need to end these roving patrols of Federal agents that are detaining and arresting people that have done nothing wrong. You can't break down someone's door and arrest them without a warrant.
We need accountability. ICE agents should be required to abide by the same set of laws, the same use-of-force standards that your local police department abides by. We need a fair and unbiased investigation, and we need no more of this secret police--no more masks and agents without proper identification, and body cameras.
I mean, to me, this seems like pretty simple and commonsense and reasonable reforms that can only be achieved through the force of law. We are long past the moment where any letter or Executive order or promise can secure our trust. This is our path forward.
I am thinking about, as I wrap up this speech--I am thinking about all of my colleagues who are here to speak with such intention about what is happening. I want to just take a pause to acknowledge my beloved Minnesota.
I am so proud to be your Senator, and, you know, so many people around the country are looking to you--to us--for hope, and you are showing the world how to respond to violence and how to stand up to bullies with strength and with dignity and with peace. You are putting your own safety and your own bodies on the line to protect your neighborhoods and your democracy. You are risking your own safety to document the emergency and the inhumanity unfolding on our streets. And you are even--you are even--sometimes doing it by singing.
In Minnesota, we show up for our neighbors. We help people out. We don't give in to bullies. We stand strong. We stand in the park with a candle in our hands to mourn but also to kindle hope. And I know that Minnesotans are going to stay strong because, as Dr. King preached, we know how to put our faith into action.
As Dr. King said, ``Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.''
Mr. President, I want to thank the Senators from Minnesota--the junior and senior Senators from Minnesota--for their incredible leadership in serving as a ballast not just for the people of their State but for the whole country. Tyranny is tyranny, and the people of this country, whatever our other differences, don't want anything to do with it.
You might be a liberal; you might be a conservative. You might be for immigration, or you might be against it. You might think that guns should be more readily accessible, or you might think that guns should be harder to purchase. But when the U.S. Government is killing your fellow citizens in your name, none of that matters, because tyranny is tyranny, no matter the tyrant. Overreach is overreach, regardless of cause. And state violence is state violence, and it is against everything that this country stands for.
There is a reason that a very unusual--an unusually broad--coalition of unlikely partners quickly converged in the wake of the tragedy, and it wasn't some organizing strategy. This was organic, across the country and certainly across the great State of Minnesota. It was liberals. It was conservatives. It was gun owners. It was clergy members. It was business executives. It was libertarians. It was Trump voters.
Why the new unity? Because people from different places and persuasions, faiths and financial situations understand that, at least on the very narrow question of freedom and liberty, our fates and our futures are intertwined. No one is free until everyone is free.
In my Jewish tradition, during the Passover seder, it is customary to recount the story of the Israelites' exodus from Egypt. And the reason the story is told anew every year is to remind us that the struggle for freedom is not confined to the past and limited to others but instead has to live inside of all of us. The Haggadah says:
Not ``they''--not ``they''--but ``we''--the point being that no matter how many generations removed we are from that story, we are still obligated to see ourselves as though we were personally freed from slavery in Egypt.
No one is freed until everyone is freed. Our Founders knew that too. The Constitution deliberately begins with ``We the People.''
The Declaration of Independence promises equality and ``certain unalienable Rights'' that we hold to be ``self-evident.''
Collective responsibility to protect freedom and liberty is central to the American experiment. It always has been, which is why in the summer of 1963, sitting in a dark jail cell in Birmingham, AL, in the throes of the battle for civil rights, Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote:
No one is free until everyone is free. That same spirit of solidarity has united people for generations.
In Hawaii, it was the sugar plantation workers, in the 1940s, tired of being overworked and underpaid, who organized across ethnic lines for fair conditions. Up until that point, they had been divided by the plantation owners into separate camps--Chinese camp, Japanese camp, Filipino camp, and so on--and paid different rates for the same work. And so they came together, vowing to treat an injury to one as an injury to all. They went on strike and won, altering the trajectory of workers in Hawaii to this day.
An injury to one is an injury to all. No one is free until everyone is free.
If there is a lesson in this collective outrage and widespread condemnation of ICE's conduct, it is that people don't want state- sponsored violence on their streets in their names.
It is not a question of whether you voted for Trump or Biden.
It is not a question of whether you agree with Joe Biden's immigration policy.
And the idea that the immigration enforcement has to be accompanied by enthusiastic cruelty is so far out of the mainstream of American society. Nobody wants this, save for a handful of people intoxicated by power and deluded by their own fantasies.
Thuggery is not strength. Strength must be used to protect people, to give a voice to the voiceless, and make people feel safe. That is impressive and noble and important precisely because it is harder to practice and harder still to come by.
But that is what makes the response in Minnesota of ordinary Americans--taking it upon themselves to stand up for their neighbors-- so extraordinary.
I want to read a little bit of what Adam Serwer observed in The Atlantic about the mistaken assumptions that fed this administration's brutality. He wrote:
Look, I get that we are all divided and distracted and exhausted and that it is not going to resolve overnight. But in the wake of the tragedies in Minnesota, in Minneapolis, a bright red line has emerged. We can argue about everything else, but we will not tolerate tyranny.
Mr. President, I rise today in disbelief of where we are as a country. I will tell you, in listening to the speeches that came before me--such powerful words--I thought to myself, What can I actually contribute to this moment? As a matter of fact, when my colleagues said that they were going to schedule this floor bloc, I never thought about what I would say; I just said yes.
And in my mind, there are a few things I do want to say. First, I want to start off by thanking my sister Senators, Senator Amy Klobuchar and Senator Tina Smith, as well as former colleague Representative Ilhan Omar, for your strength and leadership in such a trying time.
Secondly, I want to acknowledge the people of Minnesota who have been
I guess what has been on my heart is the history of this country. We will be celebrating Black History Month, and at a time where history is trying to be replaced--erased--I think it is important to think back on the things that we have been through.
And what it took to make it through those times were not necessarily our eloquent speeches, but it was that everyday people did something. And so, right now, the words that are ringing through my head are that they had their time; this is our time. We didn't ask for it, but we are prepared for it whether we know it or not.
And the three words that stick in my head right now is: Now we must. It is our time. It is our time to stand up for our brothers and sisters across this country.
When the administration first signaled their goals to do these kinds of interventions across the country, it was to arrest violent criminals. That is what I heard. But in reality, when you see a mother of three shot, when you see an ICU nurse who works for the Veterans' Administration shot and killed, when you see children and families and pastors and priests and people across the country--not just in Minnesota--concerned to even walk in their own neighborhoods, maybe because of their color or their accent, that is not the way it is supposed to be.
So that means each and every one of us has to do what we can in this moment to prevent this lawless chaos that is happening on our streets.
I will say that what we are trying to put forward as Democrats, again, is just common sense, practical--actually safety measures to keep our country safe. And so as we think about the fact that right now there are armed cars roving, people in masks that we don't even know who they are--they should be identified. People shouldn't have to worry about carrying their papers with them.
When we think about the process, people shouldn't be knocking on your doors and pulling you outside of your house--you don't even get a chance to put on your clothes, and they don't have a criminal warrant. They should be following the same rules as our State and local police officers follow in our States. Because what we are hearing is their efforts right now are making it even more difficult for law enforcement to do their jobs and keep us safe.
And so there are, in this moment, things that each of us can do, and I hope that our Republican colleagues will join us. I hope they will join us in making sure that not only do we continue to have public safety that includes the public and our law enforcement, but that we reform an Agency that has received over $75 billion as a slush fund. We want to make sure that money is targeted, that people are trained, and that they are doing what is right and that they are doing at least what our State and local police officers do.
And, again, I want to end by just saying that I didn't come to give a big formal speech. I came to say that each and every one of us in this moment can do our part.
Our Senators--again, thank you so much to Amy, thank you so much to Tina for your strength and for your example.
Again, I encourage our Republican colleagues to join us as we reform and change that Agency, meaning ICE and DHS. But more importantly, I think what is at the core of all of this is that we still have a democracy when it is all said and done.
And so my call, again, is for each of us to just do your part, to stay strong. And I will not be voting for this package if we do not pull out DHS and have those reforms that we spoke of.
And I, again, want to just say: It is our turn. Now we must.
Mr. President, thank you so much, and what an honor it is to be together with our colleagues from Minnesota to appreciate their leadership and how they stood in the gap for Minnesotans who have really suffered in these last weeks, to be together with so many colleagues on the floor to talk about this most existential moment.
You don't have to be a spiritual or religious person to--when you see a mother murdered and her last name is ``Good'', the murder of good--it should make all of us step back and look in the mirror and ask what it means. You do not have to be a spiritually attuned person to watch a VA employee ICU nurse get 10 bullets in his back and step back and ask: Who are we?
These images are going around the world, and people are not looking at these images as who a particular person or administration is. They are looking at this as: Is this who America is? And that is what this debate is about.
I take this very personally. From birth to age 2, I was a Minnesotan. I was born at St. Joseph's Hospital in St. Paul, MN. I still have family connections in Minnesota.
I, then, was a Kansan until I was 26, and my more persuasive Virginian wife convinced me to become a Virginian. And now, 42 years later, I still have these strong feelings and ties about the State where I was born.
And as I watch the events and I hear the pain and I get the dispatches from friends and family who are in the midst of this sharing with me the stories, much as my colleagues have shared them today, I realize this isn't just about Minnesota. It could be anywhere in our country.
Although, I will express this question: Could it be anywhere? Because it does seem as if the administration is targeting this kind of rogue violence in certain communities, not others. And when the Attorney General of the United States, our Nation's chief law enforcement officer, by letter suggests that the rogue activities in Minnesota could stop if Minnesota would only turn over its voting rolls, it does make you wonder, as my colleague Senator Smith asked: Is this really about law enforcement?
But the fear that immigrant communities and others who want to peacefully assemble and present grievances about government--a right guaranteed in the First Amendment--that fear is something that isn't just in Minnesota; it is in my community too. I live in Richmond, VA. The Commonwealth has a population that is about 12 percent immigrant. The church I go to is heavily a Congolese parish. It is a Catholic parish. Many folks in the Congo are Catholics, and we have seen a refugee population grow in my parish.
We have immigrant communities all over. The meeting I had right before I came to the floor was with a Cub Scout group from McLean, VA, and they talked to me about the rights of immigrants because so many of them or their parents are immigrants.
And the fear in our immigrant communities is palpable even when there haven't been roving patrols. Will they start tomorrow? You see reduced attendance at childcare centers. You see reduced attendance at church events because people hear rumors that, if they go, they might be targeted. The fear is palpable.
What I want to just say, Mr. President, that I hope we will kind of bear in mind, and this is: We all come to this place with different life experiences, and a life experience that I have had that is, you know, different than some is I have been a mayor and Governor and know what it is to have a police force.
When I was the mayor of Richmond, we had a police force. When I was the Governor of Virginia, we had the Virginia State Police.
Let me tell you something police forces don't like: They don't like roving bands of people with masks and without IDs roving through their communities without coordinating.
In Virginia, this kind of started a couple of months back in a couple of our courthouses who are patrolled by deputy sheriffs. The court function and jails are run by sheriffs in Virginia, and they are there to provide security.
And in courthouses in Chesterfield and Albemarle Counties in Virginia,
Now we see this happening in Minnesota and elsewhere.
At a minimum, the mayor and Governor in me says we should not be allowing these roving patrols to run roughshod in local communities without fully getting the approval and coordination with State and local law enforcement authorities. Anything short of that treats State and local law enforcement as if they are the enemies instead of partners in trying to promote public safety.
The other thing that I would point out before handing it off to my next colleague is something that is just so common. It is so common in law enforcement at the State and local level. If there is an officer- involved shooting in virtually every law enforcement agency in this country, the officer involved in the shooting is immediately put on administrative leave. That is not a judgment that they were wrong; it is just a judgment that shooting is so serious that there should be an investigation before that officer is allowed to return to duty. This is standard operating procedure in tiny town police offices that have a handful of officials in Virginia and elsewhere. Yet that is not what is being done at the Federal level.
In fact, the Washington Post ran a wonderful story yesterday that analyzed many instances of DHS officials shooting folks, and before an investigation was even done, the administration was out vindicating them, not putting them on administrative leave, and, finally, even blaming victims, calling them domestic terrorists and assassins.
That is the last thing I want to say. The scale of the lie goes up depending upon the depth of the shame and guilt feeling. So when someone is killed and a key Cabinet Secretary jumps out--or a key White House official--to label them as a domestic terrorist or an assassin, clearly contradicting all the available evidence that every American and every person in the world can see, you know that the lie is being magnified to cover up the depth of shame and guilt that individual is feeling.
It is time for us to do right by reforms, but it is also time to stop lying. Stop lying about these people who are standing up and trying to be good neighbors and protect their fellow man. Stop calling them domestic terrorists. Stop calling them would-be assassins. Stop trying to trash their memories, pour salt in the wounds of their parents and their loved ones and their children to cover up your own lack of responsibility and your lack of accountability.
We are going to hold you accountable. We are going to make sure that you are accountable--not based on a promise of future action by this administration.
We need to get the five bills done. We can get them done and then turn to a DHS reform that is put in law, that is signed by the President, so that when the President or his cronies decide later to break it, we can go to court and enforce it.
Mr. President, on Saturday, America witnessed another horrific tragedy in Minneapolis when Alex Pretti was shot and killed by Department of Homeland Security law enforcement agents.
By all accounts--all accounts--Alex was a dedicated member of his community. He served as an intensive care nurse at the Veterans Affairs clinic in Minneapolis.
On Saturday, he was simply exercising his rights as an American--the very same rights for those veterans that he fought to protect. He used his First Amendment right of free speech to show up for his community and record interactions between Homeland Security officers and his neighbors. When agents became violent with a female protester, he stepped in to protect her.
He also exercised his Second Amendment right to bear arms. Despite no evidence that he was threatening anyone or holding anything but a phone in his hands, officers still shot him repeatedly and killed him.
The American people have watched the videos. They have seen with their own eyes the evidence of DHS's unjustified behavior and excessive use of force. But mere moments after the shots were fired, DHS officials jumped to the claim that Mr. Pretti was a domestic terrorist and an assassin who wanted to massacre law enforcement.
I want to be very clear on this. Those statements are lies. They are lies used to justify the unjustifiable actions of some DHS officers.
The blatant lies of DHS leadership and misconduct by the officers involved in the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good are indefensible, and they cannot stand. They violate the public trust and stand in direct opposition to the values and the professionalism of many Federal law enforcement officers who follow the law and serve with integrity every day.
Since these tragic events, people from every corner of America have made their voices heard. My office has heard from thousands of Michiganders about their outrage at the fatal shootings of both Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
The American people's message is loud and it is clear: They are fed up with the Trump administration's mishandling of immigration enforcement, and they are demanding--they are demanding--that we do something about it.
Americans have every right to be enraged. I am outraged, and every Member of this Chamber should also be enraged. This is certainly not the country that I grew up in, and this is certainly not the country that we can leave to the next generation.
In this moment, we have no choice but to stand up for our communities, for Renee Good, for Alex Pretti, and for the very principles that our country was founded on. That is why I will be voting no on the bill before us unless--unless--DHS funding is stripped out or unless critical reforms are incorporated into the bill.
If the leader put the other five appropriation bills on the floor today, they would pass. They would pass with bipartisan support-- overwhelming bipartisan support. The DHS components have unique but important functions beyond immigration enforcement--securing our borders, combating human trafficking, seizing deadly narcotics being smuggled into our country, and facilitating trade and travel--but personnel from these components have been pulled from their core missions and have instead been pressured to focus exclusively on arbitrary quotas and removing immigrants from our country, even those who pose no serious threat to public safety.
This corruption of DHS's mission has directly contributed to the chaos and violence we have seen in Minneapolis and communities all across our country. That is why Senate Democrats are calling for commonsense reforms--reforms like ensuring DHS officers wear clear identification so people know who they are dealing with in law enforcement and can hold them accountable; requiring DHS personnel to wear body cameras so we have proper recordings of their conduct in immigration enforcement; and requiring proper investigations after tragedies occur like the recent shootings of both Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
These are just a few of the examples of commonsense practices that strengthen accountability and help ensure the safety of both law enforcement and our communities. Our local law enforcement personnel already follow them, and we shouldn't expect anything less from our Federal law enforcement.
There is no question that immigration enforcement is necessary, but we must conduct it in a way that is both humane and safe. Clearly, that is not how this Agency is operating today.
Now--now--is the time to act, and I urge our Republican colleagues to join us in putting real guardrails in place and not just acting as a rubberstamp for the Trump administration.
Mr. President, first, I want to acknowledge my colleagues
You have conveyed to us the deep pain and anguish that you feel and that every Minnesotan feels about the shocking shootings that occurred in your State. This follows on tragedies that occurred before this. The pain of your community is the pain of this U.S. Senate. My deep appreciation--and I know I express this on behalf of all of my colleagues--to you for putting this in a human, real perspective. Thank you very much.
Second, this is shocking. Two people got shot for no reason-- absolutely no reason. Renee Good was a 37-year-old mom of three kids. She was protesting. That officer walked from the back of her car to the side of her car to the front of her car and shot through the front windshield and then moved to the side and shot two shots in the driver's side window. That is what happened.
Alex Pretti was out with his cell phone camera observing what was going on and was shocked, I am sure, to see that an ICE agent was pushing a woman into a snowbank, and he came over to try to get between them. There was a scuffle. He was in total subjugation by the officers who had him on the ground. He was disarmed--never using, by the way, or even threatening to use the gun that he had legally in his possession. ICE officers--2 of them--shot him 10 times. Ten times. That is what happened.
Why aren't we all just totally shocked? That is not acceptable.
Then that is all done with the authority of the State--with no restraint.
Then the Secretary of Homeland Security, who is responsible for the training and the discipline and the mission, blows this off and says that these two people were domestic terrorists--no accountability, no expression of sadness, no expression of remorse.
How is this acceptable to any one of us here? How is that acceptable?
Yet what we are hearing when we are saying ``Let's look into this. Let's get some reforms in place that allow our citizens to feel safe, for there to be accountability''--we are being told that it is too complicated because we already have a bill and we will have to divide it, and that means procedural hassles; that means, oh, the House will have to come back.
Are we serious? That is called doing your job. It is called accountability. It is called taking responsibility.
I want to pay tribute to the people of Minnesota. We are actually having a discussion about inconveniencing House Members because they have to get on a plane and come back if we act to do something that every American knows we should do: Pass the bipartisan bills where we have five bills done, and take on the burden of responsibility that we have as a U.S. Senate to put reforms in an Agency that needs reform.
Folks in Minnesota--it is 20 degrees below zero--are out in the streets. They are out protesting peacefully. They are out providing coffee and cocoa and some warm soup to each other so they can get through this. Why are they doing it? Do you know what? They care about the right of assembly. They care about the First Amendment. They care about their constitutional rights. But the reason they are doing this is they care about each other. That is who they care about.
In this U.S. Senate, our job is to care about every single American. We have an Agency that is totally out of control, with a leader that is--you know, I would say incompetent, but the cruelty of that remark, to dismiss two innocent people who died as ``domestic terrorists,'' tells me there is not an inkling of acceptance of responsibility that goes with the enormously important job of being Secretary of Homeland Security. So I am not going to vote and give a blank check when we are not even willing to have a discussion about what the reforms are.
I want to say that I know every one of us here is shocked by what happened. This is not a Republican or a Democrat deal. This is about seeing two innocent people shot when they didn't need to be.
You know, one of the things that is so important for us if we have a family and if we live in a community is to act in a way in which the people around us can be confident that we have got their backs; that we won't hurt them or harm them; that we notice what their struggles are and that we will try to help.
You know, all of us here have such admiration for law enforcement and the work they do--it is such an incredibly hard job--but more than anyone else, the people who have contacted me in Vermont to express their shock at what happened in Minnesota have been people in law enforcement. They know the job is hard, but they have accepted the responsibility to be a guardian, to be protective.
We can accept our responsibility, wherein we are the 100 people in this country who are in this Senate, who have the opportunity to provide some reassurance in safety and in confidence to the people that each and every one of us represents.
So, yes, let's do our job.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mr. President, I join my colleagues who have spoken. I say that, really, my heart goes out to my colleagues from Minnesota-- the senior and junior Senators from Minnesota--and the people of Minnesota for what they have been through in these last few weeks and how they have responded in these last few weeks as they have mourned and as the country has been watching.
January 7 feels like so long ago now, but just a few weeks ago is the day that I never would have imagined. That day, Renee Nicole Good--a mother, a daughter, a poet--was out in her community, observing, helping to document, as allowed by the law, what was happening when she was alerted about these ongoing, indiscriminate raids in her community.
As several of my colleagues have said, the administration's response to the Federal agent's killing of Renee Good was not one of ``well, hold on; let's really assess what has happened here.''
It was one of blaming her. The response was so faulty by the administration. Forget the investigations that should have taken place--I will talk about that in a minute--but the President of the United States and the Vice President of the United States responded to an incident like that by messaging to Federal agents: Don't worry. You have complete immunity.
First of all, that is not true. Second of all, it is the opposite of the message that we should be sending if we are trying to deescalate tensions and make sure that law enforcement abides by the law.
I remind us of that because, sadly, it is not shocking when we reflect on what happened on January 24. This time, Alex Jeffrey Pretti--a son and an ICU nurse at the local Veterans' Administration hospital--was out, lawfully and peacefully observing and helping to document more of this ICE and CBP activity in Minneapolis when he was shot in the back and killed--two U.S. citizens dead at the hands of Federal law enforcement in the span of 2\1/2\ weeks. They are dead because ICE and the CBP have been encouraged by the White House to act with impunity.
Colleagues, it was about 7 months ago that I stood here on the floor to warn all of you and the American people that the Trump administration, at the time--so this goes back to last June--that the Trump administration was using Los Angeles as a test case. It was testing how far Federal agents could go in this indiscriminate, increasingly violent, and cruel mass detention and deportation agenda; how far they could go before exporting this model throughout the country.
I never in my life have wanted to say more than I do today that I wish I were wrong, but for the better part of the last year, communities across the country have been subjected to this relentless aggression--Los Angeles; Washington, DC; Chicago; Portland; Charlotte; others; and now Minneapolis. You have seen the videos. I have seen the videos. We have all seen the videos. How dare this administration slander the names of the dead and tell the American people not to believe what we can all see so clearly with our own eyes? How dare this administration act as if the laws passed by this body do not apply to them?
So, yes, colleagues, it is time to say: Enough. This is not just about immigrant families and immigrant communities now living in fear. This is about
Instead of pursuing independent investigations and seeking to hold officers accountable as warranted, this administration has doubled down.
Let's take a moment on this because our colleague Senator Kaine from Virginia talked a little bit about his experience as Governor and mayor and what normally happens after an officer-involved shooting--normal practice, standard practice, best practices after an officer-involved shooting in a local agency, in a State agency. It is not just the officer's being placed on leave. Initially, there is an administrative review of what happened.
Was it not just consistent with policy but with the law and the Constitution? And, if not, what is the consequence?
Absent that, under normal circumstances, we have the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice that can conduct an independent investigation and bring forth accountability as and when warranted.
Sadly, that is not the case with this administration--not the objective, internal review; not the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice review. Instead, they tell officers, ``You have complete immunity,'' and they double down. So the abuse has continued.
By the way, it is not just on the streets. The videos you have not seen are of the abuse and inhumane treatment that continue inside some appalling and inhumane private detention facilities, where, colleagues, if you haven't heard, 32 detainees died last year--the most deadly year for those in ICE detention facilities in a long, long time. An additional six this month alone are already on track to exceed last year's most deadly number. I am talking about the people held in detention centers like the one that Senator Schiff and I visited just last week in California City. Many there are being denied basic medical care, even urgent medical care. People are being denied easy access to legal counsel, to due process, to fundamental dignity.
And how has the Republican majority in Congress responded to this cruel and vindictive mass deportation campaign? With silence-- inexcusable or unacceptable silence.
And for those who have not been silent, I have heard a cheering on of what the administration is doing.
Colleagues, since last July, there have been dozens of incidents involving excessive force by Federal agents, including at least 17 shootings. Instead of asking questions and demanding accountability, our Republican colleagues here have applauded the administration and chosen to give the Department of Homeland Security billions more dollars, and now they are suggesting that DHS needs even more.
How much more must our communities and our country endure before our Republican colleagues join us in saying ``Enough''?
How much more, colleagues, before you agree to impose the real guardrails on a DHS that chooses to investigate itself, that stonewalls oversight, that even fights court orders to preserve evidence in the killing of an American citizen?
Not destroying evidence should go without saying. It shouldn't be compelled by a Federal judge. It is just like having true, objective, independent investigations after incidents like this should go without saying.
But we are not living in normal times. We continue to see ICE and CBP behave as though they are above the law because this administration has told them they are and because Republicans in Congress have not told them that they are not.
But we have an opportunity to change that; to collectively, on a bipartisan and a bicameral basis, let those agents know that no one is above the law. It is not just an opportunity but an obligation that we have in this moment. Public safety depends on legitimacy, and legitimacy depends on accountability and speaking the truth. Our laws mean nothing if those who are assigned to enforce the laws believe that the laws don't apply to them.
So, colleagues, let's realize that we are not powerless in this conversation. Congress is an equal branch of government in the United States of America, and it is about time we acted like it. That is why I support imposing serious reforms and real oversight and accountability on ICE and the CBP before this body provides them any more taxpayer dollars.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. President, I have served as my State's attorney general. I have served as a U.S. attorney for Rhode Island. I used to lecture at the police training academy in Rhode Island. I know a little bit about police work, and I know bad police work when I see it.
What we are seeing in Minnesota is a level of violence, a lack of deconfliction, and flatout unprofessionalism that is dangerous.
Trust me, it is not just me. Let's start with Minneapolis's own police chief, who described ICE's behavior this way:
He described it as ``poor tactics and really unconstitutional practices.''
He put some good context on it. He said:
It is not just up in Minnesota. In Maine, a sheriff said that this is ``bush league policing.''
Another Minnesota sheriff said:
A Philadelphia sheriff said that these agents are ``made up, fake, wanna-be law enforcement.''
A chief in St. Paul described ``traffic stops'' that are ``clearly outside the bounds of what federal agents are allowed to do.''
A former police chief said:
All the way in Montana, a police chief said:
In Texas again, the former head of the Combined Law Enforcement Association said:
A law professor and former police officer described their conduct as ``egregiously deviating from professional norms of policing.''
So what we are hearing out of law enforcement professionals around the country is disgust with the lack of professionalism with which ICE and CBP are discharging their responsibilities.
I will close by talking about deconfliction because that is probably the most dangerous mistake that law enforcement can make. That is how you get blue-on-blue violence. That is how things get dangerously out of hand.
With respect to deconfliction, a sheriff in Maine talked about ``unmarked cars'' and masked individuals, ``men with guns in the yard'' frightening residents, and his office had no idea it was taking place. They hadn't disclosed to local police that they were going to do a weapons-out, armed raid in their jurisdiction.
In Brooklyn Park, the chief said that his own officers were being pulled over, the deconfliction was so bad. He said:
In Austin, TX, the chief described how they are not warned ahead of time by ICE when they are going around. That threatens to create dangerous misunderstandings between local and Federal law enforcement Agencies.
We are short on time, so I am going to end there. But nobody in this body should believe that what is happening, what we are seeing with our own eyes on the streets of Minneapolis, is legitimate or professional law enforcement. It simply is not. It has gotten out of hand, and nobody knows it better than real cops.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mr. President, in just 1 year and 1 week--that is, 373 days--Donald Trump and his administration have changed what it means to walk down the street in America.
Three hundred and seventy-four days ago, an American citizen did not need to worry about carrying a passport or worry that they would be pinned to the ground for being unable to prove that their hometown was, in fact, the only home they have ever known.
Three hundred and seventy-four days ago, immigrant families didn't need to call on their neighbors or rely on the help of Good Samaritans to grocery shop for them, to take their kids to school, to have access to what we value in life--all because they are afraid to open their door.
Three hundred and seventy-four days ago, standing up for your First Amendment rights, your Fourth Amendment rights, even your Second Amendment rights was not in itself a provocation in the eyes of the Federal Government.
But in so little time, so much has changed. In this America, we see masked agents hiding their faces from the world and even hiding their identification, terrorizing communities across the Nation, smashing car windows and dragging mothers and fathers from their vehicles in front of their kids--in front of their kids--often taking those kids and separating them from their parents, breaking down doors, and detaining citizens and noncitizens alike.
As for warrants? No. Apparently, DHS lawyers now claim you don't need a judicial warrant to break through the door of a U.S. citizen and haul them out in their underwear in the dead of winter, only to later release them without charge, without apology, only with newfound terror courtesy of the U.S. Federal Government.
Agents with just 47 days of training are sweeping through American cities; agents with barely over a month of training--just 47 days. And why 47? Because it is a nod to the vanity of the 47th President rather than allocated to the need to be instructed on how to, say, use, or avoid using deadly force.
Agents with less training than a teenager getting their driver's license are now badgering, beating, and even killing Americans on our streets in the name of the President while his chosen enforcers smugly walk through American cities cosplaying their favorite uniforms from the 1930s and 1940s.
DHS is now building databases of Americans, detaining and even disappearing people off of corners in Minneapolis, Chicago, Portland, Nashville, Los Angeles, and far too many communities across the Nation.
The Trump administration demanded that Republicans deliver a $170 billion taxpayer-funded slush fund for these misbegotten efforts, taking that money away from your healthcare and taking that money away from food for hungry families to spend on weapons for enforcement agents and billions on detention centers to imprison people who are undocumented but who have committed no crimes and have no criminal records at all.
This is the America that Donald Trump has created, but it is not the America that we will accept. We will not accept the labeling of Renee Good--a mother of three, a loving and caring member of her community, caught on camera showing compassion to Federal agents even as she protested them--we will not accept that she was killed and then later falsely designated a ``domestic terrorist.''
We will not accept that Alex Pretti--a 37-year-old Veterans' Administration ICU nurse--exercising his constitutional rights and stooping to help a woman who had been pushed to the ground, can be labeled as an ``assassin'' merely hours after being shot in the back in cold blood nearly a dozen times.
These were not labels given by some arrogant agent in the field. This was not some bad apple using this terminology amongst otherwise upstanding immigration officials. No. These labels were applied by the highest ranking officials of this operation in President Trump's White House--the Cabinet Secretary overseeing these raids, Kristi Noem; the architect of this campaign of fear and mass arrest and detention, the ``racist in chief'' Stephen Miller.
This impunity that we see on our streets, this violence--it comes from the top; gaslighting amplified by the Vice President and the President himself.
This brazen denial of rights and facts is in the water at DHS headquarters, and it is increasingly clear that this has become the culture of ICE and Customs and Border Protection.
That is why I am standing here this week to say clearly: not another dime for this kind of lawless immigration regime. We will not add to the slush fund that Republicans gave Kristi Noem and Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino last year to fulfill Stephen Miller's dystopian vision of America. We require real reforms, in statute--not promises of change, not Executive actions worth less than the paper they are printed on.
Look out on the streets of Minneapolis, where two American citizens have been gunned down in as many weeks, where tear gas flies through the air and doors fly off their hinges under the banner of this administration. In those streets stand Agencies backed by billions of dollars still to be spent--billions that can arm them, billions that can detain and oppress.
This is an America in regression, where the color of your skin could be the only pretext for getting pulled over, detained, or worse--a reality that has persisted for Blacks, Latinos, Asians, and others notwithstanding the progress made in my lifetime.
As a child of the generation that shone a light on and helped pass laws to end such racist tactics, for most of my life, we have made strides to ensure that we moved past that America. But now we are returning to an America that I do not recognize, nor is this an America that I can accept.
We have the power in this body to do something about it, and until we do, my vote will reflect my complete and utter rejection of this lawless and cruel regime. This cannot become the status quo. This cannot become the new normal for America, for Alex Pretti and Renee Good, for the Californians detained without cause and without convictions, like those suffering in detentions facilities like California City whom I met, along with Alex Padilla, last week.
For all of them--for their dignity, for their children, for their families, for their friends, for their safety--and for this country, we must act.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
Mr. President, I get it. I think most of us get it. A lot of moms and dads throughout America tonight are going to lie down and try to sleep and not be able to. And when moms and dads throughout America lie down to sleep and can't, more times than not in America today, they are worried about the cost of living. I get that.
These high prices started under President Biden. But that is not why I am here today. I don't want to blame this on anyone. It is what it is. I just know that you shouldn't have to sell blood plasma in America to go to the grocery store. I just know that you ought to be able to afford a home in America as part of the American dream. The costs have gotten way out of hand. When you are having to pay $500,000--if you can get a loan--to buy and live in a refrigerator box behind Outback, something is wrong in our country. And don't get me started on the cost of healthcare and health insurance and all the other daily expenses that moms and dads have.
They are worried, and I understand they are worried. That is why I want to talk for a few minutes, before I talk about Minneapolis-- because I do want to address that--that is why I want to talk for a few minutes about taxes.
I know some may be thinking, you know: Why does Kennedy--Kennedy just talked about the cost of living in America. Why does he want to talk about taxes?
I know people are thinking: I don't like paying taxes.
They are thinking: You know, I would rather have to listen to O.J. jokes for the rest of eternity than to have to pay taxes.
Nobody likes to pay taxes. It is the price we pay to live in a civilized society.
But this year, we have some good news with respect to taxes, and it is a
We are told not to call it the One Big Beautiful Bill anymore. There is a new name for it. But, frankly, I think the American people are smart enough to know what we are talking about no matter what name we give to it.
As a result of the changes that we made, and when I say ``we,'' I don't take any joy in having to point out that this was done with only Republican votes. We tried to entice our Democratic friends to join with us. They chose not to. That is their choice. It is a free country. But the tax changes that we made were made solely with Republican votes, and I am proud of them. And I hope both Republicans and Democrats take advantage of them.
As a result of these tax changes, the American people are going to receive up to $100 billion in tax refunds--$100 billion--not million, $100 billion.
What am I talking about? Many people, as the Presiding Officer knows, who are in the hospitality business are no longer going to have to pay for their 2025 taxes, taxes on tips. Not everybody. I don't want to overstate the case, but many of our people in the hospitality industry who made most of their income from tips, as a result of the changes we made for 2025--``we'' meaning Republicans--are not going to have to pay taxes on a portion of those tips.
Many folks in 2025--not everyone, but many people in 2025 who worked overtime--are not going to have to pay taxes, income taxes, on that overtime. That also is contributing to this $100 billion that is going to be returned to the American people in tax refunds.
In our One Big Beautiful Bill, we also increased the standard deduction. For a two-income household, we increased the standard deduction by $1,500. It is going to mean a lot of money back in people's pockets. The standard deduction for joint filers is now $31,500.
As we were making these tax changes--and we, again, regrettably, did it with only Republican votes. We had to. But as we made these tax changes, we also put in a tax deduction for our seniors. People over 65--not everybody, but many Americans over 65--are going to get a new $6,000 senior reduction.
What else did we do? Well, if you pay State and local taxes, real estate taxes, for example, property taxes, we changed the deduction from $10,000 to $40,000. So that means you have a higher deduction on your taxes. It means your taxes are going to go down.
We increased the child tax credit. It is now $2,200 for every child you have. We increased it by $200 per child. Many folks, again, and I won't overstate the case, but many folks who have borrowed money to buy a car and are paying interest will get to deduct a portion of that interest that they pay on their automobile purchase as a result of the changes we made in the One Big Beautiful Bill. And I could go on about other changes we made for small businesses, one in particular. If you are a sub S corp, subchapter S corporation, or you are a limited partnership or what we call an LLC--in Louisiana, that stands for Louisiana limited liability corporation, which means that you are taxed directly on the income that your small business earns--we made permanent 20 percent reductions or distribution of business income for LLCs and LLPs and sub S corporations.
So if you add all of these tax changes up--and, again, I didn't talk about all of the tax changes in the One Big Beautiful Bill, but if you added the ones up that I talked about, that means an extra $100 billion in people's pockets throughout America, Democrats, Republicans, Independents.
And most people, most people have more money held out of their check than they owe the IRS, and that is not unusual, particularly when we make tax changes. I mention that because this means that $100 billion, people are going to get checks from the Federal Government. They are going to get money back. God bless them. They deserve it.
Now, I have got a couple of tips about how you can get that money back quickly, if you are able to do three things:
If you file early, file your tax returns--if you want your money back as quickly as possible, file your tax returns early.
No. 2, file electronically. I know for some that is a pain. I don't much like it. I like to file the paper return. But some people like to file electronically; some people don't. But if you do file it electronically, you are going to get your money back from the Federal Government more quickly.
The third thing you need to do is to tell the Federal Government that you don't want a paper check; you would like your money deposited directly into your bank account.
If you do those three things: file early, file electronically, and tell the IRS that you want the money sent directly, electronically, into your bank account, then you are likely to get your tax refund within 2 to 3 weeks, your portion of that $100 billion, thanks to the One Big Beautiful Bill that Republicans in the House and the Senate passed.
That is going to help a lot in terms of dealing with the cost of living in America, and I am very proud of our effort.
Mr. President, now let me say a word about Minneapolis. There is a lot we know; there is a lot we don't know. I want to talk about three things we do know.
No. 1, the loss of life in Minneapolis was a tragedy, and if you can't admit that, you have a padlock on your heart. It was a tragedy. We don't have all the facts. I know everyone has seen the videos, but the people involved haven't been interviewed. There are a lot of facts we have but a lot of facts we don't have, and I am not going to rush to judge. I am not going to rush to judge.
President Trump has promised a full and thorough and transparent investigation, and I thank him for that. But regardless of what we find out, we all have to concede, we all should concede that the loss of life in Minneapolis was a tragedy, and I am sorry it happened.
No. 2, this is the second thing that I know. You don't have to be Einstein's cousin, you don't have to be a senior at Caltech to know that illegal immigration is illegal. Duh. It is illegal.
And those of us who believe that no one is above the law--we all say we believe that, I believe it--those of us who say that no one is above the law have to concede that people in our country illegally are not above the law either. The law applies to them as well. Our immigration statutes are not second-tier laws. They matter just as much as the other statutes that have been passed by the elected Members of Congress. And just like the other laws, the immigration laws have consequences and should have consequences if you violate them.
Now, so I guess what I am saying is I support enforcement of our immigration laws. Now, how you enforce those laws, how you enforce those laws matters. Those laws, like all laws, have to be enforced in accordance with due process.
Those immigration statutes, like all laws, have to be enforced in accordance with equal protection. Those laws have to be enforced in accordance with a well-known Supreme Court case, 1968, called Terry v. Ohio, which sets forth the standards--reasonable suspicion is the standard chosen by the Supreme Court--by which someone can be stopped and questioned when a law enforcement official doesn't have probable cause.
Terry v. Ohio has to be followed. So No. 1, illegal immigration is illegal. We should enforce our immigration laws, but how we enforce them matters.
Third and final point, you have the right to protest in America. Let me say that again: You have the right to protest in America. You do not have the right to protest violently. And, in fact, violence as you protest undermines the morality of the thing that you are protesting over.
Let me say that again: Violence, if you choose violence when you protest, that undermines the morality of the movement that you say your movement is based upon. Do you know who else understood that? Dr. King. King understood it. Gandhi understood it. Mandela understood it. Violently protesting--not protesting--but violently protesting undermines the morality that you say your cause is built upon. It is also dangerous. It is dangerous, and it is stupid.
It is a 12-piece bucket of stupid because when you protest violently, when
Under the best of circumstances, these officers are trying to enforce Federal law, and the people with respect to whom they are trying to enforce Federal law are, in most cases--I am not going to say all cases--but in most cases are criminals. Not criminals because they are here illegally, though that, too, is a violation of our law, but criminals because they have violated other laws. In many cases, felonies, and those ICE officials, those cops are scared. They are scared. They are dealing with someone who could be armed, someone who could be dangerous.
So you have got a powder keg, and when protesters choose to protest violently and harass those ICE officials and blow whistles in their ears and block their way and spit in their faces and curse them and curse their children, they are giving off sparks in a powder keg.
And it is not going to end well in many cases.
And the truth of the matter is, it has been my experience in life, most--I am not going to say all--most cops will leave you alone unless you do illegal stuff.
So as we go forward in America and try to enforce our laws in conformity with the U.S. Constitution, as we go forward together in America, and while we are respecting people's constitutional rights, we respect our law enforcement officials who are doing a very difficult job--as we go forward in America today, as the President has promised to have a full and fair and transparent investigation of the tragic loss of life in Minneapolis. I hope we can keep those three things that I think all of us can agree upon in mind.
I am sorry we are at this point, but I believe that our future can be better than our present and certainly than our past.
I yield the floor to my esteemed colleague.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
Mr. President, I rise on behalf of the thousands of Wisconsinites I have heard from in the last few days. My constituents are not only saddened by what they see happening in Minneapolis, they are angry. This weekend, we watched masked agents kill a second U.S. citizen in Minneapolis in just 3 weeks. Alex Pretti, just like Renee Good, should still be with us.
We also watched the Trump administration's reaction to this tragedy. Instead of turning down the temperature, the Trump administration threw gasoline on the fire and lied to the American people.
In the hours after Alex Pretti was shot 10 times by Federal agents, the Trump administration, without knowing the facts, said that Alex was a ``domestic terrorist'' and an ``assassin,'' and somebody who ``tried to murder'' ICE agents. Those are despicable lies.
Fortunately, Alex's community and loved ones are setting the record straight, and so am I. That is why I am here on the Senate floor this evening. We have to remember Alex Pretti for who he was, not for who the Trump administration wanted him to be to fit into their narrative.
Alex Pretti grew up in Wisconsin and graduated from Preble High School in Green Bay. In recent days, his classmates have reached out to me and his friends and his teachers to share with me and the world who Alex really was.
Jose from Green Bay met Alex in the ninth grade. They became fast friends, participating in theater and show choir together. Jose shared about Alex that, ``even as a fellow student, I saw him as a role model.''
JD, who also knew Alex in high school, wrote to me:
Another classmate, Michael, described Alex as ``generous with his time, welcoming by nature, and the kind of person who made you feel included without trying. He deserved to grow older, to keep showing up for people the way he did for me.''
And Alex did show up for people. He went on to become a nurse, serving veterans at the VA Hospital in Minneapolis. His coworkers, friends, and patients described him as a good man--someone who cared about others in his community. We all saw Alex's last act was an act of service, putting himself between a group of masked agents and a woman who had been shoved into a snowbank.
He was not a threat. He was not an assassin. He was not a domestic terrorist. This administration is asking Americans not to believe their own eyes.
As his parents wrote:
They implored all of us:
Well, I, for one, plan to do just that. I will not allow the Trump administration to lie and smear Alex. But I also plan on doing everything I can to ensure that Alex and his family get justice. We must get some accountability for what happened. No other American should lose their lives because the Trump administration thinks that ICE can operate with ``absolute immunity.''
Congress has a choice this week. My Republican colleagues can sign over another blank check to Kristi Noem and ICE and endorse this chaos and lawlessness, or Congress can do our job and stop these lawless, masked, armed agents from terrorizing another community.
People want action. Alex deserves action. I intend to take that action, and I call on my Republican colleagues to join me.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Mr. President, I come to the floor to join my colleagues today to talk about the events of the last several days, and to say to my colleagues here in the U.S. Senate on both sides of the aisle: I have talked to many Washingtonians, and they are very worried about what has transpired in Minnesota.
They are very worried about what has transpired in Minnesota because they think that someone has lost their life that didn't need to lose their life, and they think that the President of the United States, instead of basically creating a system where that kind of overreach of power would be investigated, instead he is basically accusing the victim here--and basically, really, even attacking Second Amendment rights.
So I am here to join my colleagues to say, what are we going to do to fix this system? What are we going to do to make sure that tragedies like this don't happen and that we investigate the truth--not make up something about the situation minutes after it has happened?
I say this because my State has struggled with these issues of justice, particularly civil liberties and the civil rights of individuals. We had two tragic cases in our State. One, a Native American was just carving on a corner, basically whittling away, didn't understand, as he got up to move to another corner, that a policeman in the neighborhood thought, ``What is he doing?'' and accidentally-- basically when the Native American failed to stop from just moving from one corner to another to continue his whittling, was shot dead.
We had a case in Spokane where a disabled man basically went to his daily ritual of going over to get a soft drink at a supermarket, and on the way there, somebody said, ``I think he's acting a little strange,'' and called the police. And the police showed up, and as he was reaching for a soda in the bottom compartment of the freezer, the police told him to stop. And he didn't really understand what they were even saying to him. What was he doing? He was just coming to get his daily soda. And they beat Otto Zehm and killed him.
So yes, in the United States of America, since 1957, we have had a Civil Rights Division, and we have had a Department of Justice that has enforced the civil liberties of Americans by having oversight of police departments that overreached and basically did something, like they did in the Seattle case against the Native American carver John T. Williams and in the Spokane case against Otto Zehm.
Yes, the Department of Justice had an oversight division and a consent decree with the Seattle Police Department and the Spokane Police Department to get your act together and do training so that you are not killing people that don't deserve to be killed.
And that is the same situation with Mr. Pretti. Mr. Pretti didn't deserve to be killed in this situation, but let's at least have an investigation. Let's at least have a Department of Justice to do something about this. But that is not what the Trump administration is doing.
The first Trump administration tried to roll back the requirements. In fact, the then Attorney General basically said, ``I don't even want to use this consent decree power, because it's one of the most dangerous things, and it's an exercise of raw power.''
Well, the reason why the Department of Justice has this responsibility is because it is their responsibility to make sure somebody doesn't abuse power, particularly in a law enforcement situation like this, and intervene on the civil liberties of Americans. So that Department of Justice, literally in the first Trump administration, basically did not do its job and tried to basically subvert the responsibilities.
Now, here we are today in the second Trump administration, and what are they doing instead of really trying to look at patterns of abuse and patterns of malpractice or States in which law enforcement agencies aren't properly using force in these instances? What are they doing about this misconduct? Well, the second Trump administration makes the first Trump administration look like it was going easy on this situation.
Not only are they taking the money away from the Civil Rights Division, they are basically saying, ``Look, we don't even want you to do that job. We want you to go out and prioritize protecting other issues instead.''
And basically, we have had most of the Agency and individuals who were there doing the civil liberties work and doing this oversight work--they are gone. So now, what we are seeing is that lawsuits are being dismissed. Settlement agreements, you know, issues that really would have been brought to light are just being dismissed.
So the reason I am asking this is because my colleagues now have a chance to say whether they really believe in this function of the Department of Justice and the rights of Mr. Pretti and Otto Zehm and John T. Williams and whether you want to do something about it.
Now, I personally think that the Department of Homeland Security and ICE should be, in this instance, investigated. I think they should be investigated. And we should know the answers, and we should know that we are upholding the civil liberties of Americans, particularly in the right to express themselves and have free speech and go to a rally without being--or go to express their views, in this case in Minnesota, without being killed.
So the question is, what are we going to do about this use of force? So my colleagues are out here saying, It is a tragedy. I agree it is a tragedy. They are out here saying that this situation shouldn't have happened. I agree. I don't think ICE should be in Minnesota. I guarantee the Obama administration rounded up a lot of people and deported them. I know because I had constituents who complained about that.
But the Obama administration didn't go out and just try to make quotas on people. The Obama administration didn't go out there and say, We are not going after the violent people; we are just going to go after anybody to make up the numbers. The Obama administration didn't use force against peaceful protesters. They didn't do any of that. And so now we are acting like that is the mission, and yet, the Biden administration and the Obama administration did deport violent people out of the United States. Yes, they did.
So what is different here is that we have crossed a line. We have crossed a line, and we have allowed ICE to go here and prey on U.S. citizens and basically, in this case, use this power of force. And my only question now is whether my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are going to stand up for the role and responsibility the Federal Government plays in oversight, in investigation, and upholding the civil liberties of Americans in the United States of America when these incidents happen.
The rest of this is just debate. The rest of this about how ICE operates, about how the Department of Homeland Security operates, about what you want to do about immigration, whether you want immigration reform, the rest of it is just debate.
The real question is, do you believe in these civil liberties of Americans or not? And when police or power by the Federal Government is used in an excessive way and it means the loss of life, do you believe in having an authority that investigates that and is transparent with the American people and holds that system accountable?
I know this: The Seattle Police Department is a better police department because of those consent decrees, and so is Spokane. And the incidents that happened in those two individuals losing their life may not happen again because we went through that process.
The question is whether there is going to be another Alex Pretti sometime soon, where another U.S. citizen loses their life because of this overreach of power, because we are not investigating, we are not protecting these civil liberties, and we are not understanding that we have an administration that is diminishing the very Agency whose roles and responsibilities are to oversee this.
So I want to know, do my colleagues believe in this? Do they believe in this role or responsibility? Or do they not? Because I can tell you, that is the only way we are going to move forward in the information age. The information age has laid this bare. We might have had people shot and killed by overuse of power, in many instances, in the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and beyond, but you didn't see it. Now, you are seeing it now. You have got to deal with the reality. You have got to deal with reality that is right in front of us.
So the only question is, do my colleagues really believe in enforcing the civil liberties and civil rights of Americans by investigating this situation, having an aggressive investigation and holding people accountable?
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
Mr. President, let's be honest. Let us face up to reality and let us acknowledge that most Americans understand that our great Nation, once the envy of the entire world, is now in the midst of a deep decline. And for the sake of our children and future generations, we must end that decline and turn this country around in very fundamental ways.
Not so many years ago, the United States of America was admired, respected by people throughout the world for our generosity, for our concern for the poor of the world, for our democracy, for our Constitution, for our rule of law, for our way of life. We were admired, respected. People around the world said: Do you know what? We would like our country to be like the United States of America.
Tragically, that is no longer the case. I was just on the phone this afternoon with an elected official in Europe who literally could not believe what is happening to our country today. And I fear that millions of people throughout the world--on every continent of this world, in every country in this world--are looking at the United States of America and saying: What in God's name is happening to that great country?
But it is not only our standing in the world and our increased isolation from other countries that I worry about. We used to have the highest standard of living of any country on Earth. That was it. America, strongest middle class in the world. We used to be a country where the American dream said that our young people will do better than their parents.
My dad came to this country at the age of 17, having dropped out of school at the age of 14, from Poland, with the dream that his son--his sons--would do better than he did. My mom graduated high school with the dream that maybe
That was the dream of millions of people: We work hard so that our kids would do better.
The reality today, according to a number of studies, is that, everything equal, unless we turn it around, our younger generation will have a lower standard of living than their parents. They will own their own home at a much older age than their parents.
And when we talk about America being in a state of decline and the need to bring about fundamental transformation of this country, understand that two-thirds of the American people, according to a New York Times poll the other day--two-thirds of the American people now believe that a middle-class lifestyle is out of reach. We used to be a country of the middle class, and now two-thirds of the American people say, no, the American middle-class lifestyle is out of my reach.
We used to be the best educated country on Earth, best public school systems on Earth. That is not the case anymore. We used to have the best healthcare system of any country on Earth. Not anymore. We used to provide good, affordable housing for our people. Not anymore. We used to have the most advanced transportation system in the world. Not anymore. Just take a look at how the city of Washington is dealing with the current snowstorm.
In many respects, our great Nation is falling further and further behind other countries, and we must not allow that to continue.
The United States, our people, have faced horrific crises in the past, going back to the very beginning, the origins of this country, when a small number of people dared to have the dream and the courage to take on King George III and the British Empire and the most powerful military in the world because they wanted their independence, and they wanted their freedom. That was a crisis, and they prevailed.
In the 1840s, there were people who were saying slavery is an abomination. It is immoral. We can't talk about a Declaration of Independence that says all men are created equal and enslave millions of people. We have to end slavery. And they struggled and struggled, the abolitionists, and it was a horrible civil war, where so many people died. Finally, we ended the abomination of slavery.
The struggle continued with Martin Luther King, Jr., and the civil rights movement and the end of segregation.
This country went through the Great Depression, where 25 percent of our people were unemployed and government had to redefine itself and we did that.
When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, December of 1941, we were not prepared to fight a war in the East or a war against Hitler in Europe. And yet, within a few years, because the country came together, instead of building cars, we built tanks, and we built fighter planes. We ended up winning that war. We won a war on two fronts.
Bottom line, in all of these crises and others, the Nation came together and prevailed. We did it then, and I have little doubt, if we do not allow people to divide us up by where we were born or the color of our skin, we can, once again, overcome the crisis that we are in right now, which, in my view, is the most serious crisis in the modern history of our country.
Let me just say a few words about what is happening in Minneapolis right now as I speak. Let me be very clear. America is not about and must never be about a domestic military force called ICE, which as we speak at this moment is occupying--a military occupation--of one of our great American cities, Minneapolis, and is terrorizing the occupants in that city.
America is not and must never be about Federal agents shooting American citizens down in cold blood, breaking down doors to arrest people, or sending 5-year-olds to detention centers--all in clear violation of our Constitution. That is what takes place in dictatorships, in authoritarian societies where there is not a rule of law. It does not and it must not be allowed to take place in the United States or any democracy on Earth.
So let me be very clear. ICE must get out of Minnesota now. ICE must get out of Maine now. ICE must stop terrorizing the American people. Not another penny should be given to ICE or Customs and Border Protection unless there are fundamental reforms in how those Agencies function and until there is new leadership at the Department of Homeland Security and among those who run our immigration policy. To be clear, Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller must go.
But Trump's movement toward authoritarianism is not just about the use of his domestic army against the American people; it is about his attack against Venezuela in direct violation of the Constitution and international law, where he not only lacked congressional authorization but where no one in Congress had any knowledge about what was taking place.
Trump's authoritarianism is about disrupting the 100-plus-year alliances we have had with our allies in Europe and, insanely, threatening to seize Greenland from our longtime ally Denmark. Does anyone in their right mind believe that the United States of America should threaten violence against our longtime allies?
Trump's authoritarianism is about attacking Europe--every day, one attack or another--because it is a continent of democratic countries that are all very different, but they are democratic countries which actually elect their leaders. Apparently and increasingly, Europe and these countries will not simply do Trump's bidding--will not come to him with all kinds of gifts--while at the same time, as he attacks Europe every day--demeans Europe, insults Europe--he is busy cozying up to his autocratic friends in Saudi Arabia who have helped line his pockets with billions of dollars from cryptocurrency and real estate deals. It is not a problem that the head of Saudi Arabia is a murderer, who our intelligence Agency believed was responsible for the death of Washington Post correspondent Jamal Khashoggi. He is our ally. He has got a lot of money--a trillionaire family--the wealthiest family on Earth--that can do the Trump family a lot of good. It is not a problem that one of our allies is Binyamin Netanyahu, who has engaged in atrocities against the people of Gaza and is now under indictment by the International Criminal Court as a war criminal. He is a good ally. Those are the kinds of guys we want, those who are war criminals and trillionaires who put dissenters in jail--Saudi Arabia, a dictatorship.
Trump's authoritarianism is about his repeated threats to make Canada--Canada--I live 50 miles away from the Canadian border--which is one of our closest and most dependable allies, the 51st State. I mean, just think for a minute. We have been allies for decades and decades-- close friends--and you go around insulting this country and saying: You are going to become our 51st State.
What world does Trump live in? How does his mind tell him to do that?
Let's be clear. The American people want us to ally ourselves with democracies around the world, not dictatorships, not authoritarian societies. They do not want to be allied with or put American lives on the line for dictatorships like those that exist in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates or, least of all, Putin's Russia.
Everyone in this Chamber, including my Republican colleagues, understands, when Trump usurps the power of Congress, when he attacks the courts, when he threatens and intimidates the media and universities and perhaps, most significantly, when he brings criminal charges against his political opponents, be they liberal Democrats or conservative Republicans, that this man is a danger to everything this country stands for. My Republican colleagues know this, and the time is long overdue for them to begin speaking out against Trump's dangerous movement toward authoritarianism. We can disagree on the issues--we do disagree on the issues--but we should and must agree that this country will not move toward being an authoritarian society, with more and more power put in the hands of the President of the United States.
In that regard, let me applaud Chris Madel, who was a leading Republican candidate for the Governor of Minnesota, who recently ended his campaign because he could not defend the national Republican Party in the face of what was happening in his own State of Minnesota.
Mr. Madel said:
Mr. Madel is right, and more Republicans need to speak out if they care about protecting the values this Nation was founded upon.
When we talk about authoritarianism, we must also talk about the Big Lie--the lies that are told over and over again, that black is white and white is black. It is a constant barrage of lies that comes from the White House. We can disagree on the issues, but you cannot have a democracy when the President of the United States lies profoundly every single day.
No, Mr. President, Renee Good was not a domestic terrorist. She was the mother of three, sitting in her car when she was shot.
No, Alex Pretti was not a would-be assassin as Trump's administration has suggested.
No, last night's attack on Representative Ilhan Omar, while she was conducting a townhall meeting, was not staged. Somebody attacked her-- threatened her.
No, the January 6 insurrectionists were not conducting peaceful demonstrations. They were attempting to overthrow the results of an election.
No, the 2020 election was not stolen from Donald Trump. He lost that election by over 7 million votes. Yet today--today--as we speak right now, Trump's FBI has raided an election office in Georgia to seize their ballots. This is, by the way, after the Attorney General of the United States demanded that Minnesota hand over its voter rolls as a pretext for ICE's stopping its assault on that State.
President Trump's unacceptable actions are raising the question in the hearts of millions of Americans as to whether or not there will be free and fair elections in 2026 and 2028.
But it is not just Trump's authoritarianism that concerns me and millions of Americans very deeply. I worry very much about the growing economic and political power of the oligarchs in this country--the multibillionaires who are side by side with Trump, who were in the front row when he got inaugurated. I think all of us will remember Mr. Musk there, Mr. Zuckerberg, Mr. Bezos, and some 14 other billionaires sitting there when he was inaugurated.
Today, in America, we have more income and wealth inequality than we have ever had in the history of our Nation. Unbelievably, Elon Musk-- the wealthiest man alive--now owns more wealth than the bottom 53 percent of American households. One man--one man--now owns more wealth--some $700-billion plus--than the bottom 53 percent of American households. The top 1 percent now owns more wealth than the bottom 93 percent. CEOs of large, profitable corporations now earn 350 times what their average worker makes.
Meanwhile, in America today while the very rich become obscenely richer, 60 percent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. They are unable to afford the skyrocketing costs of housing, healthcare, education, childcare, groceries, electricity, or other basic necessities. The very rich are becoming phenomenally richer while tens of millions of Americans are struggling to pay for their basic needs.
Let us understand that the oligarchs--the multibillionaires--do not simply put their money under their mattresses. Not only do they want to own and control our economy, they are determined to own and control our corrupt political system as well. As we all know, Mr. Musk spent at least $290 million to elect Trump. Do you think you are living in a democracy when one guy can spend $290 million to elect his buddy to be President? The 100 richest people in our country spent $2.6 billion on the 2024 election--100 people.
Yes. You average American, you get the right to vote, but billionaires can spend hundreds of millions of dollars in super PACs to defeat the candidates who stand up for the working class and elect those people who stand with the oligarchs. That number--the amount of money being spent in these super PACs by the oligarchs--is growing and growing every day. I should point out that it is not just the Republican Party; it is Democratic billionaires as well. This is a bipartisan effort on the part of the billionaire class.
Just recently, a super PAC representing the crypto industry just announced that it has $193 million in cash at its disposal for the 2026 election. In other words, do you have concerns about crypto? Well, you are going to have to face a barrage of 30-second ads from extraordinarily wealthy people.
Big Tech oligarchs in Silicon Valley have already pledged to spend at least $200 million on a super PAC that is sympathetic to the AI industry, artificial intelligence--an industry that threatens to displace tens of millions of American workers. Are you worried about AI? Are you worried about robotics? Are you worried about the fact that tens of millions of jobs are going to be lost during the next decade? Are you concerned about it? Do you want to have some regulations? Well, guess what? These guys have got hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on a campaign.
That may sound like democracy to somebody, but it does not sound like democracy to me. It sounds like a very corrupt system owned by the very wealthiest people in the world. That is why, if we are going to come out of our decline--if we are going to turn this country around-- probably there is nothing more important that we can do than to end the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision, abolish super PACs and move to the public funding of elections. If somebody wants to run against me who might disagree with my ideas, fine--go for it--but we should not have a system where candidates are backed by billionaires who can outspend heavily those candidates who are standing up for working people. That is not democracy; that is oligarchy. In a democracy, elections must be about one person, one vote, not billionaires buying politicians.
But that is not all.
When we look at what is going on in America--and it is important that we do that--take a look at our broken healthcare system. We are spending twice as much per capita on healthcare as the people of any other nation. Yet we are the only major country on Earth not to guarantee healthcare to all. We have got 85 million Americans who are uninsured or underinsured, and over 60,000 people die each year because they can't afford to see a doctor on time.
Do you want to turn that around in America? Do you want to end our decline? We are the richest country on Earth, and we spend more on healthcare per person than any other country. Let us have the best healthcare system in the world--guaranteeing healthcare to every man, woman, and child.
That is what we should be doing, and that is why we should pass a Medicare for All single-payer system. And when we talk about America being in decline, we are talking about the skyrocketing price of housing and the fact that tens of millions of Americans cannot afford to buy a home.
We are seeing young people right now living with their parents because they can't even afford an apartment of their own, married couples who will buy their own home at a much older age than their parents.
Today, we have 800,000 Americans who are homeless--800,000, including people a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol. And 20 million households are now spending over half of their limited incomes on housing.
Let us reverse this decline. Instead of giving tax breaks to billionaires, let's build the low-income and affordable housing this country desperately needs. In the wealthiest country on Earth, it is not a radical proposition to say that every American should be able to live in decent, affordable housing.
When we talk about America being in decline, we are talking about the crisis in our education system. Several decades ago, the United States was the best educated country on Earth. The United States used to lead the world in the percentage of adults with a college degree. We were No. 1.
Today, we are in 11th place behind countries like Japan, South Korea, Australia, the UK, and Canada. Today, the United States ranks 28th out of 37 developed countries in math, 12th in science, and 6th in reading.
This is the United States of America, the richest country on Earth. Our kids
If we are going to come out of our decline and successfully compete in a global economy, we need the best educated workforce in the world, which means we need to revamp our educational system from childcare to graduate school. Believe it or not--people don't know this--70 years ago, major public universities in the city of New York, California, great universities were tuition-free.
Maybe instead of spending a trillion dollars a year on the military, we make sure that every kid in this country has the opportunity to get a higher education because we make our public colleges and universities tuition-free.
In New York City, in New Mexico, now there is significant movements toward making childcare free and universal, and that is a lesson all of us have got to learn right here in the Congress. That should be our goal.
When we talk about America being in decline, we are talking about the fact that we have a retirement crisis in our country today. In America right now, over 20 percent of seniors are trying to survive on an income of less than $15,000 a year.
Got it? Twenty percent of seniors are trying to survive on $15,000 or less. One guy is worth over $700 billion.
Half of seniors are trying to get by on less than $30,000 a year. These are the people who built this country. These are the people who raised us. We need to treat them with respect and dignity. That is why we should expand and strengthen Social Security benefits and bring back defined benefit pension plans that guarantee a secure income in retirement.
A great nation like the United States should not have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country. We should not have one of the highest rates of senior poverty of almost any major country.
And when we talk about the decline in the standard of living in America, the fact that 60 percent of the people in our country today are struggling, as we speak, to put food on the table, we must understand that in our country right now, Big Tech oligarchs are working overtime to become even wealthier by throwing American workers out on the street and replacing them with robots or artificial intelligence.
Nobody knows exactly what the impact of AI and robotics will be, but there are some very sophisticated studies that would suggest that tens of millions of jobs will be replaced by AI and robotics, and we are in no way prepared for that.
That is why I have called for a moratorium on new AI data centers until we make sure that the economic gains of these revolutionary technologies benefit the working families of this country and not just a handful of multibillionaires in Silicon Valley.
AI robotics are neither good nor bad. It depends on how they are utilized. If they can improve life for ordinary people, it is positive. If they can reduce the workweek, it is positive. But if they simply throw millions of people out on the street, that is not a positive.
In my view, we are living through one of the most difficult moments in the modern history of our country. But the truth is that throughout our Nation's history, we have faced great challenges as well. This is not the first great and difficult challenge that we face.
We have been through an American revolution. We have been through a civil war. We have been through a suffrage movement that demanded full citizenship and the right to vote for our women. We have been through the Great Depression, where 25 percent of our people were unemployed. We have been through World War II. We have been through the Civil Rights Movement and the effort to end segregation, and here we are today.
At every moment of crisis in the history of our country, the American people came together and chose democracy over authoritarianism, chose justice over greed, and chose solidarity over division. They understood, in the past--and we understand today--that when we stand together, no matter how much money the oligarchs have, no matter how much political power they have, we have the people.
At the end of the day, people coming together is far more powerful than the billionaires and all of their money. If we summon that same courage today, if we stand together against fear and hatred, if we defend democracy and take on the power of the oligarchs, there is nothing that this great Nation cannot accomplish.
That is how we end the decline; that is how we renew our democracy; and that is how we build a future worthy of our children and generations yet to come.
Mr. President, I rise today because of what is going on in Minneapolis. As we have all seen in realtime with our own eyes, Alex Pretti, 37 years old, nurse at the VA, shot multiple times and killed by Border Patrol while he was exercising his right to peacefully assemble.
The video shows us what happened. He was disarmed at the time that he was shot, defenseless, not a threat when he was shot and killed. Before him was Renee Good, shot and killed by ICE agents in her car on January 7.
Separate from those 2, we have 32 people who have died in ICE custody in 2025, including one in Baldwin, MI--more fatalities in 1 year than in more than two decades.
These folks shouldn't be going through this, but the deaths that we saw in Minneapolis are the culmination of something much bigger. We are experiencing a cultural moment in the United States of America that cuts to the heart of who we are as Americans, and it relates to the behavior of Federal forces in our streets. It strikes to the heart of who we are as Americans.
Now, this isn't about any one thing, but I do think that it is important for Americans to understand that despite some of the rolling back that the President has done over the last few days, ICE agents are still in Minnesota, still acting 3,000 strong in ways that I believe run against the American consciousness.
So I am going to list out some of the things that I have heard and we have seen, and I want Americans to think about how they would feel if these very things were going on in their own towns, in their own States, in their own communities.
Imagine being pulled over and asked for your papers as you pull into the parking lot at Target. Imagine Federal agents waiting at the top of off-ramps from the highway where you have to stop, determining by looking at you if you might be an illegal alien and asking you to pull over and show your papers.
Imagine you are at the airport trying to depart on a flight to go overseas and ICE agents are at the boarding area asking to see your papers, and when you ask them: Are you just indiscriminately pulling us aside and checking our status, they threaten you with a $10,000 fine for obstructing Federal agents.
Imagine, in your kid's elementary school on the playground, agents are shooting tear gas. Imagine being held at gunpoint in your own home, taken to a police precinct in your underwear in subfreezing temperatures and then released without an apology when they realize: Oops. You actually are an American citizen.
Imagine agents with full kit on, no identifying information, masks, breaking your car window when your 2-year-old is in the backseat. Imagine peacefully protesting and having rubber bullets shot at you.
Imagine masked men detaining a 5-year-old who is coming home from preschool. Imagine being pepper-sprayed as clergy while you are praying out loud. Imagine tear gas filling your car on your way home from a basketball game with your children in the backseat and doing CPR on a 6-month-old who stopped breathing.
Imagine being the family watching on video as your loved one is beaten and shot repeatedly and killed because they were exercising their Second Amendment right and being present in their First Amendment right with freedom of speech.
And then imagine being grabbed off the street and taken to a detention facility without your family or a lawyer knowing where you are.
Every one of these things has happened in Minneapolis in the past 30 days. If you have a problem with any of
It doesn't matter if you are a Democrat or Republican. This is not about political party.
In my State, we have seen political protests over the last 5 years for all kinds of political persuasions. And I want people to imagine that if they will do this in Minneapolis, there is no stopping them--or some future administration--from doing this to you for what you care about.
Now, I think it is lucky that we grew up in this country, and we are taught over and over about the values of freedom of speech, freedom of peaceful protest. I think that it is important that young people are taught these things and that they come to live in a place very deep in all Americans that I know.
And because of that, I think Americans have kind of an internal redline for authoritarian behavior; there are just some things that look and smell and feel wrong, given our history and given our values.
I think what is most abhorrent about what is going on in Minneapolis is that it runs against the fundamental freedoms of who we are as Americans.
Now, the President, who ran, in many ways, on the issue of immigration, has managed to piss off everybody--left, right, and center. Whether you are Joe Rogan or Zach Bryan or everyone in-between, the tide has turned, and the President knows it. That is why he is slinking Bovino and other people out of town. That is why he is changing his tune.
But what he says publicly is still fundamentally different from what is going on today in Minneapolis. You still have 3,000 agents doing the same list of things that I am talking about. It has not changed. So until the actions change, words don't matter.
Now, Michiganders have been clear with me that there need to be consequences for this kind of anti-American behavior, and that starts with leadership. We have a cast of characters who are in charge of policy related to immigration.
Let's start with Secretary Kristi Noem. She should resign. If she doesn't resign, the President should do what he has done in the past and fire her. And if she doesn't get fired, she should be impeached, because while she is not the only one who is the brains behind these operations, she was the one who got the big job. She was the one who sat in front of many of us for Senate confirmation. And she has done nothing to defend the values that she claimed when she held her hand up and swore to protect them.
Now, I will tell you, back a year ago, I was one of those people who voted for Kristi Noem. I voted yes on her nomination. I come from the State of Michigan. We have major border crossings, some of the biggest border crossings in America, and we are about to open one of the largest new border bridges in the world, the Gordie Howe Bridge to Canada. We need her. We needed her to staff that new bridge, to pay attention when we had issues with CBP or Border Patrol, when we needed more resources. She sat in my office. I invited her in. And she told me how she was a former Governor. She had received Federal support through FEMA. She knew what it was like, and she was going to uphold those same things that she depended on as a Governor, when it came to being the Secretary of Homeland Security.
So I don't regret that I tried to have a relationship with her. I tried to say: Hey, as someone from a border State, we have got to make this work. I have got to have a relationship with this person.
But she has proved, over and over again, up until this weekend, that she does not deserve the title of Cabinet Secretary. This week, when Alex Pretti was killed on the ground, shot 10 times, she didn't say: We need an independent investigation.
She didn't say: We need to cool down and relax.
She didn't say: We need to put the DHS officers on administrative leave and have some sort of accountability.
She said: He was a domestic terrorist. A nurse who worked at the ICU for the Veterans' Administration was a domestic terrorist.
If you are a Cabinet-level Secretary and you jump to that, you don't understand our system. And, certainly, the one time she has come in front of our committee--one time since she was confirmed--she didn't seem to understand basic concepts, like habeas corpus.
Now, she is not the only one who is the mastermind of the President's border and immigration policy. If you want to understand the through line between Trump's first administration, where he literally put children in cages and purposely separated them from their parents as an immigration policy, and what you are seeing in Minneapolis today, that through line is Stephen Miller and his dark vision of America.
I do not understand this person. I do not understand how he could be educated in this country and then spew these dark visions of who we are as a people. You know, I think the thing that he said right after Alex Pretti was killed was that not only was he a domestic terrorist, but he was an assassin.
These people don't understand who we are, and they certainly don't understand that the American public does not tolerate this kind of authoritarianism.
So what do we need to do? We need accountability. We need the people who are the masterminds of these policies to leave their jobs. Either, again, Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem resign--that would be the respectful thing--are fired by the President--they are boat anchors around your neck--or impeach them, in the case of Kristi Noem.
But, certainly, for what this body needs to do this week, it seems abundantly clear that we need to separate out the budgets for a bunch of other Departments and Agencies from the Department of Homeland Security. We cannot trust this administration to handle the deployment of Federal forces in our streets without making some fundamental reforms of the Department of Homeland Security.
And I am glad to see that, like dominoes, my Republican colleagues are now saying: Yes, we should separate this out. Yes, I don't want to defend DHS and ICE and have the government shut down because I will just salute the President.
They understand, and I give them credit. I will take any millimeters of bravery that I can get from the other side of the aisle to say: This is not America.
And you better believe that my colleagues would be losing their ever- loving minds if a Democratic President were doing this in some Republican-run city--losing their minds.
So we need accountability for the people who are behind this. We also need fundamental reforms of ICE. We can't leave the administration to do it themselves.
So you separate the bill out, and then we can have a real conversation. And all we are asking for--it is not the moon--is that Federal agents who show up in these cities cannot play by different rules than police who live and work in our communities.
You need to wear a body camera. You should not be masked, unless it is for your health. You need to have insignia that shows you are actually real law enforcement. You need to have a judicial warrant to come into someone's house, not a warrant signed by some person at the Department of Homeland Security, who may or may not just have political dependencies on Kristi Noem and the President.
We are asking for the same things that the Michigan State Police or the Nevada police have to do on every single day. We want our Federal agents to abide by those same laws and rules because they fundamentally lost the trust of the American people. They don't have it.
So we don't trust that the President is just going to learn his lesson, slink out of Minneapolis, and not do this to another city. So we need prevention. We need reform. We need to separate out the DHS budget from the others so we can get to work and not shut down the government because the President won't admit fault in Minneapolis.
And we need to fundamentally remember who we are as Americans. We need to remember those values that literally we learned in the first grade. We have fundamental freedoms that make us different than almost every other country of the world, and we need to defend them vigorously.
And, in fact, those people who are standing up and exercising those rights
I urge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to join us in calling a spade a spade when you see it.
Mr. President, this is a solemn occasion for me and for many people I know, and I rise this evening to recognize and honor the 67 lives we lost, 1 year ago tomorrow, on January 29, 2025.
On that night, Flight 5342 took off from Wichita, KS, and flew toward our Nation's Capital with 64 passengers on board. In Washington, DC, a Black Hawk helicopter with three Army soldiers would soon be in the air as well. Flight 5342 was just minutes away from a safe landing at Reagan National Airport when the plane and the Army helicopter collided over the Potomac River.
Shortly after 9 p.m., I received a call with the news that a flight from home--from Kansas--was involved in an accident in our Nation's Capital. I made my way to Reagan National Airport that night. The banks of the Potomac River were illuminated with lights from emergency responders who were searching the icy waters of a crash site.
At the airport, I was joined by local leaders and the newly sworn-in Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy. Our conversation that night was one of many that would then span the course of the following year, trying to understand how an accident like this could occur and how to prevent it from ever happening again.
At the airport, we learned the tragic news that there were no survivors. Of those who perished, seven were Kansans.
Kiah Duggins, a civil rights attorney and a Wichita native, was set to begin teaching at Howard University School of Law.
Lindsey Fields, a professor at Butler Community College and the president-elect of the National Association of Biology Teachers, was traveling to our Nation's Capital to advocate for the issues that mattered to her.
Bob and Lori Schrock, a prominent and very well-liked couple of farmers from Kiowa, KS, were on their way to visit their daughter in college in Pennsylvania.
Grace Maxwell, an engineering student from Wichita, was returning to college after attending her grandfather's funeral at home in Kansas.
Dustin Miller, an IT professional who grew up in El Dorado and was a lifelong Chiefs fan, told his mom he was going to try to make it back in time to watch his team play in the Super Bowl.
PJ Diaz of Wichita was described by his loved ones as a world traveler who had been to 49 States. He especially loved cruises and had an extra-long cruise planned for later that year.
Sadly, 28 members of the U.S. Figure Skating community also lost their lives--young athletes traveling back from the National Development Camp in Wichita, with their coaches and family members.
Maxim Naumov, a 24-year-old U.S. figure skater, lost both of his parents in the accident. In the wake of this tragedy, Maxim used his love of skating to overcome this immense loss and now heads to the 2026 Olympic Games, just weeks away, to achieve his lifelong dream that he shared with his parents. We will all be cheering him on.
A year later, the memory of this night--the deadliest aviation incident that America had witnessed in nearly 25 years--is as painful as it was when we first heard the news. The victims were husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, friends and coworkers.
As we mourn the victims, we also remember the heroism, solidarity, and love displayed that night. Hundreds of first responders worked tirelessly through the night and into the coming days. Strangers offered comfort, and people checked in on their neighbors.
Since January 29, the families of the victims have tried to find meaning and purpose after the death of their loved ones and have worked to eliminate the likelihood of an accident like this ever happening again.
A family, in particular, that I would like to mention, Tim and Sheri Lilley, lost their son Sam. He was the copilot for Flight 5342, the plane.
Following the tragic accident, the Lilley family has used its voice to become an advocate for safer skies, in honor of their son Sam.
I am grateful for the advocacy of the families who are gathered here tonight in the Nation's Capital to remember their family members, to mourn the losses, to comfort each other. I am grateful for the families of the victims over the last year as they work to advocate for changes at the FAA--Federal Aviation Administration--and congressional legislation like the ROTOR Act.
Thanks to their support, the Senate advanced this critical legislation last year. This was an important step, but our progress has been stalled in the House.
The National Transportation Safety Board's hearing just yesterday further confirmed that this legislation could have made a difference on January 29 a year ago. We cannot afford to waste any more time. I urgently insist the House of Representatives quickly pass this legislation or amend it and pass it so we can find consensus.
I want to commend NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy and her team on their thorough investigation of the crash. Their report will guide Congress in the coming weeks in our efforts to ensure safety in the skies.
In addition to passing and implementing the ROTOR Act, Congress will soon hold a hearing--after the NTSB releases its final report in about 2 weeks--to review the findings and recommendations. We need to determine what, if any, congressional action is necessary to implement these recommendations and make certain the FAA and Army are making the recommended changes, provide funding for further modernization of our aviation system, advance new technologies at the FAA, and train and support air traffic controllers. We cannot--we should not--miss the moment to act and ensure lasting change.
I cannot imagine the pain each of the families of the victims has experienced every day since January 29. This week, their loss must be felt especially hard as they face the anniversary of the crash.
Tonight, I want to remember those who perished--67 lives that ended way too soon. We resolve to honor their legacy, work to make our skies safer, and remember those we loved who lost their lives.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the names of the victims of Flight 5342 be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. President, if you were to follow I-94W for just an hour and a half north of the city of Chicago, you would find yourself rolling into the city of Milwaukee. Every day, tens of thousands of drivers make this commute, and every day, they are greeted
With more than 30 years serving as Marquette University associate vice president for public affairs, Rana Altenburg's legacy reaches far beyond choosing those two colors while she chaired the Marquette Interchange Color Committee. Her impact on the city of Milwaukee, the State of Wisconsin, and Washington, DC, was profound. While Rana retired at the end of 2025, her legacy will be felt for years to come.
In fact, it is difficult to walk more than a few blocks in Milwaukee, or even Wisconsin, without encountering Rana's handiwork. Crossing Wisconsin Avenue on Marquette's campus? Rana worked alongside city officials to install the medians bisecting the busy street. Enjoying a ``blue moon'' popsicle from Pete's Pops on a summer day in Milwaukee? The local business was the inaugural winner of Rev-Up MKE, a small business pitch competition put on by the nonprofit that Rana helped found in 2015. Going to a dental check up in Eau Claire, WI? Your teeth are probably being cleaned by someone from Marquette's esteemed dental school, which Rana championed.
A few blocks down from Marquette's campus sits Milwaukee's ``Near West Side,'' a group of seven neighborhoods that, in the 2010s, were in dire need of reinvestment. Rana brought together five anchor institutions in Milwaukee--Marquette, Advocate Aurora Health, Harley- Davidson, Molson Coors, and Potawatomi Ventures--to establish a nonprofit dedicated to revitalizing the city's Near West Side as a business and residential corridor. Ten years later, Near West Side Partners--NWSP--with Rana at the helm as the nonprofit's board president, is thriving. Thanks to the hard work of NWSP, more than 50 new small businesses have opened in the area, crime has decreased by double-digits, home ownership rates are up, and the opening of the mixed-use space, Concordia 27, has given Milwaukeeans a new community hub.
Beyond Wisconsin, Rana is one of the strongest advocates for Marquette's Les Aspin Center for Government in Washington, DC. The program, which brings students out to the Nation's Capital to study American political systems and to intern across the city, has expanded its reach during Rana's tenure. She leveraged the university's tightly knit alumni network to place students at internships ranging from congressional offices to healthcare advocacy. As a direct result of Rana's support for the program, Marquette alumni populate Capitol Hill in extraordinary numbers.
Rana is a familiar face to folks on Capitol Hill, even to those who didn't attend the Les Aspin Center. She worked alongside congressional staff to bring millions in funding to Marquette to support the university's dental school, the only one in the State of Wisconsin; to bolster Marquette's nursing program by securing funding for the school's clinical simulation lab; and to boost the redevelopment of Milwaukee's Near West Side.
But she lent her talents to many other worthy causes, including to the James Wright Foley Foundation, a nonprofit named for the Marquette alumnus and journalist who was tragically captured and killed by ISIS while reporting in Syria. Through her efforts and the work of my colleague Senator Shaheen, the foundation will receive a $350,000 earmark this year to support their work promoting journalists' safety abroad and to preserve the James Wright Foley Archives at Marquette.
In recognition of her outstanding work, the Milwaukee Business Journal has honored Rana, first as a ``Forty Under 40'' awardee and subsequently, as a ``Woman of Influence''. But what the well-deserved profiles in the Milwaukee Business Journal often forget to mention are the hours she invested in mentoring Marquette students. Affectionately referring to them as her ``superstar interns,'' Rana mentored hundreds of students through the Marquette Office of Public Affairs, carving out time in her intense schedule to foster her interns' interest in public policy. She welcomed her students into the legislative process and even brought them along to meetings and events, allowing her interns to take an active role in advancing the university's priorities. Years later, those same ``superstar interns'' are now serving as legislative aides, communications professionals, and legal counsel across Capitol Hill, including on my own staff and on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
But Rana takes no job more seriously than her role as a Marquette basketball superfan. A long-time season ticket holder, Rana is a fixture at the Fiserv Forum in the sea of university students. If you keep your eye out during the Big East tournament, it is not uncommon to spot Rana, decked out in blue and gold, in the crowd during an away game. And as perhaps the greatest contribution a superfan can make, Rana worked tirelessly to ensure the Marquette Golden Eagles could play at the new Fiserv Forum, keeping Marquette in the very small club of college teams that play in an NBA arena.
In everything she did, Rana imbued one of Marquette's guiding principles, cura personalis, which translates to ``care for the whole person.'' Because of her guidance, Milwaukee has grown thoughtfully and deliberately, Capitol Hill has been made more compassionate and decent, and even that dentist in Eau Claire provides more wholesome care.
While Rana dedicated the last 30 years to improving both Milwaukee and Wisconsin, she will always be a daughter of Northbrook, IL. My staff, especially the Marquette graduates she mentored; my son, a Marquette alumnus; and I congratulate Rana on a long and storied career. We wish Rana, her husband Jeff, her two daughters Hannah and Sophia, her son-in-law Jack, and her new granddaughter Nora, all the best in the years to come.
Mr. President, section 36(b) of the Arms Export Control Act requires that Congress receive prior notification of certain proposed arms sales as defined by that statute. Upon such notification, the Congress has 30 calendar days during which the sale may be reviewed. The provision stipulates that, in the Senate, the notification of proposed sales shall be sent to the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
In keeping with the committee's intention to see that relevant information is still available to the full Senate, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the notifications that have been received. If the cover letter references a classified annex, then such an annex is available to all Senators in the office of the Foreign Relations Committee, room SD-423.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
Mr. President, section 36(b) of the Arms Export Control Act requires that Congress receive prior notification of certain proposed arms sales as defined by that statute. Upon such notification, the Congress has 30 calendar days during which the sale may be reviewed. The provision stipulates that, in the Senate, the notification of proposed sales shall be sent to the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
In keeping with the committee's intention to see that relevant information is still available to the full Senate, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the notifications that have been received. If the cover letter references a classified annex, then such an annex is available to all Senators in the office of the Foreign Relations Committee, room SD-423.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
Mr. President, I rise today to honor Patricia Harrison, president and chief executive officer of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, as she concludes her service at the close of a historic chapter for public media in America.
Throughout her tenure, Ms. Harrison ensured that CPB's investments strengthened service to local communities and delivered lasting public value. In Massachusetts, those investments supported some of the Nation's most trusted and innovative public media organizations: advancing education, journalism, and civic engagement.
Under her leadership, CPB supported PBS LearningMedia, expanding online access to high-quality, free educational resources for students, educators, and families across the Commonwealth and the country. CPB also backed children's programming produced in Massachusetts that reflects both educational rigor and creativity, including Work It Out Wombats!, Ruff Ruffman, and Molly of Denali, helping young learners build critical thinking skills while seeing themselves reflected on screen.
Ms. Harrison also championed Massachusetts-based journalism and documentary storytelling that informs our democracy. CPB's support enabled nationally recognized programming such as FRONTLINE, American Experience, and NOVA, as well as impactful storytelling like ``My Home Is Here: Stories from Rural America'' and ``American Veteran,'' which elevate voices often overlooked in national discourse.
Across education, civics, journalism, and cultural storytelling, Patricia Harrison led CPB with integrity, accountability, and a clear commitment to the public interest. Her legacy is deeply felt in Massachusetts and across the Nation.
Mr. President, I rise today to honor Vice Admiral Nancy Hann on the occasion of her retirement. VADM Hann is retiring after more than 30 years of extraordinary service with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA.
After graduating from the University of California San Diego in 1996 with a bachelor's degree in marine science and biology, VADM Hann started her career with NOAA as a fisheries observer. Over time, she expanded her expertise and was later commissioned as an officer in the NOAA Officer Corps, where she served in a variety of capacities. VADM Hann's versatility and dedication to her profession have made her an incomparable asset to NOAA and to the Nation. She later went on to earn a master's in space studies and remote sensing at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and a master of public administration at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Most notably, VADM Hann has served in many operational and top management assignments including her positions as NOAA's Acting Administrator, deputy director of the NOAA Corps and the Office of Marine and Aviation Operations, OMAO, commanding officer of the NOAA Aircraft Operations Center, and NOAA liaison to the U.S. Pacific Command. Most recently, VADM Hann completed a tour as the director of the NOAA Commissioned Officer Corps and is currently the highest- ranking officer in the NOAA Corps.
VADM Hann is a trailblazer in her field. She was she one of the first female officers to qualify as an aircraft commander and the first woman to achieve the rank of vice admiral in the NOAA Corps, as well as one of NOAA's first uncrewed systems operators. She has consistently led by example through her experience, her achievements, and her demonstrated commitment to equitable workspaces. VADM Hann's leadership has left an enduring legacy of professionalism, mentorship, and innovation that will inspire generations to come.
Upon retiring, VADM Hann is closing out an illustrious, awe-inspiring career, one spent in service to research, coastal and marine stewardship, and our Nation. She has dedicated the entirety of her career to principled leadership and environmental conservation, and I thank her for her commitment. I invite my colleagues to join me in thanking VADM Hann for her lifetime of service and to congratulate her on her well-deserved retirement.
Mr. President, nestled among the rugged wilderness of the western Maine mountains, the town of Strong, ME, was incorporated on January 31, 1801. This 225th anniversary is a time to celebrate the spirit of determination and resiliency that still guides the community today.
Strong's incorporation was but one milestone on a long journey of progress. For thousands of years, the abundant forests and waters of the region were the hunting grounds of the Native American Tribes. The very first house that laid the foundation for a permanent community was built in 1780 by a Wabanki known as Pierpole. Drawn by the rich natural resources, other settlers followed, and at the dawn of the 19th century, the town was established by Massachusetts Governor Caleb Strong.
The rich soil supported prosperous farms and the fast-moving Sandy River powered lumber and grain mills. In the years that followed, Strong became a rural industrial powerhouse, including footwear, furniture, textiles, and Maine's first cheese factory. By the mid-20th century, the Forster Manufacturing Company was the world's largest maker of toothpicks, producing some 20 million per day.
The townspeople used their prosperity to built what has been called ``the prettiest village in Maine,'' with handsome homes, churches, and schools. Education remains a center of community life, with the high- performing Strong Elementary School being named a National Blue Ribbon School.
From the American Revolution to our time, Strong has always been a town of patriots, with a veterans memorial paying tribute to those who defend freedom. Among the most illustrious veterans is Lt. James Porter. After graduating from West Point in 1869, he served with the 7th Cavalry in the Reconstruction Era South under George Armstrong Custer and distinguished himself by his courage during the mission the eradicate the Ku Klux Klan. In 1876, he was among the 268 members of the legendary regiment who fell at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
In recent years, the townspeople have worked together to dedicate the Lance Corporal Scott B. Paul Memorial Park in honor of the young marine who fell
Every summer, the town celebrates it history and community spirit with Pierpole Days, a festival of parades, food, music, and family fun. The 2026 festival will surely be a memorable celebration of the people who for more than two centuries have pulled together, cared for one another, and built a community. I congratulate the town of Strong, ME, on this landmark anniversary.
Mr. President, I have 11 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority Leaders.
Pursuant to Rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:
The Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, January 28, 2026, at 10 a.m., to conduct a subcommittee hearing.
The Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, January 28, 2026, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a subcommittee hearing.
The Committee on Environment and Public Works is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, January 28, 2026, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing.
The Committee on Foreign Relations is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, January 28, 2026, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing.
The Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, January 28, 2026, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing.
The Committee on Indian Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, January 28, 2026, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing.
The Committee on the Judiciary is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, January 28, 2026, at 10:15 a.m., to conduct a hearing.
The Committee on Veterans' Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, January 28, 2026, at 3:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing.
The Select Committee on Intelligence is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, January 28, 2026, at 3 p.m., to conduct a closed briefing.
The Subcommittee on Cybersecurity of the Committee on Armed Services is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, January 28, 2026, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing.
The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, January 28, 2026, at 2 p.m., to conduct a hearing.
Recognizing the 30th Anniversary of the First Flight of the F/A-18 E1 Super Hornet From Lambert Field in St. Louis, Missouri, and the 30 Years of Service of the F/A-18e/F Super Hornet to the United...
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The resolution (S. Res. 591) was agreed to.
The preamble was agreed to.
(The resolution, with its preamble, is printed in today's Record under ``Submitted Resolutions.'')
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 10:30 a.m., Thursday, January 29; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, morning business be closed, and the Senate resume the motion to proceed to Calendar No. 302, H.R. 7148.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
