Speech #CREC-2017-05-04-pt1-PgS2768-2_t0

Finally, it adds $9.9 million not requested in the budget to ensure National Guard cyber protection teams in Illinois and across the country are fully funded. The omnibus bill does not include any funding for a wall on our southern border. Mexico will not pay for a border wall as the President promised during last year's campaign, and it is absurd to suggest that the American people should now be stuck with the bill. Texas Republican Congressman Will Hurd, whose district covers 800 miles of the southwest border, has described the wall as ``the most expensive and least effective way to secure the border.'' Senate Democrats on the Homeland Security Committee estimate this wall will cost nearly $70 billion to build and $150 million a year to maintain. Even the Trump administration acknowledges the wall will cost $21.6 billion, not including maintenance. While the Trump administration demanded $3 billion in additional funding for immigration enforcement, congressional Democrats succeeded in cutting this amount in half. I am pleased that the omnibus does not include any funding for President Trump's plan to triple the number of immigration agents. This unnecessary and prohibitively expensive goal would help the administration target 8 million undocumented immigrants who are now priorities for deportation under Trump administration policy. This ignores the reality that the vast majority of undocumented immigrants in our country are law-abiding individuals who make important economic contributions and have deep roots in our country. Democrats also successfully resisted a rider that would have deprived communities around the country--including Chicago in my home State of Illinois--of billions of dollars in critical Federal funding if they refuse to take part in the Trump administration's mass deportation scheme. The bill also includes important new oversight measures for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, detention operations. While some additional detention funding may have been needed to address the surge in border crossings at the end of 2016, it appears that a reduction in ICE's detention budget will be appropriate in fiscal year 2018, given the sharp decline in border crossings this year. I am disappointed that the bill includes a problematic rider that circumvents regular legislative order to permit the Trump administration to potentially double the number of foreign guest workers who could be admitted to the United States under the H-2B visa program without needed safeguards. I have long advocated for reform of the H-2B program, which in its current form harms both American and foreign workers. We should not increase the size of the H-2B program unless and until the program is reformed to protect workers from exploitation. I am particularly concerned that this rider gives the Trump administration the authority to determine how many additional H- 2B visas will be issued since President Trump owns companies that have sought to import more than 900 H-2B guest workers, including 64 in fiscal year 2017 alone, while turning away hundreds of American workers. I will be closely monitoring the administration's implementation of this provision, which only permits additional visas to be issued if the Secretary of Homeland Security, after consultation with the Secretary of Labor, determines that the needs of American businesses cannot be met by qualified American workers. While not perfect, this bill exemplifies what Congress can do if it puts politics aside to work together and come to a bipartisan consensus for the good of the American people. I support the passage of this Omnibus appropriations bill.