Speech #CREC-2017-12-05-pt1-PgS7834-3_t7

President, I know the Senator from Arkansas has some remarks to make, so I will keep mine brief. I want to speak on the introduction of the Security, Enforcement, and Compassion United in Reform Efforts Act, or the SECURE Act, which we will, under the provisions of rule XIV, put on the Senate calendar following the vote on the nomination at 4 o'clock. This bill is a product of a working group formed by Chairman Grassley of the Senate Judiciary Committee--the committee with jurisdiction over immigration matters. I have been a part of that, as have Senators Graham, Tillis, Lankford, Perdue, and Cotton. I would say to our friend from Illinois, we are all united in the desire to actually come up with a solution to this problem. Our working group had two assignments. The first was to adopt reforms to secure America's borders and enforce our immigration laws. The second was to find a compassionate solution for those individuals who received deferred action under the DACA Program created by President Obama in 2012. When I introduced a border security bill--the Building America's Trust Act--in August, I made clear that the main purpose for that was to create solutions that we could put in place to deal with our porous borders and that throwing money at the problem is not the answer, but it was also contemplating that at some point in the not too distant future, we would need to combine border security and enforcement measures with a solution for the recipients of the deferred action under President Obama, which now President Trump has appropriately sent back to Congress for us to address. Coming from the State with the longest border with a foreign country--the State of Texas--I can tell my colleagues that my understanding and appreciation for border security are multifaceted. It requires boots on the ground, it requires technology, and it requires improvements in aging infrastructure at our ports of entry. But it also requires new authorities and enhancements to existing immigration laws to close loopholes that incentivize people who repeatedly violate our laws. We can all agree that we need to protect America's international borders, whether they be to the north or south. Each day that we fail to put the needed resources and laws in place for border security and interior enforcement, we strengthen the resolve of drug cartels, gangs, and transnational criminal organizations to encroach on our sovereignty with impunity. If we are going to act to help folks who were brought here by their parents, for whom we all have compassion--and thanks to President Obama's insistence on going around Congress in violation of the law, they now find themselves in limbo--prioritizing the resources needed to secure the border is the first step. It is not the last step, it is the first step. If we can demonstrate our ability to deal with a compassionate solution for the DACA recipients and combine that with real border security and interior enforcement, I would propose that we don't need to stop there, but we do need to regain the public's confidence that we are capable of dealing with these issues in a responsible way. The DACA Program was designed to help those who were brought here illegally, but it was not created lawfully. President Trump, as I said, did the right thing when he kicked it back to Congress. So we have now introduced a bill that will address the very issues that our friends across the aisle say they care about the most: a solution for the DACA recipients. This bill provides a framework for a legislative proposal that we can support and that will regain America's trust. I have told both Senator Schumer, the Democratic leader, and my friend Senator Durbin from Illinois that I stand ready to work with them on a proposal that includes the four pillars of the GOP framework: border security, interior enforcement, improvements to the E-Verify system, and some limits on chain migration. I hope they will come back to the table and respond to this proposal. I hope they will also quit threatening to shut down the government, which won't solve the problem but, indeed, will make it worse.