Border Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. MURPHY. Madam President, it has been 98 days--almost 100 days-- since Senate Republicans killed the toughest border security bill, the toughest bipartisan border security bill that has been before the Senate in nearly a generation.

We are proud that our Nation is a nation with a robust history of immigration. We know that our future involves inviting people to come to this country to seek a better life, to be part of our growing economy, to start their own businesses, and to flee violence or terror or torture. We are proud of our history of immigration. We know that America only thrives in the future by committing ourselves to a future of robust immigration.

But what has been happening at the border over the past several years is unsustainable. We want people to come to this country, but we cannot handle 5-, 6-, 7-, 8-, 9-, 10,000 people arriving on a daily basis.

Our system of legal immigration is broken. People come to the United States; they apply for asylum; and they often don't get their chance to make their case for 10 years. That is not fair to those individuals, but it is also not fair to others who have been waiting outside of the United States to apply to come here.

Our immigration system is outdated. It is in need of reform. Our border is underresourced, with statutes that are equally outdated.

Right now, there is only one party--the Democratic Party--that is serious about adding resources to the border, about updating our outdated laws because it has been 98 days since a bipartisan border security bill--negotiated by Senate Republicans, including Senate Republican leadership, and Senate Democrats--came to this floor and was defeated because Republicans would not vote for it.

Republicans would not vote for the bipartisan border security bill not because it was an ineffective bill--in fact, it is quite the opposite. Senate Republicans defeated the bill because it would be effective.

Now, that doesn't make sense, right? Why would that be? Why would Senate Republicans vote against a bipartisan border security bill that would have been effective at bringing order to the southwest border?

The reason is this: Republicans have decided that they don't want to solve the problem at the border. Republicans have decided that they want this issue to be outstanding. They want the border to be chaotic. They want the border to be a mess because it helps their political purposes. It helps win an election. If the border was under control, if there were less people presented, if it was more orderly, that would be good for the country, but that might not be good for electoral prospects.

Therein lies the reason that we have not had action on the bipartisan border bill--because Democrats want to get something done; Republicans want to keep this issue open. They want to keep the border a mess for political purposes.

You don't have to listen to me. Senator McConnell said it out loud. Senator Lankford said it out loud. The reason that this bill was defeated 98 days ago was because Donald Trump told Republicans that it is better for Republicans to keep this issue alive and to not change the law to secure the country.

Tomorrow, I am going to reintroduce the bipartisan border bill. My hope is that we will bring that bill to the floor for a vote to give my Republican colleagues another chance to do the right thing, another chance to choose the safety and security of this country over the political prospects of their candidate for President.

Americans want us to come together to pass border and immigration reform. They support compromise between the two parties. That is exactly what the bipartisan border bill represented.

Senator Lankford and I do not share views on the border. Senator McConnell and Senator Schumer do not share views on the border. But we all sat in a room for 4\1/2\ months, along with Senator Sinema, in order to find a compromise that would better secure our border and create a more humane, more efficient mechanism to bring people into this country legally.

Let me just briefly talk about what this bill does. This will make sense to Americans when you hear it. There is nothing radical in this bill. These are commonsense changes to our laws.

First, it gives the President new authority to better control the border. Listen, we can't handle 10,000 people crossing a day. So what this bill does is it says that at periods of time when there are unusually high numbers of people crossing the southwest border, the President can close portions of the border, stop accepting asylum applications until the numbers are reduced to the point where our resources at the border meet the number of people who are arriving.

This is a bold new power, a bold new authority for President Biden, but it is necessary because there are simply some times, some days, some weeks when the numbers are too high.

The second thing this bill does is significantly reform our asylum application system. As I mentioned, you come to the southwest border; you present an application for asylum; and we are so backed up in that system that it often takes people 5 to 10 years before their claim is heard. That is not right for that individual or for the country at large. So this bill shortens that timeframe with new laws and new resources so that instead of it taking 10 years for a migrant to have their asylum claim heard, it could now take 10 days or a few months. That is the right thing to do.

But it also has the effect of dramatically changing the calculus for people who are thinking about paying a trafficker $5,000, $10,000 to come to the United States. If they know that they have an illegitimate claim and it is going to be judged as illegitimate within weeks, they won't pay the $5,000 to come to the United States. Today, they might be willing to pay it because even if they have an illegitimate claim, they may get to stay in the United States for 5 or 10 years. This fundamentally changes the calculus and decreases the amount of risk that people are willing to take.

This bill also understands that we should have more legal pathways to come to the United States, and when people come to the United States and are waiting to have their claims heard, they shouldn't be living in the shadows. So this bill also increases the number of work and family visas by 250,000 over the course of 5 years to allow more legal, planned pathways for people to come to the United States.

The bill also allows for individuals who arrive at the border to get immediate work authorizations in most cases so that while their application is pending, they can work so that you don't have a situation we have today, where people are being warehoused in homeless shelters and in hotels without the ability to work while they are waiting for their claim to be processed.

And this bill does create some pathways for individuals who are here today to become citizens. In particular, our Afghan partners who fought with us, who stood with us in Afghanistan, under this bill, get the opportunity to become American citizens. And the children of high-tech workers who are here on temporary visas who might have been born outside of the United States but were raised here in the United States, they get a chance to stay here as well.

That is just a handful of the changes in the bill that enhance protections and benefits for individuals who are awaiting for the determination of their claim to be processed.

But the combination of these changes--the new authorities at the border, the emergency authority, the new asylum system, combined with some new protections for individuals who are coming to the United States--it represents a true compromise between Republicans and Democrats, between right and left. It is exactly what the American people want.

My hope is that our Republican colleagues have had the chance to rethink their vote from several months ago. My hope is that Republicans will decide to do the right thing for the country, the right thing for the border.

We negotiated this bill at the request of Republicans. The chief Republican negotiator, Senator Lankford, was chosen by the Republican conference. Senator McConnell and his staff were in the room for all of those negotiations. The Republicans voted against it--with the exception of four of our colleagues--for one reason and one reason only: President Trump said it would be better for Republicans to keep this issue open, to keep the border a mess, better for Republican Presidential and congressional campaign prospects.

So, tomorrow, I will reintroduce this legislation. I don't expect it will get every single Democratic vote because it is a true compromise, but I expect it will get enough Democratic votes that if half of the Senate Republican caucus votes for it, it will pass, and we will be a step closer to doing what America wants: continuing our tradition of robust legal immigration, building upon our tradition as a country founded upon immigration but doing it in a legal way and creating a much more orderly system at the border. That is what America wants: Keep our system of legal immigration; get the border under control. The bipartisan border bill does both of those things, and my hope is that we can come together and Republicans will choose this country and border security over the political prospects of their Presidential candidate, Donald Trump.

I am glad to be joined on the floor by a number of my Democratic colleagues today to talk about the importance of this measure, the chance the Senate has to act in a bipartisan way on border security.

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Mr. MURPHY. Madam President, let me thank my colleagues for coming to the floor tonight to reinforce the opportunity that we have. I think we have gotten used to immigration being a perpetual political football in this country. It almost feels and seems unsolvable--that it is just the subject for campaign ads, for cable news shows, for fundraising emails.

It doesn't have to be that way. We could choose to make progress. We could choose to pass legislation that treats migrants a little bit more humanely, that gives a pathway for individuals like those Afghan partners to be able to become U.S. citizens and gives the President updated powers at the border to make sure that we are doing immigration at the southwest border in a humane, orderly way.

That is not impossible. In fact, it is more possible than ever before because a group of Senators sat in a room for 4 months, in good faith, and hashed out a compromise that involves a lot of Republican priorities, a lot of Democratic priorities; that is endorsed by the progressive- leaning immigration lawyers group and the conservative-leaning Border Patrol union; that is endorsed by the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.

I know we are not used to finding common ground on immigration. It seems to happen only once a decade. But we found it. We found it. And I am going to be reintroducing this bill because I believe that there is a chance Republicans will choose to do the right thing.

I get it. The border being a mess is good politics for Republicans. I get it. Keeping this problem unsolved might provide an advantage for Republicans in this next election. But we don't go into this business to win elections, to just put our name on the door.

Senator Lankford said it on this floor. He said every one of us is given a pen. Every one of us has a unique ability to make law, to make the country better. What is the point, Senator Lankford said, of having this job if you are just going to do press conferences, if you are not going to actually engage in the hard work of compromise to make this country better and safer? That is what we did.

Senator Lankford, Senator Sinema, myself, Senator Schumer, Senator McConnell--we sat in a room for 4\1/2\ months. We forged a compromise that unquestionably--unquestionably--will bring order to the southwest border. And, because of that, Donald Trump is telling Republicans: Ditch it. Vote no. We don't want there to be order at the southwest border because that would be bad politics for us.

What is the point of having this job if you aren't willing to make tough compromises that make this country better?

And so I understand there may be long odds to convincing Republicans to change their vote. I understand that, because the bill is a compromise, there will be some Democrats who will vote against it.

But I think this is so important. I take Republicans at their word that it is an emergency to make sense of what is happening at the border, that it is worth it to bring this bill back before the floor. I hope our leadership will decide to schedule a vote on this bill.

I will introduce the bill imminently, I think, with many of my colleagues supporting it. And I am deeply grateful to many of my friends in the Democratic caucus for underscoring the importance of bringing order to the southwest border, investing in border security, and supporting our migrant communities, as the bipartisan border security bill does.

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