The leaders request. Objection is heard. Today, we are about to begin to deliver an important promise to the American People. Debated Immigration Solution for young adults brought to the u. S. By their parents who now find themselves in limbo. Lseveral weeks ago, our democratic colleagues recklessly shut down the federal government to placate the extreme elements in their own party. The majority leader disagreed with this approachpp and he and the rest of my republican colleagues urged them to have been in the shut down ploy before it was too late. They refuse to listen come ignoring the majority of the american who were against this approach. The majority leader the majority leader than promise wouldve been the plan all along and that would be the continued bipartisan discussions that would be followed by open debate on f the floor. Shortly this evening we will take up a vote on a vehicle to which members can offer their ideas on how best to solve this problem. It will be a process that is fair to all sides. Oncean we vote to adopt a motion to proceed, my colleagues and i will have the opportunity to have our proposals considered under regular order. In other words, offer amendments, debate amendments and vote on the amendment. Amendment as usual have a 60vote threshold before they can beorhe adopted. 60 votes, that is what we need. What im interested in solving the problem and that means not only a proposal with 60 votes, but one that can pass the house and be signed into law by president trump. That isd simply critical. They should not be an exercise in futility or for political grandstanding purposes. They should be about getting a bill signed into law, which means it has to pass both houses and has to be signed by the president. Today, led by chairman grassley of the Senate Judiciary committee, group of members from the side off the aisle will put forth a comprehensive proposal, including the presiding officer. It centers on the four pillars the president has said he would like toai see addressed. I think most people have been surprised, maybe shock is a better word at the generosity of the president s offer for the daca eligible recipients. Right now they are 690,000 of them who signed up but the president s proposal would not only offer them a legal status. It would offer one point he really an eligible young people a pathway to citizenship, far more than president obama ever offered and it provides a real opportunity for us to keep our commitmentsen when it comes to Border Security, utilizing more boots on the ground, Better Technology and additional infrastructure. It reallocates visas from the diversity lottery system in a way that a is fair and continues the existing familybased immigration categories until the current backlog is cleared and changes to more of a merit pay system. Im proud to cosponsor this commonsense solution, which i think can pass the senate and house and be signed into law by president trump. I know too that others have been working hard on their ideas and i look forward to reviewing their work product. I urge my democratic colleagues this week to remember their predecessors when it comes to c immigration which include my fellow texan barbara jordan, one of the great civil rights leaders of our time, the u. S. House of representatives. She also serves as the chairwoman of the u. S. Commission on Immigration Reform while serving in that world the immigration policy to make sense it is necessary to make distinctions between those who obey the law and those who violated. I think thats a great principle to keep in mind as we begin to sort out this weeks challenges. Although we all recognize the anxiety of dacas recipients who came to this country through no fault of their own and now face uncertain futures, at the same time we must recognize Many Americans face certain point, too. They are dreamers, two as the president has said and we need to restore a legacy as a nation that believes in and applies the rule of law indeed equal justice under the law. But here is the bottom line. Im not interested in a futile exercise for gamesmanship or political theater or ideas they can become law. As the president said two weeks ago, the ultimate proposal must be one where nobody gets everything they want, but our country gets the Critical Reforms that he needs. More than 124,000 young people in my state hope we can rise to the occasion and indeed all 28 million hope we can Work Together in a bipartisan fashion not only to provide relief to those Daca Recipients but also restore our Border Security and craft immigration laws that serve americans best interest. Again, the two pillars upon which our immigration system has been built is that we are a nation of immigrants come all this at some point in our family came from somewhere else had almost all of us. We are also a nation of laws, which distinguishes us from most of the rest of the world and has been those two pillars come in the nation of immigrants and laws that need to be restored and need to be our focus. Madam president , i yield the floor. Senator from iowa. Thank you very much. I want to, before the senator from texas leads the floor, i think he needs to be complemented because one of the four themes of the bill that im talkings about are introduced in and hes going to be one of the cosponsors of the is Border Security. He has worked years on Border Security. He needs to be complemented about it. Hes chairman of the immigration said committee on judiciary and also senator johnson of Homeland Security has some aspects of Border Security as well. So i think you and senator johnson not to be complemented for being in the lead of 100 senators to make sure that we dont make the same mistakes we did in 1986 when we gave amnesty because we thought we had order security and played obviously the numbers show we did do a very good job of Border Security in 1986 in the senator from texas and the senator from wisconsin will make sure we dont make that same mistaketh again. Thank you very much. I rise today to announce the formal introduction of an amendment to h. R. 2579 that h. R. 2579 as the vehicle for immigration. This amendment is cosponsored by senator korn n. , wang furred, perdue, cotton and 74. It is a product of several months of hard work between the senators, including the white house. Since this past september, i held more than two dozen meetings with interested senators in an attempt to craft a fair and permanent solution to daca. Ive also met with the president on four separate occasions to figure out exactly what he needs to see in a legislative package so that it can be signedt into law because what is the point of our working hard if we are not going to get something thats going to be finalized when the states. I met with the president on four separate occasions. I should have said that h this group of introducers of legislation met with the president on those four o occasions. Most importantly, ive been continuously listening to what my colleague has said that they needed many immigration consensus. As a result of our meetings in conversation with her colleagues , the senators sponsoring this amendment have attempted d to develop a simple commonsense framework that can address everyones concerns while also providing necessary and critical changes to our nations immigration laws. So what does our amendment do . Working off the bipartisan, bicameral framework agreed to january 9th at the white house, our amendment has four key pillars. I said bipartisan, bicameral. Thats approximately 2300 members of congress that met with the president for an hour and a half to boil down all the issues that can be brought up and we ended up with these four key pillars. First and most importantly, our amendment fully funds the president order security request. Other plans that weve heard aboutid claim that they find surprising is Border Security request by i want to put this word end quote, authorizing money. But anyone who knows washington knows that just an authorization turns out to be a gimmick sometimes. It turns out to be a promised seven times for an iou to maybe find some aimed at some later date. And every member of the United States senate knows that in this town, washington d. C. Promises are quite cheap. We went down the road in 2006 when congress authorized money for border fencing, much of which Congress Never actuallyes funded. Our amendment rejects that approach. Instead, we actually appropriate 25 billion into a Border Security trust fund. This trust fund will allow Homeland Security to use between 2. 5 and 3 billion a year for infrastructure, First Technology in for personnel recruitment and retention. By setting up a Border Security trust fund, we ensure the department of Homeland Security will actually have the money that it needs every single year to secure our borders while also regaining congress visibility to exercise. Oversight. But unlike other plans, we also recognize that realri Border Security is more than just throwing money at the border. This group of senators realized that real Border Security means we have to close the legal loopholes in the current law that allowed dangerous criminals to enter and remain atlarge within our country. So our amendment and these dangerous loopholes and makes it easier for our Law Enforcement to apprehend, detained and is easily removed sex offenders, drug smugglers, human traffickers, international terrorist, criminal gang members, repeat border crossers, drunk drivers and other dangerous people. Second, our amendment provides a generous and permanent solution for daca and daca eligible recipients. Our plan contains an earned path to citizenship for these young people. Provided these young men and women have no criminal record and neither serve in the military are maintained fulltime employment, and they can eventually gain citizenship. This represents a major concessionub for many republicas including the senator, that this concession is necessary to provide a permanent and fair solution to this issue. The third pillar, our proposal reforms familybased immigration to place greater emphasis on nuclear family, moving forward we limit familybased immigration to the nuclear family, meaning the spouses and minor children of citizen and lawful permanent residents. This change does that and familybased immigration it doesnt serve the American People or our country or american interests. They recognize these familybased changes arees pursd active. Immigrants are waiting in line for a familybased dictation will continue to have the process under the old rules. This group of senators understands that we can realize the millions of people who actually follow the law and by following the law, doing the right thing. Those who did the right thing by grandfathering all pending petitions in the pipeline that willom take years by some estimates more than a decade for congress to debate and enact meritbased Immigration Reform. Finally, our plan reallocated the visa lottery to clearing backlogs in the familybased and employmentbased backlogs. By reallocating disease as, we not only promote faster family reunification, but also speed up the immigration of skilled workers in the eb one, db2 and eb three. B categories. As you can see, this is an eminently fair plan that closely mirrors f the president tradema. This plan is a true compromise and supporting that will require concessions from all senators, conservatives, liberals, democrats, republicans and everyone in between. The ambassador is ready and willing to make a major concession in one again though for a path to citizenship. Other senators need to be willing to do the same, to make sacrifices when it comes to Border Security in their chain migration. But at the end of the day, in spite of everything else, the simple fact remains that this amendment is the only player in that the president supports. This plan is the only senate plan that has any possibility of passing the house of representatives and becoming law. So, i have asked my colleagues who opposed this proposal, are you interested in actually getting something done, and actually providing a path to citizenship for theseac daca ki . Or are you interested in a political issue for the 2018 elections . If youre actually interested in getting something done, and getting a bill signed into law and fixing the daca issue, well, the choice is obvious. You will vote to support this plan. But if my colleagues are more interested in grandstanding and passing a bill that will never become law and that wont actually protect the daca kids, well, that choice is pretty clear asll well. To all my colleagues, i urge your support for this amendment. Lets fix this issue. Lets demonstrate we can find solutions to the challenging problems that americans are calling on us to solve. This is a compassionate compromise in the people that have been advocating for this for years longer thanav i have been because ive been added just a short period of time. Let them accept a compassionate compromise. Let them do what theyve all done for a long period of time, settling the daca issue once and for all. Lets then show the world we are serious about finding a longterm solution instead of kicking the problem to a future date. I yield the floor. Madam president. Senator from arkansas. Collected by colleagues from iowa, senator grassley, for the excellent work he has helped lead us all on. The president wants to the small working group. Weve introduced legislation this week to transform the president s fourcolor into an actual bill. And it is the one bill that can become a law. We have a plan not to pass a bill, but to pass a law. Because twice in the last 12 years, the senate has passed a bill, that hasnt become a law. The house of representatives can pass it and ultimately therefore the president couldnt findn it. So i urge my colleagues, lets not simply signal our virtue to our counterpart to not also to the president by passing the bill. Let solve this problem by passing a law in this bill is the one bill that can become a law because it is the one bill that translates to the president s framework into actual legislation. It provides legal database and ultimately citizenship for people brought here through no fault of their own as minors. It provides more money and legal authorities to secure our southern border and help our brave immigration agents. It will eliminate the useless diversity visa lottery, reallocate the dream cars to more productive and worthwhile purposes and puts an end to the practice of extended family chain migration, allowing an immigrant to bring not just his or her spouse and minor children to parents, siblings and and ultimately grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins on down the extended family tree. It doesnt solve every problem under the sun with immigration. It doesnt include mandatory nationwide either fight, whichei would support. It doesnt have numerous desk worker visas, but it is consistent with thek president s framework and it solved the problem in front of us. Young people were brought here through no fault of their own, but also the side effects of dizziness people legal status. Theres a lot of measures floating around the senate right now, that we should give legal status to these 120 Million Peopleim, but it simply will not do. It is not responsible because if wetu give those people legal status, we will have to negative side effects. First, we will create more incentivesve, reverse incentives to encourage ilLegal Immigration with minor children to this country. Remember, that rationale that the children are not pay for the sins of the parents but surely parents convey thef sense of the parents. So, if we do the things, provide legal f status to 1. 8 Million People find themselves in the situation with no fault of their own controlled this negative status of securing our southern border and ending chain migration we will have a bill that can become a law. At the same time he will also grandfather in every person who is currently in the backlog waiting to come to this country has applied to get a green card because they have a parent or child or sibling in this country some of whom have been waiting up to 20 years and no one be cut out of that waiting line. Furthermore, we will continue to allow american citizens to get a renewable non worker visa for their elderly parents who live overseas. If you immigrated to n this country is the parents back in the country in your care and need to live in a home with you or maybee live down the street n a nursing home this will allow you to have a visa to bring them here. That is a generous, humane solution. It is also one that handles the problem responsibly and starts the immigration system that this country needs. A system that focuses on the skills that our economy needs and not one just based on family ties or country of origin and for that reason its immensely popular. A recent poll said that 65 of americans supportro this proposl in two out of every three americans supported and they should since after all every part of this proposal is popular. Most of us has seen polls that suggest fewer than 20 of americans want to see these people and returned to the country that in many cases they dont remember. At the same time 72 want in the practice of extended family chain migration in securing our southern border is equally popular. Oftentimes in congress we have to make aic tough choice somethg that is popular and necessary or is unpopular but in this legislation we are simply asking our colleagues to do the right thing and take theb response. Which all happens to be popular with the American People as well and should be popular because it is a generous humane on the one hand and responsible on the other. Its the only approach that will begin to change our immigration system from one that treats people from where they come from had th