A senator mr. President. The presiding officer the senator from pennsylvania. Mr. Toomey mr. President , i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be vitiated. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Toomey thank you, mr. President. I want to speak about our immigration debate and my amendment in particular. But first let me say, you know, were going to find out just how serious our colleagues are about granting not just legal status to the dreamers, people who were brought here illegally when they were children and shouldnt be held accountable for that action, but the proposal that will be available for a vote later this week, will not just grant legal status but will grant a path to citizenship. It goes well beyond the Legal Executive order that president obama issued, and it will be available to far more people than those who took up president obamas ilLegal Executive order. It will be an extraordinary moment. I hope we are able to reach an agreement on this because i think this needs to get done. But i want to first address an amendment that i have offered and is now up and pending and we will be voting on it, i think, at some point this week, which is about keeping our communities safer by addressing the issue of sanctuary cities. This is a problem that one father in particular knows all too well. On july 1, 2015, gym steinly jim steinly was walking arm in arm on a peer in San Francisco. Suddenly a gunman sprang out, opened fire, hitting kate. She pleaded, help me dad as she bled to death in her fathers arm. Now, any murder is appalling, but one of the things that makes this even more appalling is that the shooter should never have been on the peer that day. The fact is he was an illegal immigrant who had been convicted of seven felonies and had been deported five times, but even more galling, mr. President , is that three months before the day that he murdered katesteinly, kate stinly, this murder was in the custody of the San Francisco police department. They had him. He was in custody. They had him from an old warrant from a previous crime. When the dapt of Home Department of Homeland Security found out they had this guy in custody, they reached out and said, hold this guy until we can get someone to take him into custody. We know hes dangerous, but the San Francisco police couldnt provide that minimal cooperation. Instead they released this man back on to the streets from which three months later he murdered young kate stinly. Why would the police do Something Like that . Why would they refuse to provide this minimal cooperation with the immigration authorities with respect to a dangerous individual . Well, the reason, mr. President , is because San Francisco is a sanctuary city. What that means is it has as its explicit legal policy a prohibition that permits the police from cooperating. This is the case even when the local Law Enforcement authorities believe that the person is dangerous and the local Law Enforcement folks wish to cooperate with the federal authorities because they know that this person is a threat to the security of their community, but the local politicians override the police and decide that this will be a sanctuary city, such as the case with San Francisco, and so the San Francisco police had no choice. They were required by the local laws to release this man on to the streets. You know, one of the many ironies about the sanctuary cities is that if federal officials had called the San Francisco police about any number of other crimes, robbery, car theft, violating a trademark, counterfeiting, any number of other federal crimes, then the San Francisco police would have been allowed to cooperate. They would have been happy to cooperate. They would have been able to cooperate. But because the crime was committed by an illegal immigrant, the police hands were tied. The police were forced to release kate steinlys killer. Mr. President , it is unbelievable to me that we have communities across the country that wish to provide this special privilege, this special protection for even dangerous criminals because they are here illegal. Its illegally, but that was the case. The steinlys are not alone. San francisco is not our nations only saingt weary city. Sanctuary city. Philadelphia, the largest city in my home state, has an extreme sanctuary city policy, and it has had appalling consequences already. Maybe the most heartbreaking of these is a case of raymon. He was in the u. S. Illegally, he was deported in 2009, but illegally reentered the u. S. And in 2015 the Police Arrested him on charges of aggravated salts and other crimes. When the background check went through, the department of Homeland Security saw the Philadelphia Police had this guy. They knew who this guy was. They knew he was here illegally and knew he had been deported and knew him to be the dangerous criminal that he was and so they asked the Philadelphia Police, could you hold this guy for 24, 48 hours until we can get an agent there to take him into custody and begin deportation proceedings. We know hes a bad guy. We want him out of the country. Unfortunately, Philadelphia Police had to refuse. Instead, they released him on to the streets in january of 2015. The philadelphia d. A. Didnt feel like he had enough evidence to prosecute the case, and he dropped the charges. Rather than cooperating with Homeland Security, they released him back on to the streets. In july of 2016ochoa was arrested for raping a child under the age of 13. Mr. President , this brutal attack on a child was only possible because philadelphia is a sanctuary city, and its these appalling cases, like the steinly case or this case in philadelphia, that make it so important that we end these sanctuary cities if it is at all possible to do so. So my amendment is a bipartisan amendment. It is identical to a bill i introduced and the senate voted to consider in 2016, i reintroduced in 2017. It does two things. It tackles a legal liability for localities that wish to cooperate with the department of Homeland Security, and with that legal liability problem solved, it imposes penalties on communities that choose nevertheless to be sanctuary cities. We dont have the authority as a federal government to dictate a policy that a local Community Must follow. Theres a constitutional separation that gives them the power to do what they will, but we dont have to subsidize their behavior when it endangers all of us, and thats what my legislation goes after. So let me discuss the first one, this legal liability issue. There are two at least two Court Decisions now that are have put pressure on municipalities, localities to be sanctuary cities, over a dozen pennsylvania counties have done so. One is a Third Circuit decision, the second is a federal court in oregon. They have held if the department of Homeland Security makes a mistake, such as wrongful identity, they ask a community, a local police force to hold someone who is in fact an american citizen, who is here illegally and so it is legally here and it is erroneous, if that happens, under these court decision, the local municipality can be held for liability. So my bill addresses this problem by simply saying that when a local Law Enforcement officer complies with an immigration detainer request from d. H. S. That is duly issued and bona fide request, then the local officer has the same authority as a d. H. S. Official. In a way the officer would be considered an agent of the department of onlyland security for this Homeland Security for this purpose, and the entity that a person would then sue in the event that a person is wrongly detained and their civil rights were violated, the entity would be the federal government. The responsibility should be on the federal government since it was, after all, a request that initiated with the federal government. My legislation does not in any way curb an individuals ability to file a suit if their civil rights, if their Constitutional Rights were violated, whether intentional or accidental, theres no curb on an individuals ability to address that if they were wrongly detained. It transfers the liability to the municipality which would be the department of Homeland Security. Thats the first part. Solve the civil liability problem that has some municipalities across america, certainly in my state of pennsylvania, has them choosing to be sanctuary cities even though they would rather not be. Now, having addressed that and if our legislation is adopted and we have solved this legal liability problem, if a community nevertheless decides it is going to endanger all the rest of us by conferring this special protection on Somebody Just because they came here illegally despite the fact that they may well be a dangerous criminal, why in that case then under my amendment that community will be deemed a sanctuary city and under my amendment several types of federal funding would be withheld from it. Specifically, we would withhold from these sanctuary Cities CommunityDevelopment Block grants and certain grants from the Economic Development administration. Mr. President , i think this is eminently reasonable. Sanctuary cities impose costs on all of us. It raises the cost to the federal government of enforcing immigration law. But by far outweighing that is the cost to the American People of more crime and the unbelievable, really staggering cost to families like jim steinle, his family. He and his family who, of course, lost their daughter. I think its extremely reasonable to have as a policy that if a community chooses to impose those costs on the rest of us, the federal government will not be subsidizing you. Now, mr. President , let me debunk some of the misinformation that is occasionally disseminated about my legislation, my amendment. One is that its somehow antiimmigrant. This is not antiimmigrant at all. This is proimmigrant. The fact is, the vast, overwhelming majority of immigrants to america, legal or illegal, would never commit these terrible crimes. Theres no question about that. But its also obviously the case that any very large number of people will include some criminals among them. Well, theres roughly 11 Million People who are here illegally, 11 Illegal Immigrants in the u. S. Some of them are certainly violent criminals. And it makes no sense to insulate those violent criminals, however few they may be, from capture by Law Enforcement and it be absurd to it would be absurd to allege that this is somehow antiimmigrant where quite likely some of their victims would be other immigrants. Immigrants want to live in safe communities, too. Im positive of that. They dont want dangerous criminals able to walk the streets just because they came here illegally. The second point i want to stress is this amendment does not discourage or punish Illegal Immigrants from coming forward to report a crime. This is important because folks who want to keep sanctuary cities sometimes charge that if my legislation were passed, victims and witnesses to crimes, if they are here illegally, they wouldnt come forward. Not so. What my amendment and this underlying law says, it explicitly states that a locality will not be labeled a sanctuary jurisdiction for this purpose and, therefore, will not lose any federal funds if the policy of that municipality is that a person who comes forward as a victim or a witness to a crime does the local Law Enforcement does not share that information with d. H. S. Let me be clear and explicit about this. We have an explicit carveout in the legislation. If a locality chooses to provide sanctuary status to a victim of a crime or a witness to a crime, that such a community would not lose any federal funds whatsoever. And we think that makes sense because we do want to encourage certainly victims and witnesses of crimes to come forward. So we get it. We dont want to create a worry that that would have deportation consequences for them. A third point that some have alleged and i want to be very clear about is the penalties my amendment has for a community that chooses to be a sanctuary city does not include the loss of any funds whatsoever related to Law Enforcement or security. Thats simply not the case. The list of categories that we include in lost funding is Economic Development in its nature. It is not at all Law Enforcement. Another point that some on the other side have made is that somehow this legislation, my amendment, would impose an unmanageable burden on Law Enforcement. Well, one simple fact to consider is if thats the case, then why has it been endorsed by national Law Enforcement groups . The National Association of Police Organization has endorsed my amendment. The International Union of police association, a division of the aflcio has endorsed my amendment. Federal Law EnforcementOfficers Association have endorsed my amendment. Now, would these groups endorse a bill that imposed an unworkable burden on their own members . I rather doubt it. I think, actually, they understand this amendment just encourages local Law Enforcement to share information with the department of Homeland Security and in some cases to temporarily and briefly hold people in custody until the department of Homeland Security can get there. So, mr. President , this is a bipartisan amendment. In 2016 when the senate voted on this very same amendment in the form of a freestanding bill, it received a majority and it had bipartisan support. Unfortunately, a minority filibustered it and blocked it. But the fact is, it is a bipartisan piece of legislation with majority support. So i dont think it should even be controversial. I think well have a vote on this relatively soon in the coming days. And i hope it will have very broad support. This is just common sense, mr. President. It stands for the principle that the safety of the American People matter, that the lives of kate steinle and other victims of Violent Crime matter and that all of our communities should be as safe as they can be. Thank you, mr. President. A senator mr. President . The presiding officer the senator from connecticut. Mr. Blumenthal thank you, mr. President. Watching the pictures today as i came here to the floor was deeply moving, even though there is much that we dont know, a lot of information that we lack about what is happening at Marjory StonehamDouglas High School in parkland, florida. The images of emergency vehicles and Emergency Responders of young people and children evacuating a school after another tragic incident of gun violence. It brings back memories that are searing and harrowing. Once again, we feel that churning in our stomach, that sense of gut punch, and a wrenching of hearts that reminds us of how we felt the day of violence in newtown. And yet another school is victimized by gun violence. Were waiting to learn more of the details, but certainly our hearts and prayers go to the victims and their loved ones. Our gratitude goes to the courageous First Responders who are on the scene now apprehending the shooter and administering to the victims and survivors. My thoughts and prayers are with those students, Emergency Responders, parents, loved ones, and the community of parkland. Again, gun violence respects no boundaries. It spares no communities. It victimized all of us wherever it happens and whenever, including the gun violence that kills people every day individually, often unpublicized and invisible. My heartbreaks to hear that one more school is facing this unthinkable horror that again, this harrowing scene plays before the people of america, literally unfolding in real time. I know that i share and all of the members of this Chamber Share the grief and sympathy and heartbreak that that Community Experiences today. I want to talk about the connecticut dreamers and share their stories and call for this chamber to take narrow focused action to prevent their draconian mass deportation and protect them from that kind of very unfortunate outcome. The dreamers who would be covered under legislation that i hope will pass in the next 24 hours came here as children. They grew up as americans. This country is the only one they know. English is the only language. Many of them speak. They go to our schools, serve in our military, and support our economy. The