Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I join the Senator from Arkansas in commending those who are involved in law enforcement, risking their lives for the safety of this Nation at all levels--Federal, State, and local. They put their badges on every single day and risk their lives for us, and that is a fact.

Within the Department of Homeland Security, there are men and women who are conscientiously trying to keep America safe. I commend them as well. I believe they are doing their job as they understand it, and they are risking their lives many times to achieve it, not only to stop the illegal flow of drugs into our country but to deter crime and to ferret out criminals where possible. They risk their lives to achieve that goal.

I have not joined in a call for the abolition of ICE, but I will not join in a call for the adoration of ICE because of one specific issue. The zero tolerance policy of the Trump administration resulted in our agents of the Department of Homeland Security forcibly separating children from their parents--forcibly separating up to 3,000 children from their parents.

I saw some of those kids separated by that agency. They were toddlers and infants. Some were being held by the care workers whom I happened to visit in Chicago. They were little babies taken from their mothers-- toddlers, children 5 and 6 years old, separated by this agency under the President's zero tolerance policy. There were up to 3,000 of them, according to the administration's own estimates.

Had that happened before? Only rarely, but it became the policy of this administration until there was such an uproar in the United States and around the world that President Trump reversed his position on zero tolerance.

Reversing the position did not return the children to their parents. It took Federal courts to do that--one in particular, in San Diego, where the judge called the representatives of ICE, Health and Human Services, and all the other agencies involved in these children being removed forcibly from their parents and gave them deadlines to return the children to their parents. It was then that we discovered something about this agency. It was then that we discovered that they didn't keep a record of the parents and kids.

If you place an order online to Amazon or some other source and the next day you want to check on the status of your order, you use your tracking number, and they will tell you where your package is. There was no tracking number when it came to these kids. If you decide that you are going to order a pizza and it seems to take a little too long and you call the pizza parlor, they can generally tell you where the delivery person is. The same thing is true in so many other areas.

Why, then, did this agency, which my colleagues are now coming to the floor claiming such great praise for, ignore the obvious? This agency, the Department of Homeland Security, ended up setting free 3,000 children into care facilities around the United States of America and didn't keep records of the parents.

We asked them several weeks ago, downstairs--all of the agencies, including ICE, referred to by the Senator from Arkansas: OK, let's get down to basics. How many kids are we talking about?

They wouldn't give us a number.

How many kids are under the age of 5? Those are the ones whom you have a deadline to reunite under the Federal court order in San Diego.

They couldn't give us a number.

Then, how many parents can you identify who actually had their kids taken away?

ICE said: We can identify 10.

Ten parents, 3,000 kids--I am not making this up. This is exactly what they said.

They said: We have 10 parents in custody. Those are the ones we can identify.

Two weeks passed, and we had another briefing this week. The numbers are now more complete. There are some 2,500 kids separated from their parents, spread around the United States.

What happened to the parents who lost their children?

The explanation from ICE was that they abandoned their kids and left.

Does that sound reasonable? Does that sound honest? You take the child away from the arms of a parent and then the parent says: I am leaving the country.

That might have happened in some cases, for reasons I don't know, but it is an outrageous suggestion. What it reflects is incompetency. How in the world can you take a child away from a parent, forcibly take them away, and not keep an adequate record for their reunification? How can you do that? Common sense and common decency suggests that you would do it.

I am not going to join in any resolution applauding that action by any Federal agency--the Department of Homeland Security, ICE, or other agencies. To me, it is a stain on the reputation of this Nation, one that we need to quickly resolve by reuniting these children with their families as quickly as possible.

You see, it isn't just a question of a holiday for these kids. Pediatricians have come forward from the American Academy of Pediatrics and have said that what we have done is institutional abuse of children.

This separation is not just another day in the life of this 2-year- old, 5-year-old, or 8-year-old. This separation is something that is causing trauma within their own minds.

Have you read the stories about the reunifications, where some of the parents come back, finally get their children, and the children will not even come to the parents? They don't quite understand what just happened to them. They think the parent might have just decided to give them up.

There they were alone and by themselves at that tender age. Can you imagine that for your children or your grandchildren? I can't.

We did it as part of the official government policy of the Trump administration under zero tolerance.

When some of us come to the floor to question the actions, the conduct, the management of ICE, we have good reason to do it. I hope for the people within that agency who are doing their jobs conscientiously that we can at least be honest in saying that this policy is one which doesn't deserve praise and doesn't deserve our adoration on the floor of the Senate or the House.

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Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I rise in strong opposition to the nomination of Ryan Bounds to be a judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Mr. Bounds, who, if confirmed, would serve on a Ninth Circuit seat in the State of Oregon, has received zero blue slips. He is opposed by both Senators from the State in which he would sit if confirmed.

Never before in the 100-year history of blue slips has a nominee been confirmed over the opposition of both home-State Senators. The Republican majority is setting a precedent here, and all of our home States are at risk of being impacted by this.

By moving this nominee without blue slips, Republicans are diminishing the voice that home-State constituents have through their Senators in the process of selecting judges in their States.

Let me make it clear to my Republican colleagues: If you vote to confirm Ryan Bounds, you are consenting to a precedent that is likely to affect your state someday. Consider your vote carefully.

It is hard to understand why my Republican colleagues would abandon the blue slip for the sake of this particular nominee. Mr. Bounds has written and published articles that should disqualify him from consideration for a Federal judgeship.

Consider how the Multnomah Bar Association in Oregon--a bar association that Mr. Bounds has belonged to for 12 years--described Mr. Bounds' articles in a statement after the writings were revealed.

The association said Bounds' writings ``express insensitive, intolerant, and disdaining views toward racial and ethnic minorities, campus sexual assault victims, and the LGBTQ community.''

The statement went on to say that the bar association ``strongly disavows the views expressed in those articles as racist, misogynistic, homophobic and disparaging of survivors of sexual assault and abuse.''

Mr. Bounds' writings, which he published in college, included his discussions about the ``more strident racial factions of the student body.''

His writings mocked LGBTQ students for being sensitive when a group of drunk athletes vandalized a statue celebrating gay pride.

He mocked Latino students for being overly sensitive when they complained about the termination of a Latino administrator.

Then he wrote this, in an article about sexual assault on campus: ``There is really nothing inherently wrong with the University failing to punish an alleged rapist--regardless his guilt--in the absence of adequate certainty; there is nothing that the University can do to objectively ensure that the rapist does not strike again. Only the legal system can do that, and if it lacks the certainty to do so, it is not necessarily up to the University to stick it to the suspect, anyway, just in case. Expelling students is probably not going to contribute a great deal toward a rape victim's recovery; there is no moral imperative to risk egregious error in doing so.''

Not only did Mr. Bounds publish these writings, but he chose not to share his writings with Oregon's judicial selection committee even though the committee had asked him to disclose any potentially controversial materials.

Mr. Bounds said he didn't think he needed to disclose any information to the committee that preceded his time at law school.

As Senators Wyden and Merkley pointed out in a letter to Chairman Grassley, Mr. Bounds did share with the Oregon committee information about his high school days. He just conveniently left out his intolerant publications from college.

As Senators Wyden and Merkley said in their letter, ``Mr. Bounds' failure to disclose these writings, and the nature of these writings themselves, demonstrate a substantial lack of judgment that is unsuitable for a nominee for a lifetime appointment.''

This is not a close call. The Senate should not be moving forward with Mr. Bounds' nomination on process or substance.

Republicans are failing to be responsible stewards of nominations. The fact that Senate Republicans are moving forward with this nomination is a troubling sign for how Republicans will handle the Supreme Court vacancy.

All too often, Senate Republicans are failing to serve as a meaningful check and balance on President Trump when it comes to nominations.

Last week, 50 Senate Republicans voted to confirm an unqualified lawyer who had represented a suspicious Russian bank as the head of the Justice Department's Criminal Division.

This week Republicans already voted to confirm Andrew Oldham, a 39- year-old circuit court nominee who refused to say whether he thought Brown v. Board of Education was correctly decided and who has described the Supreme Court as ``the most dangerous branch.''

Now, Senate Republicans are looking to confirm Mr. Bounds, who has shown terrible judgment with his published writings and with his failure to be forthcoming about them.

Senators have a constitutional obligation to scrutinize these nominees and to vote no if the nominees lack the experience, temperament, or judgment to be a fair and impartial judge. The Senate should not be a rubberstamp, but under President Trump, all too often, it has been.

I know Senate Republicans like to say it is unfair to nominees if we hold them accountable for their records. My Republican colleagues have been coming to the floor, day after day, complaining about what they see as unfair scrutiny of the Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination.

Do they have amnesia? I would remind them that no Supreme Court nominee in history has ever has been treated worse than Merrick Garland was treated by Senate Republicans in 2016. Senator McConnell wouldn't even allow Judge Garland a hearing or the courtesy of a meeting.

The treatment of Merrick Garland was unprecedented, and it was disrespectful. His record and reputation were torn apart by Republicans who never gave him a chance to respond in an open hearing. Even Judge Bork got a hearing and a vote.

I hope my Republican colleagues are not going to simply rubberstamp President Trump's nominees. So many of these nominees are extreme. We need to review their full records and consider them carefully before voting to confirm them for life.

I have carefully considered Mr. Bounds' nomination, and I will vote no. I urge my colleagues in both parties to join me.

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