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Floor Speech

Under current law--under current law--any noncitizen who entered the country illegally, violated the terms of their status, or had their visa revoked, can be ordered detained by ICE officials. Current law-- current law--also requires the detention of individuals with serious criminal convictions and those who have committed murder, rape, or any crime of violence or theft offense with a term of imprisonment of at least 1 year.

The law also gives ICE the discretion to detain or release a noncitizen in cases where a noncitizen has merely been charged but not convicted.

This bill that we are considering now from the Senator from Iowa would require ICE to detain any individual charged with a crime that resulted in death or serious bodily injury of another person, pending their criminal case, no matter what the circumstances or the nature of the crime, and no exceptions.

As just one example, a victim of trafficking or domestic violence who defended themselves against an abuser would have to be detained under the law.

Most immigrants in the United States are law-abiding individuals who are seeking a better life. Studies have shown that immigrants have no impact on crime rates, and immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than ordinary U.S. citizens. But the sweeping approach in this bill would deprive immigrants of the due process that everyone is afforded to prove that they are innocent of a crime.

And I agree with many of my colleagues that we need a more orderly system to process recent arrivals at the border and assure that bad actors are detained, if they have serious criminal convictions.

Recently, a bipartisan group of Senators and the White House began negotiating a change in our immigration laws and a tough border deal. It was written by the Republican's designated negotiator, Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma, along with two other Senators--one, an independent from Arizona, and the other, a Democrat from Connecticut. The bill that they wrote to make our border safer and to deal with immigration was endorsed by the National Border Patrol Council, which represents the men and women on the border who are risking their lives every day to keep us safe.

I had personal concerns about this bill, but I wanted to move it forward. And yet, when it came to a vote, the vast majority of Senators on the other side of the aisle opposed it, at the request of Donald Trump, who tanked the border agreement for his own cynical reasons.

What were those reasons? One House Republican said:

Let me tell you, I'm not willing to do too damn much right now to help a Democrat and to help Joe Biden's approval rating.

President Trump himself was crystal clear. He said: ``Blame it on me'' if the bill fails.

That bill was our vehicle and opportunity to work on a bipartisan basis, to change many of the provisions in immigration law, to make America safer, and to make our borders secure and more effective.

Some extremists have said the quiet part out loud: Donald Trump doesn't want a solution to our challenges at the border; he wants a political issue for November.

It is time that my Republican colleagues and Democratic colleagues stop talking about the border in one-off responses to it and start legislating, rather than vilifying all immigrants based upon a few bad actors.

It is a tragedy what happened to these two young women. There is no excuse for it, and those responsible should be held accountable.

I urge my colleagues to do the best that we can to come up with an immigration reform that resolves not only this serious issue but all of the other issues we are haunted with on a regular basis.

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