-9999

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, as you and we can all see, the cherry blossoms are popping out along the Potomac River and around the Capitol and are approaching peak bloom.

We all know what comes next; we get a lot of visitors who come to the Nation's Capital at this wonderful time of year to see the cherry blossoms. They come during spring break, and it is good to see friends from back home come to the Nation's Capital to visit and learn more about how our government functions or sometimes how it doesn't function as well as we would like.

Families taking a vacation, as well as elementary, middle, and high school groups, are learning about civics, which is a good thing. More of our kids need to know how our government works because they are going to be the leaders of tomorrow.

So I am glad the Senate is still debating a very important piece of legislation called the SAVE America Act because it really goes to the very foundation of self-government.

All it says is that in order to be an American citizen--excuse me, in order to vote, you need to be an American citizen, and in order to cast a ballot, you have to produce a voter ID.

So it makes you wonder, with the polling showing that 70 to 80 percent of people polled--Republicans, Democrats, and Independents alike--support both of those provisions, why is it that our Democratic colleagues oppose it?

Surely, it can't be because they want people other than American citizens to vote or they want to make it easier to cheat. But sometimes I struggle to figure out what the reason is that they reflexively oppose even commonsense provisions like this.

By now, we have heard the argument on both sides. Our Democratic colleagues argue that the SAVE America Act is just too hard for ordinary Americans to comply with. They are claiming that the same people who can present a valid government ID to board a plane, buy a beer, drive a car, rent a hotel room, or open a bank account simply won't be able to do the same to cast a ballot.

We know that is not true, and it just doesn't make any sense. It is clear that this is just a pretext to say that they apparently don't care whether illegal aliens vote in our elections. Republicans, on the other hand, believe that every illegal vote cast dilutes your vote and undermines the integrity of the election system.

We want more people to participate in the election system. We need to build confidence that it is going to work and operate with integrity. So by resisting commonsense measures like demonstrating American citizenship and producing a voter ID--which would contribute to building confidence and thus, hopefully, get more people to participate in our elections--that is something they apparently are not interested in.

President Trump, I think, is right to make this a priority, but I am sure like me, he scratches his head and wonders, What is the contrary argument?

If we don't stop illegal aliens or noncitizens from voting in our elections, it is not long before we will have a country that is not representative of the American people.

You know, the very basis for our form of government is as stated in the Declaration of Independence: The authority that we exercise on behalf of the people who vote for us in elections is based on consent of the governed. The power doesn't come top down, it comes bottom up. And if people who are not qualified because they are not citizens to vote in our elections--it undermines that very basic foundation and compact between the people and those who exercise power on their behalf here in Washington, DC.

I am committed to doing whatever it takes to muscle this through the Senate, including using the reconciliation process, if necessary, to get around Senate Democrats' obstruction, but at the same time, we are not giving up on moving it through regular order here on the Senate floor.

Our colleague Senator Lee from Utah has been a proponent of using the talking filibuster; in other words, not letting people sit on their hands and just object and stop progress on important bills like this but to force people to talk and debate because I think the American people need to hear the arguments--pro and con--and they can make up their mind whom they agree with and what they believe.

That is what the world's greatest deliberative body was supposed to be all about, which is otherwise known as the U.S. Senate.

So if Democrats really don't believe that illegal aliens should be able to vote, they need to come to the floor and prove it.

If they think we should not make it easier to cheat in elections by not requiring people to show a photo ID, they need to come to the floor of the Senate and debate it. I would love to hear the arguments to the contrary.

As I said, a recent Harvard-Harris poll showed that 71 percent of voters, including 50 percent of Democrats and 69 percent of Independent voters, support the SAVE America Act. It is hard to find that kind of consensus anywhere in America today, as polarized as we are. But this means that Senate Democrats are defying the wishes of their own voters, their supporters.

Now, we have heard this nutty idea that somehow the SAVE America Act will disenfranchise voters. Well, the only people it will disenfranchise are people who are not qualified to vote.

But if you extend that logic a little further, in other words, 70 to 80 percent of people polled support the SAVE America Act; and if you believe it will disenfranchise voters, that means that 70 to 80 percent of people polled are willing to disenfranchise themselves--again, what a silly, absurd, and false argument. Department of Homeland Security

Mr. President, it is beyond shameful that Senate Democrats have continued to keep the Department of Homeland Security unfunded and shut down.

I would have thought, by now, with some of the lines at the TSA security checkpoints in places like the Houston International Airport-- the Bush International Airport--that finally people would wake up and say: You know, we are causing too much needless pain and collateral damage to people who have nothing to do with this fight.

We know that essential operations of ICE, or Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, like the Homeland Security Investigations, which is an important office that conducts operations to prevent human trafficking, are hamstrung; and we know TSA workers are continuing to work without pay. These are not wealthy people. These are public servants who are performing an important function keeping us all safe, and they have to show up. They are showing up and working without pay.

But then there are some who simply can't outlast the political stunts here in Washington, and more than 300 of them have left their jobs. And you can't blame them. If you are not getting paid because of the politics here in Washington, DC, you may not be able to wait that out. You may just have to look for a job--another job.

But each new hire to replace a TSA agent requires 4 to 6 months of training and certification, and I can't imagine that there is a long waiting list of people who want to become TSA agents if they have this sort of environment to look forward to. So it certainly doesn't help with recruiting new people to fill the gaps.

But we know that President Trump, left with no other alternative, has asked ICE to assist and help out at the airports. And some Democrats are getting downright hysterical about the fact that now ICE is necessary to help process people through the airports.

Some are even saying that the traveling American public is in danger when these professional law enforcement officers are working to help assist people to move through these security checkpoints at our airports.

Meanwhile, the truth is, as we have seen in videos and social media, ICE agents are handing out water bottles to travelers and helping keep the flow of traffic organized and hopefully expedited.

I think it is encouraging that these men and women are willing to jump in and become team players, even in this difficult and charged environment where Democrats continue--this is the party of ``defund the police'' or ``abolish ICE.''

Now they have found a new way to try to prevent the enforcement of our immigration laws by saying: We are not going to fund ICE.

That is not what the American people voted for last November--in November 2024. The reason why President Trump was elected, among other reasons, was because of open borders and 40-year-high inflation. And, of course, we know President Trump has effectively secured the border, but now Democrats have found a new way to prevent people from--who got here in the first place, who don't deserve to be here--from being removed from the country by saying: We are simply going to refuse to fund immigration enforcement.

And then, of course, we know that, despite the fact that the President was elected by the American people, having won the electoral vote and the popular vote in every single swing State, Democrats continue to try to oppose the duly elected President of the United States out of a demonstration of what has become known as Trump derangement syndrome.

In other words, whatever he proposes, they oppose. It is just reflexive. More than 70 percent of Americans support his efforts to remove criminal illegal aliens from our country. And almost daily we hear of tragedies, of innocent individuals being killed or harmed, as a result of some of the people that were let into the country during the Biden administration that need to be removed.

Well, I am hopeful that we are moving closer to a deal which will help these good men and women that work at the Department of Homeland Security get a paycheck. President Trump knows how to make a deal, and I am confident that, under his leadership, we will find a way. Unless the Democrats continue to move the goalposts, which the minority leader continues to try to do, I am optimistic that we will find a way to get them paid by the end of the week.

These antics are not a way to govern. We need paychecks for our TSA agents and secure elections, both. This is what the American people chose during the last Presidential election, and I am confident, under the President's leadership, we will accomplish these priorities and, finally, after more than a month, reopen the Department of Homeland Security.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source