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SENATE FLOOR DEBATE: The Senate will convene and begin a period of morning business. At 3:00 p.m. the Senate will Resume consideration of S.4, the 9/11 Commission Recommendations bill. 18:08:09.3 vote: the 18:10:42.4 the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or to change their vote? if not, on this vote the ayes are 87; the nays are 1. the nomination is confirmed. under the previous order the 18:11:03.1 president will be immediately notified of the senate's action. the senate will return to legislative session. mr. lieberman: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. lieberman: mr. president, i ask for. the presiding officer: the 18:11:16.6 senator will be in order. the senate will be in order. mr. lieberman: i ask unanimous consent amendment numbered 328 be modified with the changes at the desk. the presiding officer: is there 18:11:32.2 order? the amendment is so modified. mr. lieberman: i thank the chair. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the 18:11:48.0 senator from oklahoma is recognized. mr. coburn: mr. president. 18:12:08.9 i ask that the pending amendment be set aside and i call amendment numbered 325. the presiding officer: without objection, it is so ordered. the clerk will report. 18:12:24.4 mr. coburn: the senate is not in order. the presiding officer: the senator is correct. the senate will be in order. the senate will be in order. 18:12:49.2 the clerk will report the amendment. the clerk: senator coburn proposes an amendment numbered 325. 18:13:00.8 on page 106, insert the following. 18:13:07.1 mr. coburn: i ask unanimous consent the amendment be considered as read. the presiding officer: without objection, it is so ordered. mr. coburn: mr. president, this bill has not been scored but by our estimates -- mr. president, i ask that the senate be in 18:13:23.2 order. the presiding officer: could 18:13:39.3 senators take their conversations to the cloakroom so we may have order. the senator from oklahoma. mr. coburn: thank you, mr. president. i appreciate that. by our estimate, this bill is about $17 billion plus. 18:13:54.4 it has not been scored. the house bill that will be merged in conference is over $20 billion. that is a large chunk of change for the american taxpayer. what we know is that a lot of the grants which make up about 18:14:13.6 three-plus billion a year over the next five years, the vast majority of this bill, will be homeland security grants of one type or another. what we know is the department of homeland security has not followed the law when it comes 18:14:29.2 to improper payments. what the improper payments act of 2002 required of every agency -- every agency of the federal government -- was that they perform a risk assessment of every program that they is, 18:14:44.3 that they develop a specific -- statistically valid estimate of improper payments; they develop a corrective action plan; they report the results of those activities to us. this isn't an optional plan for 18:15:00.7 the agencies. yet, this plan has been ignored since its inception and since the creation of the department of homeland security. so, we are getting ready to send another $17 billion 18:15:17.4 to $18 billion plus out the door for homeland security grants -- that's the majority of this -- and we know that the department of homeland security is not in compliance with the federal law. the law exists to make sure that we get good value for the 18:15:37.2 taxpayers' money. 2004 was the first year that the agencies were required to respond to this act. it is worth noting again that there is not an agency of the federal government, not one 18:15:50.9 agency, that is exempt from this law. this isn't a request. this is a statutory requirement of every agency. the department of homeland security has not even complied with the first step of this law. 18:16:09.6 they have not performed risk assessments for the programs to be at significant risk of making improper payments. they are an at risk program according to the analysis and yet they have not even looked to 18:16:23.4 do a risk assessment. the government accountability office has found six major programs at this department are out of compliance with improper payments act. the department of homeland security's independent auditor 18:16:39.6 has repeatedly cited noncompliance and the department of homeland security continues to face significant challenges with tee ma and with the individual and households program. based upon the department's performance and accountability report and their independent 18:16:56.0 auditor assessment, the following programs are out of compliance with improper payments act: customs and bother protection; office of grants and training; federal air marshals; the coast guard was supposed to have done a risk 18:17:12.1 assessment and has not been done; the federal emergency management agency; the trappinge transportation security administration and immigration 18:17:26.9 and customs enforcement. in case you think that is not a lot of money, we have already spent over $25 billion in grants through the years for these programs of which we have thought looked at the problem accounts. 18:17:44.2 the press is replete with problems in terms of these grants. $9 billion on state and local preparedness grants is what we get great d.h.s. and secretary chertoff at the most recent hearings said $5 billion of the 18:18:01.5 money, another $5 billion, part of which has been obligated has not gone out the door yet. 18:18:07.4 i think we owe it to the american people that if there's a law on the books, before we send more money out the door, the agency ought to comply with the law. 18:18:20.9 they ought to at least do a risk assessment. if there is no risk, that's fine, they will have complied with the law. but if there is risk we ought to be identifying the risk. every dollar we spent wastefully is a dollar we don't use to protect ourselves in terms of 18:18:38.9 security. kpmg was the independent auditor for 2004, 2005 and 2006 for the department of homeland security. each of the years they were out of compliance with this act. specifically, the department is cited for not instituting a systematic method of reviewing 18:18:54.0 all practices and identifying those that are believed to be susceptible to erroneous improper payments. the most important part of the improper payments act is to create the process of good, strong, oversight within the 18:19:09.4 department to make assessments about whether or not they are making improper peaments. what this assessment does is it identifying where the improper payments could have been made. that's essential to find out where the problems exist. this amendment doesn't debate 18:19:26.3 any of the merits of the department's programs. it simply demands compliance with the transparency and accountability measurements for that already -- that already exist under current law. if we want the american people and the executive branch to take 18:19:43.1 us seriously, congress must demand compliance for the laws that are laws. and we can't back off. this amendment isn't a surprise to the department of homeland security. they know they are failing. they need to respond to it. 18:19:58.9 this amendment in no way jeopardizes state funding. let me tell you why. because there's a pipeline of nine to twelve months in the works already on guarantees that are going there. so, for this to have any impact 18:20:13.9 would mean they would have to not respond for another year before those grants would be in jeopardy. now, some of my colleagues say, well, you can't do this. you can't put these grants at the risk of noncompliance of an agency in terms of meeting the 18:20:31.2 law. and the question ought to be, why not? why shouldn't we put the agency at risk with their grants for being noncompliant? the other point i would make is most of these grants go to state and localities. 18:20:44.9 and the problems with the grants, there is some cuppibility -- culpability on the parts of the agencies and the guarantees. states are not totally innocent. there is $2.5 billion that has not even been awarded yet that 18:21:02.5 still can be awarded before this takes effect. so, there is still another $5 billion which is greater than the amount we spend in any one year on these grants. what this amendment says is, they can't go past that unless they have complied with the law. 18:21:20.1 if we are not going to pass this amendment, we need to trash the improper payments act. if we're not going to say the department of homeland security has an obligation to follow the law we ought to take the law off the books. 18:21:32.9 we know, for sure, in the other areas of the federal government, we have somewhere between $40 billion and $80 billion worth of improper payments the we know we have $40 billion of improper payments, overpayments in medicare. 18:21:47.5 somewhere close to $30 billion in medicaid. we have a third of the earned-income tax credit that we know are improper payments. and we've only looked at 40% of the government. 60% of the government still is not complying with this. we ought to say, right now, if 18:22:04.4 we're going to put more money through the doofer, the american taxpayer ought to have -- through the door, the american taxpayer ought to have value through the money they send through the door. 18:22:20.1 we are asking them to be accountable. and to be accountable as a government -- as an agency of the federal government, there ought to be transparency. we ought to be able to see where they're making mistakes and 18:22:37.1 where they're not. the question of not even asking the question, that is what we are debating with this amendment. they are in absolute non-come ployance of a material law that requires them to be transparent about whether or not their grants are improperly paid or 18:22:52.9 funding things other than what they expected them to fund. investigations shows fema spent millions on puppet shows, bingo and yoga in south florida. 18:23:06.7 there is an article in the national review on homeland port, "baltimore sun", 5-2 9 "chasing security with dollars." the only transparency that we have here is that there's a total lack of transparency in the department of homeland 18:23:21.7 security. now, needless to say, this is a bill that goes far outside september 11th recommendations. 9/11 commission recommendations said all money should be based, risk-based and what we've turned 18:23:39.1 around with the 9/11 bill -- this one and what passed in previous congresses -- is a way to dole out money to states and not hold them accountable. what this amendment says is, you are going to have to start being accountable. 18:23:53.7 if we are going to send another almost $20 billion in terms of grants, homeland security ought to have to follow the law in terms of improper payments. remember, these grants aren't competitively awarded which is very different than the grants 18:24:12.7 that we have in almost every other federal program. the fact that they're not competitive is another reason, a much greater reason, for us to demand accountability and transparency at the department of homeland security. these grants are also not on the 18:24:28.9 basis of risk. some are. in some of these it will be down to .4% and a few at 0.25%. most of them have in local 18:24:44.3 match. so there's no risk on the side of the states or the municipalities that get these grants. just a note, the best way for congress to practice spending discipline is to demand that the 18:25:01.2 agencies comebly with the laws assuring appropriated dollars are spent adequately, appropriately, and lawfully. we have yet it do that with many agencies. d.h.s. is a good place to start. fema awarded $22.6 million for 18:25:18.1 crisis counceling for victims of hurricane katrina and rita. katrina did not even hit florida and yet a large portion of that was spent in florida. there's no accountability. there is no risk assessment, was 18:25:36.2 there a risk? they have not done the work we demand by the law. and what is being demanded of other agencies. there's an article in the 18:25:48.7 florida sun and i cannot vouch for its accuracy, where there's a little smoke there's some fire, the $1.2 billion in aid that fema granted to individuals -- not to municipalities, but to 18:26:04.0 individuals affected by the weather disasters between 1999 and 2004 -- the florida sun found that at least of $1.02 3w-8, at least $330 million of that went to people who did not personally suffer any damage or disruption from the storms. 18:26:21.5 now that's a fourth of the money out of that $1.2 billions. no wonder we have a deficit. no wonder -- because we're not willing to take the time to force an agency to do what they should be doing under the law. 18:26:41.7 i want to talk for a minute about this bill. the 9/11 commission was very 18:26:54.9 succinct and direct, noting that we have tremendous vulnerabilities and risks and exposures throughout this country. 18:27:07.5 and they were very clear to state that money that comes out of congress to address those ought to be absolutely risk-based. 18:27:21.9 the house bill at least has, down to 0.25% for every state. well, what that gives us is about 15% of the money that is going to go to the states, 18:27:39.0 regardless of their risk. so that's about $3. 5 billion or $4 billion. no risk, you are going to get homeland security grants even though you have no risk. think about what we are going to ask ourselves if we have another 18:27:56.2 terrorist attack and it's in one of the high-risk areas and before he sent, year after year after year after year after year after year, $4 billion to areas 18:28:07.4 that don't have a high risk? and that money could have prevented that action. with good fiscal discipline we will best protect the people of 18:28:24.4 this country. i know the tendency of this body is to make sure you get enough for you. and to make sure you can go home and say, we got this for you. and you can pat your sell on the back. but i wonder how many of us will 18:28:38.9 be patting ourselves on the back when we buy things that are not absolutely necessary with the grands that are going to state asks we ignore the very high risk, east coast, west coast and gulf coast and the large metropolitan areas in this country that need more money 18:28:53.7 while we are playing politics with with 15 to 20% of the money every year. we will be judged on that. and that judgment will not be a pretty picture. this amendment just simply says, no funds can go for any of these grants until fema and the 18:29:12.2 department of homeland security start complying with the federal statute which is called the improper payments act of 2002. it's very straight failure. and what we will have raised is the fear that my state may not get some money. well, they is a year to comply. 18:29:29.9 they is plenty of time to do what they have been asked to do. senator obama and i, this last year, over eight months ago, sent a letter to the department of homeland security asking why, and i would like to introduce 18:29:46.0 that letter into the record. this letter was sent to secretary chertoff. the federal financial management subcommittee of the department of -- of the committee on homeland security and government affairs had four hearings on 18:30:02.2 improper payments. we know what is required. we know they can do it. what congress has to do is make then do it if they want to spend the money. it is only right for our children and grandchildren to get fair value for the 18:30:19.0 tax-paying public as we send this money out.n so i'm a skeptic when it comes to this body when it gets away of the political poring that's going on -- poring that's going 18:30:32.5 o. i'm not sure this amendment is going to pass. there's there's no reason to have a law out there that we're not going to enforce. and if we're not going to enforce it, why have it on the books? 18:30:47.2 it's another enforcing the board. the law is there but we don't do t. we have to be accountable to 9 american public to make sure -- to the american public to make sure that the agencies follow the law. this is a simple amendment that requires homeland security to follow that. by the way, we've not had an answer to this letter. 18:31:04.1 this letter was dated november 16. i spoke in error. i'm just about finished, mr. president. i want to correct something i said last week on the united nations. my numbers were wrong. we, in fact, do pay for 20% -- about 22% of the unified budget 18:31:22.2 at the united nations and our total contribution is in excess of $5 billion. hi the ratios right; i had the numbers wrong and i wanted to correct that for the record today. and with that, i yield back the floor. 18:31:42.2 mr. sessions: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. sessions: mr. president, i would call up sessions amendment number 305. 18:32:01.1 i believe it -- the presiding officer: one moment. that amendment is the pending amendment. mr. sessions: mr. president, i believe the amendment is already pending. 18:32:11.7 i believe it was called up by senator mcconnell. mr. president, i would note and ask that senators craig, inhofe, isakson, and coburn be made cosponsors of this amendment. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sessions: mr. president, 18:32:27.9 it's certainly important, critically important that we clarify the role of state and local law enforcement officers in the enforcement and apprehension of those who violate our immigration laws and that we expand the national crime information center 18:32:47.8 entries. it is critical that we have them participate because with expanded ncic capability, which i'm surprised is not already 18:33:01.8 being done, they can be partners 18:33:04.9 in our federal law enforcement efforts. it would be in compliance with what the 9/11 commission and other reports have asked us to do. and it's a loophole in our system today that needs to be fixed. 18:33:18.6 the amendment i am offering is a slimmed-down version of the bill i offered in the last congress, the homeland security enforcement enhancement act. that was cosponsored by senators craig, inhofe, and isakson. the ideas contained in this amendment have also been 18:33:35.6 supported by senators kyl and cornyn. they included it in their immigration bill last congress. and senator ben nelson and tom coburn, they included -- those provisions were included in the nelson-sessions immigration 18:33:49.4 enforcement bill in last congress. additional, i'd like to tell my colleagues that my amendment is almost word-for-word the provision that the senate judiciary committee included when it marked up the senate immigration bill last year and the provision that the full 18:34:06.1 senate voted for when it passed s. 2611. the first section of the amendment reaffirms the existing -- what i believe to be the existing inherent authority of state and local law enforcement 18:34:23.0 to assist the federal government in enforcing the immigration laws of the united states during the normal course of their carrying out their law enforcement duties. the amendment specifically states that the participation of state and local law enforcement 18:34:39.2 personnel is required, not mandated by this legislation. it is 100% voluntary. section 2 of the amendment deals with the listing of immigration violators in the national crime 18:34:54.8 information center database. state and local officers need easily accessible roadside access to critical immigration information, just as they would do for citizens of the united states who violate our laws. officers routinely, when they 18:35:13.7 stop people on the road, run national crime information center database checks when they pull over suspects. speeders or people they're investigating for other crimes. the ncic is their bread-and-butter database. 18:35:29.5 today, the immigration violators file, the national crime information database, contains information on deported felons, alien absconders and wanted 18:35:46.2 persons, aliens with outstanding criminal warrants. so that is in the national crime information center database. but my amendment would direct that the department of homeland security work with the f.b.i. to place additional information on 18:36:02.6 certain immigration violators into the already existing immigration violators file. the four categories of immigration violators whose information would be entered are: one, aliens who have final orders of removal. 18:36:20.8 that's someone who has been apprehended, gone through a hearing and a judge has ordered finally that they be removed from the country for whatever violation. two, it would cover aliens under voluntary departure agreements, who for one reason or another 18:36:35.8 have signed an order that they would voluntarily deport themselves or leave country. number three, it would cover aliens who are known to have overstayed their authorized period of stay. the visa overstays. and number four, aliens whose 18:36:53.9 visas have been revoked. well, sometime people misbehave seriously. 27% of our federal penitentiary bed spaces today are filled by noncitizens. 18:37:07.7 for some reason, in recent years we're seeing a substantial number of criminal aliens coming into our country. and i would say now, these are not bed spaces for immigration law violations, not people waiting to be deported. these are people who've been arrested, tried or convicted of 18:37:26.0 federal criminal laws, such as drug dealing and -- and assaults or smuggling and things of that nature. so when state and local police officers encounter individuals 18:37:40.5 during their regular law enforcement duties, it's important that they know if the individual in front of them falls into one of these violator categories. importantly, my amendment includes a new procedure for removal of erroneous information in the -- from ncic. 18:37:58.2 if there's something entered incorrectly under the new 18:38:03.2 procedures, an alien may petition the secretary of department of homeland security or the head of ncic to remove any erroneous information that may have been placed that file to protect them from any unfair treatment. 18:38:18.7 now, these are recommendations that really should already be law. but they're recommendations made in the 9/11 official report. and we're all familiar with that 18:38:34.6 9/11 recommendations. and they've been included in the hart-rudman report. on page 34 of the 9/11 commission report -- excuse me. on page 384 of the 9/11 report, 18:38:50.9 the commission says -- quote -- "our investigation showed that two systemic weaknesses came together in our border system's inability to contribute to an effective defense against the 9/11 attacks. 18:39:05.2 a lack of well-developed counterterrorism measures as a part of border security and an immigration system not able to deliver on its basic commitments, much less support counterterrorism. these weaknesses have been 18:39:20.8 reduced but are far from being overcome." on page 390, the report says -- quote -- "there is a growing role for state and local law enforcement agencies. they need more training and work with federal agencies so that 18:39:36.1 they can cooperate more effectively with those federal authorities in identifying terrorist suspects." in the fall of 2002, a year after the 9/11 attacks, the council on foreign relations published the hart-rudman report 18:39:54.9 entitled 'america, still unprepared; america, still in danger." that report found that one problem america still confronts is that 700,000 local and state police officials continue to 18:40:11.8 operate in a virtual intelligence vacuum. the first recommendation of the hart-rudman report was to tap the eyes and ears of local and state law enforcement officers 18:40:27.9 in preventing attacks, closed quote. that's their first recommendation to -- quote -- "tap the eyes and ears of local and state law enforcement officers in preventing attacks." on page 19, the report 18:40:43.4 specifically cited the burden of finding hundreds of thousands of illegal fugitive aliens living among the population of more than 8.5 million illegal aliens and suggested that the burden could and should be shared with the 700,000 local, county, and 18:41:00.3 state law enforcement officers if they could be brought out of the information void. so this amendment that i am offering tightly targets 9/11 commission and hart-rudman report recommendations that we 18:41:17.0 look at the growing role for state and local law enforcement. that we move toward an immigration system that can -- quote -- "deliver on its basic commitments" as a way to fight terrorism. 18:41:33.6 and that we -- quote -- "tap the eyes and ears of local and state law enforcement officers" in an effort to find the hundreds of thousands of fugitive aliens in the united states. most americans would probably be 18:41:53.1 amazed that that's not occurring today. in fact, a poll -- a recent poll gives us several -- about three years ago, a poll was done on this very subject and it found 18:42:10.3 that a large majority of americans feel that state and local governments should be aiding the federal government in finding alien fugitives. that's pretty common sensical. in fact, a roper poll found that 5% of americans agree and 65% -- 18:42:30.5 that 85% of americans agree and 65% strongly agree -- and i've got to tell you, those are powerful numbers when you hear numbers that high -- they agree that congress should pass a law requiring state and local governments and law enforcement 18:42:44.3 agencies to apprehend and turn over to i.n.s. -- now "ice" -- i illegal immigrants with whom they come in contact. that's pretty strong date a. it's important to note that those response -- that's pretty strong data. it's important to note that 18:42:59.2 those responses collected 18:43:01.3 earlier were in response to those requiring local immigration enforcement action. so it's very likely that a poll on this subject, one about voluntary state and local assistance, would be even stronger. let me tell you about the problems that started my interest in this area and 18:43:16.2 prompted me to offer this amendment as well as three years ago to push for a hearing which was held on april 22 of 2004 in 18:43:33.1 the senate judiciary committee entitled -- quote -- "state and local law" -- "state and local authority to enforce immigration law, evaluating a unified approach for stopping 18:43:50.3 terrorists." and to me -- for notice author a law review article -- for me to author a law review article in april 2005, along with my chief council on judiciary, cindy hayden, who was just here, that was published in "the stanford law and policy review," entitled 18:44:05.1 "the growing role for state and local law enforcement in the realm of immigration law." so this is the reality, to my colleagues and friends in the senate. this is the problem we're 18:44:18.8 dealing with. police chiefs and sheriffs in alabama began to tell me as i travel the state and met with them frequently, as i continue to do, that they had been shut out of immigration enforcement and that they felt powerless to 18:44:35.0 do anything about alabama's growing illegal immigrant population. i heard the same story wherever i went -- quote -- "when we come across illegal aliens in our normal course of duty, we have given up calling the i.n.s. 18:44:50.4 because they tell us we have to have 15 or more illegals in custody or they will not even bother to come and pick them up. even worse, alabama police were routinely told that aliens could not be detained until i.n.s. 18:45:05.9 could manage to send someone. they were told they just had to let them go." and this is basically the policy all over america today. i kid you not. 18:45:21.3 if a local officer in virtually any state in america stops someone for speeding or d.u.i. and finds out that they are here illegally, they basically take no steps to even contact i.n.s. because they only have 2,000 18:45:37.4 agents in the entire united states and they're not going to come out there and get them. and, in fact, for other legal reasons, they may have some doubt -- although, frankly, not much -- but there's some doubt about what their authority might be.n now, i -- we've done some 18:45:56.4 research into this and believe that the legal authority of state and local officers to voluntary act on violations of immigration law was pretty clear. and there's any doubt that state and local law officers have this 18:46:12.2 authority and if there is any, and there certainly is some today, congress needs to remove that doubt, which is what this amendment will do. basically, there's a split in the circuits, but -- and i'll take just a moment to explain 18:46:34.8 it. the ninth circuit and the 10th circuit have explicitly -- and the 10th circuit on more than one occasion -- concluded squarely that quote, "a state trooper has general investigatory authority to 18:46:49.4 inquire into possible immigration violations," closed quote. as the 10th circuit went on to say quote, "there is a pre-existing general authority of state or local police officers to investigate and make arrests for violations of 18:47:07.7 federal law, including immigration laws." they went on to say, the 10th circuit did, in 2001 quote, "state and local police officers have implicit authority within their respective jurisdictions to investigate and make arrests 18:47:25.2 for violations of federal law, including immigration laws." now, these 10th circuit cases made no distinction between visa overstays, which is nor criminal 18:47:40.3 in nature, but civil, but the 9th circuit did, they concluded the civil violations of a visa overstay did not amount to an offense of law that the local law enforcement officer could arrest and detain for. 18:48:04.9 it was not part of the central holding on that case, but that one piece of dicta impacted lawyers and police departments 18:48:17.8 and sheriff's departments all over america. and they're telling their officers, well, the person that you stop is here illegally, it might be that they're a visa overstay and not someone who came across the border illegally. 18:48:32.2 and if you arrest them and detain them, they might sue us, they might sue the city, they might sue the police department. so they've established policies based on this ambiguity that effectively reduced the participation of local law enforcement officers to a dramatic degree in the 18:48:50.8 enforcement of immigration laws. and that's not appropriate. we can fix that. this amendment would fix that. a second problem that the amendment deals with is the inadequate way we share information on immigration 18:49:05.6 matters with state and local police. we have databases full of information on criminal aliens and aliens with final deportation orders, but that information is not directly available to the state and local police through their base system, the ncic. 18:49:23.2 instead, officers are required to make a special second inquiry into the law enforcement support center, which is headquartered in vermont, to see if the person they pulled over is an illegal alien wanted by d.h.s. now, i got to tell you, they're 18:49:41.8 just not carrying around in their pockets those phone numbers anyway. they don't know how to do it, they're not comfortable with it, it's not what they do every day, and they're not doing it. and besides if they do and found out the person is illegal, there's nothing much they can do but let them go anyway. 18:50:03.8 so the ability of the bread and burr nci -- bread and butter ncic database is to convey to 18:50:13.9 local police who stop someone out on a highway information that this may be a wanted person, may be even a terrorist, has been severely impacted or 18:50:28.4 real not effective in many, many different areas. now, i've complained about this for some time and some progress has been made, but not enough. to date, the immigration violators file of the ncic 18:50:46.3 contains about 200,000 entries and only about 107,000 of the approximate 600,000 alien absconders are in the ncic. i want you to hear that. 18:51:02.0 only about 100,000 of the 600,000 alien absconders have been entered into the ncic. so what does that mean? that means if a local police officer somewhere stops a person that's been previously arrested 18:51:19.5 for an immigration violation, that person has been released on bail, as is often the case, or ordered to return to court or are frequently deported and they don't do so, they abscond, and 18:51:35.8 there are 600,000 of those absconders out there, but only 107,000 of those records are in ncic, so if a local police officer is not likely to find a hit if the person before him, there would be one in five 18:51:51.8 chances that they would get that hit. that really needs to be fixed, and for the life of me i can't see why more progress has not been made. we've been talking about this for four or five years in the senate judiciary committee with the department of justice officials and i.c.e. officials and f.b.i. people who run the 18:52:09.6 ncic. now, at the very least, the ncic should contain four types of immigration information: aliens with final orders of removal. if someone has been ordered removed, they should not be in this country. 18:52:24.7 they sometimes leave the country and come back into the country and you get a hit on that person. in other words, they've been ordered removed. why are they back in the country? second group should be in there, aliens under voluntary departure 18:52:42.2 agreement. some agree voluntarily to leave and sign an agreement to that effect. they ought to be in there because they should not have stayed in the country, or if they left, they should not have returned. aliens who are known to have overstayed their authorized period of stay should be entered 18:52:56.0 and aliens whose visas have been 18:52:59.7 revoked, for heaven sakes, ought to be in there. somebody's here improperly, maybe associated with some criminal enterprise, the i.c.e. people have revoked their visa for some reason, it would have 18:53:15.3 to be significant, usually, for that to occur, they ought to go in there. because if they've been -- because if they're stopped somewhere, they should be detained and turned over to i.c.e.; otherwise, the system is not working. 18:53:29.1 and let me just tell my colleagues i know how this system works. if someone had their visa revoked and had been ordered to be removed, trust me, the i.c.e. 18:53:48.5 agents don't go out and walk the streets of philadelphia or atlanta or birmingham and look for them so they can deport them. they don't do it. they are not even close to 18:54:00.7 having the possibility of doing that. only the people that they have evidence on and are extremely dangerous is that done on. and that's very, very few. the way most people are caught is just like everybody else in america who is caught who have 18:54:18.3 absconded or run off on bail. they get caught by getting picked up by police on a traffic stop somewhere. the police officer runs their name and i.d. in ncic and it comes back a hit. there's a warrant for their arrest in montgomery, alabama, for armed robbery, and he locked 18:54:36.3 them up. now, if you are an american citizen and you get a reckless driving ticket and you're ordered to appear in court at a given time and place and you don't appear in court, they issue a warrant for your arrest. 18:54:52.8 and normally the police officers don't go out and chase you down all over, finding to arrest you. normally they put it in the ncic immediately on the assumption that you'll soon be stopped 18:55:05.1 somewhere else on the way and they'll get a hit on you and they'll put you in jail because you have a warrant for flight out there or for jumping bail. but we don't do that for noncitizens. a citizen that will happen to, a united states senator that will 18:55:20.6 happen to, but not somebody that's coming into the country illegally, we don't do the same thing when they jump bail on their charges. so, mr. president, there are a 18:55:42.7 lot of stories that we can tell, and i would just summarize a number of them that really caught the attention of the 9/11 commission. for example, mohammed atta, who is believed to have piloted american airlines flight 11, 18:55:59.3 which flew into the world trade center's north tower and to have played a leading role in more than 3,000 deaths that occurred that day, in july, just two months before the attacks, atta was stopped by police in 18:56:17.6 tamarack, florida, and ticketed for an invalid license. he ignored the ticket and bench warranted for an arrest. when he was stopped for speeding weeks later in a nearby town, the officer did not check, did not disufer this warrant -- 18:56:31.8 discover this warrant had been issued and let him go with only a warning. now, ok, atta had not yet become illegal. i believe at that time he still was on a legal status, however he was about to expire, and i 18:56:46.8 doubt he would have returned to the immigration officer to get it extended. he would soon have been here illegally as a visa overstay. he could well have been apprehended and identified before 9/11 had he done so. 18:57:06.4 and that's the example i'm trying to make here. it could very well have been decisive. also, hamid hanjour was just one month before 9/11 stopped by 18:57:24.7 police in arlington, virginia, for driving 50 miles an hour in a 35-mile-per-hour zone. he was in a chevy van with new jersey plates, he produced a florida driver's license, but he was the pilot of the american airlines flight 77, which 18:57:39.5 crashed into the pentagon, the third hijacker was stopped by state police just two days before september 11, also for speeding. maryland state police stopped ziad jara on interstate 95 for 18:57:57.1 driving 90 miles an hour in a 60-mile zone. well, i say that, mr. president, to say we're not talking about academic matters here. we're talking about the fact that the alien database needs to 18:58:17.0 be accessible to local police. it might as well, for all practical purposes, be locked up in some valuate somewhere in secrecy the way it's being done today. 18:58:29.5 it's not available to the people out there who need it. and the hart-ruddman commission raised that point, as did the 9/11 commission. we absolutely can -- i've been told at hearings by the appropriate officials, the ncic 18:58:48.5 system can handle the additional data. it will not overburden the system. it will make this information readily and immediately available to a police officer. and we may well -- he may well have or she may have stumbled on 18:59:04.9 a person like mohammed atta on his way to commit a horrible and unspeakable act of terrorism against the people of the united states. and that opportunity to make that arrest and to identify that criminal is most important. 18:59:20.3 so, mr. president, that's the purpose of the amendment. i believe if people think about it that we will see the need of it. i've tried to get this done in any number of different ways, but we haven't quite gotten there yet. 18:59:36.1 i think there's a majority in the senate probably on both sides of the aisle that would support this when it's clearly raised, but it tends, as it so often tends to happen, matters that actually work to a 18:59:52.8 significant degree and will actually substantially increase the ability of our law enforcement system to be effective are the things that don't become law. it's almost like if it works, it won't pass.
Footage Information
Source | ABCNEWS VideoSource |
---|---|
Title: | United State Senate 1900 - 2000 |
Date: | 03/05/2007 |
Library: | ABC |
Tape Number: | OSBB10559G |
Content: | SENATE FLOOR DEBATE: The Senate will convene and begin a period of morning business. At 3:00 p.m. the Senate will Resume consideration of S.4, the 9/11 Commission Recommendations bill. 18:08:09.3 vote: the 18:10:42.4 the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or to change their vote? if not, on this vote the ayes are 87; the nays are 1. the nomination is confirmed. under the previous order the 18:11:03.1 president will be immediately notified of the senate's action. the senate will return to legislative session. mr. lieberman: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. lieberman: mr. president, i ask for. the presiding officer: the 18:11:16.6 senator will be in order. the senate will be in order. mr. lieberman: i ask unanimous consent amendment numbered 328 be modified with the changes at the desk. the presiding officer: is there 18:11:32.2 order? the amendment is so modified. mr. lieberman: i thank the chair. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the 18:11:48.0 senator from oklahoma is recognized. mr. coburn: mr. president. 18:12:08.9 i ask that the pending amendment be set aside and i call amendment numbered 325. the presiding officer: without objection, it is so ordered. the clerk will report. 18:12:24.4 mr. coburn: the senate is not in order. the presiding officer: the senator is correct. the senate will be in order. the senate will be in order. 18:12:49.2 the clerk will report the amendment. the clerk: senator coburn proposes an amendment numbered 325. 18:13:00.8 on page 106, insert the following. 18:13:07.1 mr. coburn: i ask unanimous consent the amendment be considered as read. the presiding officer: without objection, it is so ordered. mr. coburn: mr. president, this bill has not been scored but by our estimates -- mr. president, i ask that the senate be in 18:13:23.2 order. the presiding officer: could 18:13:39.3 senators take their conversations to the cloakroom so we may have order. the senator from oklahoma. mr. coburn: thank you, mr. president. i appreciate that. by our estimate, this bill is about $17 billion plus. 18:13:54.4 it has not been scored. the house bill that will be merged in conference is over $20 billion. that is a large chunk of change for the american taxpayer. what we know is that a lot of the grants which make up about 18:14:13.6 three-plus billion a year over the next five years, the vast majority of this bill, will be homeland security grants of one type or another. what we know is the department of homeland security has not followed the law when it comes 18:14:29.2 to improper payments. what the improper payments act of 2002 required of every agency -- every agency of the federal government -- was that they perform a risk assessment of every program that they is, 18:14:44.3 that they develop a specific -- statistically valid estimate of improper payments; they develop a corrective action plan; they report the results of those activities to us. this isn't an optional plan for 18:15:00.7 the agencies. yet, this plan has been ignored since its inception and since the creation of the department of homeland security. so, we are getting ready to send another $17 billion 18:15:17.4 to $18 billion plus out the door for homeland security grants -- that's the majority of this -- and we know that the department of homeland security is not in compliance with the federal law. the law exists to make sure that we get good value for the 18:15:37.2 taxpayers' money. 2004 was the first year that the agencies were required to respond to this act. it is worth noting again that there is not an agency of the federal government, not one 18:15:50.9 agency, that is exempt from this law. this isn't a request. this is a statutory requirement of every agency. the department of homeland security has not even complied with the first step of this law. 18:16:09.6 they have not performed risk assessments for the programs to be at significant risk of making improper payments. they are an at risk program according to the analysis and yet they have not even looked to 18:16:23.4 do a risk assessment. the government accountability office has found six major programs at this department are out of compliance with improper payments act. the department of homeland security's independent auditor 18:16:39.6 has repeatedly cited noncompliance and the department of homeland security continues to face significant challenges with tee ma and with the individual and households program. based upon the department's performance and accountability report and their independent 18:16:56.0 auditor assessment, the following programs are out of compliance with improper payments act: customs and bother protection; office of grants and training; federal air marshals; the coast guard was supposed to have done a risk 18:17:12.1 assessment and has not been done; the federal emergency management agency; the trappinge transportation security administration and immigration 18:17:26.9 and customs enforcement. in case you think that is not a lot of money, we have already spent over $25 billion in grants through the years for these programs of which we have thought looked at the problem accounts. 18:17:44.2 the press is replete with problems in terms of these grants. $9 billion on state and local preparedness grants is what we get great d.h.s. and secretary chertoff at the most recent hearings said $5 billion of the 18:18:01.5 money, another $5 billion, part of which has been obligated has not gone out the door yet. 18:18:07.4 i think we owe it to the american people that if there's a law on the books, before we send more money out the door, the agency ought to comply with the law. 18:18:20.9 they ought to at least do a risk assessment. if there is no risk, that's fine, they will have complied with the law. but if there is risk we ought to be identifying the risk. every dollar we spent wastefully is a dollar we don't use to protect ourselves in terms of 18:18:38.9 security. kpmg was the independent auditor for 2004, 2005 and 2006 for the department of homeland security. each of the years they were out of compliance with this act. specifically, the department is cited for not instituting a systematic method of reviewing 18:18:54.0 all practices and identifying those that are believed to be susceptible to erroneous improper payments. the most important part of the improper payments act is to create the process of good, strong, oversight within the 18:19:09.4 department to make assessments about whether or not they are making improper peaments. what this assessment does is it identifying where the improper payments could have been made. that's essential to find out where the problems exist. this amendment doesn't debate 18:19:26.3 any of the merits of the department's programs. it simply demands compliance with the transparency and accountability measurements for that already -- that already exist under current law. if we want the american people and the executive branch to take 18:19:43.1 us seriously, congress must demand compliance for the laws that are laws. and we can't back off. this amendment isn't a surprise to the department of homeland security. they know they are failing. they need to respond to it. 18:19:58.9 this amendment in no way jeopardizes state funding. let me tell you why. because there's a pipeline of nine to twelve months in the works already on guarantees that are going there. so, for this to have any impact 18:20:13.9 would mean they would have to not respond for another year before those grants would be in jeopardy. now, some of my colleagues say, well, you can't do this. you can't put these grants at the risk of noncompliance of an agency in terms of meeting the 18:20:31.2 law. and the question ought to be, why not? why shouldn't we put the agency at risk with their grants for being noncompliant? the other point i would make is most of these grants go to state and localities. 18:20:44.9 and the problems with the grants, there is some cuppibility -- culpability on the parts of the agencies and the guarantees. states are not totally innocent. there is $2.5 billion that has not even been awarded yet that 18:21:02.5 still can be awarded before this takes effect. so, there is still another $5 billion which is greater than the amount we spend in any one year on these grants. what this amendment says is, they can't go past that unless they have complied with the law. 18:21:20.1 if we are not going to pass this amendment, we need to trash the improper payments act. if we're not going to say the department of homeland security has an obligation to follow the law we ought to take the law off the books. 18:21:32.9 we know, for sure, in the other areas of the federal government, we have somewhere between $40 billion and $80 billion worth of improper payments the we know we have $40 billion of improper payments, overpayments in medicare. 18:21:47.5 somewhere close to $30 billion in medicaid. we have a third of the earned-income tax credit that we know are improper payments. and we've only looked at 40% of the government. 60% of the government still is not complying with this. we ought to say, right now, if 18:22:04.4 we're going to put more money through the doofer, the american taxpayer ought to have -- through the door, the american taxpayer ought to have value through the money they send through the door. 18:22:20.1 we are asking them to be accountable. and to be accountable as a government -- as an agency of the federal government, there ought to be transparency. we ought to be able to see where they're making mistakes and 18:22:37.1 where they're not. the question of not even asking the question, that is what we are debating with this amendment. they are in absolute non-come ployance of a material law that requires them to be transparent about whether or not their grants are improperly paid or 18:22:52.9 funding things other than what they expected them to fund. investigations shows fema spent millions on puppet shows, bingo and yoga in south florida. 18:23:06.7 there is an article in the national review on homeland port, "baltimore sun", 5-2 9 "chasing security with dollars." the only transparency that we have here is that there's a total lack of transparency in the department of homeland 18:23:21.7 security. now, needless to say, this is a bill that goes far outside september 11th recommendations. 9/11 commission recommendations said all money should be based, risk-based and what we've turned 18:23:39.1 around with the 9/11 bill -- this one and what passed in previous congresses -- is a way to dole out money to states and not hold them accountable. what this amendment says is, you are going to have to start being accountable. 18:23:53.7 if we are going to send another almost $20 billion in terms of grants, homeland security ought to have to follow the law in terms of improper payments. remember, these grants aren't competitively awarded which is very different than the grants 18:24:12.7 that we have in almost every other federal program. the fact that they're not competitive is another reason, a much greater reason, for us to demand accountability and transparency at the department of homeland security. these grants are also not on the 18:24:28.9 basis of risk. some are. in some of these it will be down to .4% and a few at 0.25%. most of them have in local 18:24:44.3 match. so there's no risk on the side of the states or the municipalities that get these grants. just a note, the best way for congress to practice spending discipline is to demand that the 18:25:01.2 agencies comebly with the laws assuring appropriated dollars are spent adequately, appropriately, and lawfully. we have yet it do that with many agencies. d.h.s. is a good place to start. fema awarded $22.6 million for 18:25:18.1 crisis counceling for victims of hurricane katrina and rita. katrina did not even hit florida and yet a large portion of that was spent in florida. there's no accountability. there is no risk assessment, was 18:25:36.2 there a risk? they have not done the work we demand by the law. and what is being demanded of other agencies. there's an article in the 18:25:48.7 florida sun and i cannot vouch for its accuracy, where there's a little smoke there's some fire, the $1.2 billion in aid that fema granted to individuals -- not to municipalities, but to 18:26:04.0 individuals affected by the weather disasters between 1999 and 2004 -- the florida sun found that at least of $1.02 3w-8, at least $330 million of that went to people who did not personally suffer any damage or disruption from the storms. 18:26:21.5 now that's a fourth of the money out of that $1.2 billions. no wonder we have a deficit. no wonder -- because we're not willing to take the time to force an agency to do what they should be doing under the law. 18:26:41.7 i want to talk for a minute about this bill. the 9/11 commission was very 18:26:54.9 succinct and direct, noting that we have tremendous vulnerabilities and risks and exposures throughout this country. 18:27:07.5 and they were very clear to state that money that comes out of congress to address those ought to be absolutely risk-based. 18:27:21.9 the house bill at least has, down to 0.25% for every state. well, what that gives us is about 15% of the money that is going to go to the states, 18:27:39.0 regardless of their risk. so that's about $3. 5 billion or $4 billion. no risk, you are going to get homeland security grants even though you have no risk. think about what we are going to ask ourselves if we have another 18:27:56.2 terrorist attack and it's in one of the high-risk areas and before he sent, year after year after year after year after year after year, $4 billion to areas 18:28:07.4 that don't have a high risk? and that money could have prevented that action. with good fiscal discipline we will best protect the people of 18:28:24.4 this country. i know the tendency of this body is to make sure you get enough for you. and to make sure you can go home and say, we got this for you. and you can pat your sell on the back. but i wonder how many of us will 18:28:38.9 be patting ourselves on the back when we buy things that are not absolutely necessary with the grands that are going to state asks we ignore the very high risk, east coast, west coast and gulf coast and the large metropolitan areas in this country that need more money 18:28:53.7 while we are playing politics with with 15 to 20% of the money every year. we will be judged on that. and that judgment will not be a pretty picture. this amendment just simply says, no funds can go for any of these grants until fema and the 18:29:12.2 department of homeland security start complying with the federal statute which is called the improper payments act of 2002. it's very straight failure. and what we will have raised is the fear that my state may not get some money. well, they is a year to comply. 18:29:29.9 they is plenty of time to do what they have been asked to do. senator obama and i, this last year, over eight months ago, sent a letter to the department of homeland security asking why, and i would like to introduce 18:29:46.0 that letter into the record. this letter was sent to secretary chertoff. the federal financial management subcommittee of the department of -- of the committee on homeland security and government affairs had four hearings on 18:30:02.2 improper payments. we know what is required. we know they can do it. what congress has to do is make then do it if they want to spend the money. it is only right for our children and grandchildren to get fair value for the 18:30:19.0 tax-paying public as we send this money out.n so i'm a skeptic when it comes to this body when it gets away of the political poring that's going on -- poring that's going 18:30:32.5 o. i'm not sure this amendment is going to pass. there's there's no reason to have a law out there that we're not going to enforce. and if we're not going to enforce it, why have it on the books? 18:30:47.2 it's another enforcing the board. the law is there but we don't do t. we have to be accountable to 9 american public to make sure -- to the american public to make sure that the agencies follow the law. this is a simple amendment that requires homeland security to follow that. by the way, we've not had an answer to this letter. 18:31:04.1 this letter was dated november 16. i spoke in error. i'm just about finished, mr. president. i want to correct something i said last week on the united nations. my numbers were wrong. we, in fact, do pay for 20% -- about 22% of the unified budget 18:31:22.2 at the united nations and our total contribution is in excess of $5 billion. hi the ratios right; i had the numbers wrong and i wanted to correct that for the record today. and with that, i yield back the floor. 18:31:42.2 mr. sessions: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. sessions: mr. president, i would call up sessions amendment number 305. 18:32:01.1 i believe it -- the presiding officer: one moment. that amendment is the pending amendment. mr. sessions: mr. president, i believe the amendment is already pending. 18:32:11.7 i believe it was called up by senator mcconnell. mr. president, i would note and ask that senators craig, inhofe, isakson, and coburn be made cosponsors of this amendment. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sessions: mr. president, 18:32:27.9 it's certainly important, critically important that we clarify the role of state and local law enforcement officers in the enforcement and apprehension of those who violate our immigration laws and that we expand the national crime information center 18:32:47.8 entries. it is critical that we have them participate because with expanded ncic capability, which i'm surprised is not already 18:33:01.8 being done, they can be partners 18:33:04.9 in our federal law enforcement efforts. it would be in compliance with what the 9/11 commission and other reports have asked us to do. and it's a loophole in our system today that needs to be fixed. 18:33:18.6 the amendment i am offering is a slimmed-down version of the bill i offered in the last congress, the homeland security enforcement enhancement act. that was cosponsored by senators craig, inhofe, and isakson. the ideas contained in this amendment have also been 18:33:35.6 supported by senators kyl and cornyn. they included it in their immigration bill last congress. and senator ben nelson and tom coburn, they included -- those provisions were included in the nelson-sessions immigration 18:33:49.4 enforcement bill in last congress. additional, i'd like to tell my colleagues that my amendment is almost word-for-word the provision that the senate judiciary committee included when it marked up the senate immigration bill last year and the provision that the full 18:34:06.1 senate voted for when it passed s. 2611. the first section of the amendment reaffirms the existing -- what i believe to be the existing inherent authority of state and local law enforcement 18:34:23.0 to assist the federal government in enforcing the immigration laws of the united states during the normal course of their carrying out their law enforcement duties. the amendment specifically states that the participation of state and local law enforcement 18:34:39.2 personnel is required, not mandated by this legislation. it is 100% voluntary. section 2 of the amendment deals with the listing of immigration violators in the national crime 18:34:54.8 information center database. state and local officers need easily accessible roadside access to critical immigration information, just as they would do for citizens of the united states who violate our laws. officers routinely, when they 18:35:13.7 stop people on the road, run national crime information center database checks when they pull over suspects. speeders or people they're investigating for other crimes. the ncic is their bread-and-butter database. 18:35:29.5 today, the immigration violators file, the national crime information database, contains information on deported felons, alien absconders and wanted 18:35:46.2 persons, aliens with outstanding criminal warrants. so that is in the national crime information center database. but my amendment would direct that the department of homeland security work with the f.b.i. to place additional information on 18:36:02.6 certain immigration violators into the already existing immigration violators file. the four categories of immigration violators whose information would be entered are: one, aliens who have final orders of removal. 18:36:20.8 that's someone who has been apprehended, gone through a hearing and a judge has ordered finally that they be removed from the country for whatever violation. two, it would cover aliens under voluntary departure agreements, who for one reason or another 18:36:35.8 have signed an order that they would voluntarily deport themselves or leave country. number three, it would cover aliens who are known to have overstayed their authorized period of stay. the visa overstays. and number four, aliens whose 18:36:53.9 visas have been revoked. well, sometime people misbehave seriously. 27% of our federal penitentiary bed spaces today are filled by noncitizens. 18:37:07.7 for some reason, in recent years we're seeing a substantial number of criminal aliens coming into our country. and i would say now, these are not bed spaces for immigration law violations, not people waiting to be deported. these are people who've been arrested, tried or convicted of 18:37:26.0 federal criminal laws, such as drug dealing and -- and assaults or smuggling and things of that nature. so when state and local police officers encounter individuals 18:37:40.5 during their regular law enforcement duties, it's important that they know if the individual in front of them falls into one of these violator categories. importantly, my amendment includes a new procedure for removal of erroneous information in the -- from ncic. 18:37:58.2 if there's something entered incorrectly under the new 18:38:03.2 procedures, an alien may petition the secretary of department of homeland security or the head of ncic to remove any erroneous information that may have been placed that file to protect them from any unfair treatment. 18:38:18.7 now, these are recommendations that really should already be law. but they're recommendations made in the 9/11 official report. and we're all familiar with that 18:38:34.6 9/11 recommendations. and they've been included in the hart-rudman report. on page 34 of the 9/11 commission report -- excuse me. on page 384 of the 9/11 report, 18:38:50.9 the commission says -- quote -- "our investigation showed that two systemic weaknesses came together in our border system's inability to contribute to an effective defense against the 9/11 attacks. 18:39:05.2 a lack of well-developed counterterrorism measures as a part of border security and an immigration system not able to deliver on its basic commitments, much less support counterterrorism. these weaknesses have been 18:39:20.8 reduced but are far from being overcome." on page 390, the report says -- quote -- "there is a growing role for state and local law enforcement agencies. they need more training and work with federal agencies so that 18:39:36.1 they can cooperate more effectively with those federal authorities in identifying terrorist suspects." in the fall of 2002, a year after the 9/11 attacks, the council on foreign relations published the hart-rudman report 18:39:54.9 entitled 'america, still unprepared; america, still in danger." that report found that one problem america still confronts is that 700,000 local and state police officials continue to 18:40:11.8 operate in a virtual intelligence vacuum. the first recommendation of the hart-rudman report was to tap the eyes and ears of local and state law enforcement officers 18:40:27.9 in preventing attacks, closed quote. that's their first recommendation to -- quote -- "tap the eyes and ears of local and state law enforcement officers in preventing attacks." on page 19, the report 18:40:43.4 specifically cited the burden of finding hundreds of thousands of illegal fugitive aliens living among the population of more than 8.5 million illegal aliens and suggested that the burden could and should be shared with the 700,000 local, county, and 18:41:00.3 state law enforcement officers if they could be brought out of the information void. so this amendment that i am offering tightly targets 9/11 commission and hart-rudman report recommendations that we 18:41:17.0 look at the growing role for state and local law enforcement. that we move toward an immigration system that can -- quote -- "deliver on its basic commitments" as a way to fight terrorism. 18:41:33.6 and that we -- quote -- "tap the eyes and ears of local and state law enforcement officers" in an effort to find the hundreds of thousands of fugitive aliens in the united states. most americans would probably be 18:41:53.1 amazed that that's not occurring today. in fact, a poll -- a recent poll gives us several -- about three years ago, a poll was done on this very subject and it found 18:42:10.3 that a large majority of americans feel that state and local governments should be aiding the federal government in finding alien fugitives. that's pretty common sensical. in fact, a roper poll found that 5% of americans agree and 65% -- 18:42:30.5 that 85% of americans agree and 65% strongly agree -- and i've got to tell you, those are powerful numbers when you hear numbers that high -- they agree that congress should pass a law requiring state and local governments and law enforcement 18:42:44.3 agencies to apprehend and turn over to i.n.s. -- now "ice" -- i illegal immigrants with whom they come in contact. that's pretty strong date a. it's important to note that those response -- that's pretty strong data. it's important to note that 18:42:59.2 those responses collected 18:43:01.3 earlier were in response to those requiring local immigration enforcement action. so it's very likely that a poll on this subject, one about voluntary state and local assistance, would be even stronger. let me tell you about the problems that started my interest in this area and 18:43:16.2 prompted me to offer this amendment as well as three years ago to push for a hearing which was held on april 22 of 2004 in 18:43:33.1 the senate judiciary committee entitled -- quote -- "state and local law" -- "state and local authority to enforce immigration law, evaluating a unified approach for stopping 18:43:50.3 terrorists." and to me -- for notice author a law review article -- for me to author a law review article in april 2005, along with my chief council on judiciary, cindy hayden, who was just here, that was published in "the stanford law and policy review," entitled 18:44:05.1 "the growing role for state and local law enforcement in the realm of immigration law." so this is the reality, to my colleagues and friends in the senate. this is the problem we're 18:44:18.8 dealing with. police chiefs and sheriffs in alabama began to tell me as i travel the state and met with them frequently, as i continue to do, that they had been shut out of immigration enforcement and that they felt powerless to 18:44:35.0 do anything about alabama's growing illegal immigrant population. i heard the same story wherever i went -- quote -- "when we come across illegal aliens in our normal course of duty, we have given up calling the i.n.s. 18:44:50.4 because they tell us we have to have 15 or more illegals in custody or they will not even bother to come and pick them up. even worse, alabama police were routinely told that aliens could not be detained until i.n.s. 18:45:05.9 could manage to send someone. they were told they just had to let them go." and this is basically the policy all over america today. i kid you not. 18:45:21.3 if a local officer in virtually any state in america stops someone for speeding or d.u.i. and finds out that they are here illegally, they basically take no steps to even contact i.n.s. because they only have 2,000 18:45:37.4 agents in the entire united states and they're not going to come out there and get them. and, in fact, for other legal reasons, they may have some doubt -- although, frankly, not much -- but there's some doubt about what their authority might be.n now, i -- we've done some 18:45:56.4 research into this and believe that the legal authority of state and local officers to voluntary act on violations of immigration law was pretty clear. and there's any doubt that state and local law officers have this 18:46:12.2 authority and if there is any, and there certainly is some today, congress needs to remove that doubt, which is what this amendment will do. basically, there's a split in the circuits, but -- and i'll take just a moment to explain 18:46:34.8 it. the ninth circuit and the 10th circuit have explicitly -- and the 10th circuit on more than one occasion -- concluded squarely that quote, "a state trooper has general investigatory authority to 18:46:49.4 inquire into possible immigration violations," closed quote. as the 10th circuit went on to say quote, "there is a pre-existing general authority of state or local police officers to investigate and make arrests for violations of 18:47:07.7 federal law, including immigration laws." they went on to say, the 10th circuit did, in 2001 quote, "state and local police officers have implicit authority within their respective jurisdictions to investigate and make arrests 18:47:25.2 for violations of federal law, including immigration laws." now, these 10th circuit cases made no distinction between visa overstays, which is nor criminal 18:47:40.3 in nature, but civil, but the 9th circuit did, they concluded the civil violations of a visa overstay did not amount to an offense of law that the local law enforcement officer could arrest and detain for. 18:48:04.9 it was not part of the central holding on that case, but that one piece of dicta impacted lawyers and police departments 18:48:17.8 and sheriff's departments all over america. and they're telling their officers, well, the person that you stop is here illegally, it might be that they're a visa overstay and not someone who came across the border illegally. 18:48:32.2 and if you arrest them and detain them, they might sue us, they might sue the city, they might sue the police department. so they've established policies based on this ambiguity that effectively reduced the participation of local law enforcement officers to a dramatic degree in the 18:48:50.8 enforcement of immigration laws. and that's not appropriate. we can fix that. this amendment would fix that. a second problem that the amendment deals with is the inadequate way we share information on immigration 18:49:05.6 matters with state and local police. we have databases full of information on criminal aliens and aliens with final deportation orders, but that information is not directly available to the state and local police through their base system, the ncic. 18:49:23.2 instead, officers are required to make a special second inquiry into the law enforcement support center, which is headquartered in vermont, to see if the person they pulled over is an illegal alien wanted by d.h.s. now, i got to tell you, they're 18:49:41.8 just not carrying around in their pockets those phone numbers anyway. they don't know how to do it, they're not comfortable with it, it's not what they do every day, and they're not doing it. and besides if they do and found out the person is illegal, there's nothing much they can do but let them go anyway. 18:50:03.8 so the ability of the bread and burr nci -- bread and butter ncic database is to convey to 18:50:13.9 local police who stop someone out on a highway information that this may be a wanted person, may be even a terrorist, has been severely impacted or 18:50:28.4 real not effective in many, many different areas. now, i've complained about this for some time and some progress has been made, but not enough. to date, the immigration violators file of the ncic 18:50:46.3 contains about 200,000 entries and only about 107,000 of the approximate 600,000 alien absconders are in the ncic. i want you to hear that. 18:51:02.0 only about 100,000 of the 600,000 alien absconders have been entered into the ncic. so what does that mean? that means if a local police officer somewhere stops a person that's been previously arrested 18:51:19.5 for an immigration violation, that person has been released on bail, as is often the case, or ordered to return to court or are frequently deported and they don't do so, they abscond, and 18:51:35.8 there are 600,000 of those absconders out there, but only 107,000 of those records are in ncic, so if a local police officer is not likely to find a hit if the person before him, there would be one in five 18:51:51.8 chances that they would get that hit. that really needs to be fixed, and for the life of me i can't see why more progress has not been made. we've been talking about this for four or five years in the senate judiciary committee with the department of justice officials and i.c.e. officials and f.b.i. people who run the 18:52:09.6 ncic. now, at the very least, the ncic should contain four types of immigration information: aliens with final orders of removal. if someone has been ordered removed, they should not be in this country. 18:52:24.7 they sometimes leave the country and come back into the country and you get a hit on that person. in other words, they've been ordered removed. why are they back in the country? second group should be in there, aliens under voluntary departure 18:52:42.2 agreement. some agree voluntarily to leave and sign an agreement to that effect. they ought to be in there because they should not have stayed in the country, or if they left, they should not have returned. aliens who are known to have overstayed their authorized period of stay should be entered 18:52:56.0 and aliens whose visas have been 18:52:59.7 revoked, for heaven sakes, ought to be in there. somebody's here improperly, maybe associated with some criminal enterprise, the i.c.e. people have revoked their visa for some reason, it would have 18:53:15.3 to be significant, usually, for that to occur, they ought to go in there. because if they've been -- because if they're stopped somewhere, they should be detained and turned over to i.c.e.; otherwise, the system is not working. 18:53:29.1 and let me just tell my colleagues i know how this system works. if someone had their visa revoked and had been ordered to be removed, trust me, the i.c.e. 18:53:48.5 agents don't go out and walk the streets of philadelphia or atlanta or birmingham and look for them so they can deport them. they don't do it. they are not even close to 18:54:00.7 having the possibility of doing that. only the people that they have evidence on and are extremely dangerous is that done on. and that's very, very few. the way most people are caught is just like everybody else in america who is caught who have 18:54:18.3 absconded or run off on bail. they get caught by getting picked up by police on a traffic stop somewhere. the police officer runs their name and i.d. in ncic and it comes back a hit. there's a warrant for their arrest in montgomery, alabama, for armed robbery, and he locked 18:54:36.3 them up. now, if you are an american citizen and you get a reckless driving ticket and you're ordered to appear in court at a given time and place and you don't appear in court, they issue a warrant for your arrest. 18:54:52.8 and normally the police officers don't go out and chase you down all over, finding to arrest you. normally they put it in the ncic immediately on the assumption that you'll soon be stopped 18:55:05.1 somewhere else on the way and they'll get a hit on you and they'll put you in jail because you have a warrant for flight out there or for jumping bail. but we don't do that for noncitizens. a citizen that will happen to, a united states senator that will 18:55:20.6 happen to, but not somebody that's coming into the country illegally, we don't do the same thing when they jump bail on their charges. so, mr. president, there are a 18:55:42.7 lot of stories that we can tell, and i would just summarize a number of them that really caught the attention of the 9/11 commission. for example, mohammed atta, who is believed to have piloted american airlines flight 11, 18:55:59.3 which flew into the world trade center's north tower and to have played a leading role in more than 3,000 deaths that occurred that day, in july, just two months before the attacks, atta was stopped by police in 18:56:17.6 tamarack, florida, and ticketed for an invalid license. he ignored the ticket and bench warranted for an arrest. when he was stopped for speeding weeks later in a nearby town, the officer did not check, did not disufer this warrant -- 18:56:31.8 discover this warrant had been issued and let him go with only a warning. now, ok, atta had not yet become illegal. i believe at that time he still was on a legal status, however he was about to expire, and i 18:56:46.8 doubt he would have returned to the immigration officer to get it extended. he would soon have been here illegally as a visa overstay. he could well have been apprehended and identified before 9/11 had he done so. 18:57:06.4 and that's the example i'm trying to make here. it could very well have been decisive. also, hamid hanjour was just one month before 9/11 stopped by 18:57:24.7 police in arlington, virginia, for driving 50 miles an hour in a 35-mile-per-hour zone. he was in a chevy van with new jersey plates, he produced a florida driver's license, but he was the pilot of the american airlines flight 77, which 18:57:39.5 crashed into the pentagon, the third hijacker was stopped by state police just two days before september 11, also for speeding. maryland state police stopped ziad jara on interstate 95 for 18:57:57.1 driving 90 miles an hour in a 60-mile zone. well, i say that, mr. president, to say we're not talking about academic matters here. we're talking about the fact that the alien database needs to 18:58:17.0 be accessible to local police. it might as well, for all practical purposes, be locked up in some valuate somewhere in secrecy the way it's being done today. 18:58:29.5 it's not available to the people out there who need it. and the hart-ruddman commission raised that point, as did the 9/11 commission. we absolutely can -- i've been told at hearings by the appropriate officials, the ncic 18:58:48.5 system can handle the additional data. it will not overburden the system. it will make this information readily and immediately available to a police officer. and we may well -- he may well have or she may have stumbled on 18:59:04.9 a person like mohammed atta on his way to commit a horrible and unspeakable act of terrorism against the people of the united states. and that opportunity to make that arrest and to identify that criminal is most important. 18:59:20.3 so, mr. president, that's the purpose of the amendment. i believe if people think about it that we will see the need of it. i've tried to get this done in any number of different ways, but we haven't quite gotten there yet. 18:59:36.1 i think there's a majority in the senate probably on both sides of the aisle that would support this when it's clearly raised, but it tends, as it so often tends to happen, matters that actually work to a 18:59:52.8 significant degree and will actually substantially increase the ability of our law enforcement system to be effective are the things that don't become law. it's almost like if it works, it won't pass. |
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