Declarative sentence there is no one in this body who is for open borders one of the most troublesome aspects of this debate as it has been framed particularly by the administration is that you're either for the Wall or open borders that is not true virtually every member well two thirds of us voted in two thousand 13 for a very strong border security provision as part of the comprehensive immigration reform bill that passed this body as I say by two thirds it was never taken up in the House Have been taken up in the House it likely would have pass the President would have signed it and a lot of these issues would be behind us all of us everyone here on both sides of the aisle support border security what we support is cost effective effective sensible border security not border security that really doesn't fit the nature of the problem that we face and so far anyway is undefined in terms of location design cost and all the other characteristics of any Construction projects submitted to this Congress for its approval I don't believe a Wall and again one of the problems with this whole discussion is what does the President mean when he says Wall what is it 30 feet high at 20 feet high is it steals the concrete this is evolved over time but the biggest question is where and how long is he talking about a Wall that extends from the Gulf of Mexico to southern California to the Pacific ocean that's about two thousand miles is that what he's talking about if so we should know that and then we can debate it as as it relates to other potential options for securing Along that distance now it also should be noted that there already is Wall by anybody's definition along portions of that border I've seen them I've been to mcallen Texas where the President was yesterday and I've seen the Wall a Wall but the question is how big is it where's it gonna go and how is it going to be designed and paid for now one of the reasons the Wall is really not the right solution for the current problems of immigration starts with That about 50 percent of the illegal immigrants of the undocumented immigrants in this country today are here on legal visas that they've overstayed so a Wall has nothing to do with these people these are people that came in at airports and and all other ports of entry into the United States all over the country 50 percent came our here on over staying visas the Wall has zero effect on that issue the Principle issues that we're facing at the Wall and and this is also been confused in the the coverage and the caravans and the news and the fear that has been spread the vast majority of the people coming to the to the border today are not looking to sneak across they're looking for a port of entry to give themselves up as asylum seekers they are not illegal immigrants they are availing themselves of American law that once they get to this country with a credible fear of prosecution or persecution or danger in their home country they have a right to be determine whether Legitimate asylum seekers and that's who we're dealing with that's who all those people are who do you see the pictures the caravan they were headed for a blank place in the Arizona desert they want to go they want to be captured they want to be taken into custody and then they can have their asylum claim adjudicated so the Wall has nothing to do with them and the Wall is a response to a problem that's decades old that has Drastically diminished over the last 10 or 15 years the problem of people literally sneaking across the border entering the country illegally all of the data is that that number is down it's down about eighty five percent from the number of people that entered the country illegally into thousand seven over the past 10 or 11 years and by the way all the data can be found in a fascinating document produced in two thousand and 17 about a year ago by the trump administration Department of homeland security and I can't remember the exact title but it's something like status of illegal immigration at the southern border so long report full of graphs and I like grass but I don't need to hold them up because all of the graphs have a a downward slope in terms of illegal entries people that get away the number of people that are coming in that are receipt of this who've been here before their all down so to argue that somehow we're in a crisis today when all the indicators are moving in the right direction is really hard to With the reality so the the issue that I'm trying to illustrate is the Wall is the wrong solution to the current problem it may have been a rational solution in 19 eighty five or even in two thousand and five or in two thousand six when the Congress passed a major offense law and increase border security substantially but today we're dealing with a different set of problems that the Wall a Wall whatever it is doesn't address So I said at the beginning nobody here is against border border security and there may be places where a Wall is part of that but one of the secondary problems that we have is we've never been told what this thing the Wall is how long it will be how big it will be how much it will cost whether it's gonna be on private land or federal land we don't have the plans a plan for what it is that's actually being proposed that the government is being held hostage over we Know what the President wants to say I want a Wall doesn't tell you much is it too thousand miles one or hundred miles law is it 20 feet high is it offense or is it a 30 foot high concrete Wall or something with steel slots which seems to be the uh the the design of the day we don't really know what it is if the mayor of bangor man went to the city Council and said I'm gonna build I want to build a new school but I'm not gonna tell you how many students are gonna be in it I'm not gonna tell you where we're gonna build it and I'm not gonna tell you What it's gonna cost but just give me a blank check to build that school the city Council of bangor would laugh her honor out of the Hall it wouldn't he wouldn't even think about doing something no city in America would do something like that and yet that's what we're being asked here today we're being asked essentially for a blank check well is a check of five point seven billion dollars but that should that's a down payment The real estimates for what they think the President wants is more in the 20 to 25 billion dollar amount and that gets me to my final point before I talk about the impact of this in man Let's say we could settle this this week we could negotiate with the White House which is not easy to do because the their position changes day to day but let's say we could negotiate and say okay it's gonna be a hundred miles of Wall and here's what you know this would be the size this will be the design this is the agreed upon cost let's say that we could we could do that If we do that in the context of the government being shut down we are inviting this to happen again next year we'll have more budgets we've got a debt ceiling debate coming that's very important for the future of the country for the economics of the country for the soundness of our economy and we've got budgets coming next September if this works If this shutdown that's been initiated by the President works as a tactic to get a portion of his Wall he'll do it next time that's that's the that's why the age old principle is you don't negotiate with hostage takers why because if you do the next time they'll do it again And this will become a normal and routine tactic between this President and perhaps future presidents and the Congress that puts us in a position of being totally uh we have to choose between a government shutdown and the pet project of whatever whoever that President is that's a very dangerous path for us as a delivered a body and particularly as a Co equal branch of the United States government so what I mean I've talked in served global terms but this is help hurting mainstreet America and we Today and we've heard on the news and we hear all the time about the effects on the furl owed federal workers which are very real today is the day they don't get their check and here's the problem You can shut down and stop people's checks from coming but you can't stop their bills from coming Their mortgage payment their childcare payment their automobile insurance their home insurance their heating bill their medication their food all of that has to be paid for and we can say well you know we'll make adjustments well that's a pretty hard path to put people on that's a heartless path and these people are being used as pawns as hostages in a policy debate that has nothing to do with them one of the easiest solution Mr President would be for us to pass the six bills that the House has passed that we passed That fun 90 percent of the government why should the Department of agriculture be caught in the crossfire of a debate over a Wall in Texas why should Park Rangers be caught in that why should Coast guard people be caught in that and this is having a real effect and aside from those federal workers of whom there are about a thousand in man on furlough right now they're all the contractors that serve these government agencies and we passed a bill last night that's gonna ensure that the federal the furlough federal employees will eventually be paid that Say anything about what they're gonna have to do about penalties on late mortgages and those kinds of things that they can't pay now but there's no help for the contractors that are gonna lose total income during this period and some of them will be threatened of going out of business so it's not just the 800000 workers statewide nationwide it's thousands and thousands tens of thousands of people who depend on those agencies uh for uh the work that they do that they provide to the federal government But let's talk about affection hometown in main Street America in the in the um In just places all over maine in portland for example won this I I chuckled because it it sounds like oh this is no big deal one of our most growing industries and maine is beer and uh we have over a thousand people employed in the craft brewing industry has been a growth industry and yet they're being stymied the brewers are being stymied many of them because they can't ship there uh beer across state lines without approval from the food and drug administration of their labels and that's held up And we've got a merger or uh uh expansion of our brewery in southern maine that's held up because they can't get their permission from the uh tax and trade Bureau from the uh eighty F so these are the kinds of things the services that are being provided that aren't being occurred the portland press herald reported on the on the breweries important press herald also reported on a on a developer that has a project to develop a uh real estate project and maine can't get an sba loan sba shut down and that's gonna Hold it up and could even cause the deal to fall through uh the bangor daily news reports a uh family that stuck in the Middle where they moved out of their House anticipating a closing on a new House with a agriculture Department loan guarantee that's now stuck stranded no no action nobody to answer the phone and they are living out of boxes they're caught in the Middle these are people these aren't federal employees these are maine good maine people who relied upon the daily activities The federal government occurring which ought to be just simple common sense and yet they're caught without a place to live the ellsworth America uh newspaper and else worth man uh a weekly award winning weekly newspaper reports about a uh a smokehouse that does a smoked salmon and and they were getting ready to reopen hire people they've got people on staff and all of a sudden they're dead stop because of the food and drug administration uh can't uh Can act to approve uh their licenses now you can say okay this little smokehouse can survive the family will find a place to live they can live but if you multiply these examples by thousands and millions you're talking about a really substantial effect on real people's lives And there's no excuse for it if this were over some major uh life-or-death policy issue it would be somewhat understandable but this is an eminently negotiable problem not a crisis but the problem I don't I don't argue that is not a problem and that the southern border doesn't need to be secure again I swear that's where I started but the question is how do you do it right how do you do it in That makes sense to the American taxpayer there may be places where it's Wall but the Wall is 20 million dollars a mile there may be ways to do it for a fraction of that and provide equal security they're also our ways for example with better screening devices at the ports of entry to deal with drugs and by the way All of the data from the dea the current administration to part of uh drug enforcement agency is that the principal source of drugs coming across the southern border is at ports of entry hidden in cars hidden in trucks not over through and around someplace in the Middle of the desert that's where the drugs are coming through that's where we ought to be concentrating that's where we ought to be putting the technology more dogs are more more uh technology that can to detect this kind of thing not Wall it doesn't address the current problem it just it's it's it's the it's a solution but it's going after the wrong problem so these are real life impacts we don't it doesn't need to be this way if this were a project being proposed by the military a new uh to queue at Fort benning it would come to this Congress it would Go to the authorization Committee the plans would go to the appropriations Committee we would review it question the sponsors to determine if it was a appropriate expenditure of public funds and either approve it or deny it or suggest some alteration this Wall is not never gone through that process and we are basically advocating to the administration a major decision particularly about public expenditure without meeting our response Abilities now one really simple way to get out of this would be for us to vote by two thirds to pass the budget that we voted like 98 to two several weeks ago has one point six billion dollars in it for border security by the way pass that and then sit down and talk to the administration about just what it is that you want and what's reasonable and how do we do it in a sensible way and then we can get this thing done well Worries me is the posture that the Senate is in today is adding a provision that isn't in the constitution the constitution says the President can veto a bill what we're saying here now through the hour uh inability or unwillingness to bring a bill to the floor is the President can stop a bill simply by saying he doesn't like it that's not what the constitution says it doesn't say the President has the right to stop bills he doesn't like He says he has to veto it he's going to veto it fine then we can discuss it debate it and determine whether that's an appropriate veto but by by avoiding the responsibility of considering this legislation we're essentially handing the President a massive power that presidents I don't believe should have This is an important issue it's one that should be considered it's one that should be debated I'd like to see the administration given the opportunity to make its case for the specifics not the case generally about criminals or drugs which many of many of those claims have been uh refuted but a specific case about here's what we wanna do here is really the effect of it here's what it will cost and here's why this is the best solution as opposed to other solutions like offense or more border patrol agents or more technology a drone or sensors or or whatever We're not being given that opportunity I'm perfectly willing to debate that in good faith I don't dismiss out of hand that Wall a Wall made make sense in certain areas but I'm not prepared to give this administration a blank check for some construction project that I don't know what it is they want to build I'm also Very reluctant To concede anything in the context of a hostage situation where the United States government is being held hostage because of a project that the President wants to build if we do this Mr President this will become the goto tactic tactic for this administration and probably for future administrations we will have established a precedent that will haunt this institution for years to come and that's one of the reasons I think it's just imperative that we not cave in to this uh kind of uh attempted intimidation Express our good faith willingness to look at work on and try to establish the right role for all parts of border security but not put all of our chips in one area that I believe will be both ineffective not cost effective and damaging to our other efforts to actually secure the border and protect the American people Mr President a yoga floor This President senior senator from Alaska this present I