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Congressional Daily Record
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April 15, 2026
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Download official Senate Record PDFReturn to issue contextMr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I would like to speak to two or three topics. One of them is the current procedural situation in the Senate and, for that matter, the House.
Republicans allowed funding to lapse for the Department of Homeland Security and for the government to partially shut down. This has turned out to be the longest government shutdown in American history.
and proposed funding all of the Department of Homeland Security except two specific Agencies—ICE and the CBP agents. Do you remember that, Mr. President?
In another instance, my colleague from Connecticut Mr. Murphy sought to pass legislation to pay members of our Coast Guard. Republicans objected to that too.
Guard a total of 14 times. Why would they block the funding of these critical Agencies? Because the White House and my Republican colleagues refuse to sit down and talk about the future of ICE and whether the rules that apply to law enforcement all across the United States will apply to ICE.
like Chicago and Minneapolis across this country with increasingly violent and militarized enforcement operations. You can't miss the ICE agents. They wear masks. The only law enforcement Agency in the United States that I know of—Federal, State, or local—where their officers wear masks. Many of them, historically, didn't even have a name tag to identify who they are. They are a paramilitary force created by President Trump and Stephen Miller to harass people who may be here illegally when it comes to immigration.
essential workers went unpaid. Instead of agreeing to reforms, the White House took Executive action to skirt accountability.
What has happened to ICE? After the killings in Minneapolis and the violence in Chicago and other cities, ICE virtually disappeared. When the director of the Department of Homeland Security was forced to resign, we had a new director come on board—the Senator from Oklahoma. What has happened to him? They have gone radio silent.
was when they were dispatched to airports. And for some reason—it may be part of the current charm offensive for ICE—they were told they don't have to wear a mask if they are in an airport. This makes no sense at all if you buy their explanation that the ICE agents are so vulnerable.
What happened when they were in the airport? It is reported that they arrested and detained over 800 people.
Remember what ICE was supposed to do? It was supposed to make us safe—safe in our homes and neighborhoods, safe across the United States. The President said over and over again: ICE is going to go after the worst of the worst. Rapists, murderers, terrorists, the criminally insane—we are going to go find them.
So what has happened in the months that ICE has been on this crusade? One out of seven people that they have detained or removed from the United States actually had a serious criminal record. It made no difference; the Stephen Miller plan is to put fear in the hearts of all the immigrants to the United States, and that is what they set out to do. It is not a question of safety in the neighborhoods; it is a question of whether or not we are going to tolerate immigration in America.
it comes to immigration. Let me tell you what I think those basics are. We should never knowingly allow a dangerous person to come into this country. Second, if there is a person in this country that is seeking legal status and they do something serious, like commission of a crime or they are dangerous, they are gone—gone. Third, we cannot absorb at any one time all the people in the world who want to come to the United States. We need to have an orderly system. I think those three elements are the starting point of a bipartisan conversation.
years ago with the Gang of 8—four Democratic Senators, four Republican Senators—among them, John McCain and Chuck Schumer. We sat down for months and wrote up a bill: comprehensive immigration reform. It was supported by business and labor and the agriculture groups, and by and large, it was bipartisan from start to finish. More money was put into border security than ever in the history of the United States.
That bill passed the U.S. Senate with a bipartisan vote. That should have been the beginning of a conversation that leads us away from where we are today, but what happened? It was sent to the Republican- controlled House of Representatives and, for a variety of political reasons, went nowhere.
comprehensive immigration reform plan. We have to tell Stephen Miller to cool it.
communities is just to make people fearful and not solve the problem we face. We have to work together to solve it with a comprehensive plan, and we should be started on that immediately.