00:00Taking parents in the middle of the school day, because there are so many other ways
00:07that ICE could operate so as to detain the people that they feel that they need to detain
00:11without it being done in this deeply traumatic way.
00:15Mr. President, there is a great divide right now between—
00:21Can I get an order on the floor, please?
00:24Thank you, Mr. President.
00:25Mr. President, there is a pretty significant divide right now between Democrats and Republicans
00:30on the issue of the way that ICE is enforcing our immigration laws in the interior.
00:36Democrats believe that what is happening today is both illegal and immoral,
00:41and that is why, right now, these operations are being funded through reconciliation,
00:46because we believe that it's our constitutional obligation to refuse to fund an agency that is out of control,
00:54not in compliance with the law.
00:56Republicans broadly have supported the actions of this administration as they target both
01:03immigrants without documentation and legal immigrants for arrest and detention.
01:08I'm going to offer a request to pass a bill by unanimous consent that does not seek to repair that
01:18divide.
01:19Instead, it seeks to try to bring us together on a very narrow question,
01:25a question that arises from a set of incidents that have happened in my state of Connecticut over the
01:32course of the last month and a half.
01:34On the morning of August 26th, the second day of school for most school districts in Connecticut,
01:48in Danbury, Connecticut, bus drivers began reporting to the school district that they had noticed the
01:54presence of ICE agents in and around school bus stops.
02:01At one of them, a constituent of mine, a father, was waiting at the school bus stop with his six
02:08-year-old
02:08son. And just moments after saying goodbye to his son for the second day of school,
02:16and even before the school bus had fully driven away, ICE arrested and detained him.
02:23This practice was reported all around the state. ICE gathering at school bus stops,
02:30waiting until a young child had boarded the school bus, and then detaining and arresting the parent.
02:39For parents in this body, you know how anxious that first day of school is,
02:45how kids are just brimming with nervous anxiety about that first day. And you know what that
02:54feels like to watch your kid walk onto that school bus. Well, what do you think it does to those
03:00kids on
03:01that first and second day of school to see ICE officers at the school bus stop? Imagine that
03:09six-year-old who boarded the school bus when he got back from school that day, got off, and his
03:17parent
03:18wasn't there. A six-year-old feeling like he had been abandoned. In this case, he may or may not
03:27have
03:28seen the arrest because it happened almost immediately after he got on. To me, it's pretty obvious that the
03:37intent here with this new practice of ICE showing up at school bus stops is to traumatize the children.
03:47But you don't have to agree with me that the intent is to traumatize the children,
03:53to just come to the conclusion that ICE does not need to be at school bus stops in order to
04:00enforce
04:01the law. There are a myriad of other settings in which ICE can operate to carry out arrests
04:13while staying clear of school bus stops, where the intent or at least the result
04:24of those operations is to leave little kids in trauma. Now, I've introduced three pieces of simple
04:32legislation to say that ICE should not operate at daycare centers, they shouldn't operate at children's
04:40playgrounds, and that they shouldn't operate at school bus stops. I am asking unanimous consent
04:47today for only one of those pieces of legislation that I think is the most urgent. And while I don't
04:52expect the result to be agreement, I had hoped that we could find agreement on this narrow question, that
04:58ICE should just stay away from school bus stops. I shouldn't be traumatizing children at school bus stops,
05:07taking parents in the middle of school day, because there are so many other ways that ICE could operate
05:15so as to detain the people that they feel they need to detain without it being done in this deeply
05:22traumatic
05:22way. In fact, we came close to getting an agreement on a similar proposal before negotiations broke down
05:31over DHS funding. Senator Blumenthal, my colleague, has a piece of legislation that is even broader than
05:38the three bills I'm proposing. The idea is that there should just be a ban on the operation of ICE
05:45at
05:45sensitive locations, which would include places where children gather, but also would include other
05:51sensitive locations like churches. And I know my Republican colleagues were close to agreeing to that before
05:57these negotiations broke down. And so today I am taking a small slice of that broader proposal and
06:06just asking my colleagues, can we come to an agreement that school bus stops should be off limits? Can we
06:13decide to have compassion for that six-year-old child who got on the bus for his second day of
06:22school
06:22and when he got back off the bus was abandoned? The last point I'll make is this. While that practice
06:31is bad enough, it is important to note that ICE tried to cover up the practice. When they were presented
06:42with these stories from Danbury, DHS doubled down and said any claim that ICE targeted parents at a school
06:52bus stop is false. But then just days afterwards, we had the video evidence. And this often happens.
07:01ICE says something didn't happen and then we have the video proving that it did. And in Danbury's case,
07:06we have two separate videos taken from the school bus showing ICE operating at the school bus stop and
07:13detaining this parent. So my hope is that we can come together and just make a decision that while we
07:21have
07:21big differences over the broader issue of ICE enforcement, that ICE should stop preying upon
07:29our kids at sensitive locations, in particular school bus stops. So my motion is this. Notwithstanding Rule 22,
07:38and as if in legislative session, I would ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be
07:45discharged and the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S5435. I further ask consent that
07:52the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered, made,
07:57and laid upon the table. Is there objection? The Senator from Indiana. Thank you, Mr. President. Reserving the right to
08:05object. Look, this is just another attempt after many other attempts by Democrats to stop ICE from doing
08:15their job and enforcing our immigration laws. As you're seeing today, Democrats will do anything that
08:22they can to stop ICE, our men and women who are in federal law enforcement, from securing our nation and
08:31keeping families safe. In my state of Indiana, just over this last weekend, an illegal with an ICE detainer,
08:40drunk and behind the wheel of a vehicle, killed an innocent 33-year-old woman, Tamara Thomas, who was
08:50walking near a gas station in downtown Indianapolis. Tamara, unfortunately, is not the first Hoosier who
08:58lost her life because of an illegal immigration crisis in this country. In February, an illegal ran a red
09:07light and killed 64-year-old Terry Schultz in Avon, Indiana. And in the same month, an illegal semi-truck
09:17driver
09:18who entered our country using Joe Biden's CBP-1 app, swerved into oncoming traffic, and killed four
09:28Amish men near my hometown in Jay County in northern Indiana. A couple of months ago, Indianapolis police
09:37arrested an illegal from Mexico who now faces 30 separate charges, including rape, sexual assault,
09:47and kidnapping. And this illegal came into our country under the Biden administration.
09:55Last year, a 35-year-old illegal who was living in Indianapolis was sentenced to 35 years in prison
10:02after he sexually exploited and abused a 15-year-old girl. Hoosiers are going to keep getting killed and
10:13harmed by illegals unless we let ICE officers do their job. The madness has to end, and it needs to
10:22end
10:22right now. We need to support our ICE officers. ICE needs to be allowed to do their job without Democrats
10:30getting in their way. I've been in the Senate for two years, and over and over again, the Democrats have
10:37tried
10:37to obstruct ICE from doing their job. This bill that I'm about to object to today will prohibit ICE from
10:47operating near school bus stops. But we know that illegal aliens are often at or near bus stops.
10:56So here's the deal, Mr. President. In Virginia last year, ICE arrested a 36-year-old illegal alien from
11:07Mexico, a convicted pedophile, who exposed himself to a child at a school bus stop.
11:16How can anyone hear a story like that and think that the answer is to block ICE officers from doing
11:24their job at a school bus stop? Mr. President, if we prohibit ICE from operating at school bus stops,
11:30you know what will happen. We'll just create sanctuary school bus stops. All the illegals, the criminals,
11:40the pedophiles will end up at school bus stops because they know they'll be protected there.
11:46All those illegals in this country, they'll hide out at bus stops, and knowing that ICE won't be allowed to
11:53touch them, you'll see more stories like what you saw happen in Virginia last year.
11:59It's just crazy to me to think that we would prevent ICE officers from going wherever they need to go
12:06to do their job, even if that means at a bus stop in those rare, very rare circumstances and occasions.
12:16ICE needs to be allowed to operate wherever the job takes them, especially at places where
12:22illegal aliens can harm our children. And look, ICE is not the enemy. Democrats are trying to make
12:32our ICE officers out to be the enemy, and they are not. Just a couple of weeks ago, ICE conducted
12:39a five-day
12:40operation in my home state, which resulted in the arrest of 426 illegals. These criminals included people
12:49who were charged with robberies, drug trafficking, sex crimes, and more. And ICE also arrested an illegal
13:00from Guatemala who illegally voted in national elections in Indiana. And Mr. President, the Democrats
13:07all say that never happens. But they arrested an illegal just a few weeks ago in Indiana who did that.
13:14So here we go again with another attempt by Democrats to obstruct our federal law enforcement. Instead of
13:22giving ICE more resources to do the job that they need to do, not less, instead of doing anything that
13:30we can to deport illegals from our country, Democrats are here asking for unanimous consent to tie ICE's hands
13:39behind their backs and prevent them from doing their job. I won't let that happen. That's why I came
13:45to the floor today, Mr. President. ICE needs to be allowed to enforce the law and do their job. And
13:51for that
13:52reason, Mr. President, I object. The objection is heard. Senator from Connecticut. Mr. President, just
14:02three final points. I think Senator Banks articulates the Republican position, which is that immigrants are
14:10by definition a safety threat to the United States of America. And that is just not true. I don't draw
14:16issue
14:16with the fact that there are immigrants who commit crimes, but there are natural born citizens that
14:22commit crimes at higher rates than immigrants do. The fact of the matter is, is that immigrants commit
14:27crimes at a lower rate than people who are born here in the United States. We should just keep people
14:32safe
14:32in this country, no matter the country of origin or of birth of the perpetrator. Second, I think you can
14:43make the decision that I should be able to operate in the interior while keeping certain sites off limits.
14:51In fact, this was the Trump administration policy in the first term. So Republican administrations in the
14:58past have come to the decision that certain sites should be off limits for ICE. And in fact, when I
15:05talked to Trump supporters in Connecticut, who broadly do support the president's immigration policy, they
15:11also believe that they went too far in Connecticut. There were a lot of Republicans who showed up at our
15:17big rally the day after this incident happened. So it is not true that you can only support robust
15:24enforcement operations in the interior if you support ICE being even at school bus stops. And then finally,
15:33I will be honest with you, I did not anticipate that one of the arguments against this bill would
15:39be that it would lead to the development of sanctuary bus stops. Like, what do we imagine here?
15:47People are going to live at bus stops? We're going to have encampments around bus stops of people who
15:56are here without documentation? I just think it's an example of how this whole debate has gone
16:03way off the rails. It is just fundamentally detached from the reality. You want to support Trump's
16:10immigration policy? You can do that while still saying that we shouldn't have ICE officers patrolling
16:16school bus stops with the purpose of traumatizing little children. That could be a consensus position
16:23and we could choose to still disagree over the broader Trump immigration policy.
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