The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“IMMIGRATION” mentioning Marsha Blackburn was published in the Senate section on pages S161-S162 on Jan. 27.
Of the 100 senators in 117th Congress, 24 percent were women, and 76 percent were men, according to the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
Senators' salaries are historically higher than the median US income.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
IMMIGRATION
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, as we move through what is appearing to be a choppy start to the 117th Congress, I think it is worth reminding ourselves of the standards that guide our work here. The mandate that we have does not come from the 24-hour news cycle or from lobbyists or advocacy groups, but it comes, very simply, from the Constitution. It is the foundation of the rule of law, our Nation's Constitution, and it really serves as a pretty good policymaking guideline.
The American people are looking at what is going on here, and they see the cracks that Washington has made in the foundation of this Constitution. These realizations have eroded their confidence in our ability as a body to perform the basic functions of government without devolving into partisan chaos when faced with disagreements.
Many times I will hear Tennesseans say: What happened to robust political debate? What happened to being able to agreeably disagree and have a discussion? Are those days totally lost, or can we return to them? They are asking themselves how many shortcuts--like Executive orders--Washington is going to take before the shortcut becomes the rule or the norm and how many times can Washington chip away at the standards that govern our country before those standards start to crumble or are not relevant.
Restoring the trust of the American people will not be easy because this fundamental lack of faith in our institutions has caused Americans to question their very safety and security in the physical space and also in the virtual world that they have been forced into by the COVID-
19 pandemic.
I like to say we have a lot of security moms who are out there--moms and grandmoms like me--and, quite frankly, they are out in full force, alongside millions of other Americans who now have cause to wonder if their own government will bother making their security a priority. What about their communities? What about their neighborhoods? What about the universities where their children go to school? What is going to be done about riots? What about the virtual space? As they have seen their children move to online school, more of their daily functional life and their transactional life has moved online. How do they keep their families safe? How do they protect their rights to privacy?
In the physical space, yesterday we got the good news that a Federal judge has granted a temporary restraining order barring the Department of Homeland Security from implementing a nationwide pause on most deportations. That pause was mandated by a DHS memo signed by the Acting Secretary on day one of the Biden administration--not such a great start for the administration's immigration policy team, but the American people will benefit from having the time that has come to them to ask questions about proposed shifts in existing policy. People want to be safe.
I would like to just stipulate for the record that immigration law is very complex. While most Americans aren't experts in the finer points of immigration law, they do have and most of us have a very common touchstone that we relate to; that is, having a secure border.
This should be a basic concept--let's secure the border; let's secure our country--but somehow we have managed to politicize that point that advocates at the highest levels of the Federal Government--for what? A weakened border. Just imagine that. You have individuals at the highest level of the Federal Government who are saying: Let's weaken our border. That is stunning, absolutely stunning to Tennesseans.
Why would you not protect your border? Why would you not want to know who is coming into your country? Why should I be forced to accept a lax border? Why should I be accepting of allowing drug cartels to run those drugs into the country? Why should I be told I should accept human trafficking; I should accept gangs; I should accept sex traffickers coming in across the border?
When we have a weak border, this is what you get. Every town--every town--becomes a border town. Every State becomes a border State because of the impacts--the negative impacts--of drug trafficking, sex trafficking, human trafficking, and the toll that that takes on our communities.
Last week, I introduced two key pieces of legislation that attack specific vulnerabilities in our body of immigration law that thousands of bad actors use to game the system every year.
The first is the Stop Greenlighting Driver Licenses for Illegal Immigrants Act. It does exactly what it sounds like. It blocks certain Federal funds from reaching the coffers of sanctuary States. This includes States that defy Federal immigration law or that allow individuals to obtain a driver license without providing proof that they are here legally or without providing proof that they are who they claim to be. This is no small penalty, and here is why.
In 2020, our Nation had 15 States plus the District of Columbia that have decided to give illegal immigrants a valid State-issued ID, a driver license. These 15 States and DC got $53 million in JAG grants from the Department of Justice. These are funds--these are Justice Assistance Grants that are given to local law enforcement and criminal justice projects to do what? Enforce the law. So if you are not going to enforce the law, why should you get the money? Those funds should go to entities that have said: We will abide by the rule of law. That is where those funds should go.
Now, the second bill is the Ban Birth Tourism Act. This would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to prohibit pregnant foreigners from obtaining a temporary visitor visa they could use to enter the United States specifically for the purpose of giving birth here. Yes, you heard me right. There is a loophole in the law, in the Immigration and Nationality Act. Because of this, we have some pregnant foreigners, primarily from Russia and China, who circumvent the law, and they get a temporary visitor visa, and they come here working with some of this multimillion-dollar-a-year birth tourism industry. They get coached. They come here. They go to a facility. They give birth. The child becomes a citizen, and then they return. As I said, primarily these are wealthy Russians and wealthy Chinese.
Our citizenship is not for sale. No, indeed. It is hard-fought. It is hard-won. It is hard-kept. The American people are right to expect better than this. Tennesseans want to see something done about this. That is why I, once again, have filed this legislation.
The American people are not unreasonable. They do not lack compassion. They just don't understand why officials who are charged with upholding the law would act in their official capacity to undermine something as basic as border security, as basic as national security.
We have a lot of security moms out there who understand that it is no small task keeping things secure at home. All of these security moms out there know that there are plenty of threats online--threats that they cannot see, but they know that there are a lot of these threats that come into their homes and onto their computer screens and onto the devices of their children because of a lack of privacy online.
How we curate and protect our virtual use, as I call it, is critically important because it defines who we are to the people who we do not see in person. And as I mentioned earlier, more of our functional and transactional life is now online. So tomorrow, to mark National Data Privacy Day, I will once again reintroduce the BROWSER Act.
Mr. President, as you and I served in the House together, I know you remember how I would introduce this bill, the BROWSER Act, to secure online privacy for millions of Americans. Now, at its heart, this is an effort to inject awareness, transparency, and accountability into the relationship between technology platforms and their users.
This legislation sets up a very basic Federal compliance framework that tech companies can use as a guide to update their privacy policies online, make it something that is going to give you the ability to say: This is information that I want to share.
It would require companies to secure an opt-in from consumers before collecting their sensitive data. And for less sensitive information, you, the consumer, would have the ability to opt out and not share that browsing history with that company.
Companies would not be able to deny you service if you want to practice your right to privacy. That makes common sense. It happens in the physical space every single day, and it should also be a right reserved to the individual in the virtual space.
This also would put the Federal Trade Commission, our online privacy regulator, in charge of watching what is happening in the virtual space, applying these rules equally across the entire internet ecosystem. A right to privacy, being secure in our communities and our homes, is something that not only Tennesseans but millions of Americans are wanting to see.
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