On Thursday, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), and Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) spoke in support of Senate Resolution 195 which would request the State Department to compile a public human rights report on El Salvador amid the Trump administration's deal with El Salvador to accept deportees.
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00:00Senator Virginia is recognized.
00:01Mr. President, I rise to discuss Senate Resolution 195, the vote on a motion to discharge that will be the next pending vote in the Senate.
00:12And it's actually a pretty simple bill about very basic concepts.
00:17Do you believe in the Constitution or not?
00:20Do you believe in the rule of law or not?
00:23Do you believe in due process or not?
00:26Do you believe that final orders of the United States Supreme Court should be respected or not?
00:34Those are the questions at issue on Senate Resolution 195.
00:39Our president, President Trump, has entered into an agreement still shrouded in some secrecy with the president of El Salvador, President Bukele,
00:49to deport American residents into El Salvador and imprison them in prisons in a country that has been charged by the United States and others with gross human rights violations.
01:03The Congress that is in charge of appropriating taxpayer dollars should want to know the circumstances of this imprisonment and whether U.S. law is being followed.
01:15The $6 million payment to the Salvadoran prison likely violates human rights law in accord to many experts who've looked at the details as they emerge.
01:30And that's where we begin.
01:31These are dollars that Congress has appropriated, but the precise mechanism for transfer of these monies
01:38and the president's authority to both spend the money and carry out the deportations is questionable.
01:48The United States Supreme Court, in the case of one of these individuals who it admits was deported by mistake,
01:55and there are many others similarly situated, is defying an order of the Supreme Court.
02:00The United States Supreme Court ruled in a nine-to-nothing ruling that the administration should facilitate the return of Mr. Kilmar Abrego Garcia,
02:11and thus far, nearly a month later, that has not occurred.
02:15This is about fighting lawlessness.
02:18The 14th Amendment to the Constitution, to which we all pledge fealty, is pretty straightforward.
02:24No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.
02:30That was the clause that the United States Supreme Court unanimously interpreted to mandate the return of Mr. Abrego Garcia.
02:39The president, when asked recently whether he had an obligation to uphold the Constitution that he swore an oath to,
02:46and the witness of all of us on Inauguration Day, asked if he has to uphold the Constitution just within the last week,
02:53said he did not know.
02:55We know the answer to that question, but the president does not.
02:58The particular country to which these American residents have been deported, El Salvador, this now goes back a year,
03:07has a track record of imprisoning individuals, innocent individuals.
03:13And the last thing any of us should want is an innocent individual in prison,
03:17but especially if that innocent individual is an American.
03:21But, Mr. President, this is the punchline.
03:26The president has indicated that this is not just for those who are here with questions about their legal status.
03:34President Trump has said homegrowns are next.
03:37Trump doubles down on sending American criminals to foreign prisons.
03:41We have a prison system in the United States, local jails, state prisons, federal prisons.
03:49The notion of sending American citizens to foreign prisons without scrutiny is truly shocking,
03:56and that is the reason that I filed the resolution.
03:59What is this resolution?
04:01It's a privileged motion available to any senator directing the administration to produce a human rights report about a nation,
04:09in this case, El Salvador.
04:12Senate Resolution 195 directs the Secretary of State to produce a report to this body
04:18that would be available not only to us but to the American public about the human rights record in El Salvador.
04:25And a couple of the clauses of the resolution, I think, are specific about this particular case.
04:31The report should contain information about the treatment of citizens or residents of other countries,
04:38including the United States, non-Salvadorans, who are being detained or imprisoned in El Salvador,
04:44including any opportunity provided to such citizens or residents to demonstrate that they're being wrongfully detained or imprisoned.
04:52We should all want to know whether Americans detained in El Salvador have an opportunity to demonstrate that they are wrongfully imprisoned.
05:02The report will require that.
05:05The report would require an assessment from the Secretary of State of the conditions in El Salvador's
05:10Centro de Confinimiento de Terrorismo, SICAT,
05:14including an assessment of allegations of torture and other gross violations of human rights.
05:19Remember, again, that the Trump administration has acknowledged that at least one of the individuals who was deported was deported mistakenly.
05:27He has been in prison for some time.
05:30If he's not there now, he was for some time in SICAT.
05:33We should want to know whether Americans in prison there are subject to torture or other gross violations of human rights.
05:40The report should include a description of any actions that the United States government is taking
05:45to ensure that the government of the Republic of El Salvador releases U.S. citizens being detained or imprisoned in El Salvador
05:53in compliance with United States court orders regarding their return.
05:59And finally, the report would require information, a description of actions the U.S. government is taking
06:06to provide due process in compliance with U.S. law for relevant persons detained or imprisoned in El Salvador.
06:14Why would anyone in this body, understanding this record, the forcible deportation of American residents,
06:24some admittedly deported by mistake, whom the Supreme Court has ordered returned into Salvadoran prisons,
06:31why would anyone in this body not want to get a human rights report about the conditions of that confinement,
06:38particularly given the fact that President Trump has indicated that he may intend next
06:43to send United States citizens into those same prisons.
06:47This information will be very relevant to important decisions that we take in our relationship with El Salvador
06:53and also in decisions that we take with respect to the Appropriations Act.
06:58And I urge my colleagues to vote for Senate Resolution 195.
07:03Mr. President.
07:04Senator from Maryland is recognized.
07:06Thank you, Mr. President.
07:07I want to start by thanking my friend and colleague, Senator Kaine,
07:12for his longtime leadership in support of human rights and the rule of law.
07:18And it's an honor to team up with him in introducing this resolution,
07:24which, as he indicated, is designed to expose the truth about a scheme
07:31that is threatening the constitutional rights of everybody who lives in the United States of America.
07:37Because as we speak, President Trump is paying American taxpayer dollars
07:44to the government of El Salvador,
07:46which has been a notorious violator of human rights.
07:51He's paying them American taxpayer dollars to lock up American residents
07:55without due process of law.
07:59The Constitution is clear.
08:02The Fifth Amendment, and by application to the states, the Fourteenth Amendment,
08:07but the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution guarantees due process.
08:11And as Senator Kaine indicated, when President Trump was recently asked
08:16whether he had to comply with the Constitution of the United States,
08:20despite the fact that he put his hand on a Bible
08:23and took the oath of office right down the hall here not that long ago,
08:27the President's response was,
08:29I don't know.
08:30That should concern every single member of the United States Senate,
08:35regardless of party.
08:36The principle of not depriving somebody of their liberty
08:41without due process of law
08:44is a fundamental core American value.
08:48That is why it's in the Constitution of the United States.
08:53This is not a liberal issue.
08:55It's not a conservative issue.
08:57It's not an issue that belongs to any one party.
09:01This is a fundamental American issue
09:04in the Constitution of the United States.
09:07And I know that Donald Trump wants to continue to change the subject
09:12when it comes to this matter,
09:14but the subject could not be more clear,
09:18and that is to protect the constitutional rights
09:21of people who reside in the United States.
09:23One person who was caught up in this unconstitutional scheme
09:28was Kilmar Abrego-Garcia,
09:31who's a constituent of mine in Maryland,
09:35as are his wife, Jennifer, and their children.
09:39Federal agents illegally abducted Kilmar Abrego-Garcia
09:44while he was driving with his five-year-old son,
09:47who has autism.
09:48They took him to Baltimore, then Texas,
09:51and then they shackled him and handcuffed him
09:54and put him on a plane.
09:55He didn't know where he was going.
09:56And the next thing he knows,
09:58he ends up in El Salvador
09:59at this notorious prison called Cicot,
10:04which is the gulag of Latin America.
10:09The Trump administration admitted in a federal court
10:12that they had wrongfully detained Mr. Abrego-Garcia.
10:18They admitted it.
10:19They said it was an administrative error
10:21that landed him in Cicot.
10:25But what did they do?
10:27Instead of fixing that egregious error,
10:31they fired the lawyer who told the truth to the court.
10:36That's what they did.
10:38And since then,
10:39they have been ignoring the orders of the district court,
10:42the Fourth Circuit, and the Supreme Court.
10:45The Supreme Court, in a nine-to-zero decision,
10:48we don't see many of those,
10:50in a nine-to-zero decision,
10:53ordered the Trump administration
10:54to facilitate the return of Mr. Abrego-Garcia
10:58in accordance with his rights to due process.
11:04Now, if President Trump can ignore the courts,
11:08that's a very short road to tyranny.
11:11I have made very clear from the start
11:13that I'm not vouching for the man, Mr. Abrego-Garcia.
11:17I am vouching for his rights
11:19because if you deny his rights,
11:22you put in jeopardy the rights of everybody
11:24who resides in the United States of America.
11:28So that's why I did travel to El Salvador,
11:33both to meet with Gilmar Abrego-Garcia,
11:36to try to,
11:37to find out whether he was dead or alive,
11:40report back to his family,
11:42but also to ask the government of El Salvador
11:46to stop being complicit in this scheme
11:49with President Trump
11:50to deny residents of the United States
11:53their constitutional rights.
11:55And when I met with the Vice President of El Salvador,
11:58my worst fears were reinforced.
12:04Because I asked the Vice President of El Salvador,
12:06why are you holding Mr. Abrego-Garcia?
12:08Do you have any criminal complaint against him?
12:12No, no, no, not at all.
12:14Why?
12:16Because the United States government,
12:19the Trump administration,
12:20is paying us to do so.
12:22That's why.
12:26I ultimately got to see Mr. Abrego-Garcia.
12:32At first, I was stonewalled
12:34by the government of El Salvador.
12:37And he has been totally unable
12:41to contact anybody in the outside world.
12:45Before I met with him and since.
12:49He's in not only a total news blackout,
12:51but nobody can call him.
12:53Not his lawyers, not his wife,
12:55not his mother, not his brother.
12:57That is a violation of international law.
13:01And that's one of the hallmarks
13:03of this El Salvadorian gulag
13:05is people go in to seek out
13:08or these other prisons
13:09and you never hear from them again.
13:13The State Department,
13:162023 human rights report on El Salvador,
13:18the most recent one we have,
13:20reported credible reports
13:22of cruel, inhuman, or degrading torture
13:25in El Salvadorian prisons,
13:28including beatings with batons and rifles,
13:31overcrowding, underfeeding,
13:33and life-threatening medical neglect.
13:36Reports that guards fire stun guns
13:38on wet floors
13:39to deliver electric shock
13:42to the entire cell at once.
13:46That's where we're sending people
13:47like Abrego-Garcia
13:48without any due process of law.
13:53And that is why it's so important
13:55that we adopt this resolution
13:59which Senator Kaine
14:00has so well described.
14:03And I would urge my Republican colleagues
14:06to stand back
14:07and think of the moment we're in.
14:10Because not only did the President
14:11of the United States say
14:12he wasn't sure if he had to comply
14:14with the Constitution of the United States,
14:15which has set up off alarm bells
14:17all over the country
14:19regardless of party.
14:21But Steve Miller,
14:23one of his top policy advisors,
14:25publicly talked about
14:26suspending habeas corpus,
14:28suspending the Constitution
14:30of the United States.
14:33Mr. President,
14:35that is a very dangerous idea.
14:39And all of us,
14:41all of us regardless of party,
14:45should stand up
14:46to protect the Constitution,
14:48to protect due process,
14:51and to make it clear
14:52that the President of the United States
14:54cannot ignore
14:55a nine-to-nothing
14:57Supreme Court order,
14:58which he is doing as we speak.
15:02Because if he can do it
15:04with one person
15:05or do it to two people,
15:07he can do it to anybody
15:09in the United States of America.
15:13And that is un-American.
15:15And I yield back.
15:21Mr. President.
15:21The senator from California
15:22is recognized.
15:23Thank you, Mr. President.
15:25I first want to begin
15:26by thanking my colleagues,
15:27Senator Cain,
15:28Senator Van Hollen,
15:29I believe Senator Schumer
15:30will be joining us
15:31for this important issue.
15:34I want to thank them
15:35for their efforts
15:37to provide some needed
15:40moral clarity
15:41at this critical time.
15:44Earlier this year,
15:46I hope you've seen
15:47the news reports
15:48that all across the country
15:50there were stories
15:51of families waking up
15:52to learn that their loved ones
15:54had disappeared.
15:56A husband with no criminal record
16:00detained after a routine
16:02immigration appointment,
16:05complying with the conditions
16:06of his status at the moment.
16:09Another instance
16:11of a makeup artist
16:11who had fled Venezuela
16:13after being targeted
16:14for his sexual orientation
16:16and political views,
16:18one day gone
16:21simply for having crown tattoos
16:25in honor of his parents.
16:28A mother who learned
16:30the whereabouts of her son
16:33only when she saw his face
16:35on propaganda videos
16:37released by El Salvador.
16:39Mr. President,
16:43over 200 migrants
16:45were sent to El Salvador's
16:47notorious high-security prison
16:50known as CICOT.
16:52By the way,
16:53that includes eight women
16:54who the Trump administration
16:56mistakenly flew
16:58to the all-male prison
17:00only to have to fly them back.
17:02But hundreds of men
17:07have been sent
17:08to prison
17:09with no trial
17:11even.
17:13No sentence,
17:14no end date,
17:16no communication
17:17with the outside world.
17:20Now let me be the first
17:21to say,
17:22and I think I speak
17:23on behalf of my colleagues
17:24when I say
17:25that if you have committed
17:27a crime
17:27in the United States
17:29of America,
17:30then yes,
17:31you deserve to be prosecuted.
17:34But as we all know,
17:35and I hope we continue
17:36to respect
17:37that we have
17:38a justice system
17:39to do just that.
17:41A justice system
17:42that has a process
17:43for those charged
17:44with a crime
17:45to be found guilty
17:47or innocent.
17:50Because yes,
17:51you actually have to be found
17:52guilty
17:53in a court
17:55to be guilty.
17:59Now that shouldn't
18:00be controversial.
18:01anybody who claims
18:04to be
18:05for, quote,
18:06law and order
18:07has to be
18:09both for law
18:10and order.
18:11You can't just
18:12overlook the law part
18:14of the slogan.
18:17But Republicans
18:18continue to leave out
18:19that fact
18:20and the fact
18:22that the overwhelming
18:24majority
18:24of those deported
18:26had no criminal
18:28records.
18:29a report
18:31from 60 Minutes
18:32just last month
18:33showed that
18:3475%
18:35of those
18:36deported to
18:37CECOT
18:38had no criminal
18:39record.
18:41These were people
18:42who in many cases
18:43had pending
18:44asylum cases
18:45or some other
18:47sort of
18:48immigration
18:49protection.
18:50but simply
18:53because they
18:54may have
18:54tattoos,
18:56the Trump
18:56administration
18:57has decided
18:57to use them
18:58for a poorly
18:59executed
19:00and expensive
19:02publicity stunt.
19:03as I think
19:09Senator Van Hollen
19:09began to
19:10explain to us
19:12if Republicans
19:15allow Donald
19:16Trump
19:16to make
19:18himself
19:18judge,
19:19jury,
19:20and executioner,
19:21then we're
19:22all in trouble.
19:24This is the
19:25behavior
19:25of a foreign
19:26dictator,
19:27not the
19:28President of the
19:28United States.
19:29a dictator
19:30wishes to do
19:31away with
19:32due process
19:33and disappearing
19:34loved ones
19:35to foreign
19:36countries
19:37without a
19:37trace.
19:39Now this
19:40administration
19:40is violating
19:42federal law
19:42by sending
19:43people to
19:44places like
19:44CECOT
19:45and soon
19:46maybe Libya
19:48where they
19:50may very well
19:51face torture
19:52or some other
19:54horrific treatment.
19:56And for
19:57anybody who
19:58thinks that
19:59this may not
19:59concern them
20:00because you're
20:02an American
20:03citizen,
20:04think again.
20:06You may not
20:07actually be
20:08given an
20:08opportunity to
20:09prove your
20:09citizenship
20:10before you're
20:12sent away.
20:15Donald Trump
20:16has said
20:16publicly that
20:17he wants to
20:18imprison
20:18American citizens
20:19in El Salvador
20:20next.
20:22Not my
20:23words,
20:23his.
20:25And so there
20:25is no telling
20:26where all of
20:27this is going
20:28to lead.
20:29Now we have
20:30seen federal
20:31courts time
20:31and again
20:32rebuff the
20:33Trump
20:33administration's
20:34lawlessness
20:34and order
20:36them to
20:37take steps
20:37to return
20:38wrongfully
20:39deported
20:40migrants.
20:42We've also
20:43seen the
20:43Trump administration
20:44continue to
20:45resist and
20:46ignore court
20:47orders.
20:49So colleagues,
20:50the resolution
20:51before us
20:52today would
20:53force the
20:53Trump administration
20:54to start
20:55opening up the
20:55books,
20:56to tell us
20:57what meaningful
20:58actions they
20:59are taking
20:59to comply,
21:01to be
21:02accountable to
21:03the American
21:04people,
21:05and yes,
21:07to demand that
21:08the administration
21:09publish a report
21:10on the human
21:11rights violations
21:13being committed
21:14by the country
21:14that Trump is so
21:16willingly embracing.
21:17But it also does
21:20another thing.
21:21It puts us all
21:23on the record
21:24because history
21:25will judge not
21:27only those who
21:27willingly embraced
21:29the erosion of
21:30civil rights
21:31that's happening,
21:32but it will also
21:33judge those who
21:35chose to sit
21:36back and watch
21:37it happen over
21:39and over again.
21:40every member
21:42of this body
21:43has to decide
21:44whether they
21:44will stand up
21:45and demand
21:45answers from
21:46the administration
21:47or to sit
21:48silently while
21:49Trump imprisons
21:50innocent men.
21:52This is more
21:53than just about
21:54immigrants or
21:54immigration.
21:55This is about
21:56due process.
21:57This is about
21:58civil rights.
21:59This is about
22:00the foundation
22:01of our liberties.
22:03And I urge my
22:04colleagues to join
22:05us in holding
22:06this administration
22:07accountable.
22:09Thank you,
22:10Mr. President,
22:10I yield the
22:11floor.
22:13I recognize
22:14the senator
22:15from Virginia.
22:16I will conclude
22:17prior to the vote
22:19just by saying
22:20this is a very
22:20basic resolution.
22:22Everyone in this
22:23body, knowing
22:24that Americans
22:25have been deported
22:26without due
22:27process into a
22:29prison in a
22:29foreign country
22:30that has a
22:30grievous record
22:31of human rights
22:32abuses, should
22:33at least want
22:34to get information
22:36about the
22:37circumstances of
22:38that confinement,
22:39about whether
22:40that prison is
22:41according American
22:42residents, any
22:43semblance of due
22:44process, and
22:45whether the United
22:46States is
22:47undertaking efforts
22:48to ensure that
22:50that country and
22:50that prison is
22:52following final
22:54orders of the
22:55United States
22:55Supreme Court.
22:56If you support the
22:57rule of law, if you
22:59support due
22:59process, if you
23:01support the
23:01Constitution, if you
23:03support human
23:04rights, if you
23:06support final orders
23:07of the United
23:07States Supreme
23:08Court, you will
23:09support Senate
23:10Resolution 195, and
23:13I now ask for the
23:13vote.