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.
“Crime (Executive Calendar)” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the in the Senate section section on pages S748-S749 on Feb. 16.
The State Department is responsibly for international relations with a budget of more than $50 billion. Tenure at the State Dept. is increasingly tenuous and it's seen as an extension of the President's will, ambitions and flaws.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
Crime
Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I have come to this floor before for the same subject, but I now come to express my concerns once again about the rise in crime in America. Now I want to express what that rise in crime means for everybody if we don't stop it. If we don't act soon, and don't reverse the trend of tolerating crime, a generation of Americans will see the greatest cities fall once again into decay. We have seen it before, and it is not something that we want to see again. To stop it, we must allow the police to enforce the law and demand that prosecutors do their job.
A couple of generations of Americans have now grown up not knowing how dangerous some of our biggest cities used to be. The two that come to mind are New York and Washington, DC.
First, let's look at New York 20, 40 years ago. When asked what they think of Times Square in Manhattan, most younger Americans would probably say that it is a tourist trap. But it wasn't always that way. In the 1970s, Times Square was an open sore, filled with adult theaters, drugs, and rampant crime. Back then, the New York City subway looked like something from some dystopian horror movie. In other words, you avoided New York City subways if you could.
Now, let's turn to Washington, DC, in the late 1980s. Its decay could almost be traced back entirely to one person. Just a few blocks from here where we are standing right now, a drug dealer named Rayful Edmond ran the most notorious crack cocaine operation in the country. By 1989, he was bringing 1,700 pounds of cocaine into DC every month. He used to put snipers on rooftops near his headquarters. Police suspected his operation was involved in 30 homicides. During that time, the city's murder rate doubled. Washington had the nickname the ``murder capital of the world.''
Then something great happened. Mayors and prosecutors got serious about dealing with crime. They sent Rayful Edmond to jail for life. People who lived in cities felt much safer. Businesses flourished. Pervasive fear gradually lessened because police took criminals off the street.
The crime rates in New York and Washington plummeted. Young families moved to urban neighborhoods that were far too dangerous just a few years before. This was wonderful, obviously. The block where Rayful Edmond once put his snipers on rooftops is now a very normal residential street.
Our cities, everybody knows, should be places where we want to live. We should enjoy going there to see other people. We shouldn't avoid cities because we are afraid of getting harassed on the streets or carjacked, at the worst. But that is what is beginning to happen again. All over the country, our biggest cities are starting to look dangerous and empty. History repeats and repeats.
Cities are devolving into what they were just a couple of decades ago. Homicides in 22 major cities have gone up 44 percent since 2019. Carjackings are up double, even triple, and worse in some cities. Thieves are stealing from stores with impunity. When that happens, those businesses shut down, leaving neighborhoods with empty storefronts and a recipe for urban decline.
Crime is up because of the permissive approach by too many so-called progressive prosecutors. One prosecutor in San Francisco has said that if you steal less than $950, you won't be prosecuted. No wonder people are committing more crimes. These prosecutors see criminals as victims, releasing them back into the streets shortly after being arrested. This sows fear in local residents. Common sense ought to tell everybody that. Common sense says it kills growth. Common sense says it hurt neighborhoods. Common sense says it endangers regular people who want to live their lives peacefully.
America is a nation of progress. We are a nation of progress moving forward. Our current backward slide to urban decays in the 1970s and 1980s is tragic. Working-class families and those who can't afford to move somewhere safer will bear the brunt of it.
The solution here is not very complicated. A recent poll showed two out of every three people know what some of these blue-city mayors haven't figured out yet: More police equals less crime.
When prosecutors list a whole bunch of crimes that they won't prosecute, it encourages lawbreaking. Also, we need to stop the crusade to defund the police. They need to stop progressive prosecutors. You know, I know there is prosecutorial discretion. We all know that not every crime can be punished or prosecuted.
But if you were a smart prosecutor who didn't want to encourage more crime, you wouldn't tell the whole world that certain crimes aren't going to be punished and others will be punished, because that is inviting those laws to be broken. That is why you see dozens of people rushing into a retail store, grabbing everything they can that is under
$950 and leave.
Prosecutors ought to keep their mouths shut and just do the job; and if they use discretion, keep it to themselves not to punish some crimes.
So we need to make sure that repeat offenders and those who are a threat to society don't get bail. Otherwise, younger generations of America will learn all over again the harsh lessons about how quickly our greatest cities can fall into decay.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
unanimous consent request--executive calendar
Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I am on the floor today to talk about the nomination of Ambassador Julieta Valls Noyes, to serve as Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration.
Originally nominated last July, Ambassador Noyes' nomination was reported favorably out of the Foreign Relations Committee in October.
Since then, she has waited in limbo for all of us to act. Ambassador Noyes has a distinguished 35-year career with the State Department, serving in important and challenging roles, many of those roles tied directly to the work she would be doing at the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, often referred to as PRM.
As Ambassador to Croatia, she presided over the final stages of a refugee resettlement program after the Balkan wars, while hosting regional conferences and trainings for prosecutors, police, and judges on refugee-related issues.
As Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, Ambassador Noyes oversaw the nations with 11 Western European countries and the European Union, some of our country's most critical partners.
From 2005 to 2007, Ambassador Noyes was Director of Multilateral and Global Affairs in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, where she ran international negotiations on human rights--both at the United Nations in New York and in Geneva.
In that capacity, she also held consultations with the European Union, with the African Union, with other partners. And she was a member of high-level delegations that presented periodic reports to the United Nations on U.S. compliance with major international human rights treaties.
She has been recognized as a strong manager. She has overseen large teams. She has administered huge budgets.
In addition to all of this, she is the daughter of Cuban refugees who directly benefited from the work of the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, so she has a personal connection to the importance of the Bureau's work.
When you think about that list of qualifications, she is really the ideal person to lead PRM. What is the rush, some may ask. PRM hasn't had a confirmed Assistant Secretary since the days of the Obama administration.
Well, all the more reason that it should have one now. It shouldn't be a rudderless organization when addressing so many important issues for our Nation.
PRM has a major role in human rights and humanitarian efforts rights abroad as well as providing aid to refugees here at home.
PRM is responsible for directing more than $3 billion in lifesaving humanitarian aid around the world to more than 84 million forcibly displaced people. Eighty percent of those are women and children. So if you care about the plight of women and children around the world, you want to have an experienced leader making sure those dollars are efficiently allocated to the best effect.
PRM leads the rebuilding of the U.S. refugee assistance program. PRM works with other governments to promote regional migration resolutions. PRM advances international population policies that save mothers and babies and prevent gender-based violence around the world.
PRM leads diplomatic efforts for international burden sharing to better reduce suffering and to be more effective in saving lives.
And PRM is a critical part of our national security infrastructure, vetting those who come into our country, ensuring they don't pose a risk to our safety and security.
The Bureau is doing all this, but they are doing it without a leader to make sure they do it in the most effective, professional, competent fashion.
The Bureau is doing critical work every day to address these challenges, and those challenges are growing as more and more countries are disrupted by war and by famine and by corruption.
So this Bureau deserves to have someone leading those efforts who has the type of background that the Ambassador has. All of us who want to see these programs administered effectively have a stake in having competent leadership in place.
Thus, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate consider the following nomination, Calendar No. 462, Julieta Valls Noyes, to be an Assistant Secretary of State; that the nomination be confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order to the nomination; that any related statements be printed in the Record and that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ossoff). Is there objection?
The Senator from Florida.
Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.
Throughout his administration, President Biden has shown a shocking disregard for congressional authority and oversight.
Following his botched and deadly withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Biden administration has refused to take accountability or provide answers to Congress or the American people. The President repeatedly shifts blame and hides from the truth. His administration demands to have closed, so-called classified hearings, even though none of the material being discussed is classified information.
We still don't even know how many Americans are trapped in Afghanistan. We don't know how many Americans are trapped in Afghanistan. Biden abandoned them behind enemy lines.
It is wrong. It left many Americans with no faith in President Biden's ability to lead or appoint qualified individuals to serve in these important roles.
That is why I cannot and will not consent to allowing this nominee to move forward in an expedited manner. We should take a vote so every Senator can get on the record with their support or opposition to this nominee.
Therefore, I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I would love for us to have a full, ordinary process here on the floor and to have all of us on both sides of the aisle support that process.
I come to the floor to ask for this unanimous consent because that process has been frustrated, and we now have been without a leader for this entire administration.
My colleague made a point about Afghanistan, and he said we need to know how many Americans are in Afghanistan. If you want better action on the issue of Americans as refugees abroad or stranded abroad, then you want to have a responsible leader, an accountable leader, heading up the Bureau of Population, Migration, and Refugees.
So let's do our job here in this Chamber because when we fail to enable such a critical organization, responsible for billions of dollars around the world being provided to millions of people, responsible for the vetting of people coming into our country, when we fail to do our job to put somebody in charge, we are only wounding ourselves.
This is exactly the type of partisan paralysis and destruction that is damaging our Nation. We need to get this confirmation completed.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
