We are in this together, and we need to be able to work together.

What can we be doing at the Federal level to make the rest of this team, including State and local governments, including emergency responders, including insurers, what can we do, what should we be doing in addition to what we have already…

I would just urge that there be a good exchange of information between your staff as you staff up and the work that has been done by his investigators.

In each disaster we learn something new.

I was down along the border of U.S. and Mexico in Arizona with Senator McCain.

I have spent a lot of time in immigration detention centers and can tell you firsthand that they are prisons.

As Senator Coons stated, DHS imprisons over 400,000 people every year.

America earned its place in the world because of the immigrants who have come before us, bringing their culture, bringing their passion, bringing their ideas to our shores.

As Senator Coons so graciously acknowledged, I myself am an immigrant...

Let me say that again. In terms of enforcement, we are certainly investing enough, nearly $16 billion in the last fiscal year, which is more than spent on the FBI, the ATF, the DEA, and the U.S. Marshals Service combined.

we are marking the 50th anniversary of Gideon v. Wainwright and the recognized right to counsel for American citizens in the criminal process.

In my experience, most times they are not aware of the legal options available to them.

They say they also want a system that protects the American work force and grows our economy.

But when I tell people that our immigration system does not allow immigration judges to consider circumstances, to balance different factors, to consider risk of flight, ties to the community, and whether or not there are U.S. citizen…

Now, that seems like a long time to spend in detention before seeing a judge.

But, would you agree, today, that we are not perceived to be on the right side of this...

Congress has a lot of significant issues to work through if we are to be successful in reaching an appropriate compromise and improvements, enduring improvements, to our immigration system.

I would submit that currently the immigration detention system has broken down because the detainees do not have attorneys who can help facilitate their cases.