Immigration has made us what we are today.

That prevents them from being able to integrate and participate fully in American economic and political life.

I am so deeply honored to introduce today's historic nominee, Ms. Tanya Bradsher, who is nominated to be Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

I announce that the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Bennet), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fetterman), and the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Warner) are necessarily absent.

I want to say that I have no prejudice against growers and farmers at all.

I do believe there is a will to solve this problem.

Those are poverty wages.

I believe that the United States has benefited greatly from immigration and the immigrants who arrive both economically and culturally.

It doesn't speak well for our country that that would be happening.

For my part, I met with constituents across the State of Illinois, and everywhere traveled I heard the same thing over, and over, and over.

It would have never happened in the Army. It happens all the time in the Senate, though, unfortunately.

If you say there's enough American workers to make agriculture work in America, you don't know what you're talking about.

To wait for 30 years and to watch the situation grow as desperate as it has, not only at the border, but with businesses and farms represented here today.

immigration reform is the most immediate and meaningful step we could take today to resolve our shortage of workers.

Would you address the issue of wage theft that is in your statement there?

For more than three decades, Congress has failed to modernize our Nation's immigration system.

It's a national security risk. Our shortage of farm and food workers has forced us to rely on other countries to meet our food needs.

I think we have to be honest and realistic about it.