Heidi Alexander: “I agree with the Senator from Illinois that there ought to be a legislative solution to the DACA children. In fact, we…”

“I agree with the Senator from Illinois that there ought to be a legislative solution to the DACA children. In fact, we had one in 2013. We worked on it in a bipartisan way--solved a large number of immigration issues, trying to have a legal immigration system. We sent it to the House, and the House didn't consider it. I am ready to continue to do that. I disagree with one thing that happened today, though, about bringing bills to the floor. He talked about the importance of bringing the DACA legislation to the floor. That is important once we have an agreement either in the committee or among us informally. The second bill that is very important to bring to the floor is the National Defense Authorization Act, which has been enacted for more than 50 years and to which members of the Armed Services Committee have a chance to offer amendments. But Senator McConnell is the majority leader, and because he is, he has one right, really, which is to decide what to bring to the floor. He pushed aside the National Defense Authorization Act, which is important, and said: In these times, I think the important thing for me to do is to bring to the floor legislation on police reform and racial justice and allow the Senate to have an open amendment process. He did that in what would be the logical way. Since he is the majority leader, he offered a majority bill sponsored by Senator Tim Scott and cosponsored by a number of us on the Republican side.…”