Jon Kyl: “in view of some things that were said a couple weeks ago, let me close this out with a couple of brief comments. At the…”

“in view of some things that were said a couple weeks ago, let me close this out with a couple of brief comments. At the time that Senator Cornyn and I first introduced this amendment, we speculated that it might ultimately result in 300,000, 400,000 500,000 people being denied the benefits of the legislation. However, there were those on the other side who said this was a poison pill, this was going to preclude everyone who came into the country illegally or overstayed a visa from getting the benefits of the legislation. We said: No, that is not true. It is cast narrowly by its terms. It talks about convicted felons, three misdemeanors, and the people who have avoided a court order or a judge's order that they leave the country. That is it. Some on the other side said: We look at the language, and we think maybe this could apply to anyone who comes into the country illegally. By laying it down, you have created a poison bill. As a result, they would not permit a vote on the amendment. As a result, this legislation came to the end of the period of time, the end of the week, and the majority leader had to lay it aside so that the Senate could go on its recess. Senator Cornyn and I never had an intention to bring the bill to a halt or to create some kind of a poison pill that would make it impossible for anyone to support the legislation if the amendment were agreed to. We simply were trying to point out that there was a deficiency in the bill.…”