Jon Kyl: “first I compliment my colleague from Idaho for bringing to the Nation's attention a problem which does deserve…”

“first I compliment my colleague from Idaho for bringing to the Nation's attention a problem which does deserve consideration, and that is how to both fulfill our need for workers in this country for difficult labor that some Americans have not been willing to perform and at the same time deal with the very difficult problem of the status of illegal immigrants who are currently in the country and who have been relied upon by employers in the field of agriculture to perform some of this work. Both the Senator from Georgia and I intend to work with the Senator from Idaho in the future to try to develop the very best kind of guest worker program we can to achieve the objective of providing matching, willing employers and willing employees and at the same time doing it within the construct of the rule of law. We look forward to that debate at a later time. Earlier in the debate on the supplemental appropriations bill, which is the legislation before us, the Senate adopted overwhelmingly a sense-of-the-Senate resolution that we should not be trying to deal with these immigration problems in this legislation. This bill is too important. It requires that we provide funding for our war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The reason it is called a supplemental appropriations bill is because it is supplemental to the regular process.…”