Jon Kyl: “let me yield some time to myself. With all due respect, I disagree with my colleague, who has said the amendment would…”

“let me yield some time to myself. With all due respect, I disagree with my colleague, who has said the amendment would deny most of the people whom the bill is intended to benefit the benefits of the bill; namely, legal permanent residency and citizenship. That is only true if most of the people who are supposed to receive benefits under the bill have committed a felony or three misdemeanors or have violated a court order to leave the country when they have been ordered to do so, or have not complied with a prior order of the DHS to depart if they are not eligible to participate in the program. These are not the people we should be seeking to give the benefits of the program to. These are precisely the people who have demonstrated either they are criminals or that when you have given them the chance to comply with an immigration order, they have refused to do so. I do not think the Senator intended to say these are exactly the people we want to benefit under this program. There are two large classes of people who would be potentially denied the benefits of the program by our amendment. The first is, instead of referring to crimes of moral turpitude or violation of a crime relating to a controlled substance--which are the two specific categories in the bill--we say any felony or three misdemeanors.…”