Political Quotes

“Madam President, as my colleague from Connecticut said, it has been nearly 100 days since my Republican colleagues walked away from a bipartisan border security agreement. That is nearly 100 days that my State of Arizona and other border States have had to live with the consequences of that failure. We could have been on our way to hiring more than 1,000 additional Border Patrol agents and paying them better. We could have new technology to detect fentanyl and more personnel to seize those drugs, keeping them from getting into our communities and killing people. We could have new authorities to prevent the border from being overwhelmed--authorities that the President committed to using. That includes an updated asylum system with more officers to quickly screen claims. All of these things are things that my Republican colleagues have wanted for years. Arizona, today, has none of it, and I think the Presiding Officer knows why. The Federal Government has failed Arizona on the border for decades. Sadly, it is almost expected at this point. But no past failure is as baffling and as cynical as this one because for once we all agreed that the business-as-usual approach wasn't working; that our immigration process and infrastructure can't handle the new realities at the border--because for once there was a real plan, worked on and agreed to by Republicans and Democrats, ready to be signed into law by the President.…”