Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. This amendment highlights the flip side of this issue in some alternate reality university. There is a real issue with detention. The issue is not that criminal aliens are being released. They are not. The real issue is we're continuing to pay for the ongoing and indefinite detention of noncriminal aliens at a great cost to taxpayers. We're putting illegal immigrants who have committed no crime--may have violated our civil code--up at detention facilities to the tune of $120 a night when alternatives to detention, proven effective, cost $15 to $20 a night. It's like some alternate reality. There is a real problem. It's not that criminal aliens are being released. They're not. By the way, if they are, then we need to focus on detaining criminal aliens. There's no disagreement in this body. But why are the noncriminal aliens caught up in this net? At our detention facility of ICE in Aurora, which is outsourced to a private provider, it's only 40 percent of the detainees that are criminal aliens and 60 percent that are not. Why aren't we talking about saving money, spending $15 or $20 instead of $120 per night putting illegal immigrants up at expensive hotels? Why aren't we talking about that? This is like some alternate reality that I simply can't understand. The amendment doesn't do anything. We're not releasing criminal aliens nor should we. Nobody thinks we should.”