Michael Bennet: “I wanted to come to the floor tonight to talk briefly about where we are in immigration reform. We are moving along this…”

“I wanted to come to the floor tonight to talk briefly about where we are in immigration reform. We are moving along this week. We have come out of several weeks of committee work, where there were a number of Republican amendments that were adopted as part of the process and a number of Democratic amendments adopted as part of the process. As somebody who was involved in the negotiating group that led to the bill reaching the Judiciary Committee, I actually think it was improved by both Republicans and Democrats. It has been an unusual bipartisan effort, and it is the kind of effort the American people, certainly the people of Colorado, think is long overdue. They do not understand why we seem to be engaged in these fights that don't have anything to do with them instead of working to get together constructively to meet the challenges this country faces. I think when it comes to this very difficult issue of immigration-- and it is difficult, and there are strong feelings about it--it has been remarkable for that reason; that we have been able to see what I would describe not even as a bipartisan process but a nonpartisan process, with people actually coming together to resolve this issue. As a result, the objections to it, the substantive objections to it are falling away. There was an objection that somehow the bill was being rushed through. Well, no, it went through the regular order, which is very rare for this place. It shouldn't be rare, but it is rare.…”