On the recordJune 20, 2013
I appreciate the recognition, and I ensure my colleagues I will be brief. I appreciate very much the work of the Senator from Ohio on this bill. I wanted to come to the floor this afternoon to talk about the agreement that we have reached with Senators Corker and Hoeven that will significantly increase security measures taken at our borders. We have spent a lot of time talking about this issue over the last months with some proposals that would have simply gone too far by sacrificing the path to citizenship, perhaps completely, in some of these proposals. I thank Senator Corker, Senator Hoeven, and the other Senators who have been involved in this discussion for striking the balance in a different place and giving us a path to another bipartisan agreement that has required compromise--principled compromise--on all sides throughout this process. A number of us have said that this bill is not the bill each of us would have written left to our own devices. But the nature of this place, when it is working, is that it is a place where people make principled compromises and come together. I want to thank Chairman Leahy, who is on the floor today, for the process that he led in the Judiciary Committee to get us here. There were over 300 amendments considered. I think there were 141 amendments adopted by both Democrats and Republicans.…
