Political Quotes

“while presiding for a couple of hours just now I listened to some very powerful and eloquent debate organized by the Presiding Officer--I thank him for doing so--regarding the migrant unaccompanied children who are coming across our border. Those remarks moved and inspired me. They were followed afterward by an effort by Senators Shaheen and others to bring to the floor a measure on energy efficiency. The connection between the two may not seem immediately apparent. But, in fact, I was struck by the irony of an effort by some of our colleagues to eliminate and repeal, in effect, a measure called the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008. It is actually named the Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008, very symbolically and significantly named after a leader who sought to abolish the slave trade. Our colleagues who seek to repeal, in effect, that measure are calling its provisions a ``loophole'' because it provides for screening of migrant children, such as those who are reaching our border, who are not from the immediate bordering countries. They are from other Central American countries. They are seeking to apply to them the same procedures or lack of procedures, lack of screening, lack of individual consideration that apply to migrant children from Canada and Mexico on the theory that those provisions are a ``loophole'' in our law.…”