María Elvira Salazar: “I was talking about what we had done together in the bipartisan spirit of moving forward with a comprehensive…”

“I was talking about what we had done together in the bipartisan spirit of moving forward with a comprehensive immigration reform package that the President had requested us to work on together and on which there was a great deal of leadership on the part of the Members in this Chamber to accomplish a task which the Nation needed. That was a piece of legislation which was the law and order bill. It dealt with border security. It dealt with the enforcement of our immigration laws. It dealt with the system of penalties and registration that would have brought the 12 million people who now live within the shadows of America out of the shadows. It is an important piece of legislation. Yes, there was disagreement in the Senate as we debated that bill for almost a month. At the end of the day, Democrats and Republicans came together to pass a comprehensive immigration reform. I will quickly review a few of the components of that bill. First, with respect to border security, we said we would add 12,000 new Border Patrol agents.”