María Elvira Salazar: “I wish to respond to the notion that this Chamber is not taking sufficient time in order to consider the issue of…”

“I wish to respond to the notion that this Chamber is not taking sufficient time in order to consider the issue of immigration and immigration reform. We have, indeed, been on a very long journey to try to grapple with this issue which, at the base of it, is the fundamental question of national security. It was last year, for most of the month of May, where this Senate debated a comprehensive immigration reform package. It was an immigration reform package that had gone through the Senate Judiciary Committee and was amended multiple times on the floor of the Senate. Now, for the last many months, perhaps as many as 4 to 5 months, there have been a group of Senators, Republicans and Democrats, working with Secretary Chertoff and Secretary Gutierrez and President Bush to try to come up with a comprehensive immigration reform package, which is now the package that is before this Chamber. I submit, in response to my good friend from Texas, that there has been ample opportunity for us to deal with the issue of immigration reform and to come up with a system that is, in fact, workable.”