María Elvira Salazar: “I wish to remind the Senate how far along this road we have come. This debate on immigration reform is not one that…”

“I wish to remind the Senate how far along this road we have come. This debate on immigration reform is not one that started on this Monday. It is indeed a debate the Senate started over a year and a half ago, and it started in the Judiciary Committee. It then went through nearly a month of debate, with many amendments and changes, and ultimately a bill that was passed out of the Senate, this comprehensive immigration reform, by a vote, as I recall, of 64 Senators voting to move that bill forward. Now, that was a year ago. We are now a year ahead, and what has happened during this past year is that there have been continuing conversations about how we might be able to create an immigration reform system that works for our country. After many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of hours of meetings, which included the White House and included the leading members of many of the committees in the Senate, there was a bill that was crafted. It may be an imperfect bill, but part of what is happening today is that, as amendments have been crafted and introduced, there is an effort to make the legislation better.”