David Perdue: “here we are at approximately 2:30 on a Saturday afternoon trying to do the people's business in a situation that nobody…”

“here we are at approximately 2:30 on a Saturday afternoon trying to do the people's business in a situation that nobody wanted. Yet because, I believe, of political self-interest, we are in a situation right now where we are in what I would call a crisis mode of operation. We need to get a deal done. But I want to address a couple of topics today that are at issue here as we debate the funding issue, which is at the crux of why we are here today and this weekend. Our country was built on immigration; there is just no question that we are all direct derivatives, in one way or the other. But I would like to be very clear that most of the people who have come to this country over the last two centuries came in legally. Today, we bring in 1.1 million people a year--legally. We bring in about 70,000 people who have a job-related way to get into our system. There are about 70,000 direct family members; that is, a spouse and immediate children. There are another 300,000 refugees and asylum seekers. There is a rational reason we should do that, and we have been doing that. Today, every day, asylum seekers and refugees are permitted into our country, but there are another 800,000 who come in legally every year, and the only reason they come in is that they have an indirect family link, through generations, to the 70,000 that come in. Given that environment, we also have a temporary work permit system here that, again, has over 1 million people in it--every year.…”