On the recordSeptember 20, 2011
I appreciate my friend from Alabama for yielding. Candidly, I can't say it much better than my freshman colleague from Tennessee just did. We are a Nation of immigrants, and we are a Nation of laws. And my question is, When did it become so clear to everyone else that those things were in conflict with one another? Because when I look at it, it's not in conflict at all; in fact, it's in concert, in concert with one another. It was hard to listen to the story that my friend from Alabama was telling because it's not a story that you only hear once. It's a story that you hear heartbroken families tell over and over and over again. It's a family in Alabama, it's a family in Georgia, it's a mom in South Carolina, and it's a grandmother from Indiana, and on and on and on. What I want to know is, Who is it who's coming to defend that story tonight? Because I hear it in town hall meetings all the time, and I know my friend from Alabama hears the same thing: Rob, I want you to go up there and I want you to fight for what's right, and I don't want you to compromise. Well, I don't want to compromise on principle. There is absolutely no principle I have that I'm interested in compromising on. But what I tell folks back home is there's common ground. There's common ground where no matter where you sit on the political spectrum you can see your way clear to this path forward.…
