Tom Price: “Thank you, Congresswoman Drake, very much. You have just really clarified and crystalized the components of our…”

“Thank you, Congresswoman Drake, very much. You have just really clarified and crystalized the components of our immigration bill that we passed last December. And I know that some of us have shared our frustration with the folks at home because there was really little attention paid to what the House did, very responsibly what the House did last December. Recognizing the incredible challenges that we have with immigration reform, working extremely hard to come up with a bill that addressed border security and interior enforcement. I guess if we were to be faulted for anything is that we did it during the Christmas holiday and it kind of got drowned out. But it is an important bill. It is an important bill. And I thank you for talking about the points in it that I think are vital and imperative as we move forward. As we talk about the issue of border security and national security, the two are really closely linked, very closely linked, and it is a real challenge for America to move forward with immigration reform and border security. And one of the reasons that I believe it is such a challenge is that we essentially have had in our Nation over the last really 20 or 30 years a policy as it relates to illegal immigration of benign neglect. That is what our policy has been, and I am disappointed that that is the case. But as somebody once said, you play with the cards that you are dealt.…”