On the recordAugust 1, 2014
I want to first thank all the people that worked so hard to put this language together, and it makes me feel good to see the team that has done so. But I also think there is a misunderstanding as to what happened with how we got to this OTM language, the Wilberforce language, that is current law that we are seeking to amend here. There was a bill that was introduced in December of 2007 which was called Wilberforce. It had two provisions. One of them was that if you violated Federal law, you were exempt from the provisions that would have been beneficial to an unaccompanied alien child, and the other one was if you were a threat to national security. Those provisions were taken out of it. A new bill was introduced on December 9, 2008. The next day was the last day of this session. We all put up our last votes, left the Capitol, and headed for the airport. There was a unanimous consent request that called the bill up. They asked unanimous consent to discharge it from committee, called the bill up, passed it by voice in the House, sent it over to the Senate, where they took the lateral. They passed it by voice to the President of the United States. No Republican voted for this bill. This is a bill that is the foundational excuse for the President, and this is what we are trying to fix here tonight.
