Political Quotes

“Mr. President, what is pending before the Senate is a piece of history. For those who are witnessing this debate--whether in the galleries or at home on C-SPAN--you are watching a debate on the floor of the Senate that doesn't happen very often. We are debating the comprehensive immigration reform bill. It is the first time in 25 years we have tackled this issue. If you look at the history of the United States, you know right off the bat we are a Nation of immigrants. My mother was an immigrant to this country. Many of us have immigrant parents and grandparents and great-grandparents. That is who we are. We come from all over the world to this great Nation. But the history of immigration law will tell you that immigrants aren't always well or warmly received. There have been periods in history where we have excluded people from certain countries and excluded immigrants in general. There were other periods where we couldn't wait to get the cheap labor from anyplace in the world to build this great Nation. We have had real mixed feelings when it comes to immigration. The sad reality is for 25 years our immigration laws haven't worked well. The estimate is we have about 11 million undocumented people living in America. I have come to know many of them. They are not who you think they are. Many of them turn out to be the mothers in a household where the father and all the kids are American citizens. Many of them turn out to be the people who sat down next to you in church.…”