David Vitter: “All of us join together with tens of millions of Americans to simply say we cannot have amnesty provisions in this bill.…”

“All of us join together with tens of millions of Americans to simply say we cannot have amnesty provisions in this bill. We cannot have anything approaching amnesty in this measure. So my amendment would very clearly, very simply, withdraw those provisions from the bill. Madam President, as I noted while speaking on another amendment about an hour ago, this is an interesting debate. The country, including the Senate, is widely divided on the question in many respects. Passions run deep from one end of the argument to the other. Yet to listen to the debate, particularly on the Senate floor in the midst of a fundamental disagreement, it is interesting that nobody says they are for amnesty, and everybody says they are for enforcement. But, of course, the devil is in the details. Of course, it depends on what you mean by amnesty, what you mean by enforcement. And what I mean by amnesty certainly covers many provisions of the underlying bill, which my amendment would strike. More importantly, what tens of millions of Americans know through common sense, basic reasoning is amnesty is included in this underlying bill and we must take it out. Maybe we can begin the discussion with what is amnesty. Well, the President, in his speech 2 nights ago, said that he is not for amnesty and ``they''--meaning illegal aliens--``should not be given an automatic path to citizenship.'' What is an automatic path to citizenship?…”