David Vitter: “unfortunately, this illustrates the point about the inappropriateness of cloture. These are two significant amendments…”

“unfortunately, this illustrates the point about the inappropriateness of cloture. These are two significant amendments which go to important provisions of the bill. All of us--and more importantly, the American people--deserve to have these matters debated and voted on. Let me explain what these amendments are about. Everybody--certainly the majority side--has been given the amendments. My first amendment only requires what Congress originally mandated back in 1986; that is, the entry/exit system known today as US-VISIT. We must have that fully operational before all aspects of this bill are allowed to go into effect. It was authorized 10 years ago, but it is not near to fully operational now. We must make sure that it is a part of this bill's enforcement trigger. Without the US-VISIT system's completion, we can't be sure that we know what individuals are in the country. In fact, we can be sure we will not know because how can we possibly have a grasp of who is in the country and who is not in the country without this system which tracks people as they exit? There are a lot of folks on visas here for a limited period of time. Under that visa, they, of course, need to exit the country before their visa is up. The US-VISIT system allows us to know if they are doing that.”