Political Quotes

“I come to the Senate floor to strongly urge consideration and passage of the first of several amendments I will be presenting on this so-called comprehensive immigration reform bill. It is amendment No. 1228 and is about the US-Visit system, the entry- exit system that is supposed to be in place. It has been mandated by Congress many times to guard against visa overstays, which is a serious national security problem. Why is this important? There is one simple way to underscore it to answer that question, and that is to remind us that the 9/11 terrorists, every single one of them, were visa overstays. They were dangerous people who came into our country on valid visas, overstayed their visas, plotted against us, and ultimately caused horrendous death and destruction on 9/11. What do we do about that situation? We need a system of tracking visas of the people who come into the country, tracking when they should be leaving the country, and looking to see if they have exited the country. We need a system which has biometric data associated with it which can track those entrances and those exits. This sort of system is technologically possible. It is definitely possible to fund and put in place. It is primarily a question of political will. Unfortunately, even after Congress mandated this multiple times to no effect, even after 9/11 and other terrorist attacks, we haven't mustered the political will to demand to put this is in place.…”