Political Quotes

“I thank the Senator, and I certainly agree. Again, the fundamental issue is, Is the model that has been tried before really going to work--an immediate amnesty with promises of enforcement? Unfortunately, history is littered with examples of that exact model failing and those promises of enforcement never being kept. What do I mean by that? I mentioned 1986, which is the biggest historical example: An immediate amnesty where we are going to get serious about enforcement, we will never have to look back, and we will have to do this once. We will solve the problem. Of course, it didn't solve the problem; it quadrupled the problem. There were 3 million illegal aliens back then. There are 11 to 12 million illegal aliens now. There have been promises of a U.S.-VISIT Program with an entry-and-exit system to track everyone entering the country and making sure they exit in time. That was first promised back in 1986. Ten years later, in 1996, Congress passed another act to require a fully integrated entry-exit system with full implementation by 2005. Guess what. 2005 has come and gone. It has been 30 years since that initial promise was made. We still don't have an operational and effective U.S.-VISIT system. My colleague from Alabama mentioned another glaring example: the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which we actually passed in legislation. The Secure Fence Act of 2006 promises to achieve operational control for the entire border.…”