John Kerry: “on May 17 of this year, the Senate passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill that contains a real solution to the…”

“on May 17 of this year, the Senate passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill that contains a real solution to the immigration crisis in this country. S. 2611 was passed with strong bipartisan support. In a Congress that has been marred by partisan politics, the success of this bill--this truly bipartisan compromise-- was a breath of fresh air: an achievement to be proud of. What has happened now, however, is something to be ashamed of. Once again, politics has hijacked policy. Knowing they cannot go home without taking some action to address immigration, Republicans in Congress have decided that saving their seats is more important than securing the borders. You might wonder how we got here--when the Senate passed comprehensive immigration reform back in May and the House passed an enforcement only bill in December 2005. Once again, the answer is politics. Rather than moving to conference to work out some sort of compromise on these bills, Republicans in the House traveled around the country holding 60 one-sided hearings under the guise of gathering evidence. This was not a good-faith effort to create effective policy. It was a stalling tactic used to run out the clock on comprehensive reform. That kind of political gamesmanship will not work on me. Everyone under the sun is for fencing on the border. A fence is an important part of comprehensive reform.”