Barbara Mikulski: “reluctantly, I rise to oppose this amendment, even though I agree with many of the principles expounded in it. No. 1, to…”

“reluctantly, I rise to oppose this amendment, even though I agree with many of the principles expounded in it. No. 1, to my colleagues on the Judiciary Committee, the sponsors of this amendment, I too, agree, that our immigration system is badly broken. It does fail to serve the interests of our national security and our national economy. We do need to enact the critical appropriations bill to support our troops and help people who are tsunami victims and some other important aspects. At the same time, though, the sense of the Senate really should be directed to the House. For someone like myself, who has a very serious crisis because of something called the H-2B visas, which I will explain in more detail at another time, the fact is this is our only vehicle. Immigration, as an issue, was introduced in the supplemental appropriation bill in the House of Representatives with an enormously controversial and prickly concept, the so-called REAL ID card. I know that my colleague from Tennessee has proposed some creative solutions to deal with that. I know that others want to talk about this. If we can talk about comprehensive immigration reform, I am all for it. But the question is, When are we going to do it? It has been over 1,000 days since 9/11, and we have not done comprehensive immigration reform, nor have we looked at what aspects of immigration are working.…”