On the recordJanuary 11, 2019
I first want to make a single declarative sentence: There is no one in this body who is for open borders. One of the most troublesome aspects of this debate that has been framed, particularly by this administration, is that you are either for the wall or for open borders. That is not true. In 2013, two-thirds of us voted for a very strong border security provision as part of the comprehensive immigration reform bill that passed this body--as I say, by two-thirds. It was never taken up in the House. Had it been taken up in the House, it likely would have passed; the President would have signed it; and a lot of these issues would have been behind us. All of us--everyone here on both sides of the aisle--support border security. What we support is cost-effective, sensible border security, not border security that really doesn't fit the nature of the problem we face and that so far, anyway, is undefined in terms of location, design, cost, and all of the other characteristics of any major construction project that is submitted to this Congress for its approval. Again, one of the problems with this whole discussion is what does the President mean when he says ``wall''? Is it 30 feet high? Is it 20 feet high? Is it steel? Is it concrete? This has evolved over time. The biggest question is where and how long. Is he talking about a wall that extends from the Gulf of Mexico to Southern California, to the Pacific Ocean? That is about 2,000 miles.…
Source
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