Bonnie Watson Coleman: “Thank you very much. I am very grateful to my colleague, the gentleman from Arizona, for sharing his vast knowledge…”

“Thank you very much. I am very grateful to my colleague, the gentleman from Arizona, for sharing his vast knowledge, experience, and dedication to such an important issue. Mr. Speaker, I am relatively new to this Chamber; but I must tell you that, as I have been working here and observing, I am always reminded of the fact that this is a nation of immigrants. This is a nation that was conceived of by immigrants. It was created by immigrants. It was made great by immigrants because all of our Founding Fathers who are responsible for the way this country operates and the way we operate this democracy came to this land from another land. According to our polling that has been released by the Public Religion Research Institute in February, 77 percent of the country supports either a pathway to citizenship or permanent legal residency for undocumented immigrants. Only 19 percent want to enforce deportation. Citizenship is also favored over deportation in every single solitary State in this Nation, frequently by very wide margins. In the last Congress, as my colleague from Arizona noted, the Democratic-led Senate passed legislation that would have provided that pathway for 11 million immigrants seeking the American Dream but currently living in the shadows. That bill also would have strengthened border security, something I hear my Republican colleagues argue about quite frequently.…”