Cory Booker: “I wish to thank my colleagues sitting here before me, especially Senator Heinrich, who invited us to partner in this…”

“I wish to thank my colleagues sitting here before me, especially Senator Heinrich, who invited us to partner in this dialogue today. I wish right now just to express my frustration. We see on our television sets and we hear throughout the American landscape rhetoric, posturing, and demagoguery that does not reflect the truth of who we are as a nation, and it obscures the facts of what is happening on our southern border right now as a country. We have thousands upon thousands of children in the most vulnerable and innocent stage of their lives showing up at our border. I hear ugly rhetoric about just turning them around and sending them back--rhetoric that does not reflect who we are as a nation, the history of our communities or the laws of this land. If I may, for a brief time I wish to speak just to reflect on the fact of why these children are showing up. Why are they coming to our borders? As the senior Senator from New Jersey has said clearly: This is not a case of ordinary people seeking better economic opportunities. If this was just about poverty, then we would see people coming from all the nations in that area. To be specific, El Salvador's poverty rate is 34.5 percent. Belize's poverty rate is actually higher at 41.3 percent.…”