Bob Menendez: “We are here today to address a refugee crisis in America. I never thought I would have to use those words on the floor…”

“We are here today to address a refugee crisis in America. I never thought I would have to use those words on the floor of the Senate, but there is no other way to describe what is happening on our southern border. What is happening in Central America--the violence, the kidnappings, the failure of the rule of law--is the root cause of the problem and it is threatening tens of thousands of families and thousands and thousands of children. It is causing a refugee crisis that is simply unacceptable in America and unacceptable in our hemisphere. Let's be clear. It is being caused in large measure by thousands in Central America who believe it is better to run for their lives and risk dying than stay and die for sure. It is nearly a 2,000-mile journey from these countries to the U.S. border. These families are not undertaking this journey lightly. My Republican colleagues make it sound as though parents are willingly choosing to risk their children's lives, send them on a 2,000-mile journey fraught with smugglers, thieves, child abductors, and sex traffickers as if that is a choice. They are parents, just as we are parents. I, as a parent, cannot imagine having to make that choice--to send them on a perilous journey with no guarantees of survival except out of an absolute fear for their lives if they stay. To politicize the decision to send a child away as opportunistic, as a way to take advantage of American law, is as cynical a position as I have ever heard.…”