Bob Menendez: “I come to the floor to speak about the President's Executive order on immigration. I have been listening to my…”

“I come to the floor to speak about the President's Executive order on immigration. I have been listening to my colleagues, both here and on the other side of the Capitol, and I rise in amazement. It is almost incredulous that our Republican friends are against the President taking the same action Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush took to defer deportation to solve a critical problem that we all know exists in the country--a problem that impacts millions. When President Obama exercises the same Executive authority-- the same--they are on the air, on television, on talk shows, on Twitter, fear-mongering, calling it illegal, calling it amnesty, a constitutional crisis. Where was all of that when Presidents Reagan and Bush did it? They hold hearings in the House titled ``Open Border: The Impact of Presidential Amnesty on Border Security,'' which is a little ridiculous because we have more border security under this administration than we have had in the history of the United States. As a matter of fact, we spend more on border enforcement and immigration enforcement than we do in all of the other Federal law enforcement entities combined-- combined. The Republicans threaten to sue the government or even shut it down. The irony of that is laughable because a shutdown over conducting background checks and collecting taxes from undocumented immigrants would only cost current taxpayers billions of dollars.…”