Political Quotes

“Mr. President, this side-by-side with Senator Sessions is very straightforward. It restates current law. Let me repeat that. It restates current law, which already explicitly excludes undocumented immigrants who are in this country from obtaining benefits such as tax credits and cost-sharing subsidies when obtaining health insurance coverage. We debated this policy at length during health care reform, and this exemption was included in the final bill to address concerns of some of our Republican colleagues that undocumented immigrants would somehow be able to receive the benefits we included in the law. That is why we specifically and explicitly excluded them from being able to gain this type of coverage. Finally, addressing the issues of immigrant families is currently being done in a bipartisan fashion. The last thing we need to do in this budget process is to try to muck that up. This is not a great way to do your outreach to the Hispanic and immigrant community. I urge our colleagues just to stay with present law. Let's restate it once again, support our amendment, and reject the Sessions amendment. The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Alabama.”