Bob Menendez: “as the late Ronald Reagan said, here we go again. The gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) offered this ill-conceived…”

“as the late Ronald Reagan said, here we go again. The gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) offered this ill-conceived amendment last year, and it was soundly defeated by a vote of 322 to 102 with all Democrats who voted voting against and a majority of the Republican conference also voting against. And if I were to listen to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo), he says, well, this does not really do anything to the law. Then why do we need it? The reality is the words may be modified, but the purpose is the same. Number one, this says none of the funds, no funds, will go to any municipality, any State entity, any governmental entity for any homeland security purpose if they have chosen in a totally legitimate way not to violate the privacy laws, not to give information about someone's citizenship, like mine, or anyone else's, because that is the way the gentleman's amendment originally read. He just scratched it out. And that is in essence what he is seeking to do, and it is in essence what it does. We all know the gentleman from Colorado's (Mr. Tancredo) stated intention. He wants all of us who look a certain way, who have certain names and speak a certain way to have Big Brother filter us out.”