Political Quotes

“I rise to point out it has now been 342 days since the Senate passed bipartisan, comprehensive immigration reform that would secure our border, turbocharge America's economic growth and provide a chance to heal America's broken families who are being separated by our dysfunctional immigration system. Here is what we know: The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office told us that had we passed the bill this last year, we could have already seen up to $80 billion of economic growth, $20 billion of deficit reduction, 50,000 new jobs, $50 billion more in the Social Security trust fund, $2 billion of revenue for State and local governments, and 40,000 more brilliant STEM--science, technology, engineering, and mathematics--graduates stay in the United States instead of being told to go home. Instead, we have not been able to achieve any of these important gains. Why is that? It is because the House has refused to do anything--underline anything--to try and fix our broken immigration system. To be clear, the real problem is not that there is a difference of opinion between a House bill and a Senate bill on immigration that cannot be reconciled. The problem is there is no House bill. We are happy to meet our colleagues in the House part of the way. We would love to sit down and negotiate, but there is no House bill. So the problem is not that the two sides are irreconcilable, it is that one side has refused to do anything.…”