José E. Serrano: “Mr. Chairman, during the last few months, we have come to the floor to discuss this issue in a different form almost on…”

“Mr. Chairman, during the last few months, we have come to the floor to discuss this issue in a different form almost on a weekly basis, and during that time and each one of those times, the debate has been very emotional, as in fact it has been today. And I have been part of that very emotional debate. Today I decided I was going to try something new, that I was going to come to the floor and only discuss the numbers and only discuss the issue, and try to stay away from the emotion of this issue, only to realize that I was fooling myself, that indeed this is not a debate about numbers, it is a debate about a cheap political style. And that is to take the suffering of a people and to use it for those people to feel that we in Congress are helping them by turning them against another group of suffering people. So it is true, as it has been said on this floor, that the American people are complaining about how many dollars they pay in taxes. And it is true, also, as has been said on this floor, that the American people are complaining in many cases about their condition. What is not true, however, and we have to be clear on it, is that the American people were the ones who thought up this idea of turning on permanent residents, on illegal immigrants, and the children who may be here undocumented. That is not true, and the record should show it is not true. It wasn't the people that started discussing that subject.”