Political Quotes

“I was coming to floor today to talk about legislation we just got passed in the last week in the Homeland Security Committee with the hopes that I can convince some of my colleagues to join us in this effort, and I will talk about that bill in a moment. But first let me, if I could, address the photograph and the comments from my colleague from New Jersey. He showed a tragic photograph that so many of my constituents and all Americans have seen--Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez and his daughter Valeria, facedown in the Rio Grande. This man came from El Salvador. We don't know all the details yet, but clearly he was interested in coming to the United States and applying for asylum, as so many others have come--hundreds a day, thousands a week, hundreds of thousands a month now, overwhelming the infrastructure at the border, pulling 40 to 60 percent of our Border Patrol off the border to deal with the humanitarian crisis that has occurred. That tragic photograph--and it is a horrific photo of a daughter clinging to her father's neck, having drowned in the Rio Grande coming over from Mexico--should be a wake-up call. I agree with that, but it should not be a wake-up call to have us continue to point fingers around here at the other side and blame someone else for the problem. It should instead be a wake-up call for solutions--for bipartisan solutions--because that is all that works to be able to resolve these issues.…”