Political Quotes

“I have refrained from being on the floor during this debate, as I listened to it and watched, and I would compliment my colleagues in trying to solve a very difficult problem. But I just heard a speech by my colleague from New Mexico that quotes all sorts of statistics that are not accurate. I am the ranking member on Homeland Security. Here is what we know: We have estimates, and that is all we have. But we do not know the total attempts to cross our border. We do not know what they are. So when somebody quotes 70 percent to 80 percent, and you have no idea what the denominator is, you do not know what the numbers are. Here is what the Council on Foreign Relations says about our border. How did they get this data? They went out and interviewed 6,700 illegal immigrants to find out their frequency of attempts, whether they have gone home, what their difficulty was, what their communities were like. Here is what they say right now is the control of our border: It is somewhere between 40 and 65 percent. So we have the administration that says one thing, but when you ask them for details--as I have, as ranking member on Homeland Security-- you cannot get the facts because we do not know. So I applaud my colleagues for bringing this bill forward. I would love to get to yes on this bill. I also want to raise the issue on the CBO scoring.…”