Political Quotes

“I have sought recognition to discuss the urgent need for comprehensive immigration reform in the United States. Earlier today, the Senate considered a number of proposals for border security, and there has been extensive media attention to an administration proposal to dispatch substantial numbers of the National Guard for border security. The Senate and the House of Representatives wrestled with this issue in 2006. Each House produced a bill. At that time, I chaired the Judiciary Committee and managed the bill in committee and on the floor. The Senate bill, known as the McCain-Kennedy bill, provided for comprehensive immigration reform. The House passed a bill which dealt only with Border Patrol and employer verification. For reasons which need not be commented upon now, there was no conference and that bill languished. In the following year, Senator Reid, the majority leader, asked Senator Kennedy and me to lead an informal group to try to structure a comprehensive immigration reform, with the decision not to run it through committee, and that effort was not successful. As a result of the failure of Congress to act, we have seen many States and municipalities enact legislation to try to deal with this issue, in the absence of what Congress has a duty to do and should have been doing. Most recently, the Arizona law has produced enormous controversy.”