Political Quotes

“Obviously, between the Garrett amendment on disparate impact and this, this is, I guess, not actually part of their effort to reach out for a greater fan base--the idea that local communities can't make decisions in their own interests and that we need the heavy hand of the Federal Government to herd them into some particular set of responsibilities that are actually our responsibilities. Immigration law is our responsibility. It is not a local community's responsibility. When the fire department shows up, it is supposed to put the fire out, not worry about where someone's papers are. I just think that it is somewhat contradictory of what we hear from the other team about where they are headed, but this might be representative thereof, rather than doing comprehensive immigration reform. We must do our job as the United States Congress. Now, the Senate has done its job. The President has said that he wants to sign a comprehensive bill. The Chamber of Commerce and all of the various religious and faith-based groups in our country have come forward, but rather than the Congress taking up a bill--any bill--on immigration reform, what we have is this constant effort to get at local communities that are just trying to make the best of a very tough situation that the Federal Government is creating. Now, we will burden them because we don't want to take our responsibility and enact a comprehensive immigration program.…”