Patrick Kennedy: “I love all the concern on this side of the aisle today for the divisiveness of this issue when it was just yesterday…”

“I love all the concern on this side of the aisle today for the divisiveness of this issue when it was just yesterday that this side of the aisle was not willing to make the distinction between legal residents and illegal aliens, such that they shut off 300,000 legal residents of this country from rights of their citizenship. Today, my colleagues on the other side are talking about the divisiveness of this issue. The reason they are talking about divisiveness is because this is a divisive issue. this bill plays directly to the politics of fear and prejudice for which this Congress has become so well-known. A politics of divide and conquer. Mr. Chairman, this is reminiscent of the Patrick Buchanan campaign to define which people are more American than the others. Or should I say which people are more white, are more white than other Americans? This is playing politics that the Republican Party knows very well: Create an enemy to solve all our country's anxieties and fears. We saw it begin with the gay bashing. Then it proceeded to the welfare bashing. Then the last 2 days we have seen it with the welfare bashing and the immigrant bashing when they knocked off all the legal residents who were taxpaying residents of my State who can go and fight in our wars and yet they are going to be denied the rights of their citizenship based upon the bill my Republican colleagues passed yesterday.”