Political Quotes

“To my very good friend Senator Kennedy, it is my understanding in terms of incarceration costs, the costs are paid by the Federal Government through the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program about 90 percent--90 cents on the dollar. So the Federal Government does help the local communities almost fully to deal with the expense of people who are caught violating or who are put in jail. In terms of leniency--is there any evidence our laws are too lenient--I would say there are about 12 million pieces of evidence that our laws are too lenient. How can you have 12 million people come across the border and the word not be out that there is not much of a downside to doing it? Now, if you get 12 million people violating the law, it must be common knowledge among that population and others there is not much going to happen to you. Well, that needs to stop. We need to give people who are here a chance to assimilate. Legal paths, we have more legal paths than we have ever had through this bill. The illegal part of it has to come to an end and will only come to an end if there is a downside to breaking our law, and this amendment is about mandatory jail time. I am not trying to make it easier on people; I am trying to make it harder on people who take the law into their own hands and violate our border security. That is why we have mandatory jail time.”