Political Quotes

“Yes, it certainly could be and it certainly would be if at the end of the day you have literally hundreds of instances of Secretarial discretion built into the bill. If every one of these important decisions that have to be made along the way, or through the process, on legal immigration--if any of the critical decisions that have to be made along the way are subject to certain rules but those rules can be waived by the Secretary at the Secretary's unfettered discretion, it is not much of a law. It becomes something else. It becomes a set of guidelines with ultimate discretionary decisionmaking vested in the Secretary. That is something very different than a law. I do not doubt that there were lots of people who had input on this bill, nor do I necessarily blame any one group for being involved. They have every right to give their input into a law. But at the end of the day we have to ask the question: Whose job is it to legislate? It is not their decision to legislate. The accountability to legislate or the accountability for flaws in this bill therefore must not rest with any outside group, any group of lawyers or activists of any stripe or at either end of the political spectrum. The accountability for the legislation that moves through this body must rest ultimately with us, and that includes legislation that gives someone else the effective power to legislate, as this one does, in literally hundreds of instances.…”