William H. Frist: “once again today, the Senate will be in a period for morning business for 60 minutes. Following that time, the Senate…”

“once again today, the Senate will be in a period for morning business for 60 minutes. Following that time, the Senate will resume debate on the emergency supplemental appropriations bill. We have several amendments pending from yesterday that are currently under review, and Members may want to speak to those amendments. Much of the day yesterday we spent--both on the floor and off the floor--discussing the immigration issue. The issues surrounding immigration are critically important to our economy, to equity, and to security and fairness. They are all vital to this country. The leadership has encouraged those who want to participate in a comprehensive debate on immigration to postpone consideration of their amendments from this standpoint because this is an emergency supplemental spending bill to support our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and to have appropriate funding for tsunami relief. There will be a time later, before the end of the year, when we will address immigration in a comprehensive way. In spite of that, we have respected the rights of individual Senators who feel they absolutely must address specific issues, but I continue to encourage those who want to address immigration in a comprehensive way to do so at a more appropriate time. I know we can work out a process to keep moving forward on the emergency supplemental bill, but we have to address specifically the range of immigration issues that have been brought forth to the managers.…”