Political Quotes

“Madam President, the distinguished Senator from Maryland has described the President's request and what she has proposed, the Appropriations Committee has proposed in response. The problem with the response is it does not solve the underlying problem, which is a loophole in a 2008 law, which is now being exploited as part of the business model of the cartels that smuggle children and other immigrants illegally from Central America through Mexico into South Texas. It makes no sense to me just to write a check for this surge, which I agree that there is money needed for additional judges, additional detention facilities, and the like in some dollar figure. But if you do not solve the underlying problem, we are going to be back here months later and doing this all over again. This, of course, is an emergency supplemental. We will be doing this emergency every 2 or 3 months because what we have seen over the last couple years is that the numbers of children coming into the country because of this loophole in the 2008 law I described a moment ago--the numbers have nearly doubled over the last couple of years, and there are projections that there will be not just the 57,000 unaccompanied children who have been detained so far this year but that the number could grow as high as 90,000 by the end of this year and 145,000 next year. We are going to be in deep trouble, not to mention the crisis for these children.…”