Political Quotes

“I am glad that people have decided to speak about immigration reform. This body passed overwhelmingly--Republicans and Democrats joined together--a comprehensive immigration bill last year. We did it after six hearings during which we received testimony from 42 witnesses. We had five markups and 37 hours of debate, often late into the night, over three weeks. There were 212 amendments, of which 136 were adopted, all but three of them on a bipartisan bases. Staff and Senators, Republicans and Democrats, worked together throughout that time, and the Senate, by a better than 2-to-1 margin, passed a comprehensive immigration bill. It was supported by people from the right to the left. It went over to the other body. In the other body there were enough votes to pass it. And what happened? The Republican leadership said: No, we will not bring it up. And so it died there. Today, faced with a surge of migrants from Central America, they are giving great speeches: Oh, my God. We have to do something about immigration. Why don't we do something about immigration? And then they blame Democratic President Obama. My response is: What are you doing? They could have brought up the bill. We would be a lot better off had they brought it up and voted on it. Vote yes or vote no. That is what we are supposed to do. The Senate did that, and we passed it. The Republican leadership is so afraid they might actually have to take a stand on immigration.…”