Political Quotes

On the recordJune 12, 2013
it is good that the Nation is having this debate on immigration, but I think we ought to talk about what is truly involved. For the last several months--even before our bill was drafted, people were saying we cannot proceed with immigration reform until we do more to secure our borders. Now that we have a bill--a bill that takes extraordinary steps to further secure an already strong border--we continue to hear we must wait. We are told that the immigration bill reported from the Senate Judiciary Committee last month, the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act, S. 744, does not do enough. It is so easy to wait. Oh, let's wait until next year or the year after or the year after that, because then the 100 Members of the Senate don't have to vote. We can be on everybody's side. That is not why we were elected. We were elected to vote yes or to vote no. Let's start moving forward and stand up to vote, because when they say we have to wait for more security it ignores the facts. We have been pouring billions of dollars into border security for years--billions. Keep this in mind: Sometimes we argue over $15, $20, $30 million to help educate our children and that becomes a big issue. We have put billions of dollars into border security. Since the Senate last considered immigration reform in 2006 and 2007, we have made enormous strides on border security. This bill takes even more steps to prevent and deter illegal immigration.…
Said by
Patrick Leahy
Democratic · Vermont
Source
govinfo.gov
Jun 12, 2013

Share

More from Patrick Leahy

Dec 13, 2022

in 1988, after speaking with Bobby Muller, a Vietnam veteran who was wounded and later founded the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation--VVAF--to help alleviate the suffering of Vietnamese and Cambodians who were badly injured in the…

govinfo.gov
Apr 20, 2023

I can say with absolute certainty that the proposed rules directly conflict with the legislation on a variety of matters, especially on provisions that limit access to the PTAB.

congress.gov
Mar 22, 2023

Do not turn your material, do not turn your reports over to the Executive Branch and let them tell you what is or is not classified.

congress.gov
Dec 8, 2022

I am worried that we are heading toward another unnecessary, manufactured crisis because our current government funding is set to expire in 8 days. So I want to take a moment and talk about how we got here, and the path forward. In fiscal…

govinfo.gov

Other voices in this conversation