Patrick Leahy: “we are going to have a major debate on immigration. That is a good thing, both for the country and for the Senate. I…”

“we are going to have a major debate on immigration. That is a good thing, both for the country and for the Senate. I note, however, in the Judiciary Committee, we have had a major amount of debate and long markups. The distinguished chairman of the committee, Senator Specter, and I have tried to make sure we had full hearings. The distinguished senior Senator from Massachusetts, Mr. Kennedy, is on the floor. As I said last night, he has spent more time on this than any of the rest of us. He has been in the Senate longer. He has been a leader in the area of immigration. When we began the debate, Chairman Specter and I followed the opening statement of the Republican leader with a discussion of how the Judiciary Committee, in a truly bipartisan manner, worked successfully to meet the deadline set by the Senate's Republican leadership. I understood that the majority leader had committed to turn to the committee bill if we were able to meet that deadline. I heard our chairman reiterate that same thing on the floor again yesterday. We did it, we completed that difficult task. We did it by working together, Republicans and Democrats, something that should be done more often around here. Under the steady leadership of the chairman and Senator Kennedy, and with the hard work and dedication of so many members of the committee, we worked through the long hours and numerous amendments and accomplished what had seemed to be the impossible.…”