Unanimous Consent Request--S. 890

Floor Speech

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Mr. LUJAN. Madam President, there is not a single Democratic Senator in this body who believes that someone who commits a violent crime should not feel the full weight of the U.S. judicial system for their crimes. I hope my friend from Texas would agree with that. I don't think there is a Member in this body--Democratic, Republican, Independent, the staff--not a one. I think the same holds true for our colleagues who work just down the corridor from us in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Now, we must do everything in our power to make certain that those engaged in violent crimes face prosecution and feel the full weight of the law. That is not just bipartisan; that is the right thing to do.

Where I disagree with my colleague is the assertion that immigrants are inherently criminal. They are not. They are people whom our kids go to school with, whom we work with, who grow our food in America, who work to prepare that food or even stock the shelves, teach in classrooms, serve in the U.S. military defending our freedoms in the United States of America.

So to my friend from Texas, this seems to be a continuance of the harmful proposals from the Trump administration. I certainly think that many of my colleagues from the other side of the aisle in the U.S. Senate also disagree with the hateful pronouncements from Steve Miller. This feels like a continuance of that, to strike fear in Americans and to breed distrust in immigrants.

Now, I agree with my colleague that we have to work together to stop that false narrative. This false narrative must stop because it is not contributing to fixing the broken immigration system we have in the United States.

I agree with my colleague that we should come together and work in a bipartisan way to learn from one another. I am new to this Chamber, but I am not new to these challenges.

I certainly hope that my colleagues who are traveling to the border-- and I commend them for doing so because this is an important conversation we should be having. I hope they travel to Matamoros. I don't know if my colleague from Texas has done that. I did. I traveled down there with a group of colleagues. We had a chance to visit with the Border Patrol in El Paso. We had a chance to visit with Border Patrol in Antelope Wells in New Mexico and Lordsburg in New Mexico. We have had the honor of traveling down into the Rio Grande Valley, down to Brownsville. We had a chance to visit with folks on the frontlines, not just wearing the green uniform of our Border Patrol and those working with the Department of Homeland Security but those who are also providing humanitarian relief.

Those camps in Matamoros that I went to, they still exist. And one of the questions that needs to be asked is, What are these kids going through? What are they thinking about to travel thousands of miles because of the concerns that they have for their own health and well- being? I hope we can have that conversation and solve this problem. So let's find a way to work together.

I have said it before, and I will say it again: We need to go after criminals and felons, not children and families. In truth, I think we can get there.

So as I close, I just say: Let's be a beacon of hope to the most vulnerable. Let's make sure we go after these criminals and felons, wherever they may be, and they feel the full weight of the law. But when it comes to the broken immigration system in America, let's work together to fix it.

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