Immigration Reform

IMMIGRATION REFORM

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I wish to comment very briefly, because I notice Senator McConnell is on the floor, about the pending immigration bill now before the Senate Judiciary Committee. It is an interesting story, as we watch the news reports, of the people who are gathering across the United States. Over 110,000, some say close to 200,000, came out in Chicago a few days ago; 500,000 in the city of Los Angeles. There is hardly a major city in America where people have not stepped forward because of their concern about this immigration bill.

Who are these people? They are people we always see but seldom come to know. They are our neighbors. They sit next to us in church; they send their kids to the same school as our kids. They probably cooked your breakfast this morning. They probably washed your dishes and cleaned your hotel room. They are watching your children at daycare and they are changing your aging mother's soiled bed in the nursing home. They make sure your putting green is perfect, and they stand for hours every day in a damp and cold place, watching a production line of chicken carcasses come by, so you can invite friends for a barbecue this weekend.

They often live in crowded homes. They deny themselves many things. They sacrifice for their children and in the hopes that, at the end of the week, they might be able to send a small check home to their families in other countries.

Their children are in our military--thousands of them, wearing the uniform of the United States of America. Some have been killed serving our country. At their funerals, people in uniform come forward and present to the grieving parents a flag as a token of their heroism and bravery and their commitment to America.

Now from this Republican-controlled House of Representatives, we learn the way to treat these people is to declare them criminals--criminals. These 11 million undocumented people, according to the Sensenbrenner bill which passed the U.S. House of Representatives, would be branded and prosecuted as aggravated felons, treated the same as armed robbers and rapists--11 million people. That is the bill that came over.

This same Sensenbrenner bill doesn't stop there. It makes criminals of those who offer help. In the city of Chicago is a domestic violence center, Las Mujeres En Accion. I know it because I have been going there for years. It is in a place called Little Village. The people in Little Village are Mexican. Some are citizens and some not. Las Mujeres is there for battered women. Women who have been beaten unmercifully by their husbands bring their small children to Las Mujeres for safety, for shelter. They are allowed to stay there while the police are out trying to find drunk and abusive husbands and put them in jail.

Under the Sensenbrenner bill which passed in the Republican House of Representatives, all of the volunteers at that center and all of the staff at that center could be prosecuted as aggravated felons. Why? Because the people they are sheltering, many of them, are not documented citizens in the United States.

That is the sad reality of the bill that came over from the House of Representatives. These immigrants are people in America without legal status. Some, indeed, crossed the border in darkness. Some entered legally and stayed on beyond the time given them. Some had their paperwork lost in this mindless bureaucracy of immigration laws. Some came, fell in love, married, and over time they became the only ones in their family who were not American citizens. They are Mexican, they are Polish, they are Irish--they are from many nations. Their ranks have grown to almost 11 million.

Most polls tell us the American people don't want to give them all amnesty, to automatically make them citizens, and no one is suggesting that. But we also realize that deporting all of them, as some have called for, is as unrealistic as well. Even if it were wise--and it is not--it would be prohibitively expensive.

America has two great traditions. We are a nation of immigrants and we are a nation intolerant of immigrants.

How can that be? Many of us have seen examples in our lives. Just a floor away, in my office, is a little framed certificate I value very much. It is my mother's naturalization certificate. She came to the United States in 1911 and some 20 years later became a naturalized citizen. Her son is now the 47th Senator from the State of Illinois. It is a classic immigrant story of hard work and sacrifice so your children can do better. It is a story that has been repeated millions of times by immigrant families who came here at great risk, with great courage, and gave this country something special. The people who came to our shores had the courage to step up one day and say: I am leaving my village. I am leaving my children. I am leaving my family, my culture, my language, my history. I am going to a place I have never been where they speak a language I cannot speak in the hope that I will have a better life.

Think of that courage. They bring it to our shores by the thousands, and change America into this vibrant, growing, diverse Nation we value so much.

Just a few blocks away from where I am speaking, in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, the Senate Judiciary Committee is trying to decide what to do next. We are agreed on several things. We need better enforcement. America cannot absorb every person who wants to live here. We need better border security, and those amendments passed this morning overwhelmingly on a bipartisan basis. We need to work with employers to make sure they are following the law in the people that they hire. We are considering now an amendment, a bipartisan amendment, so agricultural workers can come here to harvest the fruit and vegetables that are an important part of our lives and our economy and not be arrested for doing it--giving them a chance. We are also going to address, before this day is over, whether we will make criminals of all of the people who are here.

I certainly hope those who are following this debate understand that if the 11 million undocumented are to come out of the shadows and be part of America, they won't do it with the threat of going to jail or being deported. What we need to do is establish a sensible, tough, but fair process so that those who have come, who work hard, pay taxes, raise their families, obey the law, learn English, and want to be part of America have a chance. They can be given a chance over a longer period of time than those who go through the regular legal process. That is only fair. They should not be able to jump in front of others in line. But ultimately if we give them a path to legalization, a path to dignity, we will be a better nation for it.

They want to be part of America and its future. They left their home countries, as many of our parents and grandparents did, to come to this great Nation. We see it in the hundreds of thousands who have come out in the streets of major cities, as they stand and say in Spanish: Si, se puede--yes, we can. They chant, as they do in Chicago: USA, USA--that they love this country as much as almost any other citizen. Giving them a chance to become an important part of America's future will make us an even stronger country.

I yield the floor.

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