Securing America's Borders Act

SECURING AMERICA'S BORDERS ACT

BREAK IIN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I come to the Senate floor weary--weary after 2 weeks of working on this historic legislation, both in the Senate Judiciary Committee and in the back rooms of the Senate Chamber and on the Senate floor; weary after a long, sleepless night thinking about how we might have done this better; weary with the knowledge that we come here this morning, having missed a historic opportunity. This opportunity is slipping through our hands like grains of sand.

It is hard to imagine that we have reached this point when one looks at the people of goodwill who have tried to bring this bill to passage and completion.

I first salute the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. It took extraordinary courage for him to vote in favor of the bipartisan bill which came to the floor. He stuck with it. I thought he was fair in the way he handled his committee, and I thought we produced a good work product which I was proud to support.

I salute the Senator from Massachusetts who, for decades, has made this cause, immigration reform, his passion. He has never given up. In the weeks we have spent up to this moment, his strength has been remarkable.

On the Republican side, Senator McCain, Senator Graham, Senator Brownback, Senator DeWine, Senator Martinez, Senator Hagel, and so many others were bound and determined to defy the critics who said we couldn't come to a bipartisan agreement.

Yesterday, for one brief moment, one shining moment, we believed we had a bipartisan agreement. Senator Martinez and Senator Hagel worked all night and put together an amendment, came to us on the Democratic side and said: Can you accept these modifications, and then can we move forward together? We agreed. We stood together.

I think the most dangerous place in America for a politician is the front row of the St. Patrick's Day parade in the city of Chicago. I have been there. I have been pushed and shoved and elbowed aside by men and women who follow in the grand Chicago tradition of Dick Butkus and Brian Urlacher. But there is a second place I recall as the most dangerous for politicians in America, and it was in the press gallery yesterday as Senators were preening and priming themselves to appear before the cameras and announce we have an agreement, we have a bill, pushing one another aside to get to the microphone so they could announce the success of our efforts.

I was there. I stood back and thought: There is plenty of time for congratulations. Let's wait until we have done something before we congratulate ourselves.

Sadly, 24 hours have passed. The world has turned, and things have changed.

I stand here today uncertain about where the Republican Party of the United States of America stands on the issue of immigration. I know where the House Republicans stand. They are very clear. It is a punitive, mean-spirited approach to immigration, which most Republicans in the Senate have rejected. The idea of charging volunteers, nurses, and people of faith who help the poorest among us with a felony if one of those poor people happens to be an undocumented immigrant is the ultimate. That is the position of the House Republicans.

For the life of me, I don't know what the position of the Senate Republicans is on immigration. Their leader stood before us yesterday and accepted this bipartisan compromise, came before the cameras and said this was his bill, too. He filed a motion so that we could limit debate and move to final passage of this bill and announced last night that he would vote against his own motion.

In the history of the United States, there was a political party known as the mugwumps. They were called mugwumps because people said they had their mug on one side of the face and their wump on the other. That is what I see when I look at the Senate Republican caucus. Where are they on immigration?

I listened to Senator Sessions who has been open. He opposes immigration reform. He has 15 amendments. He wants to stop this process, slow it down. I watch as the leadership of the Senate Republican team files before the television cameras rejecting the very compromise their leader has embraced. Where are they? Who are they? And do they believe that the people across America, carefully following this debate because their faith, their future, and their family is at stake, are going to ignore the obvious, that in just a few moments, a vote will be taken on the floor of the Senate and Senate Republicans will march down and vote against the Senate Republican leader's motion?

When it is all said and done, the House Republicans are very clear. They are opposed to immigration reform. They have taken the most punitive stand. But where do the Senate Republicans stand? We won't be able to tell after this vote. But I will tell you this: The people who are following this debate will know that the Senate Republicans did not stand for comprehensive immigration reform. There are heroes among them. I have listed some of them, and I will stand by them and defend them to any group because I do believe they are sincerely committed to immigration reform. But when it comes to the majority of that caucus, when it comes to the leadership on that side, it is impossible to divine what their position is on this critical issue.

The saddest part of it is this: Across America, millions of people are living in fear, living in the shadows, people who have come to me in tears because their children's future is at stake, people who have come to me crying because their mothers came to this country from Poland years ago and never filed the right papers and are technically illegal. These people wanted us to do something, to achieve something in the Senate, and we have failed. We have failed because the Senate Republican leadership will not say to its own membership: There is a limit as to how far you can take us with these debilitating amendments.

Last night, the Senate Republican leader said all we want is about 20 or so amendments. With 20 amendments and second-degree amendments, we would eat up a week of time just on the Republican amendments, and there is no promise it would end there.

This was clearly a moment for the Senate Republican leader to step forward, not just at the microphone, but in his own caucus and say that we as a party are going to be counted as to whether we are really for this immigration reform.

I think it is time, Mr. President, that we acknowledge the obvious. It is time for us as a nation to have comprehensive immigration reform with enforcement--enforcement on our borders and enforcement in places of employment--but also to give a legal pathway to those good people who want to be our fellow citizens, who want to share this dream in America.

This morning we will not achieve it. And when the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman tells us we will return to this bill when we get back from the Easter recess, I don't have much hope that we will either have the time or the will to overcome what we have seen on the floor in the last several days.

I will work, put every ounce of my strength into making it a success. But as I stand here today, I think we have allowed this historic opportunity to escape us.

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