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Floor Speech

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Mr. PADILLA. Mr. President, when I was a kid growing up, the last thing I thought I would do when I grew up was to be involved with government and politics. But when I returned home from college, I came home to California to find hateful TV ads warning of an ``invasion'' at our border. These were in support of a ballot measure demonizing immigrant families and communities like mine.

A generation of Latinos in California grew up knowing that officials who were elected to represent us were actually more than happy to scapegoat our families as the root cause of the State's challenges. But instead of just putting our heads down and waiting for the political tides to turn, my generation decided to get involved, and we started a movement that put more people from our communities into positions of power.

Now, three decades later, the State of California is not just home to more immigrants than any other State in the Nation; we also represent the largest economy of any State in the Nation. That is not a coincidence.

But, sadly, today, we are also seeing some of the same hateful rhetoric once again. And when I hear it, I feel it, and I think about my children and a whole new generation of Latinos across the country that see leaders of the Republican Party demonizing immigrants and people who look like us.

Yes. The Republican Presidential nominee warned that immigrants are ``poisoning the blood of our Nation,'' echoing rhetoric from Nazi Germany. That is happening.

I have had to come down to this Chamber earlier this year, just a couple of months ago, to object to one of our colleagues seeking to declare an ``invasion at our southern border.'' That is the moment that we are in, and it is an undeniable part of the context in which the bill that we are going to be voting on soon was written.

The proposal before us was initially supposed to be a concession, a ransom to be paid to Republicans to pass urgent and critical aid to Ukraine--not my words, theirs. The proposal was 3 months ago.

But guess what? We passed the foreign aid. It was the right thing to do. And so I can't help but ask: What is this concession for now? Because it surely cannot be the new starting point for negotiating immigration reform.

I am disappointed because this bill contains some of the same tried- and-failed policies that would actually make the situation worse at the southern border. It includes arbitrary border closures and practically eliminates the right to seek asylum for people fleeing for their safety or for their very lives.

Now, many of us have acknowledged--both sides of the aisle in both formal conversations and informal conversations--that one of the biggest reasons that so many people come to the southern border is because it is so hard to come to the United States legally. So I look at this bill. And guess what. It fails to address the root causes of migration or to establish more lawful pathways.

And it is not just what is in the bill that troubles me; it is what is not in the bill. If enacted, this bill would fail to provide relief for a single Dreamer, for a single farmworker, or a single essential worker or long-term resident of the United States who has been here for years--in some cases decades--working, paying taxes, contributing to the strength of our communities and our country and the success of our economy.

So the Senate is voting on this package now for a second time? But still no votes on the Dream Act--which, by the way, does enjoy bipartisan support? It is hard to swallow.

And there is more. We hear that there are some extreme Executive actions coming soon. Now, for as much as has been accomplished by this body, this Chamber has also served as a backdrop for some of the most vile rhetoric in our Nation's history. The same hatred that met Irish and Italian immigrants coming through Ellis Island permeated these walls to help pass the Chinese Exclusion Act, before spreading west to villainize immigrants from Mexico and Latin America at our southern border.

And every time political leaders villainize immigrants, communities like mine feel the effects. Just ask any Latino kid who has been told to go back to where they came from. Ask anyone speaking Spanish in America who has been told to speak English. Ask any Asian American who was harassed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Colleagues, what chapter of our Nation's history are we choosing to write today? I ask because, yes, there will come a time when history judges us. And what will you say? Will you say that you worked to defend the American dream for future generations? Or settled and denied opportunity for future generations?

Today, countless immigrants and children of immigrants will ask whether Republicans and Democrats will leave them behind once again. Colleagues, I urge you to vote no today and to be more thoughtful in how we address border safety.

I urge you to join me in staying true to our values in modernizing our immigration system. I urge you to join me today in doing what is right for Dreamers, farmworkers, and other long-term undocumented members of our communities. They deserve better, and we--we--should be better than this.

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