Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act

Floor Speech

COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM ACT -- (Senate - June 28, 2007)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, in our Nation's history, this Nation of immigrants, we have always struggled with this issue. As soon as people arrive on this shore, there is a question about how many more can we take? What does it mean for our Nation if more people come from strange lands who don't speak our language? Yet this diversity has made America what it is today. We have sustained this great Nation because we are different and because we are accepting and because the people who struggle to come to these shores--my mother and her family, the families of all of us--brought with them a special quality: a determination for a better life and a willingness to take a risk to come to America. They brought a willingness to take the hardest, toughest jobs to prove the American dream and hope that their children will have better. Multiply that by millions and you have the story of this great Nation.

Throughout our history, we have always debated how many more we can take. That debate comes to a head this morning in just a few minutes. We will have a chance on the Senate floor to decide whether we step forward.

I have heard the voices against this saying: Not this bill. We can surely do better. We have worked hard on this bill. We have made compromises. There are parts of it which I detest and parts which I embrace, and that is the nature of compromise and cooperation. I thank all of those who have crafted it and put it together.

But I want to tell my colleagues what is at stake is very basic and fundamental as to who we are as a nation. Outside this Chamber, outside this congressional debate, you have heard the voices. Some of them are dark and ugly. They are not the voices of America, a hopeful nation that understands we can be a nation of laws, and with diversity we can grow in this world in the 21st century. No, these are voices of exclusion, people who want to keep those people out, people who want those people to go away. That is not America. That isn't what we are about as a nation. That isn't what distinguished us in the world. What distinguished us is we can stand up--Black, White, and brown, from all across this world--and make a nation. We have done it for over 200 years. We can do it again. Those who argue this diversity will destroy us don't understand the core values of this country.

I beg my colleagues this morning, even if you disagree with this bill, don't end this debate. Give us a chance to continue this debate and bring this to a conclusion and a vote. Give us this procedural vote that is coming up so we can continue this debate. If at the end of the day we step back and say we are surrendering to these negative voices across America, the Senate can't rise to the occasion with an important bill, it won't speak well of the Senate. There are those of us entrusted with the responsibility to serve in this place.

Let us say to people across America that we are going to have strong borders, we are going to enforce the law in the workplace, we are going to have rules that say to those who are here illegally you can only stay if you meet the strictest requirements. I think that is a reasonable standard, a reasonable compromise in the greatest tradition of America.

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