Immigration Reform
Floor Speech
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, we have an historic opportunity here in the Senate. It doesn't happen very often. This is a bipartisan bill. How about that. Yesterday we had 67 votes in favor of this immigration reform package. We would have had 69, but two Democratic Members were held up because their flights were delayed and they couldn't make it. Sixty-nine. It basically means we had somewhere in the range of 17 Republicans joining with the Democrats. That is amazing on an issue this controversial.
I have been engaged in meetings on this measure for quite a few months. Eight of us, four Democrats and four Republicans, all over the political spectrum, sat down and said we were going to come up with a bill. It wouldn't be perfect and not one single individual Senator was going to like it, but together were are going to agree on something, and we did. There are parts of it I don't like at all. There are parts of it I think are great. That is the nature of a compromise, and that is what we are expected to do.
It is a long bill. This is the bill we voted on yesterday. Even though many Members are complaining about the size of this bill, most of it has been out there now for almost 2 months. Even a slow-reading Senator should have been able to get through it. One hundred new pages were brought in yesterday, I will concede, over the last 4 or 5 days, but at least 100 pages can be addressed by most Senators and their staff.
Why do we need to do this? Why don't we take the easy way, find something wrong in here and vote no? I guarantee I can point to five or six sections I would rewrite. If we do that, where do we leave our country? We leave 11 million people who are undocumented living in the shadows, fearing they may be deported tomorrow, working for below-minimum wage under intolerable conditions, competing with American workers. We don't know who they are officially, where they live, or what they do. For the security of the United States, for the competitiveness of American workers, this is a bad situation.
What we do is say to these people, Come forward. Come forward and register with the government. That is the first step. If a person was here before December 31 of 2011, he or she can qualify, but they have to go through a criminal background check.
The Senator from Texas raises questions about whether that background check should be modified this way or that way. I can certainly argue one way or the other as to how it should be modified. But in a 1,200-page bill, that is one very small section--an important one but only one.
What I am suggesting is we are better off as a Nation to have 11 million people come forward, identify themselves, register with our government, pay their taxes, pay a fine, and submit themselves to a criminal background check before we allow them to stay in this country. That is certainly better than the current situation.
On the other side, this bill also creates an opportunity for them. After 10 years--10 years of being monitored by our government--they have a chance to move into a status where they can start working toward immigration in a 3-year period of time--working toward citizenship in a 3-year period of time. Thirteen years. This is no amnesty. During that period of time before they become citizens, they will have paid, under our bill, some $2,000 in fines, paid their taxes for every single day they worked, learned English, and, of course, submitted themselves to this continuing background check. We are a better Nation when that occurs.
In addition to that, there are provisions in here that relate to a group of undocumented that mean an awful lot to me personally. Twelve years ago I introduced the DREAM Act. The DREAM Act said if a person was brought here as a baby, an infant, or a child, and that person had been educated in the United States, graduated high school, has no serious criminal problems, they then have a chance to become a citizen by completing at least 2 years of college or enlisting in our military. I have been trying to pass that for 12 years. It was I think 2 years ago we had the last vote on the Senate floor on the DREAM Act. Every time we have called it we got a majority, but we couldn't pass it because of the Republican filibuster.
The last time we had this debate, those galleries were filled with young people who were undocumented in caps and gowns. They were sitting there to remind us they were graduating from our schools--among them valedictorians, many who had been accepted to college but could not afford to go because they were undocumented.
This bill deals with these DREAMers, as we call them today, and gives them a chance to become citizens. About 500,000 of them have come forward already under the President's Executive order. Their stories are amazing and inspiring.
At a meeting with President Obama 2 weeks ago, we talked about the DREAM Act. He said: When the DREAMers came into my office and told their stories, there was not a dry eye in the room--the sacrifices they are making in the hope they can become part of America's future.
I have the greatest faith in them, and I know they are not going to let me down. Their stories are going to continue to inspire us, and they are part of this bill.
Can I find one section in this bill I disagree with? Sure I can. But can I turn my back on 11 million people being given a chance to come forward, register, and become part of America with some strict conditions? Can I turn my back on 1 1/2 million DREAMers--and that is an estimate--who would finally get their chance to be part of America's future? No. I am not going to turn my back on them. I will work to improve this bill, but I am not going to walk away from it. Walking away from legislation, voting no may be an easy thing for some, but when it comes to this, it is not easy for me. It is something I will not do. I want to stand by it.
Let me say a word about the rest of the bill. There are provisions in this bill that deal with things we do not think about. Here is the reality: If you happen to be a grower, growing fruits and vegetables in America, and you put out a sign ``Help Wanted''--would you like to come and pick strawberries in Salinas Valley in California; would you like to come pick apples in southern Illinois--there are not a lot of local kids who sign up. It is hard work, some say dangerous work, and I believe it is. Those who do these jobs--the migrants who come in and work--do it for a living. It is hard, tough labor. Without them, these crops do not get picked and processed and we suffer as a nation.
This bill has a provision on agricultural workers that is extraordinary. Michael Bennet of Colorado and Dianne Feinstein of California are two who sat down with Marco Rubio of Florida, and others, and they worked out an agreement that has been signed on to by the growers and the unions representing the workers. How about that. A business, management, and labor agreement when it comes to ag workers. That is in this bill too. Should we walk away from that?
There is a provision as well to try to tap into the talent that is educated in America that can help us create jobs.
Let me say that one of the things I insisted on in this bill is that before anyone is brought in to fill a job from overseas, you first offer the job to an American. That, to me, is the bottom line. That is my responsibility as a Senator who represents many of the people who are unemployed today. But this bill takes a step beyond that. If you cannot fill that position, you have an opportunity to fill it with someone brought in from overseas.
I will give an illustration. The Illinois Institute of Technology--which is an extraordinary school for engineering and science in the city of Chicago--at their commencement a few years ago when I spoke, virtually every advanced degree was awarded to someone from India. Today, virtually every advanced degree is awarded to someone from China.
I have met some of these graduates, and I have said to them: With this education--the best in the world--would you stay in America if you were offered that chance? They said yes. Why would we educate them and send them off to compete with American companies? If they can be brought into our companies and create American jobs and opportunities with them, it is good for all of us. That is part of this bill as well.
As I look at this bill, this is a historic opportunity to solve a problem which has not been addressed seriously in 25 years, a problem which we know confounds us as we deal with 11 million undocumented people within our borders and one which truly reflects on our values as a nation.
I gave a speech last week to a group in Chicago, and I talked about the diversity of this group, the group that was gathered--Black, White, and Brown, young and old, men and women--and I said: If I asked everybody in this ballroom to write their family story, their personal story, each would be different. But there would be two chapters in that story that would be the same. The first chapter you might entitle ``Out of Africa'' because that is where we all started. It was 70,000 years ago when the very first immigrants left Ethiopia, crossed the Red Sea into the Arabian Peninsula, and literally populated the world. How do we know that? Because we can find chromosomal DNA that dates back to those original immigrants in every person on Earth. We all started in the same place 70,000 years ago, emigrating out of Africa.
The second chapter would be entitled ``Coming to America.'' Every single one of us has a different story. My chairman is proud of his Irish and Italian heritage. His wife is proud of her French-Canadian heritage. I stand here proud of the fact that my mother was an immigrant to this country from Lithuania, brought here at the age of 2. Now it is my honor to stand on the floor of the Senate and represent 12 or 13 million people in the great State of Illinois.
As I have said before, that is my story, that is my family's story, that is America's story.
We have to get this right because immigration is not just a challenge, it is part of the American heritage. It is who we are. The courage of Senator Leahy's family, the courage of my grandparents, to pick up and move and come to a place where many of them did not even speak the same language is part of our American DNA. That is what makes us different, and that is what makes us better, I guess I might say with some pride in where I came from.
We have to honor that tradition with this immigration reform bill, and I believe we do. To walk away from it at this point in time, to find some fault or some section that you disagree with is just not good enough. We have to accept our responsibility.
Yesterday 67--maybe 69--Senators were ready to do that. By the end of the week, stay tuned. We have a chance to pass this bill and make America a stronger nation, be fair and just to people who are here, and honor that great tradition of immigration.
I yield the floor.
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