Border Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, I am honored to follow my colleagues who have spoken so powerfully on this issue and grateful to my colleague from Connecticut for his leadership, as well to Leader Schumer.

We are a Nation of immigrants, proudly and gratefully. Immigrants have made this Nation the greatest in the world, and yet we have a broken immigration system.

Fortunately for our Nation, people want to come here. Every week, I try to go to the immigration and naturalization ceremonies in my State of Connecticut. They are held in the courthouses. And I tell new citizens on those occasions that they are to be thanked for wanting to become United States citizens. They will never take it for granted. They pass the test that most Americans couldn't pass, and they smile or laugh because they know it is true. They have already contributed to their communities. Some have served in uniform.

I look at them, and I say: This is what America looks like. This is what my dad looked like in 1935 when he came to this country speaking no English, knowing no one, having not much more than the shirt on his back.

My immigrant story is not unlike many in this Chamber--certainly in this Nation. And this broken immigration system is unworthy of our great Nation. We need to fix it. We tried with comprehensive immigration reform in 2013. I was part of that effort and helped to write the bill that was passed overwhelmingly in the U.S. Senate on a bipartisan basis with support on both sides of the aisle and never was given a vote in the House.

We can do bipartisan immigration reform. And we know how to do it. In fact, Democrats and Republicans came together about 100 days ago and arrived at some solutions that put us on a path to fixing our broken border. It is not the 2013 bill because it is not comprehensive. That bill provided a path to earn citizenship for undocumented people in this country--millions of them. It provided a path for Dreamers. It provided for border security--literally, tens of millions of dollars-- and for more visas.

The bill that was negotiated 100 days ago and that should have passed 100 days ago would have begun the painstaking, laborious, difficult, complex task of immigration reform. We often hear Republicans talk about the need to secure the border. At almost every Judiciary Committee meeting that I attend, Republicans talk about the border. And they want to talk about the border so much that they actually sent us contrived Articles of Impeachment against a Cabinet Secretary for the first time in 150 years, knowing that it would go nowhere.

They are making border security a political weapon. Really, it is a political stunt. And that is why they refused to vote for the negotiated compromise that will be before us beginning tomorrow again and next week.

The conversation on the floor tonight is a prelude to the battle that we will have again tomorrow and, I hope, next week when we will all be given a chance to go on record. All we are asking of our Republican colleagues is that they put their votes where their mouths are.

America is angry--and America should be angry--about the lack of border security and about the lack of serious purpose on the part of my Republican colleagues and on their failing to do their job simply because of the political directive of one Donald Trump. It is another example of how the cult of Donald Trump has infected our political process to the grave damage and detriment of all America.

Democrats spent months negotiating with Republicans and developed that compromised border bill, the strongest bill in a generation, endorsed by the National Border Patrol Council, and the union of Border Patrol agents. And it would have reformed our asylum system, as you have heard, and empowered the President to help manage challenges at the border. But it also would have expanded work opportunities and some legal pathways to enter the United States, including Afghan nationals who assisted our Armed Forces and our diplomats, stood by them at grave risk to themselves. It was a tough compromise. And it limited asylum claims in ways that many Democrats and I were wary of, because it was a compromise.

As soon as the bill was released and after it was agreed to by Republicans' chosen negotiator, the Republicans torpedoed it. And they torpedoed it for one reason: Because they wanted it as a political issue. They killed the bill because Donald Trump demanded it. As we have heard tonight, Donald Trump said: ``Please, blame it on me.'' And we are here tonight to do it, because the blame is well-deserved.

So Trump and his allies have repeatedly shown that they prefer talk over action, that they prefer political gamesmanship over the hard work of bipartisanship on this issue. But we are not giving up. We are not going away. We are not abandoning this effort. It will continue to be our work, my life's work as the son of an immigrant, dedicated to sensible and responsible immigration reform--comprehensive reform.

This bill is not the last word, but it is a start. And we will pursue bipartisan action over political gamesmanship. Republicans need to decide if they want to take action or just continue to talk.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source