[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 35 (Monday, March 27, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2402-S2403]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           IMMIGRATION REFORM

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I wish to comment very briefly, because I 
notice Senator McConnell is on the floor, about the pending immigration 
bill now before the Senate Judiciary Committee. It is an interesting 
story, as we watch the news reports, of the people who are gathering 
across the United States. Over 110,000, some say close to 200,000, came 
out in Chicago a few days ago; 500,000 in the city of Los Angeles. 
There is hardly a major city in America where people have not stepped 
forward because of their concern about this immigration bill.
  Who are these people? They are people we always see but seldom come 
to know. They are our neighbors. They sit next to us in church; they 
send their kids to the same school as our kids. They probably cooked 
your breakfast this morning. They probably washed your dishes and 
cleaned your hotel room. They are watching your children at daycare and 
they are changing your aging mother's soiled bed in the nursing home. 
They make sure your putting green is perfect, and they stand for hours 
every day in a damp and cold place, watching a production line of 
chicken carcasses come by, so you can invite friends for a barbecue 
this weekend.
  They often live in crowded homes. They deny themselves many things. 
They sacrifice for their children and in the hopes that, at the end of 
the week, they might be able to send a small check home to their 
families in other countries.
  Their children are in our military--thousands of them, wearing the 
uniform of the United States of America. Some have been killed serving 
our country. At their funerals, people in uniform come forward and 
present to the grieving parents a flag as a token of their heroism and 
bravery and their commitment to America.
  Now from this Republican-controlled House of Representatives, we 
learn the way to treat these people is to declare them criminals--
criminals. These 11 million undocumented people, according to the 
Sensenbrenner bill which passed the U.S. House of Representatives, 
would be branded and prosecuted as aggravated felons, treated the same 
as armed robbers and rapists--11 million people. That is the bill that 
came over.
  This same Sensenbrenner bill doesn't stop there. It makes criminals 
of those who offer help. In the city of Chicago is a domestic violence 
center, Las Mujeres En Accion. I know it because I have been going 
there for years. It is in a place called Little Village. The people in 
Little Village are Mexican. Some are citizens and some not. Las Mujeres 
is there for battered women. Women who have been beaten unmercifully by 
their husbands bring their small children to Las Mujeres for safety, 
for shelter. They are allowed to stay there while the police are out 
trying to find drunk and abusive husbands and put them in jail.
  Under the Sensenbrenner bill which passed in the Republican House of 
Representatives, all of the volunteers at that center and all of the 
staff at that center could be prosecuted as aggravated felons. Why? 
Because the people they are sheltering, many of them, are not 
documented citizens in the United States.
  That is the sad reality of the bill that came over from the House of 
Representatives. These immigrants are people in America without legal 
status. Some, indeed, crossed the border in darkness. Some entered 
legally and stayed on beyond the time given them. Some had their 
paperwork lost in this mindless bureaucracy of immigration laws. Some 
came, fell in love, married, and over time they became the only ones in 
their family who were not American citizens. They are Mexican, they are 
Polish, they are Irish--they are from many nations. Their ranks have 
grown to almost 11 million.
  Most polls tell us the American people don't want to give them all 
amnesty, to automatically make them citizens, and no one is suggesting 
that. But we also realize that deporting all of them, as some have 
called for, is as unrealistic as well. Even if it were wise--and it is 
not--it would be prohibitively expensive.
  America has two great traditions. We are a nation of immigrants and 
we are a nation intolerant of immigrants.
  How can that be? Many of us have seen examples in our lives. Just a 
floor away, in my office, is a little framed certificate I value very 
much. It is my mother's naturalization certificate. She came to the 
United States in 1911 and some 20 years later became a naturalized 
citizen. Her son is now the 47th Senator from the State of Illinois. It 
is a classic immigrant story of hard work and sacrifice so your 
children can do better. It is a story that has been repeated millions 
of times by immigrant families who came here at great risk, with great 
courage, and gave this country something special. The people who came 
to our shores had the courage to step up one day and say: I am leaving 
my village. I am leaving my children. I am leaving my family, my 
culture, my language, my history. I am going to a place I have never 
been where they speak a language I cannot speak in the hope that I will 
have a better life.
  Think of that courage. They bring it to our shores by the thousands, 
and change America into this vibrant, growing, diverse Nation we value 
so much.
  Just a few blocks away from where I am speaking, in the Dirksen 
Senate Office Building, the Senate Judiciary Committee is trying to 
decide what to

[[Page S2403]]

do next. We are agreed on several things. We need better enforcement. 
America cannot absorb every person who wants to live here. We need 
better border security, and those amendments passed this morning 
overwhelmingly on a bipartisan basis. We need to work with employers to 
make sure they are following the law in the people that they hire. We 
are considering now an amendment, a bipartisan amendment, so 
agricultural workers can come here to harvest the fruit and vegetables 
that are an important part of our lives and our economy and not be 
arrested for doing it--giving them a chance. We are also going to 
address, before this day is over, whether we will make criminals of all 
of the people who are here.
  I certainly hope those who are following this debate understand that 
if the 11 million undocumented are to come out of the shadows and be 
part of America, they won't do it with the threat of going to jail or 
being deported. What we need to do is establish a sensible, tough, but 
fair process so that those who have come, who work hard, pay taxes, 
raise their families, obey the law, learn English, and want to be part 
of America have a chance. They can be given a chance over a longer 
period of time than those who go through the regular legal process. 
That is only fair. They should not be able to jump in front of others 
in line. But ultimately if we give them a path to legalization, a path 
to dignity, we will be a better nation for it.
  They want to be part of America and its future. They left their home 
countries, as many of our parents and grandparents did, to come to this 
great Nation. We see it in the hundreds of thousands who have come out 
in the streets of major cities, as they stand and say in Spanish: Si, 
se puede--yes, we can. They chant, as they do in Chicago: USA, USA--
that they love this country as much as almost any other citizen. Giving 
them a chance to become an important part of America's future will make 
us an even stronger country.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The assistant majority leader.

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