[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 36 (Tuesday, March 28, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2431-S2433]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              IMMIGRATION

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, yesterday in the Senate Judiciary 
Committee, there was a historic vote, a

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vote that relates to an issue America has grappled with almost from the 
beginning. That is the issue of immigration. It is interesting as we 
reflect on our history that we are a nation of immigrants. But for the 
Native Americans who were here on our shores when the first White men 
arrived, we have all come to this country either directly or indirectly 
through our parents, grandparents, or previous generations. It is that 
immigration which has made America such a unique and diverse place. We 
take great pride in our roots, where we came from, and even greater 
pride in where we have planted those roots in American soil. That is a 
fact of life in America. It brings a special quality to this country.
  Think of the people who have decided to come to our shores, men and 
women who walked away from a comfortable life in a familiar place with 
a familiar church, with family, a culture, a language, to embark on a 
journey to a place they had never seen before, to come to a country 
where they could not speak the language, to live in a place where they 
were not certain what their future would hold. It takes an 
extraordinary person to make that leap of faith into the future. It 
takes an extraordinary family to decide that their future is going to 
be here in a new place.
  The story I have described has been repeated millions of times. The 
people who had the courage to step forward and come here have brought a 
special quality to this country, a quality we admire--creativity, a 
love of freedom, entrepreneurship, things that make America a much 
different place in the world, an America which we are all proud to call 
home.

  An interesting thing happened in the course of history. Those who 
came first would look at the ships coming in and say: No, not more of 
those people. That is part of it, too--an intolerance for immigration 
even as we know our own birthright included an immigrant experience.
  Now we are involved in a national debate about some 11 or 12 million 
in our midst who are not here with proper documentation, not having 
followed the proper legal process. We have been asked to reflect on 
that. Do we need them? Are they an important part of America?
  They are a very important part, not just for the spirit they bring 
but for what they do each day. These are the men and women who probably 
cooked your breakfast, probably cleared the table after you finished, 
washed the dishes in the kitchen. These are the people who each day 
clean your hotel room. They are the ones who are watching your children 
at daycare. They are taking care of your aging parent at a nursing home 
at this moment. They make sure that when you go to the golf course the 
putting green is perfect. They stand in line many times for 8 hours or 
more in dull, tough jobs, in damp cold, experience watching chicken 
carcasses and beef carcasses go by so you can enjoy a barbecue over the 
weekend. They take jobs many people won't take. That is the immigrant 
story.
  They volunteer to serve our country. Some 60,000 of them are now in 
the U.S. military, not legal citizens--here legally but not citizens--
willing to put on that uniform, take an oath of loyalty to the United 
States, and literally risk their lives for you and for me. Some of them 
die in the process. We have this kind of cruel wrinkle in the law that 
if you die in service to America, we will make you a citizen after you 
die. Their grieving parents receive folded American flags in gratitude 
from a nation that is so thankful for their heroism.
  Now they have come forward out of the shadows, hundreds of thousands 
of them across America, protesting a bill that passed the House of 
Representatives which would make a criminal out of every single one of 
them, not just ordinary criminals but aggravated felons. The House 
bill, the Sensenbrenner bill which passed, says that the 11 or 12 
million in America who are undocumented would be branded as aggravated 
felons, the same type of criminal penalty which we save for the worst--
armed robbers and rapists. That is what the House bill would do. That 
is what they would brand these people, the same people who sit next to 
us in church, whose kids go to school with our kids, the same people we 
see every day though we may not speak to them. That bill is cruel. That 
bill is wrong.
  Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate on a 
bipartisan basis decided that there was a better way. By a 12-to-6 
vote, the Senate Judiciary Committee said the following: First, if we 
are going to be a secure America, we need to know who lives here. We 
need to know the names and addresses and workplaces of all the people 
in America, particularly the 11 or 12 million undocumented. So for 
security purposes, we moved forward with this bill to identify who 
these people are, where they live, where they are from, and to make 
certain that any single one of them who is a threat to America would be 
removed and has to leave. But we went further. We said: We need to 
toughen the borders, too. Let's make sure we enforce the laws that are 
there. America can't absorb every single person who wants to come here. 
That is physically impossible. So we need better enforcement at the 
borders, and we need enforcement when it comes to employment. If we say 
to employers: We need to know who is working for you, we need to know 
if, in fact, they are American citizens, and we will enforce the law, 
it is going to tighten the system.
  The second thing we did was essential. We said to the people who are 
here: We are going to give you a chance, a chance to become legal in 
the eyes of America. But it won't be easy. It will take you a long 
time. It will take you more than 10 years. During that 10-year period, 
you will have to demonstrate to us that you were, in fact, a person of 
good moral standing, that you don't have a criminal record, that you 
were working, you were paying your taxes, you were learning English, 
and you will pay a fine for having violated the law in coming to this 
country. At the end of that period, we will decide if you met these 
strict qualifications and whether you can get on to a 5- or 6-year path 
to finally become an American citizen.

  It is not an easy road. Some will fall along the wayside. Some will 
make it. Those who make it will add something to America. They will 
show that their determination to leave a place and come here has been 
matched by the determination to stay here and make this a better 
country.
  When I walk through the streets of Chicago--I love that city, the 
diversity. When you get in a taxicab in Chicago, you will meet the 
world. Every driver is from country after country, people who come 
here--doctors, scientists, and others who are driving cabs and praying 
they might become part of America. It reminds me of my own roots, and 
my mother, who came from Lithuania. In 1911, when she arrived, could 
she have ever dreamed that one day her youngest son would be sworn in 
as the 47th Senator from the State of Illinois? It was a dream she 
never could have had, but it came true when she saw me sworn in before 
she passed away. In my office is her naturalization certificate behind 
my desk--a reminder of who I am and where I am from and, quite 
honestly, where we are all from.
  Yesterday, with the bill passed on a bipartisan vote, which now will 
come to the floor of the Senate, we have an opportunity to do something 
that is not only historic and fair but right, to make America a more 
secure place, make certain there is fairness, and to make certain, as 
the President said, that we maintain not only the lawful tradition in 
America but the welcoming tradition in America. We can celebrate our 
diversity, knowing that it makes us different than so many other 
countries--countries that are now torn by sectarian strife and ethnic 
violence. Thank God that in the United States, because there are so 
many of us from so many different places, we have largely avoided that 
kind of confrontation.
  I hope we will consider this bill on a bipartisan basis. We will need 
to tighten up some aspects and change a few words here and there. But 
we can never go how the House of Representatives went, with the 
Sensenbrenner bill; it is a punitive bill, a mean-spirited bill, not in 
the best tradition of America. We can do better. It criminalizes 11 
million or 12 million Americans. Calling them aggravated felons is no 
way to embark on this road to a more united America.
  That law, as it passed the House, will never be enforced. We know 
that. But

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it is a shadow over the lives of so many millions--not just those here 
without documentation, but those who would reach out to help them, such 
as the priest who counsels the mother to stay with her children, even 
though she may not have the right legal documents or the person at the 
domestic violence shelter who tells a mother and her battered children 
to stay in this place; it is a safe and secure place for you; stay here 
until that abusive, drunken husband of yours is arrested and the kids 
are safe again.
  Under the bill passed by the House of Representatives, the people I 
have described would be branded not just as criminals but as felons. 
That is an unfortunate approach and one that doesn't reflect the values 
of this country. That is an approach which would drive more people into 
the shadows.
  The Democrats support a comprehensive approach, one that includes 
security and also includes a path to legalization--a tough, long path, 
with many requirements that some will not finish. But those who do 
finish will make a better America. We have to go beyond enforcement. We 
have a reasonable and realistic approach to address the undocumented 
who live among us. We would give them an opportunity, and that is the 
best America can offer to anybody. By giving them this opportunity, we 
encourage them to come forward and register and to be part of the legal 
rolls in America. That way, we know who is living here, which enhances 
our national security. This is also true to American values. It is 
rewarding immigrants who work hard and play by the rules.
  We face extraordinary security challenges in America today. We have a 
war that now has claimed over 2,300 of our best and bravest--sons and 
daughters of families across America, from Illinois and every State in 
the union. Today, 138,000 American troops stand risking their lives for 
us in Iraq and another 20,000-plus in Afghanistan. We owe them not only 
our gratitude and our admiration, but we owe them a plan to come home.
  When I take a look at the situation in Iraq, it deteriorates each day 
and moves inexorably toward a civil war, which we pray will never 
happen, and I wonder how this will end. For some of us who voted 
against the resolution which brought us into this war, we argued at the 
time that it is a lot easier to get into a war than to get out of one. 
We argued that we needed more allies to stand with us so that it would 
not be just American soldiers. We argued that more nations should be 
with us in this effort so we would not be subsidizing a war, which now 
costs us $2 billion a week.
  Unfortunately, this administration moved forward, anyway. They went 
into a war without enough troops, without enough body armor, without 
enough protection on the humvees, and without the necessary defensive 
equipment on helicopters. They sent the troops into battle and, sadly, 
so many have not come home. Many have come home with broken and 
battered bodies.
  We have an obligation now to say to the Iraqis: We have helped you. 
We have removed your dictator. We have given you a chance to govern 
yourself, given you a chance for free elections, and we have given you 
a chance for your future. But now it is your responsibility. Govern 
your own nation; bring it together and defend your own people.
  This administration promised us for years that, given enough time, 
the Iraqi Army and the police force would replace our troops. How much 
longer must we wait? How much longer must we wait until these Iraqis 
will stand and fight for their own future and their own country? I will 
believe this administration has a plan that works when the first 
American soldier comes home, replaced by an Iraqi soldier standing 
guard there in his own country. We are still waiting for that day. I 
hope it will come soon.
  When President Bush said last week that perhaps we will have to wait 
until we have another President, 2\1/2\ years from now, my heart sank. 
Two and a half more years of this? Two and a half more years of losing 
American lives and watching these soldiers come back with visible 
scars?

  We have to do better than that. Real security in America means a real 
plan to bring this Iraqi war to an end. I urge this administration to 
work toward that day and toward that plan, on a bipartisan basis, and 
to work toward homeland security that makes certain we are safe.
  The General Accounting Office reported yesterday there is the ability 
to bring across our border enough fissile material to make a dirty 
bomb, despite our border security. There is a lot more we need to do to 
make America safe, and a stronger America begins at home.
  This administration needs to do more when it comes to port security--
not turn it over to some foreign government to manage five major ports.
  This administration needs to do more when it comes to security at our 
chemical plants and nuclear plants.
  This administration needs to do more when it comes to protecting us 
and making sure our first responders have what they need. I was in 
Marion, IL, at the fire department meeting with Chief Rinella, talking 
about the cuts in the Bush budget that will reduce the funds available 
to that department and to police departments, which we will count on if 
we ever have a major challenge in the United States. Real security 
begins at home, with an administration committed to security.
  I urge my colleagues to join, on a bipartisan basis, to restore the 
funds that were cut in the Bush budget.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Illinois is 
recognized.
  Mr. OBAMA. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak after 
Senator Santorum for approximately 10 minutes.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  The Senator from Pennsylvania is recognized.

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