[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 125 (Friday, September 29, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10605-S10606]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           IMMIGRATION REFORM

  Mr. SALAZAR. Thank you, Mr. President.
  I rise tonight to speak to the so-called fence bill and ask my 
colleagues and urge them to oppose the construction of this fence in 
the way it has been proposed to the Senate.
  I oppose the construction of this fence because at the end of the day 
this is not going to fix our borders. It is not going to deal with the 
lawlessness that we currently are having to deal with with respect to 
immigration, and it is not in the long-term interests of the United 
States of America.
  For me, I may be the No. 100 U.S. Senator, but I have heroes on both 
sides of the aisle.
  I remember Ronald Reagan when he went to the Berlin Wall and he told 
Mr. Gorbachev that he should take down the Berlin Wall. He was about 
taking down walls and bringing communities together.
  I remember John Fitzgerald Kennedy, a person who inspired my whole 
life in politics and our country. I remember him working on creating 
the Alliance for Progress with the notion being that the Western 
Hemisphere would be a much more successful hemisphere if we were able 
to work with nations that were all a part of this hemisphere. That 
Alliance for Progress by President Kennedy is still celebrated 
throughout the United States and throughout Latin America because of 
his vision that we would bring communities together. Yet what we are 
doing today on this national security issue of immigration reform is 
abandoning

[[Page S10606]]

principles and allowing politics to triumph.
  This body tonight, by voting for what I expect will be successful 
passage of this bill, has allowed politics to triumph over what is in 
the best long-term interests of this country and over the principles 
that we worked on together to try to bring about comprehensive 
immigration reform.
  I stood with a number of my colleagues on the Republican side putting 
together what was a comprehensive immigration reform package. We had 
leaders on the Democratic side who have inspired me for ages, such as 
Senator Kennedy, Senator Durbin, and Senator Reid standing with people 
such as Senator Craig and Senator McCain and Senator Graham and others 
to try to pull together comprehensive immigration reform. At the end of 
the day, we were able to get that comprehensive immigration reform. The 
President lauded it because it was a good bill. It was legislation that 
dealt with creating a system of law and order, that would have taken us 
out of the lawlessness we currently have in our country with respect to 
immigration and have created a comprehensive system to deal with this 
major issue of national security, economic security and moral values.

  Our legislation dealt with border security. Our legislation dealt 
with the enforcement of our immigration laws. Our legislation dealt in 
a realistic way with the penalties and the registration that would 
apply to the 12 million or so people who are here in this country 
undocumented today. It was legislation that was comprehensive in 
nature.
  Yes, we were proud we had Senators such as Graham, McCain, Specter, 
Reid, Kennedy and a whole lot of other Members who stood behind this 
comprehensive approach to immigration reform.
  Mr. REID. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. SALAZAR. I yield.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I support, as did the Senator from Colorado, 
tough border security. I voted, as did the Senator, for an amendment in 
the context of an immigration reform bill that would have authorized 
for Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff 370 miles of fence based on 
what he told the Senate he needed. Building some fencing as part of a 
comprehensive reform bill makes sense.
  Would the Senator agree, we cannot take a piecemeal approach to 
fixing our borders?
  Mr. SALAZAR. I agree with my friend from Nevada that, indeed, 
Secretary Chertoff and others have said that a fence by itself will not 
deal with the problems we are facing in immigration.
  Secretary Chertoff's statement was, in his words:

       In fact, building a fence in the desert would have the 
     somewhat ironic result of requiring us to put more bodies 
     right up against the border because it would be a less 
     efficient way to deal with it.

  So, yes, the Secretary of Homeland Security himself, along with the 
Attorney General of the United States, has taken a position that this 
is the wrong way to go.
  Mr. President, as we put together this legislation, I want to quickly 
review what it is we did as we went through the legislation.
  First of all, with respect to border security, we were tough on our 
border, but we were substance. We said we would add 12,000 new Border 
Patrol agents.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I say my friend from Colorado, we have an 
important agreement we would like to put before the Senate. I ask the 
Senator from Colorado allow me to interrupt him.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator's time remains.
  Mr. REID. Yes.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Does the Senator object?
  Mr. SALAZAR. No.

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