[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 106 (Thursday, June 28, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8675-S8676]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
IMMIGRATION
Mr. DURBIN. This was an historic day in the Senate. I was up after
the vote on immigration with Senator Kennedy. We had a little press
conference to talk about what happened. We needed 60 votes to move the
immigration bill forward, for more amendments, to final passage.
When the roll call was taken, there were 46 votes; it was far short
of what was needed. The average person might ask: ``Why would it take
60 votes to pass something in the Senate? I thought it was by majority
vote.'' Well, not in the Senate, it is not. If it is a complicated
issue, and many are, it takes 60 votes. It is just the nature of this
place, the reason why the Senate was created. It is the reason why a
Senator from a State such as Rhode Island would represent his State,
along with one other Senator, and a Senator from a State such as
Illinois would have two Senators. It is the nature of the Senate.
It is a guarantee that the minority always has protection and a voice
in this political process. It leads to a lot of frustrations, as you
can imagine, because bringing together 51 Senators ready to act and to
solve a problem is not enough; around here, it never has been. And it
leads to a lot of criticism from the outside about how we spend so much
time talking and so little time doing. People look at us and say: ``You
know, how many years have you all been giving speeches about health
care in America? When are you going to do something about it?'' Well,
the honest answer is, that is good criticism. We have not come up with
a plan, nor have we had the political will to move a plan, and if we
did, it would face its biggest hurdle probably right here on the floor
of the Senate. This is the place where things slow down. George
Washington said of the Senate: ``This is the saucer that cools the
tea.''
I was lucky to serve in the House for 14 years. It is a great place.
I loved it. I loved all of the people I worked with. We ran every 2
years. You had to be in touch with the folks in your district on a
regular, constant basis. You reacted pretty quickly as things came
along. Bills passed, resolutions passed, you would sit there and shake
your head and say: ``All of the things we do just seem to die in the
Senate.'' Well, it is the nature of the process. It is a narrowing
between the two Chambers that makes it difficult to move things
through.
Well, today was a classic example. We know--everyone knows--the
immigration system in America has failed. It has just plain failed. In
1986, the last time we addressed this issue, 21 years ago, President
Reagan suggested an amnesty for those who were here illegally and that
we do things to stop more from coming. It did not work. The amnesty was
given; the enforcement did not take place. On average, about 800,000
new illegals came into the United States each year for 21 years;
600,000 stayed.
We have a rough estimate that about 12 million undocumented and
illegal people are here today. What are we going to do about it? Well,
first and obviously, stop illegals from coming into the United States.
It won't be easy. Look at the risks people are willing to take to come
to our country--walking across a desert knowing your life may be at
stake, paying someone thousands of dollars to put you in the back of a
truck where you might be asphyxiated, jumping on a railroad train where
you could lose your life or a limb, just to get right here in our
country. It is that desire to come to America that has been around for
so long, and it is still there, and it will always be there.
But we know there are things we could do to make this border of ours
better. We talked about things, sensible things--not a 2,000-mile wall
or anything like that, but placing walls where they will help, placing
fences where they will help, traffic barriers, new technology, more
border enforcement, training, trying to reach cooperative agreements
with the Mexicans and others--to slow illegal border crossings down.
All of those things represent a positive step forward. We committed $4
billion to that effort. It should be done.
Then the workplace--that is what brings people here. Anyone who comes
to America and thinks they can just park themselves and wait for a
comfortable life is wrong. They come to work. The jobs that immigrants
take, they are jobs that most of us do not want. If you went to a
restaurant in the great city of Chicago, which I am honored to
represent today, and you took a look around at who took the plates off
your table, my guess is many of them may be undocumented people. You
don't see the folks back in the kitchen washing those dishes or those
on the loading dock or perhaps tonight the ones who will clean the
bathrooms--likely to be, many of them, undocumented people who are here
doing those jobs every single day. They made your bed in the hotel room
after you left; they were with your mom in the nursing home bringing
her water and changing her sheets; they are the people who,
incidentally, make sure they trim the greens for you so this weekend
they will look picture perfect. Those are the folks out there every
single day. They are in the packing houses, like the place where I used
to work in college. That is no glamorous job. They took it because no
one else wants it. It is difficult, it is dirty, it is hot, it is a
sweaty, nasty job, and they take it because they get paid to do it.
Most of them, when they get the paycheck, send half of it back home.
There are many parts of Central America and South America which subsist
because of the transfer payments from people working in America who are
illegal, sending their checks back home to their families. These
workers live in the barest of circumstances and try to get by in the
hopes that some day, they will be Americans; some day, they will have
family with kids who have a much better chance.
Their story is our story. It is a story of this Nation from its
beginning. Today, we had a chance to address this problem, to deal with
12 million who are undocumented, to deal with border enforcement,
workplace enforcement, and to talk about how many more people we need
each year.
We cannot open our borders to everyone who wants to come to America.
We cannot physically do it. It would not be good for our Nation, for
those who are here, or for our economy. But there are some we need.
As a Congressman who represents downstate Illinois, there were times
when I desperately begged foreign physicians to come to small towns.
These towns did not have a doctor. They were going to lose their
hospitals. Doctors came from India, from Pakistan, other places, from
the Philippines, and they were greeted with cheer by people who had
never been to their countries or knew anything about their land of
origin. They came to the rescue. They opened that doctor's office. Many
of the people in those small towns I represent in Illinois could not
even pronounce that doctor's last name. He was ``Dr. K,'' they would
say, ``I just don't know how to pronounce his name. I am glad he is
here. Mom is feeling better, and we are glad he is here if we ever need
him.''
So we bring in folks each year, and we try in this bill to define how
many we are going to need. Well, you know what happened once debate
started, Mr. President. There is a sentiment in America which is as
historic as our country. I say jokingly, because I have no way of
knowing, that in 1911, when my mother came off the boat in Baltimore,
having arrived as a 2-year-old little girl from Lithuania, and came
down that ramp with my grandmother and her brother and sister, I am
sure there were people looking up at this group coming in, saying:
Please, not more of those people.
That has been the nature of America. We know we are almost all
immigrants or the descendants of immigrants. Yet there is a resistance
that is built into our country to more coming in: They are different,
there may be too many of them, they may threaten our jobs--all of those
things. And we saw that sentiment, not on the floor of the Senate or
the House, but certainly we heard it on
[[Page S8676]]
television, on radio. It is a sentiment that goes from being critical
to being dark and ugly.
My wife called me this morning from our home in Illinois. She told me
the telephone calls that were overwhelming my office had reached our
home and people were calling her all through the night. They got our
home telephone number and decided to try to keep her awake all night.
Well, that is part of this job. I am not asking for sympathy. I
understand I am a public figure. I am sorry she had to put up with it.
She has put with it for a long time. But that sentiment got carried
away in many respects. It went beyond criticizing a bill and went into
something else that doesn't speak well of us as a Nation.
So tomorrow morning, across America, many people--some 12 million of
them--will get up and go to a job where they will work hard and they
will come home and not be sure about what tomorrow will bring. They do
not know if there will be a knock on the door and they will have to
leave. They do not know if they will be separated from the family they
love, they do not know whether their children will have any future at
all. That uncertainty is because of the fact that we did not have the
votes today in the Senate.
I think about some of them whom I know personally. I think about some
of the characterizations of those people which I think are so unfair.
Last weekend, Pat Buchanan, who makes a living writing books and
saying things that are controversial, was on ``Meet the Press'' and
characterized the 12 million people as criminals, welfare recipients,
called them the mass invasion of the United States. Perhaps a few of
them might fit in that category, but not the ones I have met and know.
Among the people now whose lives are going to be left in uncertainty
is a mother I know and know very well. Her husband was one of those
lucky ones. He was a citizen from Mexico. In 1986, he was given amnesty
by President Reagan. He works 14-hour days in a club in Chicago as a
maitre'd, greeting people, bringing them to their tables. He and his
wife have four children who are all American citizens. They were all
born here. But his wife is undocumented. Several years ago, she was
deported, 3 days before Mother's Day, back to Mexico. She was pregnant
at the time and wanted to stay in the United States with her doctor
until the baby was born but wasn't allowed. Eventually, I called the
State Department. They gave her a humanitarian visa to come back to the
United States. Now once each year I make a phone call to ask if she can
stay with her family for another year. Luckily, she has been able to
stay on what they call a humanitarian waiver. But she and her children
never know from year to year whether mom is going to be deported to
Mexico. Will it make America better if she leaves? Will it make that
family better? I don't think so. This is clearly a case where this
great Nation can certainly absorb a loving mother who wants to make
sure her kids have a good life.
There is another girl--she is now a young woman--I know from Chicago.
She is Korean. She was an amazing young lady who had great musical
talent. She was accepted at Juilliard School of Music, but when she
applied she learned from her mother that when she was brought from
Korea to the United States at the age of 2, no papers were filed. She
had no status. She wasn't a citizen of anyplace. She called our office
and said: ``What should I do?'' We checked, and we were told she had to
go back to Korea. She had not been there since she was 2 years old. Her
life is a life of uncertainty now. Where is she going to go? This is
the only country she has ever known. She wants to use her musical
talents right here in America, a place she calls home.
Then there is an attorney in the Loop in Chicago, a nice, attractive,
young woman who graduated from law school. I met her at a gathering.
She asked if I could talk to her afterward. She came up to me and said:
``I have to talk to you in private. It is about my mom. My mom is
Polish. She came to Chicago to visit some relatives years ago,
overstayed her visa. She is not here legally. She got married, had a
family. She lives in constant fear that she is going to be deported
away from her children and grandchildren. What are we going to do,
Senator?''
There will be no answer to these cases until we have a law that
creates a mechanism, a formula, and a process that is reasonable. We
tried to do that today without success. We can't give up. We can't give
up on these cases, and we can't give up on this issue.
We have to understand that this great Nation of immigrants has to
have laws. These laws have to be followed. There will be no more
amnesties. What we suggested today was that anyone who is here and
wants to try to make it to the finish line of legalization has to
understand how tough it will be over 8 to 13 years before you can reach
that goal. Go to the back of the line so everybody who applied legally
comes before you, learn English, have no criminal record, have a
history of work, pay your taxes, pay your fines, check in every year.
Then, at some point, go back outside this country and apply to come in
again. Those are not easy steps. Very few would have made it to the
finish line, but we gave them that chance. That is what America is
about, to give people a chance.
I hope we return to this issue. I doubt if it will be soon. But I
hope we return because of the fact that we have left so many questions
unresolved.
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