[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 106 (Thursday, June 28, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8677-S8680]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              IMMIGRATION

  Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I come to the floor to speak about the 
immigration reform issue. Before my colleague from Illinois leaves the 
Chamber, I wish to say that at the end of the day, there were some 
profiles in courage, people of the heart but also people of the mind 
who wanted to do what is right for America and for America's future. I 
cannot think of a better colleague than the senior Senator from 
Illinois, Dick Durbin, for his passion, for his wisdom, for his 
courage, and for his leadership. I look forward to continuing our work 
together as we work on this and so many other issues that are so 
important, both to Illinois and to Colorado and to the Nation and to 
the entire world. I thank my colleague from Illinois.
  As I reflect on the occurrences of the last several years with 
respect to immigration reform, I wish to comment on several things. The 
first of those is a long history related to an issue that is somehow 
intertwined with my own life. Four hundred nine years ago, my 
forefathers and foremothers came to the place we now call the State of 
New Mexico, today known as the land of enchantment. It was in New 
Mexico they decided to found what was the first settlement in the 
Southwest and in that part of the State. They named that city the city 
of Santa Fe, the city of holy faith. Over the centuries following the 
founding of the city of Santa Fe, for the next 250 years, my family 
continued to farm and ranch along the banks of the Rio Grande River, 
from Santa Fe up to the north through communities such as those named 
Espanola and Chama. Then in 1848, we didn't immigrate to this country, 
but the border of the United States of America moved us over to the Rio 
Grande River to the south. It was in 1848, the Mexican-American war was 
ended with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The signing 
of the treaty gave the people who lived in at that time the 
Southwestern part of the United States the option of either becoming 
citizens of these United States or going back not from where they had 
come but back to the other side of what had been a new border that had 
been created in 1848.
  My forefathers and foremothers at the time having had 250 years of 
history living in the Southwest, living in New Mexico, living in the 
southern part of Colorado, made the decision they were going to choose 
the path of America, the path of the future, the path of what is now 
the greatest country in the world. It was a good decision. As a result 
of that decision, we have been now in New Mexico and Colorado for a 
number of generations. I am a fifth generation Coloradan. My family 
goes back in New Mexico for 12 generations.
  Going back to that history, and recognizing for the first 250 years 
of my family's settlement of these United States they were part of the 
Government of Spain, subjects of the Government of Spain for most of 
that time, and then for about 20 years a part of the Mexican Government 
when Mexico overthrew Spain in the War of Independence in 1821. So for 
us there is that history which ties us so much to the lands of the 
southwest.
  Now, for me, when I think about that history, and when I see what 
America has done for my family, I see very much an America that has 
been an America in progress.
  I look to the Civil War, where there were over 600,000 people in 
America who died, as Lincoln said in his Gettysburg Address, to give a 
new birth of freedom to America. That was a statement by President 
Lincoln in which he believed slavery and the separation and ownership 
of people based on their race was something which was absolutely wrong. 
He was able to keep our Union together with the blood that was spilled 
both in the South and in the North.
  It was out of that great Civil War of our times that we ended up with 
what are now some of the more significant amendments of our Bill of 
Rights. One thinks of the 13th and 14th and 15th amendments that 
abolished slavery, that created equal protection under the laws, that 
made sure everybody--no matter who they are, no matter where they come 
from--had an opportunity in these United States.
  But that was not the end of the march for progress because even with 
the inclusion of those amendments, women were excluded and, in fact, 
the U.S. Supreme Court, in interpreting those amendments, made the 
decision that the Jim Crow segregation laws of the United States of 
America were just fine; that it was OK for the Government of America to 
sanction a place where you could have schools for Blacks, schools for 
Whites, schools for people who were Hispanic. It was OK, in those days, 
for women, according to the laws of this country, not to be allowed to 
vote, to take a subservient and very secondary role in our society. 
That was after a great civil war where over 600,000 people gave their 
lives on the soil of our America. But yet America marched forward on a 
path of progress. And we did, indeed, later on adopt the women's right 
of suffrage that allowed women to vote in our society.
  Through the long civil rights movement, led by great leaders such as 
Thurgood Marshall, we ended up with a courageous Supreme Court in a 
unanimous decision of those days where Justice Warren wrote the famous 
Supreme Court decision of Brown v. Board of Education. In that 1954 
decision by Justice Warren, what Justice Warren said in that decision 
is that the place of separate but equal had no place in our America. He 
said you cannot have a doctrine of separate but equal. That ends up 
branding those who are of a different color with a sense of inferiority 
and, therefore, under the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment 
there was no room for segregation in the United States of America. That 
was a significant milestone in our march for progress in America.
  We have made major steps since that point in time. The passage of the 
Civil

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Rights Act, signed by President Johnson in the 1960s, ushered in a 
whole new era of civil rights in America. We have continued to march 
forward.
  So, today, as we look at what happened with the end of the 
immigration reform debate, I remain steadfastly confident and 
optimistic the tomorrows and the weeks ahead and the years ahead will 
bring about a resolution to this issue of immigration which we deal 
with today, and in that resolution of how immigration legislation is 
passed, to fix a system which is in chaos and in disorder today, what 
we will find is, as Dr. Martin Luther King said, change in our 
immigration laws will bend toward the arc of moral justice; that 
justice is where that arc will lead us as we deal with the issue of 
immigration reform.
  I believe very strongly we had a good bill. It was not a perfect 
bill. It was a bill that, obviously, had its critics, both on the left 
and on the right. But I think it is important for us to step back and 
ask ourselves what it is we were trying to do, those of us who worked 
so hard on this legislation.
  I believe, first and foremost, what we were doing is trying to 
address the national security issues of the United States. We were 
trying to do that by strengthening our borders and making sure we had 
enough money to be able to hire the personnel and do the things we have 
to do to enforce our borders and also to enforce our laws within our 
country.
  How can we sit here today in the United States of America and know 
there are millions of people we do not know, or what their backgrounds 
are, who are here illegally, how can we be satisfied that our national 
security is taken care of when the borders are as porous as they are 
today? This national security issue is an inescapable force that will 
ultimately lead us to have the right resolution to dealing with the 
issue of our broken borders.
  We also have a system of immigration which is simply broken. It is 
not working. What ends up happening is people point a lot to the border 
to the south, Mexico, as though that is where the issue of immigration, 
which has become so contentious, is rooted. Yet in reality, when you 
talk to the Irish who live in New York or in Chicago or other places, 
there are many undocumented Irish who live in those communities.
  There are undocumented people in this country who come from over 140 
countries all around the world. Indeed, no matter how big a wall we 
build, no matter how tall the wall, no matter whether that wall is as 
big as the Wall of China, the fact is, we have a system inside of our 
country that is not working because about 40 percent of the people who 
are here in an undocumented status actually came into the country 
legally, and they have overstayed their visas. So we have an 
immigration system within our country that simply is not working.
  Finally, there are the moral and human issues that are at stake, 
including the human and moral issues with the 12 million people who 
live here in the shadows of our society. Our quest was to bring those 
12 million people out of the shadows of darkness and pain they 
currently live in, into the sunlight of our society.
  We made it very clear in our statement that it was not a free ride. 
We said to them in our legislation they would have to pay significant 
fines, they would have to pass a background check, they would have to 
learn English, they would have to live through a time--to use a 
Catholic metaphor--a period of purgatory for up to 8 years before they 
would be eligible to even become citizens. For most of them it would 
have meant a period of up to 11 years.
  So this was not the free ride that was characterized by some of the 
opponents of the legislation. This was, indeed, tough, fair, and 
practical legislation that we proposed. But that legislation will not 
be heard on the Senate floor further for who knows how long. But at 
some point in time those forces that drew us together are forces which 
are not going to go away.
  We have to continue to figure out a way to fix our broken borders. We 
have to have the courage to stand up and ensure that fix of a broken 
immigration system. What we have to do is have the courage to say we 
are going to do something that is moral and just and humane with the 12 
million undocumented workers who have toiled in our hotel rooms, in our 
fields, who work at construction sites, who work as chicken pluckers, 
as my good friend said in South Carolina, who work in those kinds of 
conditions every day.
  So I leave the end of this day with a sense of hopefulness, a sense 
of optimism, and with a sense that these inescapable forces that impel 
us forward will now not allow us to fail. We will get this job done.
  As we get this job done, it is also important to reflect on the fact 
that there have been many people who have gotten us to the point where 
we are today. There is a lot of work that has gone on on this issue of 
immigration.
  As Senator Reid, and I, and others have spoken about this issue of 
immigration, we have reminded people that since 9/11 there have been 36 
hearings on the issue of immigration. There have been 6 days of 
committee markup. There have been 59 committee amendments. There have 
been now probably 25 days of this Senate debating the issue of 
immigration. And during that course, there have been almost 100 Senate 
floor amendments that we have voted on as we have moved forward with 
immigration reform.
  We will get there. But through that whole effort, there have been 
some tremendous people who have been profiles in courage. Some of them 
are newcomers to our Senate family. Some of them are Democrats who have 
been around a long time and who have inspired the people of America and 
the people who work here every day--day after day after day. Some of 
them are Republican. Some of them are Democrat. I want to say a word 
about some of these individuals.
  Senator Kennedy, yes, some people love him; some people hate him. But 
there is no person who has more of a passion and a sense of justice in 
America. When you think about the contributions the Kennedy family and 
Senator Kennedy have made to this Nation, they are one of those 
historic and heritage families of whom we can all truly be proud. It 
has been an honor for me to work with him.
  Senator Lindsey Graham did not have to get involved in the issue of 
immigration. He is up for reelection. It is not a popular issue. He 
comes from a tough State, South Carolina. Yet he worked every day and 
gave it everything he had, his whole heart and soul. He deserves a 
profile in courage for what he did.
  Senator Feinstein has labored so much because she cares about those 
people working in the fields. She cares so much about making sure we 
have a program that works for business and for agriculture. She is 
concerned about the human and moral issues. She partnered up with our 
colleague, Senator Larry Craig, to get 800 organizations behind the 
legislation for AgJOBS. She did an incredible job in moving us forward, 
along with Senator Larry Craig.
  Senator Bob Menendez, we heard him speak earlier on the Senate floor. 
He truly has added a tremendous dimension to this body, and his 
leadership will continue to bring us to a solution that is a fair and 
humane and just solution to this issue of immigration about which he 
cares so much. When he talks about family reunification, for him, he 
knows what that means in the context of immigration in a personal 
sense. So we need to honor and respect his perspective, which I 
support.
  Senator Reid, without his leadership, and without his bringing 
``Lazarus'' up to life again on the floor of the Senate on immigration, 
we would not have gotten anywhere. So I thank our leader for having 
given us the opportunity and having stood with us on some very tough 
debates. He is a tough guy. He is a boxer. He knows how to fight. That 
is the kind of leadership America needs.
  Senator Leahy, as the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, who has 
done such a great job in the functioning of that Judiciary Committee, 
helped us move this legislation forward. I thank him for his 
leadership.
  Senator Kyl, the chairman of the Republican Conference Committee--get 
that--the chairman of the Republican Conference Committee, was in the 
trenches. He was in the trenches, sleeves rolled up, trying to make 
this thing happen; Jon Kyl from Arizona deserves one of those profiles 
in courage as well; Senator McCain and his leadership. He is running 
for President. This is not a popular issue to take up.

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Some people are saying that perhaps this is an issue that might take 
him to a lesser standing in the polls. But I will say this about 
Senator McCain: He is a hero of America, and he is a hero of America 
because he has the courage of his convictions to stand up for those 
things he believes in. You think about those years he spent in 
captivity in Vietnam and what kind of courage was honed into his 
consciousness and into his humanity. He truly is a person of great 
leadership.
  Senator Specter, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary 
Committee, is a Republican who helped shepherd this legislation 
forward. Day after day he worked to make this happen because he knew of 
the national imperative we were dealing with. He also is one of those 
people with great courage.
  My colleague from Florida, Senator Martinez, worked hard for a very 
long time trying to get us across the finish line. For me, he is a 
brother. For me, when he tells the story of being a Peter Pan child, he 
exemplifies the dream and hope of what America is. We very much look 
forward to continuing our working relationship together on issues that 
affect America.
  I say to his colleague, the Presiding Officer, Senator Nelson from 
Florida, I appreciate his great work and hanging with us, even on what 
was a very tough vote at the end.
  I also want to say a quick word about a couple of other people who 
are freshmen, about whom some might say: What were they doing involved 
in such a big issue? But then I guess they did it because they learned 
and because they were doing it for all of the right reasons. Sheldon 
Whitehouse, my colleague from Rhode Island, I called on him and said: 
You need to be a part of this group. You need to be a part of it 
because, No. 1, you are on the Judiciary Committee; and No. 2, you were 
a great attorney general of Rhode Island; and No. 3, you will learn so 
much in working with great names such as Kennedy and Specter, Leahy, 
and others. So he joined us, and day in and day out he was there, 
laboring to get us across the finish line.
  Amy Klobuchar, the new Senator from Minnesota, has a way of trying to 
bring people together. She has a way of trying to bring people 
together. She labored mightily to get us to where we ended up today, 
with at least as many votes as we were able to get.
  But it is not just those who work who have the title of Senator--and 
I might add Senator Trent Lott also did a Herculean job of trying to 
get us across the finish line, and I thank him for that.
  But there are many people behind each of these Senators. We get the 
honors, we get the label of Senator, but we couldn't do it without the 
wonderful floor staff we have, including the Parliamentarians and the 
clerks and others who help us every day, but also the staffs of each of 
our offices.
  From Senator Kennedy's staff, I thank Ester Olavarria, Michael Myers, 
Janice Kaguyutan, Melissa Crow, Mary Giovagnoli, and Todd Kushner; for 
Senator Feinstein, Amy Pope and Jennifer Duck; for Senator Menendez, 
Chris Schloesser; for Senator Reid, Serena Hoy, Marcela Urrutia, and 
Ron Weich; for Senator Durbin, Joe Zogby; for Senator Leahy, Matt 
Virkstis and Ellen Gallagher; for Senator Graham, Jen Olson and Matt 
Rimkunas; for Senator Kyl, Elizabeth Maier and Michael Dougherty; for 
Senator McCain, Becky Jensen; for Senator Specter, Michael O'Neill and 
Juria Jones; for Senator Martinez, Nilda Pedrosa and Clay Deatherage.
  I thank all the staff who have made this possible.
  In conclusion, let me say I have great hope. I have great hope and I 
am optimistic. I am optimistic we are going to be able to deal with the 
great issues of our time in the 21st century. We are going to be able 
to figure out a way to resolve the issues in Iraq and in the Middle 
East, because the greatness of America depends upon us restoring the 
greatness of America around the world. We will move forward with a 
clean energy future for the 21st century, which is what we worked so 
hard on and what we passed in this Chamber last week. We will work very 
hard to address the issues of health care which affect so many 
Americans and their families and so many American businesses. Yes, we 
will continue to work on the issue of immigration. It is an issue we 
must resolve, and I am optimistic.
  I am optimistic because when I think of that generation I come from, 
that generation of World War II, the parents of the Presiding Officer 
and mine, people who lived through those very difficult times of the 
Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, people who fought in World War II, 
veterans such as my father who went to war, my mother who served in the 
Pentagon during World War II, that generation of World War II, where 
half a million Americans gave their lives in the name of preserving 
civilization and freedom; if they could take on those challenges of 
their time, then there is no reason why we in the Congress cannot take 
on the challenges of our time and restore the greatness of America and 
make sure that the legacy they left to each and every one of us is not 
a legacy we forget or that we do not pass on in an even better shape to 
our children. I do not want our generation to be the first generation 
in American history that passes on the baton to the next generation in 
worse condition than we inherited it from our parents.
  I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor.
  Mr. President, in my haste to thank everybody I forgot to say 
something about someone who has now been through three immigration 
battles with me in my office, and that is Felicia Escobar. Felicia will 
be going to law school soon. For the last 3 years she has labored 
mightily, putting in sometimes 100-hour work weeks to make sure we are 
doing the right things on immigration, and I wanted to personally thank 
her on the floor for her great efforts.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and I note the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that 
the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I have had the privilege of 
listening to the Presiding Officer in his role as the Senator from 
Colorado give a very detailed and very comprehensive overview of a lot 
of the personalities and the intrigues, as well as the substance, that 
went into this whole debate on immigration. It was interesting that 
when we failed to get the necessary 60 votes today to cut off debate on 
a motion of cloture, all the Senators stayed on the floor and listened 
to the majority leader. I thought the tone that the majority leader, 
Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, set was not one of bitterness; it was one 
expressing a good deal of frustration in the fact that so much effort 
had been made and we didn't get to the 60 votes. As a matter of fact, I 
think we were some 11 or 12 votes short of the 60 votes.
  He did not point fingers. He didn't say whose fault it was. He said 
there will be another day, that this is one of the great issues of our 
time, and that America was better off for having had the debate. Harry 
Reid comported himself with great dignity and great leadership because 
there will be another day. There has to be another day on the issue of 
immigration, simply because what we have now on the books is a law this 
Senator voted for in 1986 as a Member of the House of Representatives; 
a law that has never been enforced by the U.S. Government and never has 
been obeyed by the people who were supposed to obey the law. What was 
estimated back in 1986--21 years ago--to be 2 million, maybe 3 million 
illegal folks in this country, because the law was never obeyed, in 
many cases by employers who were supposed to be the fulcrum of 
enforcing the law, that they would only hire legal entrants into this 
country, and on top of it was never enforced by the U.S. Government, 
created a condition that so many people have blasted the very 
legislation we have been considering of amnesty.
  What we have now is amnesty: That 2 million or 3 million 21 years ago 
would grow to 12 million illegal aliens today. That is amnesty. Amnesty 
is what we have today because the law was never enforced or obeyed. 
That is what we have to correct.
  Now, sadly, because of the experiences we have had over the last 21

[[Page S8680]]

years, not only on the question of immigration, but then from the 
lessons of September 11, 2001, we realize there is another reason we 
must control our borders, so desperately necessary to the welfare and 
the protection of this country, the protection of the homeland. Because 
of those two main reasons, we will live to see another day, and we will 
pass an immigration law to bring us into order out of the chaos which 
is the current condition.
  I commend the Senator from Colorado as he gave a personality profile 
of so many of these wonderful Senators here, and it is a Senate family. 
You get to know each other on a personal basis, and you see how on 
occasion a Senator will rise to an occasion. All of the people whom the 
Senator from Colorado mentioned certainly merit that distinction. But 
what the Senator from Colorado didn't do is he didn't talk about 
himself. The Senator from Colorado has done one of the most remarkable 
jobs of acclimating to the Senate within a short period of time and 
becoming so effective, and especially on an issue such as immigration, 
for which he has great passion and compassion.

  So I wanted to add my little comments to all of those the Senator 
mentioned who have so wonderfully stood tall under very difficult 
circumstances. It is quite unusual when a subject will touch a nerve 
that will create such passion on both sides--passion that gets so 
heated that the sides won't talk to each other. We cannot make law like 
that because, as the Good Book says, you have to come and reason 
together. When the passion gets so hot that you cannot come and reason 
together, you cannot come together and build consensus, that is when 
the legislative process in a democracy breaks down.
  These Senators, in the midst of all of that passion, stood tall, 
comporting themselves extremely well and serving in the best tradition 
of the U.S. Senate.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Nelson of Florida). Without objection, it 
is so ordered.

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