[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 86 (Wednesday, June 4, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3391-S3392]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
IMMIGRATION REFORM
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I rise to point out it has now been 342
days since the Senate passed bipartisan, comprehensive immigration
reform that would secure our border, turbocharge America's economic
growth and provide a chance to heal America's broken families who are
being separated by our dysfunctional immigration system.
Here is what we know: The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office
told us that had we passed the bill this last year, we could have
already seen up to $80 billion of economic growth, $20 billion of
deficit reduction, 50,000 new jobs, $50 billion more in the Social
Security trust fund, $2 billion of revenue for State and local
governments, and 40,000 more brilliant STEM--science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics--graduates stay in the United States
instead of being told to go home.
Instead, we have not been able to achieve any of these important
gains. Why is that? It is because the House has refused to do
anything--underline anything--to try and fix our broken immigration
system. To be clear, the
[[Page S3392]]
real problem is not that there is a difference of opinion between a
House bill and a Senate bill on immigration that cannot be reconciled.
The problem is there is no House bill.
We are happy to meet our colleagues in the House part of the way. We
would love to sit down and negotiate, but there is no House bill. So
the problem is not that the two sides are irreconcilable, it is that
one side has refused to do anything. The problem is that House
Republicans have completely abdicated their responsibility to address
important issues such as fixing our broken immigration system.
For the last few weeks I have explained the reason the House has done
nothing on immigration is because the House Republican leadership has
handed the gavel of leadership on immigration to far-right extremists
such as Congressman Steve King. He is truly extreme on this issue.
Steven King says to do nothing--absolutely nothing--and the House does
nothing, absolutely nothing.
Well, not only has this point not been refuted by anyone in the
Republican Party, it has actually been even further confirmed in the
last few days.
Let's start with Steve King himself. Last week King filed an
amendment to the Commerce, Justice, and Science appropriations bill
that would require the Department of Justice to ``investigate'' the
Department of Homeland Security's use of prosecutorial discretion
toward certain immigrants, including beneficiaries of the Deferred
Action for Childhood Arrivals, or the DACA Program, that the Obama
administration announced in June of 2012.
When discussing his amendment, Steve King--listen to this--
pejoratively referred to the DACA Program as ``Deferred Action for
Criminal Aliens.'' That is what he thinks. He thinks that every
immigrant is a criminal. When describing this program, Steve King said:
For everyone who's a valedictorian, there's another 100 out
there who weigh 130 pounds--and they've got calves the size
of cantaloupes because they have been hauling 75 pounds of
marijuana across the border.
Was King criticized for these comments? Was he chastised and told he
has no place in a modern Republican Party? Was King's amendment at
least ignored in the same way every other immigration bill has been
ignored?
Unfortunately, the answer to all of these questions is no. For the
second time in a year, the House Republican leadership actually
rewarded King and handed him the gavel yet again by giving him another
vote on another politically motivated appropriations amendment. The
amendment to investigate the DACA Program is what received a vote last
week. Just as before, the House passed yet another inflammatory King
appropriations amendment along partisan lines. His previous amendment
was to defund the DACA Program.
This is a man who just last week compared immigrants to Santa Ana's
army. He compared immigrants to a foreign invading army. It is a
comparison that implies that an immigrant's goal is to harm the
interest of the United States when they desperately want to be here and
participate in the freedom--both economic and political--we love and
enjoy. Yet again, after he said something like this, the Republican
leadership hands him the gavel on immigration. That is why we continue
to see nothing out of the House other than inflammatory, rhetorical
amendment show votes. The score is clear: Steve King is still
undefeated, and he is increasing his margin of victory every day.
Well, it doesn't have to be that way. Steve King doesn't represent
the vast number of voters in either the Republican Party or even the
tea party. Steve King does not represent Republicans in this House.
When we joined together on a moderate bipartisan bill that would do so
much good for America, it was supported by traditional Republican
groups--the business community, the high-tech community, the
agricultural growers, the Catholic Church, the evangelical Protestant
church, supported this bipartisan bill. Some on the left thought it was
too conservative.
It doesn't have to be this way. Steve King doesn't have to write into
law whatever the House does. Poll after poll is clear that even
Republican voters--conservative Republican voters--want to fix our
broken immigration system in a manner that secures our borders, fixes
our legal immigration system, and allows those in the undocumented
status to get right with the law after a long path, including paying
fines, paying back taxes, learning English, having to work, and going
to the back of the line and waiting.
Steve King is much like the Wizard of Oz when it comes to
immigration. He is pulling the levers behind the screen to make it seem
he has the power, but the Republican Party will learn sooner or later--
as Dorothy did in the ``Wizard of Oz''--that King actually works by
fear, and he doesn't have the power and the wizard's power is
overstated. He can't really do very much. The only way to get back home
and do something real is in ourselves, not in that man behind the
screen--the Wizard of Oz, Steve King. Where are the leaders in the
Republican Party with the courage to stand up to Steve King and the far
right and say: Enough is enough, we will not let our authority be
hijacked by extremists whose xenophobia causes them to prefer
maintaining a broken immigration system, where hundreds of thousands
still cross the border illegally, instead of achieving a fair, tough,
and practical long-term solution?
Make no mistake, immigration reform will either pass this year with
bipartisan support and a bipartisan imprint or it will pass in a future
year with only Democratic support and a Democratic imprint because
Democrats control Congress and the White House. Some Democrats argue it
is better for us politically if the latter occurs, and many
Republicans, in their hearts, know that is true. But we don't want
that. We want to fix our country's problems. We want our GDP to grow
3.5 percent as the GPO said it would if we pass this bill. We want to
secure our borders once and for all. We want a fair path to citizenship
so that people who work and pay taxes can get right with the law.
Time is running out. We have less than 8 weeks to go to get something
passed. There is still no serious proposal from Republicans. If the
House fails to act during this window, the President would be more than
justified in acting anytime after the summer is over to make whatever
changes he feels are necessary to make our immigration system work
better for those who are unfairly burdened by our broken laws, but that
is not the preferable way to go. The preferable way to go is to go the
way the Senate did where Democrats and Republicans banded together to
create a moderate, thoughtful, comprehensive bill that fixes our broken
immigration system once and for all.
In conclusion, I hope the immigration reform bill passes this year
because our economy, our broken families, and our country so badly need
it. Let's hope the House finally stops talking and finally stops paying
obeisance to their Wizard of Oz on immigration, Steve King, and starts
acting.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Heitkamp). The Senator from Wyoming.
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