[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 82 (Thursday, May 16, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2897-S2898]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Immigration

  Madam President, yesterday, the Trump administration released the 
outlines of its plan for immigration reform. Truth be told, the 
reported White House plan isn't a serious attempt at immigration 
reform. If anything, it is a political document that is anti-
immigration reform. It repackages the same partisan, radical, anti-
immigrant policies that the administration has pushed for 2 years, all 
of which have struggled to earn even a simple majority in the Senate, 
let alone 60 votes. The hands of Stephen Miller are all over this plan, 
and, of course, he had a watchful eye when other administration 
officials came into the Republican lunch yesterday and talked about it.
  The plan they put together holds immigration precisely at current 
levels, meaning that for every new immigrant the plan potentially lets 
in, it must kick one out. What kind of logic is that? What kind of 
harebrained logic is that--the idea that for every immigrant you help 
you have to hurt another? How arbitrary. How simplistic. How cruel. It 
is like the Procrustean bed of immigration policy.
  We need immigrants in America. Our labor force is declining. If you 
go to businesses at the high end, the middle end, and the low end, they 
say their greatest problem is a lack of workers. And we come up with a 
policy like this? Make no mistake about it. It is cruel and inhumane, 
but it also hurts our economy significantly. If you don't believe me, 
talk to business leaders--any business leader you know.
  Shockingly, the White House's immigration proposal fails to deal with 
Dreamers or the 11 million undocumented immigrants now living in the 
United States. The White House Press Secretary said Dreamers were 
``left out on purpose.'' What does that say about the administration? 
That goes to the root of what is wrong with this administration's 
approach to immigration. If they think they can repeat what they failed 
to do in the past, if they try to repeat it, saying ``OK, we will let 
Dreamers in, but you accept a whole lot of bad things,'' which is why 
immigration reform failed last time, last year, it ain't happening. It 
ain't happening.
  I would say two things. If you are going to do major immigration 
reform through Congress, you are going to need bipartisan support. That 
means you sit down and talk to Democrats. Four of us on the Democratic 
side and four of us on the Republican side in the Gang of 8 spent hours 
and weeks and months together and carved together a bill that got 
overwhelming support from Democrats and Republicans in this Chamber and 
was overwhelmingly supported by the American people and still is. I 
think 68 percent still support comprehensive immigration reform.
  But what does the White House do? Typically, they put together their 
own plan--Stephen Miller, chief cook and bottle washer--and they say 
that Democrats should support this. Ain't happening.

[[Page S2898]]

  No consultation, no nothing--that is not the way you would go about 
putting together a bill that you really want to pass. That is not the 
way to go about things if you really want to solve our immigration 
problem.
  When Stephen Miller, one of the President's most virulently anti-
immigrant advisers, is in the room crafting an immigration plan, it is 
a surefire failure. The fact that the President is announcing his bill 
today provides a further bit of irony because, this afternoon, the new 
Statue of Liberty museum opens. There is no greater symbol of 
Americans' openness to immigration, of the greatness of America, than 
the Statue of Liberty, which reaches out to people from every corner of 
the globe. It towers over nearby Ellis Island, where generations of 
hopeful strivers shuffled off boats into a new life and into a new 
country and helped build America into the greatest country in the 
world.
  The White House immigration bill is an insult to our grand tradition 
of welcoming immigrants from all walks of life, and it is an 
appropriate metaphor that the President, today, is skipping the opening 
of the new Statue of Liberty museum, even though he is in New York, 
simply to go to political fundraisers. He skips real immigration reform 
and offers a political document, and his trip to New York embodies that 
ironically and metaphorically.