[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 17844-17846]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              IMMIGRATION

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, it is now clear that we are not going to 
complete our work on immigration reform. That is enormously 
disappointing for Congress and for the country. But we will be back and 
we will prevail. The American people sent us here to act on our most 
urgent problems, and they will not accept inaction.
  I have seen this happen time and time again. America always finds a 
way to solve its problems, expand its frontiers, and move closer to its 
ideals. It is not always easy, but it is the American way.
  I learned this first as a child at my grandfather's knee. He taught 
me that in America progress is always possible. His generation moved 
past the cruel signs in the windows in Boston saying ``Irish Need Not 
Apply'' and elected that son of an Irish immigrant as mayor of Boston.
  I learned that lesson firsthand when I came to the Senate in 1962. 
Our Nation was finally recognizing that the work of civil rights had 
not ended with the Emancipation Proclamation, nor with the Supreme 
Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education. It was up to Congress 
to take action.
  The path forward has never been an easy one. There were filibusters 
of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. 
But we didn't give up and we ultimately prevailed.
  The same was true in our battles for fair housing and for an end to 
discrimination against persons with disabilities. On immense issues 
such as these, a minority in the Senate was often able to create 
stalemate and delay for a time. But they had never been able to stop 
the march of progress.
  Throughout all of those battles, we faced critics who loudly warned 
that we were changing America forever. In the end, they were right. Our 
history of civil rights legislation did change America forever. It made 
America stronger, fairer, and a better nation.
  Immigration is another issue like that. We know the high price of 
continuing inaction. Raids and other enforcement actions will escalate, 
terrorizing our communities and businesses.
  The 12 million undocumented immigrants will soon be millions more. 
Sweatshops will grow and undermine American workers and wages. State 
and local governments will take matters into their own hands and pass a 
maze of conflicting laws that hurt our country. We will have the kind 
of open border that is unacceptable in our post-9/11 world.
  Immigration reform is an opportunity to be true to our ideals as a 
nation. Our Declaration of Independence announces that all of us are 
created equal. Today, we failed to live up to that declaration for 
millions of men and women who live, work, and worship beside us. But 
our ideals are too strong to be held back for long.
  Martin Luther King had a dream that children would be judged solely 
by ``the content of their character.'' Today, we failed to make that 
dream come true for the children of immigrants. But that dream will 
never die. It has the power to overcome the most bitter opposition.
  I believe we will soon succeed where we failed today, and that we 
will enact the kind of comprehensive reform that our ideals and 
national security demand. Soon, word will echo across the country about 
the consequences of today's vote. The American people will know that a 
minority of the Senate blocked a record investment in border security.
  H.L. Mencken said that for every complex problem, there is a simple 
solution--and it is wrong. A minority in the Senate has employed a 
simple label against this bill--amnesty--and they were wrong, too.
  A minority in the Senate rejected a stronger economy that is fairer 
to our taxpayers and our workers. A minority of the Senate rejected 
America's own extraordinary immigrant history and ignored our Nation's 
most urgent needs.
  But we are in this struggle for the long haul. Today's defeat will 
not stand. As we continue the battle, we will have ample inspiration in 
the lives of the immigrants all around us.
  From Jamestown, to the Pilgrims, to the Irish, to today's workers, 
people have come to this country in search of opportunity. They have 
sought nothing more than a chance to work hard and bring a better life 
to themselves and their families. They come to our country with their 
hearts and minds full of hope.
  We will endure today's loss and begin anew to build the kinds of 
tough, fair,

[[Page 17845]]

and practical reform worthy of our shared history as immigrants and as 
Americans.
  Immigration reforms are always controversial. But Congress was 
created to muster political will to answer such challenges. Today we 
didn't, but tomorrow we will.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. McCaskill). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up 
to 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has that right.
  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I wanted to come to the floor to offer a 
few thoughts and observations on the important vote we had earlier 
today on the immigration bill. I know many people are puzzled when they 
watch us debate big and important issues such as this. What usually 
happens is our views are reduced to a bumper sticker. Particularly on 
complex topics such as immigration, a bumper sticker doesn't tell the 
whole story. So I wish to offer a few thoughts on the way forward on 
this important issue.
  I have not found an issue in my short time in the Senate, now about 
4\1/2\ years, which has been more closely followed and on which there 
has been more passion than the subject we have been debating this week 
and which we voted on this morning.
  Sometimes, as we all know, passion can produce more heat than light, 
but what we need is some light and some clear thinking and some better 
solutions to our broken borders and our broken immigration system than 
we have had so far.
  I don't say that with the intent to criticize the hard work that 
people have put into this effort. I am proud of the fact that since I 
have been in the Senate, I have tried to constructively contribute to a 
solution to this problem. As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee 
and as a former chairman of the Immigration and Border Security 
Subcommittee of that Judiciary Committee, now as the ranking member, I 
have tried my best to contribute to a solution. But I think the one 
message I would take away from what we saw happen earlier today is the 
American people, my constituents in Texas, are profoundly skeptical of 
big Government solutions with a lot of moving parts based on big, 
grandiose promises, when our history has been one of not delivering 
consistent with what we promised. Let me mention what I mean by that.
  In 1986, we had a big immigration bill, supposedly one to fix all the 
problems. President Ronald Reagan signed that bill. I remember Ed 
Meese, his Attorney General, wrote a piece in I believe the New York 
Times explaining what was going through President Reagan's mind as he 
signed that amnesty for 3 million people. Ed Meese explained that 
President Reagan was told in 1986 that if you do this amnesty one time, 
that will be the end of it; you will never have to do another one, as 
long as we have enforcement of our laws that go hand in hand with that 
grant of amnesty for 3 million people.
  Part of the skepticism that I think the American people and certainly 
my constituents in Texas have had about this bill is that they saw 
coupled with a path to legalization and ultimately American citizenship 
for roughly 12 million people that we mean it this time, we are going 
to get serious about border security, we are going to get serious about 
eliminating the document fraud and identity theft that makes our 
current worker verification system virtually unworkable, and they saw a 
repetition of 1986.
  There were components of this bill that I thought were actually 
pretty good, that represented an improvement over the status quo. But I 
think some of the debate got a little bit hard to believe such as when 
people said the only way you are going to get border security is if you 
agree to a path to citizenship for 12 million people. The American 
people are pretty smart. They can see through that, and they know there 
is no obvious linkage between border security and a path to citizenship 
for 12 million people. They know if we were serious about border 
security, we would have already done it.
  So I think, at least the lesson I have learned from this vote this 
morning is not that we can give up because the problem is not going to 
go away. It may get caught up in Presidential election politics and 
maybe part of what we need to do is continue this grand national 
conversation about how do we solve this problem because I don't believe 
there is any problem that is too big for the American people to solve. 
Certainly, they are not waiting for some pronouncement from Mount 
Olympus in Washington, DC, about here is the answer and you have to 
swallow it. We work for the American people. We work for the 
constituents who sent us here. The power we get to act on their behalf 
comes from the bottom up; it doesn't come from the top down. I think 
part of the rejection that we saw of this particular bill was the sense 
that Washington was trying to dictate a solution about which the 
American people had a lot of questions and a lot of reservations.
  I think we need to go back to basics. We need to go back and listen 
to our constituents. We need to talk to them and explain to them what 
the problem is. We need to have a transparent process that is an 
interactive process where we can listen to them and we can tell them 
what we have learned about this issue and about some of the problems 
and try to come up with a solution.
  One of the lessons may be that big, multifaceted, complex programs 
such as this bill offered, particularly on something where the Federal 
Government doesn't have a whole lot of credibility when it comes to 
actually enforcing the law or securing the border, the American people 
are not going to accept it, and I think that was reflected in the vote 
we had today.
  That is not the same thing as saying give up, because we can't give 
up. This problem is not going away. As somebody who represents a border 
State with about 1,600 miles of common border with Mexico, I say we 
have to find a rational solution to this problem.
  I know that passions have run high, but I, for one, am very pleased 
with the level of the debate in the Senate because, as we all know, 
sometimes this topic is susceptible to some pretty irresponsible 
language and dialog.
  This was not a rejection of our heritage as a nation of immigrants. 
We are a nation of immigrants, but we are also a nation of laws. And I 
think what the American people saw--certainly my constituents in Texas 
saw--is the status quo of a kind of lawlessness and a lack of 
commitment to simple law and order which they wanted to see restored. I 
think if we demonstrate that we have heard the message they have sent 
us--if we demonstrate that, yes, we are serious about border security; 
yes, we are serious about enforcing the law--then I think we can 
continue that conversation and talk about the other aspects of this 
legislation that we need to continue to work on.
  What are the legitimate needs of American employers for legal 
workers? Certainly, we would prefer that they get legal workers rather 
than workers who are not respecting our laws. Certainly, we would all 
want, I would think, to have a system whereby someone can show up at a 
workplace and present a tamper-proof, secure identification card and 
virtually guarantee that they are legally eligible to work in the 
United States as opposed to the kind of document fraud and identity 
theft that now runs rampant and which makes it impossible even for good 
employers trying to honor the law to know that the person standing 
before them can actually legally work in the United States.
  We recently had an example of a company, a Swift meatpacking plant, 
which was the subject of a raid by the Immigration and Customs 
Enforcement Service in multiple States, including my State of Texas. 
What they found was this company was using the only

[[Page 17846]]

Government program--the only Government program--known as Basic Pilot, 
to try to match up the identity of people who came to work there with a 
Social Security number. Basic Pilot confirmed that, yes, that is John 
Cornyn, and that is John Cornyn's Social Security number, but that is 
about all Basic Pilot could tell them. What they wouldn't tell them is 
if it was somebody else masquerading as John Cornyn and claiming his 
Social Security number.
  That company sustained a huge business loss because the Federal 
Government failed it by not providing it with a reliable means to 
determine whether people who claim to be American citizens and eligible 
to work were, in fact, eligible. So we have a lot of credibility we 
need to restore at the Federal Government level when it comes to 
enforcing the law and securing our borders.
  I think if we perhaps break down this big problem into smaller 
solutions, step by step, and work our way through this, we can continue 
to find an opportunity to solve this problem bit by bit and piece by 
piece. What I saw rejected this morning were big, grandiose government 
solutions where our credibility was seriously lacking because of a lack 
of followthrough on earlier promises, particularly when it comes to 
enforcing our laws and securing our borders.
  I would just like to say to all my colleagues who have worked so hard 
on this issue that you have my commitment that I will continue to work 
with you in good faith to try to solve the problems. That is what I 
thought my constituents wanted me to do. That is what I know they want 
me to do. They do not want us pointing the finger of blame. They do not 
want us calling each other names. And they do not want the sort of 
``hyperpartisanship'' that unfortunately too often characterizes our 
activities in Washington. But they also don't want to be sold a bill of 
goods. They do not want to be promised a lot when they know we are 
going to deliver little.
  So this is a big issue, one that is worthy of the greatest 
deliberative body in the world--the U.S. Senate--and it is an issue on 
which I assure each of my colleagues that I intend to do my part to try 
to solve.
  Madam President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HATCH. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call 
be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Nelson of Nebraska). Without objection, it 
is so ordered.

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