[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 17865-17866]
[From the U.S. 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 1 other Senator, and a Senator from a State such as Illinois 
would have 2 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 2 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

[[Page 17866]]

of those things. And we saw that sentiment, not on the floor of the 
Senate or the House, but certainly we heard it on 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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