[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 13287-13289]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              IMMIGRATION

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, let me comment a little bit on the same 
points Senator Kennedy made.
  This is an extraordinarily important piece of legislation. The 
American people--certainly our colleagues in the Senate--need plenty of 
time to digest and debate and discuss it. It is certainly nobody's 
intention that this would be rushed. That is why the majority leader 
made comments earlier this evening that assures all of the

[[Page 13288]]

Members of this body that not only will we have this week to debate and 
perhaps amend the legislation, but that upon our return from the 
Memorial Day recess, we will take up the bill again and, as he 
indicated, would have another week, if we needed it, to continue work 
on the legislation.
  While it is true the legislation did not go through the committee 
process, I assure my colleagues it was never anyone's intent that there 
not be the fullest opportunity for discussion and debate. That will in 
fact occur. We are now on the bill formally. It is also my 
understanding that technical changes from the draft legislation will be 
completed tonight and the first amendment will be the amendment of that 
substitute version. If the distinguished chairman of the committee has 
any other point on that, perhaps he could make it. But that would then 
put before the body the exact language we would begin the debate and 
discussion on.
  I have about another 5 minutes of comments unless Senator Kennedy 
wants to say anything else.
  It would be in order to thank Secretary Chertoff and Secretary 
Gutierrez for their work in helping us in the Senate to craft this 
bipartisan consensus legislation. So much of the enforcement of the 
legislation will depend upon action by the administration. They had to 
help us ensure this was a bill that could be enforced in the future.
  I know during the last election so many of my constituents asked the 
question: Why should we create a new law for you to enforce when the 
current law is not being enforced? That is a good question. So one of 
the things we tried to do in drafting this legislation was to put 
together a bill that actually would and could be enforced, and the 
administration has helped us by providing expertise in what it would 
take for Homeland Security and other departments to actually provide 
the enforcement the American people so desperately want.
  There was general agreement that return to the rule of law was the 
central component of any bipartisan compromise, starting with securing 
the border, working right up to more enforcement in the interior of the 
country, and especially at the workplace, to make sure nobody in the 
future would be hired unless it could be established they were entitled 
to be hired. That is one of the critical changes in this legislation 
from the previous law which was not enforceable and, as virtually 
everybody who knows this subject appreciates, the law is not being 
assiduously enforced particularly at the workplace. So that is a 
critical component of what we have talked about doing.
  There are a great many other things that will be discussed as we 
proceed with the legislation. Referring back to my recent campaign, the 
voters in my State of Arizona, which is being overrun by illegal 
immigration, had one message loudly and clearly: Do something about 
this problem of illegal immigration. So I was returned to the Senate by 
my constituents with an obligation to do my best to get in and do as 
much as we could to secure the border, return to the rule of law, 
ensure that only people who are eligible to work here are permitted to 
do so, deal with the people who are here illegally in a humane and just 
way, and try to set up a temporary worker program for temporary workers 
only, rather than to recreate the problem we have today with a great 
deal of foreign-born workforce that isn't legal in the United States 
and is now demanding to become legal.
  In order to get engaged in that process and do something about it, it 
was important to sit down with people of the other side as well as the 
administration. Of all the criticism I have received for being one of 
the sponsors of this legislation, the one I don't quite understand from 
my constituents is, why would I sit down with Senator Kennedy? What I 
have tried to tell them is, I understand your anxiety about sitting 
down with Senator Kennedy, but on the other hand, in a body of 100 
Senators who are supposed to try to work together to find solutions to 
problems, do you not at least acknowledge that every now and then you 
have to sit down and talk to each other, even when you are on the other 
side of the aisle? Senator Kennedy right now happens to be in the 
majority, in addition.
  As a result, it is, in my position, important to sit down, articulate 
what the people of Arizona have told me they would like in any 
immigration reform, and do my best to try to see that those principles, 
as much as possible, are included in this legislation. If I didn't sit 
down with Senator Kennedy, I doubt he would include very much of what I 
wanted in the legislation he could otherwise draft. So what we have 
done, in a bipartisan fashion, is to get Senators on both sides of the 
aisle, with many different views, agreeing to try to put together 
something that can pass this body, pass the House of Representatives, 
and be signed into law. I know every one of us will stand up here and 
say: This is not the bill I would have drafted if I were king of the 
world or queen of the world. There is a lot in this bill I don't like 
very much. But I know that in order to get something, you have to give 
something. At the end of the day, in order to do something about the 
problem of illegal immigration that is hurting my own State of Arizona 
in ways I can't begin to describe, we have to try our very best to work 
together to get something that will actually pass the Senate. That 
means an agreement with the administration, with Democrats, and with 
Republicans.
  I hope as my colleagues consider what we have put together, they will 
acknowledge you have to start somewhere, but that if there are 
amendments that go to the heart of this agreement and that break the 
agreement apart in substantial ways--not ways at the periphery or 
tangentially but that go to the guts of this agreement--that they can 
fully expect it will no longer enjoy the support of those of us who 
worked hard to put the agreement together. If you want to try to kill 
this legislation, go right to the heart of it and change any of the 
major pieces of it, you will find it will quickly lose support, 
including mine.
  We fully expect Members to have a lot of amendments that deal with 
different aspects of the bill. There are a million different details, 
and that is all fine. But if we go to the guts of the legislation and 
that basic agreement is destroyed, then I think we will see support for 
it evaporate quickly, including mine.
  I am looking forward to working with my colleagues and debating and 
discussing this legislation. But at the end of the day, I conclude 
there is no option of doing nothing, that our only option is to do 
something. That means sitting down, working together, and trying to get 
a good bill passed.
  I appreciate the spirit in which all of my colleagues who have joined 
in this effort have worked toward this end.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Arizona for his 
comments and for his general assessment of the circumstances we find 
ourselves with. I can certainly give the assurance to the people of 
Arizona that Senator Kyl is a person of extremely strong views, who has 
felt very deeply about the positions he has, but is a person who 
believes in comity and respect for other views. He understands you can 
fight for your views and still compromise without compromising your 
values. I respect Senator Kyl for that position.
  As has been pointed out at other times, this has been a long, 
complex, difficult process, but it is one for which I share with 
Senator Kyl that failure is not an option. This country cannot tolerate 
a continued border system which is fractured, which it is today, and 
with all the uncertainty that exists, whether it is on the borders, or 
the exploitation of workers, or in terms of the lives of many of the 
people who are here. We have tried to fashion a program, and we are 
going to work together to try to see that it is successful.
  I thank the Senator for his comments, and we are looking forward to 
getting good discussion and debates on these issues.

[[Page 13289]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. COLEMAN. Mr. President, first, I thank my colleague from Arizona. 
I do not know if there is a greater champion in this body on the rule 
of law on border security. I thank my colleague from Massachusetts for 
being the master at the art of figuring out how to get it done. As a 
former mayor, I have great appreciation for that. When I was mayor, if 
it snowed, and the snow wasn't plowed, the next day I heard about it. I 
think we are here to fix problems. The system we have today is broken 
and needs to be fixed.
  I thank both my colleagues for their work on this issue. There will 
be a lot of conversations as time goes on, a lot of debates, but in the 
end the status quo is not acceptable and we have to fix it.

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