[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 2]
[House]
[Pages 2674-2675]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    IT IS TIME TO ACT ON IMMIGRATION

  (Mr. POLIS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I want to give a little history about the 
efforts of the Democratic Party to secure our Southern border.
  We had an immigration bill last session. In that bill that passed the 
Senate with bipartisan support--not only every Democrat, but also many 
Republicans, like John McCain and Marco Rubio--we had $40 billion to 
secure our Southern border. Talk about a secure wall--security, making 
sure that illegal products and illegal people do not cross across that 
border--we had that.
  Thanks to the Republicans' failure to take action in this body, the 
House of Representatives, and simply pass the Senate bill, there is 
still no security on the Southern border. There are people, illegal 
drugs, and illegal products sneaking across every day because this body 
hasn't acted.
  Now, it is pie in the sky to think that some other country is going 
to pay for a wall to protect America. It isn't going to happen.

[[Page 2675]]

  What we did is we actually had fines for people who were here 
illegally. So people who are here illegally were actually the very ones 
who contributed money back into our coffers to help secure our Southern 
border, not to mention the additional economic benefit and taxes that 
they would pay going forward.
  It is time to act on immigration and secure our border.

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