[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 42, Number 23 (Monday, June 12, 2006)]
[Pages 1101-1104]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at the National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast

June 8, 2006

    Thank you very much, Luis. Thanks for your introduction. Right 
before we came in, I said, ``Luis, how's your school doing?'' See, I got 
to first know Luis when I went into inner-city Philadelphia, and he 
said, ``I'm starting a school.'' I said, ``How's your school doing?'' He 
said, ``Oh, pretty good.'' He said, ``Last year, we had 69 of the 70 
graduates from our school go to college.''
    Luis' school is doing better than pretty good; it's doing great. And 
we hold out hope to some kid, you know, that it's amazing what results 
we can achieve in a society when you raise the bar and you say, ``I have 
hope for you; I love you.'' It's amazing what our country can achieve. 
And so, Luis, thank you very much for your leadership, and thanks for 
having me here at the National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast.
    I think it is fitting we come together to recognize the importance 
of prayer and the importance of faith. You see, Americans are a people 
of faith. And for millions of our citizens, prayer is a daily part of 
life. In prayer we give thanks for the many blessings bestowed upon us 
by our Creator. We're blessed with courageous young men and women 
willing to defend us in time of war. We're blessed with a growing 
economy and material prosperity. And we're blessed by the diversity and 
creativity of millions of Hispanic Americans who enrich our great 
country.
    We've got plenty of blessings to give thanks for, and I'm blessed by 
the fact that millions of Americans, many of whom I've never seen face 
to face, pray for me and my family. It's one of the great blessings of 
America, to be President of a land of prayer. So this morning we come 
together to give our thanks for all our blessings, and recognize our 
Nation's continuing dependence on Divine Providence.
    I appreciate the sponsors of this breakfast. It's an important 
breakfast. This is a time for us to come together in common purpose to 
say, we're humble enough to be on bended knee. I appreciate my friend 
Attorney General Al Gonzales for joining us today. It's good to see you, 
mi general. The Director of the Peace Corps, Gaddi Vasquez--thank you 
for coming, Gaddi. Appreciate you being here. I see Senator Brownback--I 
think--yes, there he is. [Laughter] I know there are other Members of 
the Senate and the Congress who are here. Thank you all for coming 
today. It's really important that you're here. And I know the 
participants of this breakfast are glad you're here as well. I 
appreciate all the pastors and community leaders who are with us here 
today too. Thanks for coming.

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    In America, we are a people who profess many different faiths--with 
some of our citizens embracing no faith at all. In America, all are 
welcome. No citizen stands above another. In America, what unites us all 
is our dedication to freedom, and what brings us together today as men 
and women of faith is our belief that we're all equal and precious in 
the eyes of the Almighty.
    I like to tell people that my job as the President is to promote the 
fact that people are free to worship however you choose. See, that's 
what distinguishes us from the Taliban or Al Qaida--that we're free to 
worship and that we're all equally American. If you're a Christian, Jew, 
or Muslim, you're equally American. If you choose not to worship, you're 
equally American.
    But I've also said, from my personal perspective, I rely upon the 
Almighty for strength and comfort. The daily example of our Hispanic 
communities reminds us that strong faith and strong families can build a 
better future for all. We are more--we're a more hopeful society because 
men and women of Hispanic descent have put their faith and values into 
action.
    More than 200,000 Hispanic Americans serve with courage and honor in 
our military, some of whom are with us today. And we thank you for your 
service. Our Government is enriched and strengthened by the Latinos who 
serve here in Washington, DC. Across America, Hispanic leaders are 
serving on the frontlines of our armies of compassion, reaching out to 
change the lives of brothers and sisters in need, changing this great 
country one heart, one soul at a time.
    I like to remind people that government can hand out money, but 
government cannot put faith in a person's heart or a sense of purpose in 
a person's life. The best way to strengthen this country is for people 
such as yourself to continue to reach out to a neighbor in need, to 
listen to the universal call to love a neighbor just like you'd like to 
be loved yourself, to mentor to a child who needs to learn to read, to 
feed the hungry, to provide shelter for the homeless.
    And that's precisely what the leaders in this room do. You're 
inspired by prayer; you move to action. And America is better off when 
you go into our neighborhoods to reach out to those who hurt, to provide 
comfort for those who are sick, to say loud and clear to a brother and 
sister in need, ``We love you, and what can we do to help you?'' On 
behalf of a grateful nation, I thank you for being soldiers in the 
armies of compassion and for making America a hopeful place for more of 
our citizens.
    Speaking about a hopeful place, it is important for us in this 
important debate on immigration to remember that we've always been a 
hopeful nation. We are a land of immigrants. We're a country when 
people--we're a compassionate people. We're also a nation of laws, and 
being a nation of laws is not contradictory with being a compassionate 
country. We can enforce our laws. And we can treat people with respect 
and treat people with dignity and remember our heritage as a nation.
    The immigration system isn't working today, and it needs to be 
fixed. Our borders need to be secure. The American people from all walks 
of life expect the Government to secure our border, and we will do that.
    The system isn't fixed--the system is broken because we've got too 
many citizens, too many people here, too many people living in our 
country, living in the shadows of our society, beyond the reach of the 
law. That's not the America I know. The America I know is one in which 
people are treated with respect; the America I know is one in which when 
we see something broken, we fix it.
    So we'll secure our borders. We'll make sure people who hire people 
illegally pay a fine. But I want our fellow citizens to understand, you 
cannot secure our borders and you cannot be a compassionate society 
unless we provide a legal channel for people to work in America. We've 
got people coming across our borders who want to come and work and put 
food on the table for their families.
    When I was Governor of Texas, I reminded people, family values do 
not stop at the Rio Grande River. There are people who are coming to our 
country who are doing jobs Americans are not doing. And we need a legal 
and orderly system. If we want to enforce the border, we must have a 
system that says, ``You don't have to sneak across our border in order 
to find work. You don't need to risk your life.''

[[Page 1103]]

    So therefore, I strongly support and call upon the Congress to 
support the temporary-worker program that says, ``You can come into our 
country legally''--so that we can match willing worker with willing 
employer, doing jobs Americans are not doing--``and you can come for a 
period of time, and you can work, and then you can go home in an orderly 
way as well.''
    The other part of this debate that's really important is, what do we 
do with the folks that are here. See, there's a difference between those 
who have newly arrived that are doing work and those who have been here 
for quite a period of time. We've got people in this country who have 
paid their taxes, own a home, whose children are becoming valedictorians 
in high schools and colleges--people have been working hard.
    This debate is--there's a heated debate on this subject here in 
Washington. There are some who say, ``Well, best thing to do is just 
call them citizens right off the bat.'' I disagree with that. It's 
called amnesty. I don't think that would be fair to those who are 
legally here and are waiting in line to become a citizen. You probably 
know many such citizens. They're here legally, and they say, ``We want 
to be a citizen of your country,'' and we said, ``Fine, get in line and 
wait.'' Granting amnesty to those folks who have been here illegally 
would be unfair to those who have been here legally. We're a nation of 
laws, and we must uphold the laws.
    And then there are those here in Washington who say, ``Why don't we 
just find the folks and send them home.'' That isn't going to work. 
That's not a good idea. It sounds simple; it's impractical. There's a 
reasonable middle ground. There's a reasonable way to uphold our laws 
and treat people with respect, and that is this: If you've paid your 
taxes; you've been here for awhile; you can prove that you've been 
working; you've got a clean background--if you want to become a citizen, 
you pay a fine; you learn English; you learn the values and ideals of 
America that have made us one Nation under God. And then if you want to 
be a citizen, you can get in line--but in the back of the line, not the 
front of the line. You can wait in line like those who have been legally 
here in America. We don't have to choose between the extremes. There's a 
rational middle ground.
    I call upon Congress to enact commonsense immigration reform that 
enforces our border, that upholds our laws, that treats people with 
respect, and remembers the greatness of America is the fact that we've 
been able to come from different backgrounds, united under the common 
ideals of our country, and we live, one Nation under God.
    For centuries, people have come to this Nation because it is the 
land of promise. It's a place where people can realize their dreams. 
Yesterday I was in Omaha, Nebraska, at a Catholic Charities institute 
that was helping people learn English and learn the ideals of our 
country. I remember walking into a civics class, and the people were 
slightly startled to see the President walk in. I guess it's kind of the 
ultimate civics lesson. [Laughter] But I was proud to be there. I really 
was.
    And we sat down with a group of folks at a table to discuss 
entrepreneurship. And I went around the room asking, how long have you 
been here, and what are you doing? And I remember coming to the fellow, 
Pina--I think his name was Federico Pina. He said he started a couple 
years ago a automobile maintenance business. He said it was a dream of 
his to have his own business. I said, ``How's it going?'' He said, 
``Well, I've employed three people, and I own my own building.'' Here's 
a man who came to our country with a dream, and he's realizing that 
dream.
    And what our citizens have got to understand is that if you're able 
to maintain a sense of hope in the United States, and people work hard 
to realize that hope, it inspires our Nation as a whole. It lifts our 
spirit. It reinvigorates what America is all about.
    We have a great opportunity here in Washington to remember the 
traditions and history of the United States of America and to uplift 
that sense that America is a welcoming society, a country of law, but a 
country that also says, ``If you work hard and dream big dreams, you can 
realize your dreams.'' And many of those who are in our country who are 
working hard to realize their dreams also rely upon a higher power to 
help them realize

[[Page 1104]]

those dreams. And so I'm here to say thank you for your prayers, thank 
you for your example, thank you for helping your fellow citizens, and 
thank you for being great citizens of the United States of America.
    Que Dios les bendiga.

Note: The President spoke at 8:08 a.m. at the J.W. Marriott Hotel. In 
his remarks, he referred to Rev. Luis Cortes, Jr., president and chief 
executive officer, Esperanza USA, who introduced the President; and 
Salavador Pina, owner, Pina's Auto Repair in Omaha, NE.