Speech #1090118502

It is also going to take the next 2 or 3 weeks in the Senate of human willpower built around a spirit that is American. that recognizes our country was built by people such as those I have described. And there happen to be not as many named Domenici as there were back then. more are named Martinez than Domenici today. and Salazar. and Chavez. and many of their first names are not like mine. which was Pietro. but they are Enrique and Carlos. I think there is a willingness to work these issues of border security and immigration reform out. I want to suggest a couple of items. I believe the American people are going to understand before we are finished that we are going to do our very best to make the border such that it will not be penetrated every day by thousands of people who will be violating this new law we pass. I believe that is going to happen. I do believe. however. one thing that has not been discussed enough is that we are going to have to get much more cooperation from Mexico to get that done. and I would like my friend Senator MARTINEZ. who is here. to talk about that when he makes his comments. The Mexican government and our Government must enter into an agreement. an accord. when this bill is finished that they are going to jointly see that our border security provisions get enforced. I have a provision requiring that in a bill that I introduced called the WISH Act. It has provisions saying that before the bill comes into force as far as benefits to Mexico. the Presidents of the two countries must enter into an agreement regarding enforcing our drug laws. human smuggling laws. and immigration laws. and also where Mexico will encourage their residents who live here to come forward and be recognized under the law. And. fellow Americans. what we put on paper and make our law is going to have to be significantly enticing enough for these millions of undocumented workers. some of whom have been living here a long time. to risk putting up their hands and saying: I will exchange the way I am living now for this new promise. this new proposal. It better be good enough or they will continue living the way they are. So it has to have something in it that they want. But it also has to say to the American people: We have this situation under control. it is not going to continue on after we pass this bill. And that gets back to the 10 million to 15 million undocumented workers who live here. We have called them all kinds of things. Lets just say the 10 million to 15 million aliens who live in the United States who are not citizens of the United States. some of whom came here totally illegally. some of whom came here under temporary permits--that group of human beings has to be addressed by this legislation in a humane way.