Speech #1090131535

The Vermont Guard and others have been contributing to our .52. Pt. 6 May 15. 2006 national security since the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Later tonight. we expect the President will announce that after more than 5 years of failing to use the authority and funding Congress has provided to strengthen the Border Patrol and our border security. it has come to this. militarizing our southern border. Instead of proposing a budget with robust and complete funding for our Border Patrol. the President has focused on providing tax cuts for the wealthiest among us. Congress has had to step in time and again to create new Border Agent positions and direct that they be filled. Instead of urging his party to take early and decisive action to pass comprehensive immigration reform as he signaled he would in February 2001. the President began his second term campaigning to undercut the protections of our Social Security system that Americans oppose. While the President talks about the importance of our first responders. he has proposed 67 percent cuts in the grant program that supplies bulletproof vests to police officers. a program that has special resonance today when we meet to recognize the 157 officers we lost last year. Five years of the BushCheney administrations inaction and misplaced priorities have done nothing to improve our immigration situation. Its time for action. not more talk. The Senate just passed an emergency supplemental appropriations bill that includes nearly $2 billion for border security. These are important programs and we all support them. although a number of us believe the Democratic leader was right to offer them without taking the funds from our troops needs in Iraq. Border security alone is not enough to solve our immigration problems. We must pass a billand enact a lawthat will not only strengthen the security along our borders. but which will also encourage millions of people to come out of the shadows. When this is accomplished we will be more secure because we will know who is living and working in the United States. We must encourage the undocumented to come forward. undergo background checks. and pay taxes to earn a place on the path to citizenship. Just a few weeks ago I went to the White House with a bipartisan delegation of Senators to speak with the President. The need for a fair and comprehensive immigration bill was the consensus at that meeting and I believe the President was sincere when he told us that we had his support. I hope he will include that commitment in his statement to the nation tonight. If not. I trust that he will not wait to urge comprehensive immigration reform on those Republican Senators and the Republican House leadership who have yet to endorse our bipartisan comprehensive approach. Without Republican support and the Intervention of the President with the recalcitrant factions within his party. this effort is unlikely to be successful and the hopes of millions will be destroyed. Those who have peacefully demonstrated their dedication to justice and comprehensive immigration reform should not be relegated back into the shadows. The bill that won the bipartisan support of a majority of the Judiciary Committee was a compromise that contained the essential components that are required for comprehensive immigration reform. Before the last recess. I was willing to support a further compromise that incorporated the principles of the HagelMartinez bill because it was proposed by the majority leader as a "breakthrough" that would allow us to pass immigration reform. Immigration reform must be comprehensive if it is to lead to real security and real reform. Enforcementonly measures may sound tough. but they are insufficient. In these next 2 weeks. the Senate has an opportunity. and a responsibility. to pass a bill that addresses our broken system with comprehensive reform and puts the pieces in place to secure the Nation.