Speech #1090131912

Mr. President. let me reiterate that the approach which was outlined by the President. which the bipartisan coalition of Senators has been working on. is a comprehensive approach. History has shown that when we take only one aspect of immigration reform. we fail. We failed in 1996. We failed at different efforts over the last 20 years. This time. we have to get it right. The President of the United States is right when he ultimately stated last night that we need comprehensive immigration reform. The proposed amendment by my colleague from the State of Georgia. and my good friend. essentially would take what are the 54 provisions of title I in this piece of legislation we are currently considering. going from section 101 all the way to section 154. It essentially would say that we are only going to be about a border enforcement bill without dealing with the other aspects of the legislation which is proposed. He would leave on the side what we do to bring the 11 million people who are here out of the shadows and get them registered in a system where we can monitor them. make sure if they are criminals they are deported. make sure if they are lawabiding citizens we put them in a kind of guest worker program that will work. and his provision essentially would gut this bill. The proposal of my good friend from Georgia is no different in most respects from what came out of the House of Representatives. It is a borderenforcementonly bill. It has been said time and time again that if we are going to address the issue of immigration reform. we need to do it in a comprehensive manner. We need to move with border enforcement. and our legislation does that. The Presidents statement last night that in the meantime we will go ahead and have the National Guard assist us in making sure we are securing our borders needs to be followed. Second. we need to make sure we are enforcing our immigration laws within the interior of our country. Our legislation proposes to do that. Third. we need to deal with the reality of the bill and the elephant in the roomthe 11 million people who are living here in the United States today.