Speech #1090179806

Mr. President. this year the Senate passed a comprehensive immigration bill. Senators and staff worked tirelessly to negotiate and pass that bill. which was a comprehensive. fair solution that respected human dignity. and recognized the need for strong border security. The response we got from the majority in the House of Representatives was obstruction. Rather than proceed to a conference to try to hammer out a meaningful solution. the House leadership ignored our calls to proceed and spent the month of August holding sham hearings on the Senates bill meant only to undermine the work we completed and inflame antiimmigrant passions. Now the House leadership. enabled by the majority leader. asks us to forget all about the efforts we made and take up and pass a narrow. unbalanced bill to help their election chances. If there is any doubt that this effort by the majority leader is political. consider the timing of this bill. On September 21st of this year. just as the majority leader brought this bill to the floor. the Department of Homeland Security announced the beginning of its Secure Border Initiative with the award of a multiyear. billiondollar contract to the Boeing Corporation to begin work on a stateoftheart border security system. Yet. at the same time the Department of Homeland Security tries to secure the border with 21st Century technology. the Senate majority seeks to duplicate and confuse those efforts with a plan straight out of the 18th century. Despite the numerous problems in that agency. it is still a better idea to let them proceed with the Secure Border Initiative than it is to throw even more taxpayer money at a redundant and inferior project. The majority leader seeks to pass this legislationwith little debate and no amendments--to pander to the antiimmigration crowd. I understand that the Republican majority wants to leave this session with something they can take with them and hold up as a Republican victory for national security. but true security means more than hiding behind walls. We should be unwilling to sacrifice our chances at comprehensive reform to appease the isolationist faction in this country.