First. I wish to remind the Senate how far along this road we have come. This debate on immigration reform is not one that started on this Monday. It is indeed a debate the Senate started over a year and a half ago. and it started in the Judiciary Committee. It then went through nearly a month of debate. with many amendments and changes. and ultimately a bill that was passed out of the Senate. this comprehensive immigration reform. by a vote. as I recall. of 64 Senators voting to move that bill forward. Now. that was a year ago. We are now a year ahead. and what has happened during this past year is that there have been continuing conversations about how we might be able to create an immigration reform system that works for our country. After many hundreds. perhaps thousands. of hours of meetings. which included the White House and included the leading members of many of the committees in the Senate. there was a bill that was crafted. It may be an imperfect bill. but part of what is happening today is that. as amendments have been crafted and introduced. there is an effort to make the legislation better. At the end of the day. I wish to give thanks to all those Members of the Senate and members of the Presidents Cabinet. and the President himself. for what they have done in moving this immigration debate forward. I will also add that our majority leader. Senator REID. long ago gave warning to the Members of the Senate that we were going to move forward to immigration. This was not a surprise to the Members of the Senate. Months ago. Senator REID said we have to deal with this most fundamental national security problem of our time. and what I will do is I will reserve time at the end of May so we can deal with immigration reform. Well. he did that. and he kept everybodys feet to the fire. At the beginning of this week.
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