Speech #1100054109

They are always in second place. They are the ones who have the least opportunity in this country to get a decent wage because their productivity goes up and their wage does not. As long as there are employers who are able to bring in across the bordera border that leaks like a sieve when it comes to illegal immigrantsas long as there are employers who are willing to put downward pressure on income for American workers. we are going to see people at the bottom of the economic ladder in this country continuing to struggle. That is a fact. The question is: Are we going to do something about it? When we deal with immigration. we ought to do 2 things. First and foremost. we ought to have a bill on the floor of the Senate that deals with border security. You cant deal with this issue without stopping illegal immigration. After all. we allow nearly a couple million people in this country every single year under a legal system. But if you dont stop at the border this unbelievable avalanche of illegal immigrants. you dont have any hope of dealing with this issue. First and foremost. you have to deal with border security. That ought to be the bill on the floor of the Senate. Then. after we have dealt with border security. we ought to deal with the question of the 12 million people who are here without legal authorization. I would be the first to join those who say lets be sensitive and lets be thoughtful about that. We are not going to round up 12 million people. There are some who have been here a long while and raised families here who have contributed to this country and we need to understand that. That is a different issue than the issue of border security. If we dont do border security and do it right. this is another way to say: Lets provide amnesty this time for 12 million people:. we did it for 3 million people 12 years ago. By the way. lets meet again. In fact. lets set a date right now. We will meet again in 10 years. if. in fact. those who wrote this bill were telling me what they believe 2 weeks ago and that is if you dont have a temporary worker program. you are going to have people come here illegally anyway. What that means is they dont have real border security or the least bit of confidence in the border security and their bill. That is a fact. There is a generous amount of discussion on the floor of this Senate about issues that are completely devoid of the wellbeing and the best interests of people in this country who work very hard and show very little for it.