Who is out working in the homes of America making sure that the children of America are being taken care of? Who is it out there in America today making sure that the nurses aides working in homes of Americans taking carry of our elderly are there? Many of them are the undocumented workers of America. Most of those people today live very much in the shadows of our society. They live in the shadows of our society. They often are subject to exploitation. Often when they come from whatever country. they are subject to the kind of exploitation that is very unAmerican. What we are trying to do is move our immigration system from a system that does not work. from a system that is a system of lawlessness. of broken borders. to a system that is a lawful and orderly program for immigration in our country. At the end of the day. my hope is as we debate the issues on amendments the rest of the week. that we in this Chamber. in this Senate. will move forward and we will say we are going to move with an immigration reform legislation that will address the issues of national security. that will address the economic security issues here in our country. that realize the human and moral issues that are very much at stake. Let me conclude. before I yield to my colleague from Arizona. by reminding people about the moral issues which are very much at the heart of this debate issue. Last year when we opened the debate on immigration reform in the Senate. Senator McCAIN. who has been an advocate for comprehensive immigration reform. talked about the number of people who had died in the desert in his State. He said at the time there had been 400 people who died in 2004. 1 believe 600 people died in 2006. He said: These are not just statistics. those are people who were found dead in the desert. If I remember correctly. he talked about a young mother who was found dead in the desert holding her child. who also died. in her arms. In my own church in the State of Colorado. our archbishop. Archbishop Chaput. has often spoken out about the moral issues which are at stake with respect to the immigration debate. He wrote a column that was widely published in the Catholic Register last year which he titled "Dying to Live." What he meant to say in that title. what he said in his article. is that people who are coming here to live the American dream were actually dying in our deserts as they came here to live the American dream. It seems to me what we can do as a Senate. working with the House of Representatives. working with the President. is come up with a system of law and order. that will give people an understanding of how our immigration system works. that will make sure our borders are secure. that will make sure we enforce our laws in the United States of America. and that will make sure we end the immorality that has been very much a part of our system of lawlessness and chaos we have made with immigration in our country. I hope my Democratic and Republican colleagues will help us move forward as we address amendments through the rest of the week and to produce legislation that we can move forward to the House of Representatives. I yield the floor.
Keywords matched
immigration undocumented