Speech #1100069058

She is that close to us from a State park called Liberty State Park. an area I had the unique privilege of representing in the House of Representatives for 13 years and an area I still represent as the junior Senator from New Jersey. an area I have fond memories of because of the power of what it means. From that same park we can cross a bridge and go to Ellis Island. a place to which millions came to America to start a journey. a journey that contributed enormously to its great promise. enormously to the great country that it is today. I rise to discuss the recent cloture vote on immigration with that context in mind. The Senate had a historic opportunity to move forward today with comprehensive immigration reform that truly secured our borders. that realized the economic realities of our time and allowed people the opportunity to come out of the shadows into the light to earn their legalization. Unfortunately. the Senate decided to maintain the status quo. a status quo of broken borders. that does not meet our economic challenges. and that permits human exploitation and trafficking to take place. As someone who was part of the early negotiations back in March of this year on the question of immigration reform. I maintained then that the administration had leaped away from the largely bipartisan bill of last year that received 23 Republican votes and 39 Democratic votes to a much more conservative. much more impractical. and a much more partisan proposal this year. I was unable to join several of my colleagues in what has become known as the grand bargain. I acknowledge and appreciate several of those who advocated. because we were only on the floor on immigration reform. truly a critical issue for this country. as a result of their leadership. colleagues such as Senators KENNEDY and SALAZAR and GRAHAM. to name a few. who truly believed in that opportunity. at the same time. because of the leadership of the majority leader. who was willing to take on one of the most contentious issues. an issue that has been contentious throughout our countrys history. I have often remarked on the floor how on the question of immigration. it is interesting to have heard the language of those debates at different times in our history. Ben Franklin referred to no longer being able to accept those who were coming to our shores in negative terms. He was talking then about the Germans.