Speech #1130120377

I would venture to guess that there arent too many Members of Congress today who wish that Truman did not desegregate the military or had waited however long it took for Congress to evolve on the issue of segregation. He used his pen. and we celebrate his courage today. Here is one big difference between what Truman did and what President Obama is considering: President Truman never. ever asked Congress for legislation to desegregate the military. but President Obama. as he contemplates taking executive actions to keep families together and spare certain immigrants from deportation. knows that he did ask Congress repeat- gress to catch up to the executive edly to act. branch and to catch up to reality. [- 1015 He has been judicious in his use of executive actions throughout his Presidency. despite facing a Congress deeply entrenched. well. in being deeply entrenched. But he did ask this Congress to act. He worked with both parties in the Senate to help shepherd an immigration bill through in June of 2013. and for a year and a half. he has waited. patiently deferring the use of executive action as a last resort. He has held off again and again so that he could give the Republicans in the House of Representatives time to pass a bill. but they never did. never even considered one. When Republicans in the Senate said gay people cant be included under any circumstances. the Democrats didnt like it. It offended us. But we said. lets keep trying to find a compromise. When Republicans said they needed 30.000 more Border Patrol agents. the Democrats found a way to include that. too. in the Senate. When the House said it would not even consider a Senate bill. we Democrats. myself included. said. okay. lets work on a House bill. And when Republicans said immigrants could not get a special pathway to citizenship and that we would have to pass many separate bills piecemeal. Democrats and the President never left the negotiating table. When the Speaker of the House called the President last June to say that. despite all of the Speakers efforts and all of the Presidents efforts. the House was not even going to allow a vote. the President said he would do what he said he was going to do all along: use his pen under current law to help this Nation. Now the Speaker says that the President is picking a fight with Republicans over immigration and that he is vowing to fight back. which is the Speakers right. But I would advise the Speaker that his fight is not with the President or with Democrats. it is with the American people. It is a fight he will have to deport millions of U.S. citizens parents. the spouses. husbands. and wives of U.S. citizens. the parents of DREAMers who know no other country but this one. And that is who the Republican Party intends to fight. But lets be clear: nothing the President does will keep the House from working with the Senate to pass an immigration bill. Sitting at his desk in the White House. Harry Truman said. "The buck stops here." And he was right then. and he is just as right today about the current occupant of the White House.