Speech #1130125352

Houston. and Dallas. We are going to work to protect as many families as we possibly can in the city of Chicago. and we are challenging you to keep up. But it is not just the major immigrant gateway cities where we need to organize to protect American families. As the President showed us yesterday. cities in the South like Nashville are leading the way to integrate and assimilate immigrant populations. The spirit of inclusion is of utmost importance as we help families come forward. register with the government. submit their paperwork and fingerprints. and get ready and into the system. I have told my House colleagues that I plan to be on the road a lot at the start of next year. traveling anywhere they need me to travel to help them conduct outreach and educate immigrant communities where they live. But it is not just the blue districts where we must support our immigrant communities and make sure they register. It will be necessary in red districts. too. States like South Carolina. Arizona. and Alabama. States that tried unsuccessfully to push their immigrant community farther underground. I will accept invitation from those States. too. to get the word out and educate the community in whatever way I can. I cant tell you how many people have come up to me and said: Congressman. I dont know if this will help my family. my dad. my mom. my neighbor. or my parishioner. but I hope they will not still have to live in fear of deportation. There are millions who will not be able to come forward and sign up because their cases cannot be reviewed under the Presidents guidelines. I tell them that what the President has announced is bold. it is broad. and it is extremely generous and helpful to the United States and our immigrants who have no other way to get in the system and on the books. but it cannot go as far and it does not replace the need for congressional action and legislation. But let us all remember that. by the end of this week. the clock is going to have run out on the best chance the House has had in decades to address immigration in a bipartisan and measured manner. The Senate did half the work by giving us more than a year to craft a bipartisan answer to their proposal. and we tried in many. many different ways to help this House rise to the occasion. to get out of the partisan ditch we have dug for ourselves and to put the country on a path to a safe. legal. orderly immigration system that protects the country and its people by welcoming its strivers and innovators from around the world. In the end. the House was asleep at the switch and let the country down. But even as I work with people across the country to protect as many American families as possible. I pledge to my colleagues in both parties in the most sincere way possible. please work with us to solve the immigration issue so that we can move forward as a nation.