It is hard to understand how the Trump administration could
consider spending so much on a Mexican wall that Texas Republican
Congressman Will Hurd, whose district covers 800 miles of the southwest
border, described as ``the most expensive and least effective way to
secure the border.''
I have come to this floor and voted for more money for walls and
obstacles and technology on that border than I ever imagined necessary,
in the hopes that we could finally put to rest this notion that we
could always do more. I wonder what image it creates of this
country, as we continue to talk about walls and banning travel. President Trump signed an Executive order on January 27 banning
immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries, and banning refugees
from those countries into the United States. As I go through the list
of the people who were affected by this, overwhelmingly they are women
and children, victims of war, terrorism, and persecution. Many of them
have been waiting literally for years to come to the United States. Since World War II, we have accepted so many refugees from Eastern
Europe, from Vietnam, from Cuba, as I mentioned earlier, and from
Yugoslavia. Over 100,000 Soviet Jews make their home in the United
States because we accepted them as refugees. Now President Trump has issued this Executive order that is being
challenged in court, and we will know within a matter of days whether
it will be stayed or continued, contested or if it will stand as law. Acting Attorney General Sally Yates said that she could not stand to
defend that order.
Keywords matched
immigration refugees