COTTON. Mr. President, I want to associate myself with much of
what my Republican colleagues have said about the immigration bill we
are working on--or perhaps I should say, to be more accurate, the
immigration bill we should be working on, because the Democrats at this
point simply will not take yes for an answer. We are offering a package
that they should support, and in return, they are threatening to shut
down the government. So let me just dispense off the top with their argument, such as it
is, about the so-called DACA recipients. No one is eager to deport 690,000 illegal immigrants who are here
mostly through no fault of their own. They were left in legal limbo by
President Obama, and everyone wants to find a good, durable, long-term
solution. But if we are going to give legal status to these illegal immigrants
in their twenties and their thirties, we have to recognize that there
are going to be negative side effects. First, we are going to encourage parents from around the world who
live in poverty and oppression and war to illegally immigrate to our
country with small children. What could be more dangerous and even
immoral than that? Second, we are going to create a whole new category of Americans who
could get legal status for their extended family, to include the very
parents who brought them here in violation of our laws.
Keywords matched
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