Speech #CREC-2018-01-17-pt1-PgS256-3_t13

They contributed mightily to me, to my brother, and to my sister. When I hear the stories that I hear from my colleagues tonight, what it makes me realize is that my family's story is not unique, but it is what makes America unique because you can't tell my family's story in almost any other country but this country. I had the chance, when I was first in this job, to go to Fort Carson in Colorado to a naturalization ceremony there. There were 30 people from every corner of the globe in our uniform because they were fighting for America, but they weren't yet citizens. They took the oath to that flag, and I used to carry around the list of the countries they came from because out of 30, only 2 came from the same country. Twenty eight came from places all over the Earth, and I sat there thinking to myself how lucky we are to live in a place where that could be true. It is not true in any other country on the planet. I want my children to grow up in the country I grew up in--a country that is a nation of immigrants committed to the rule of law. That is why I was grateful to have the chance to be part of the Gang of 8 that negotiated the comprehensive immigration bill. I was sorry when that didn't ever get a vote in the House, because I think it would have passed had it been voted on in the House. That bill, which contained $40 billion for border security, would be well on its way to implementation today, and I think our political debate as a country would be very different than the political debate we have been having now, which would be good for our country and remind us of the values that we share. Unfortunately, we are not in that position today, and we are left with a problem, trying to deal with the fact that the Executive order that President Obama wrote for the DACA population has been set aside by this President, who then said: Congress needs to figure out what to do about it. That is why we are here tonight. We have had a negotiation now for more than 4 months with what has evolved into the Gang of 6, and I am very pleased that in that effort we were joined by the Presiding Officer, who is my colleague from Colorado.