Let me tell
you what we should do. We should listen to the American people. We
should do what they want us to do, which is to take care of the DACA
population, rebuild the military, and start fixing the broken
immigration system. If we just did what 70 percent of the American people want us to do,
we would have figured this out. As to the 30 percent, you have your
right to think what you want. Along with other Republicans, I have been
called every name under the Sun, and I am still standing. There are
people who will never let us get to yes because they have an irrational
view of what it takes to fix this system. There are voices in the White House that we all know very well that
have been telling us for years: You have too much legal immigration,
and everything is amnesty. Don't listen to that voice or those voices
because if you do, you are going to be right where Obama and Bush were. They tried, and they failed. We don't have the luxury of failing anymore. March 5 will be here
before you know it. I am not going to sit on the sidelines and watch
these young DACA recipients have their lives turned upside down,
because we are better than that as a nation. Equally but more
importantly, I am not going to go any longer in allowing sequestration
to destroy the military at a time we need it the most. Look through the eyes of a soldier, and you will find out what to do
on the military. Look through the eyes of a DACA recipient, and you
will find out what to do there. Don't be blinded by loud voices and
hateful people. We owe it to this great Nation to fix hard problems. We owe it to
those who are in the fight to give them the equipment they need to win
a war we can't afford to lose. We owe it to the families of military
members to have more certainty, not to be deployed so much. We owe it
to ourselves to get these DACA kids right with the law because they
will add value to our country. To my Democratic colleagues, now is the time. Give us the space. To my Republican colleagues, this is a defining moment for our party. Are we going to continue to be the party that can't get to yes? Are we
going to continue to be the party that always has a reason not to do
DACA, or are we going to be the party that finally realizes that these
young men and women add value to our country and we welcome them with
open arms and that they have to work to stay and they will? To the defense hawks, the only way you are going to get your money is
to deal with immigration rationally. Senator Durbin, we don't agree on a lot. I bet if you looked at our
votes, we are 90 percent one way versus the other. But for 10 years,
you have been a very good partner on comprehensive immigration reform. You have given. You have made people mad on your side.
Keywords matched
immigration DACA