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[Pages S2897-S2898]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Immigration
Madam President, yesterday, the Trump administration released the
outlines of its plan for immigration reform. Truth be told, the
reported White House plan isn't a serious attempt at immigration
reform. If anything, it is a political document that is anti-
immigration reform. It repackages the same partisan, radical, anti-
immigrant policies that the administration has pushed for 2 years, all
of which have struggled to earn even a simple majority in the Senate,
let alone 60 votes. The hands of Stephen Miller are all over this plan,
and, of course, he had a watchful eye when other administration
officials came into the Republican lunch yesterday and talked about it.
The plan they put together holds immigration precisely at current
levels, meaning that for every new immigrant the plan potentially lets
in, it must kick one out. What kind of logic is that? What kind of
harebrained logic is that--the idea that for every immigrant you help
you have to hurt another? How arbitrary. How simplistic. How cruel. It
is like the Procrustean bed of immigration policy.
We need immigrants in America. Our labor force is declining. If you
go to businesses at the high end, the middle end, and the low end, they
say their greatest problem is a lack of workers. And we come up with a
policy like this? Make no mistake about it. It is cruel and inhumane,
but it also hurts our economy significantly. If you don't believe me,
talk to business leaders--any business leader you know.
Shockingly, the White House's immigration proposal fails to deal with
Dreamers or the 11 million undocumented immigrants now living in the
United States. The White House Press Secretary said Dreamers were
``left out on purpose.'' What does that say about the administration?
That goes to the root of what is wrong with this administration's
approach to immigration. If they think they can repeat what they failed
to do in the past, if they try to repeat it, saying ``OK, we will let
Dreamers in, but you accept a whole lot of bad things,'' which is why
immigration reform failed last time, last year, it ain't happening. It
ain't happening.
I would say two things. If you are going to do major immigration
reform through Congress, you are going to need bipartisan support. That
means you sit down and talk to Democrats. Four of us on the Democratic
side and four of us on the Republican side in the Gang of 8 spent hours
and weeks and months together and carved together a bill that got
overwhelming support from Democrats and Republicans in this Chamber and
was overwhelmingly supported by the American people and still is. I
think 68 percent still support comprehensive immigration reform.
But what does the White House do? Typically, they put together their
own plan--Stephen Miller, chief cook and bottle washer--and they say
that Democrats should support this. Ain't happening.
[[Page S2898]]
No consultation, no nothing--that is not the way you would go about
putting together a bill that you really want to pass. That is not the
way to go about things if you really want to solve our immigration
problem.
When Stephen Miller, one of the President's most virulently anti-
immigrant advisers, is in the room crafting an immigration plan, it is
a surefire failure. The fact that the President is announcing his bill
today provides a further bit of irony because, this afternoon, the new
Statue of Liberty museum opens. There is no greater symbol of
Americans' openness to immigration, of the greatness of America, than
the Statue of Liberty, which reaches out to people from every corner of
the globe. It towers over nearby Ellis Island, where generations of
hopeful strivers shuffled off boats into a new life and into a new
country and helped build America into the greatest country in the
world.
The White House immigration bill is an insult to our grand tradition
of welcoming immigrants from all walks of life, and it is an
appropriate metaphor that the President, today, is skipping the opening
of the new Statue of Liberty museum, even though he is in New York,
simply to go to political fundraisers. He skips real immigration reform
and offers a political document, and his trip to New York embodies that
ironically and metaphorically.