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MCCAIN STATEMENT ON PASSAGE OF THE COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM ACT OF 2006
May 25, 2006
Washington D.C. - Today, U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) delivered the following statement on the floor of the U.S. Senate regarding the final passage of the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006:Mr. President, after several weeks of extensive debate and consideration of numerous and complicated amendments, the Senate is about to move to final passage on S. 2611, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act. This legislation addresses comprehensively one of the most important and complex issues facing our country. Our nation's immigration system is broken. I don't think there was one member of the United States Senate to argue that fact. Without enactment of comprehensive immigration reform as provided for under this bill, our nation's security will remain vulnerable. That is why we must pass this bill, and reach a meaningful final product through conference deliberations. Our failure to produce a final comprehensive measure is an unacceptable proposition.
I want to first thank the President for his leadership on this issue. The President's speech to the Nation last week, which I thought was inspired, was greeted by 74 percent of the American people overnight favorably, including his absolute determination to see the Congress of the United States send him a bill which has a comprehensive approach to this issue which we as a Congress and a Federal Government have ignored for too long.
I also commend the Senate Leadership on both sides of the aisle for their efforts to ensure that the Senate addressed this important issue and gave us more than adequate time for a thorough debate. This is a proud moment for the United States Senate, as we have conducted good work and returned to orderly traditions of the legislative process as envisioned by our founding fathers.
I also want to again recognize Chairman Specter for his work in leading us to this point in the legislative process. He and all of the members of the Judiciary Committee deserve our appreciation for the considerable effort they have taken on this issue during this Congress.
And of course, I commend Senator Kennedy, who is perhaps the leading expert on this difficult issue. He and I spent many months working to develop a comprehensive, reasonable, workable legislative proposal, much of which is contained in the bill before us. I also want to thank Senators Brownback, Lieberman, Graham, Salazar, Martinez, Obama, and Dewine for their shared commitment to this issue, and working to ensure this bill moved successfully intact through the legislative process.
Mr. President, throughout this debate, we were reminded that immigration is a national security issue, and it is. It is also a matter of life and death for many living along the border. We have hundreds of people flowing across our borders every day, coming here only in search of better lives for themselves and their families. They come to fill the vacant jobs at businesses and farms that struggle with real labor shortages that impact negatively our economy.
This Nation is calling for our borders to be secured and for an overhaul of our immigration system, and that it be done in a humane and comprehensive fashion. Vote after vote after vote taken in this body reaffirms that fact.
The new policies as provided for under this legislation will increase border security and provide for a new, temporary worker program to enable foreign workers to work legally in this country when there are jobs that American workers won't fill. And, it will acknowledge and address in a humanitarian and compassionate way the current undocumented population
As many have noted, Mr. President, there are over 11 million people in America today who came here illegally. They live in our cities and towns and rural communities. They harvest our crops, tend our gardens, work in our restaurants and clean our houses. They came, as others before them came, to grasp the lowest rung of the American ladder of opportunity, to work the jobs others won't, and by virtue of their own industry and dreams, to rise and build better lives for their families and a better America.
Some Americans believe we must find all these millions, round them up and send them back to the countries they came from. I don't know how you do that. And I don't know why you would want to.
Yes, in this post 9/11 era, America must enforce its borders. There are people who wish to come here to do us harm, and we must vigilantly guard against them, spend whatever it takes, devote as much manpower to the task as necessary. But we must also find some way to separate those who have come here for the same reasons every immigrant has come here from those who are driven here by their hate for us and our ideals. We must concentrate our resources on the latter and persuade the former to come out from the shadows. We won't be able to persuade them if all we offer is a guarded escort back to the place of hopelessness and injustice that they had fled.
Why not say to those undocumented workers who are working the jobs that the rest of us refuse, come out from the shadows, earn your citizenship in this country. You broke the law to come here, so you must go to the back of the line, pay a fine, stay employed, learn our language, pay your taxes, obey our laws, and earn the right to be an American.
Riayen Tejada immigrated to New York from the Dominican Republic. He came with two dreams, he said, to become an American citizen and to serve in the United States Marine Corps. He willingly accepted the obligations of American citizenship before he possessed all the rights of an American. Staff Sergeant Tejada, from Washington Heights by way of the Dominican Republic, the father of two young daughters, died in an ambush in Baghdad on May 14, 2004. He had never fulfilled his first dream to become a naturalized American citizen. But he loved this country so much that he gave his life to defend her. Right now, at this very moment, there are fighting for us in Iraq and Afghanistan, soldiers whose parents are not yet American citizens but who have dreamed the dream that their sons and daughters risk their lives to defend. They should make us proud to be Americans.
These people have come for the same reason immigrants have always come to America. They came to grasp the lowest rung of the ladder, and they intend to rise. Let them rise. Let them rise. We will be better for it. For America, blessed, bountiful, beautiful America - is still the land of hope and opportunity - the land of the immigrant's dreams. Long may she remain so.
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