Immigration Reform

Floor Speech

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I think it is appropriate that I say just a word or two about the eight Senators who have worked to get us to the point where we are now. I was thinking this morning that this is really America at its best. Each one of those eight Senators does not know, as I do not know, whether this work they have done is going to help them or hurt them in their political careers. But this is one of those opportunities where I am confident that they believe they are doing it for the right reasons no matter what the political consequences are.

We have a broken immigration system. They have led us to a path to be able to fix it--but for them we would continue with this broken immigration system--which, as we know now from the reports we got from the Congressional Budget Office, is going to help tremendously reduce our deficit for the next two decades by $1 trillion--$1 trillion.

When people came before this legislation and said: We have to do this legislation because it is good for the security of this Nation and good for the economy, people really did not know if they were speaking the truth. Well, we know now. That is absolutely true. It improves the security. We see what is going to happen with the border. We are going to have 40,000 Border Patrol agents. We are going to have all methods to make sure that border is secure and the northern border is secure. In addition to that, it is going to improve our economy significantly.

I applaud and congratulate those eight Senators for the remarkably good work they have done.

It was 6 a.m. when immigration officials came to take Maria Espinoza's husband away in handcuffs. She walked out the front door to hand her husband his lunch money and watched as he was loaded in a truck and carted to an immigration detention center. That is a fancy word for a jail. He was not a criminal. He works hard, pays his taxes, and he is a good father and a good husband. But Jorge is in the country without the proper immigration paperwork, so he spent a month in this jail. Maria, who is also an undocumented immigrant, was also set to be deported but was able to remain at home with her teenage daughter, who is, by the way, a U.S. citizen. Maria and Jorge were basically able to secure a stay of deportation, but they live with the fear that they will be torn away from their family and deported to a country they have not set foot in in 25 years.

They came from Mexico. They have made their home in Las Vegas. They have been there for 25 years--almost as long as they have been married. In Nevada, Maria and Jorge have a large and vibrant family. They have two daughters and a son, and now they have an 8-month-old grandson as well. They have loving friends and a tight-knit community. In Mexico, the country where they were born, they do not know a single soul except a really old relative.

Because Maria and Jorge are undocumented immigrants, they live with the fear every minute of every day--and sometimes as they awaken at night--that they will have to leave the country they love, the United States. Maria lives with the fear that she will have to say goodbye to their children and her grandson. Here is what she said yesterday:

When you lose your mother or your father, you are an orphan. When you lose your husband, you are a widow. What do they call it when you lose a child, when you are separated from a child? There is no name for that.

Maria and Jorge's family members are all legally present in the United States. Maria and Jorge's youngest daughter, a freshman in college, was born in the United States. So was their grandson.

A directive issued last year by President Obama allowed their two oldest children, both of whom are married to U.S. citizens, to obtain their legal residency. The President's directive suspended deportation for 800,000 DREAMers--young people brought to America illegally when they were children and in many instances just babies. But millions of family members of those young DREAMers do not qualify for legal status or an earned pathway to citizenship. Millions of mixed-status families worry every day that a loved one--a parent, a spouse, a sibling--will be torn away from them at any time. That is why it is crucial that Congress pass this bipartisan legislation.

This is reform legislation that protects and preserves families. We need to do it right now. I am happy the Senate will pass such a bill this week. A permanent, commonsense solution to our dysfunctional system is really in sight. It is my hope our colleagues in the House will follow the Senate's lead and work to pass bipartisan reform and do it now because whether we serve in the House or Senate, whether we hail from red States or blue States, we should all be able to agree that the current system is broken. We should all be able to agree that congressional action is necessary.

I have seen firsthand the devastation caused by our broken system. But each time I have an opportunity to speak with Nevadans about the urgent need for action on immigration, I am reminded that this issue is personal to them also. It is personal, as I have indicated, to me, but it is just as personal to Maria and Jorge. It is personal to 11 million other undocumented immigrants and tens of millions of their U.S. citizen relatives, whose eyes are turned toward Washington and whose hearts are filled with hope.

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