Immigration Policies

Floor Speech

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Mrs. BOXER. As a Senator from a Western State, as is my friend from Texas, I hope the American people understand the only thing the Republicans can do for whatever happens is blame President Obama: Oh, it rained today--it is President Obama.

How about the most obvious point--that the Republican House has failed to take up an immigration bill. The Senate did it in a bipartisan way. I applaud that bipartisanship. We did it a long time ago. The fact that the Republican House refuses to do it never passes the lips of my Republican friends in the Senate.

If we want to correct our immigration system, we have to sit down and do the hard work, as we did in the Senate. There is no question that we are facing a crisis with children from Central America running away from gangs, violence, rape, and deprivation. There is no doubt about it. The fact is we can deal with that, but we have to look at the laws, and that is why we want to set the rules in a bill.

There is lawlessness because we haven't updated our laws. For example, we have to make sure these short-term holding facilities have humane conditions. We can do that by law.

I want to say to my friends on the other side of the aisle, because it is cloudy one day, don't blame the President. Because it rains the next day, don't blame the President. If you wake up with a sore throat, don't blame the President. When you have trouble at the border, look at your own party, which has held up immigration reform. If we can do it over here, they can do it over there. The whole world is watching.

It is the same way with the veterans. I am hoping and praying that this new effort by Senator Sanders and Senator McCain will bear fruit in the Senate on a VA bill. But remember that the Republicans filibustered the last Bernie Sanders bill, which would have added clinics, which would have addressed the problems. They filibustered it.

Keep your ear open here. We have a chance to address so many issues.

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