Immigration Reform

Floor Speech

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I am glad I got to the floor to listen to my friend, the Senator from Illinois, the majority whip, make his remarks. It reminds me of his great passion and commitment to the DREAMers and to the cause of repairing our broken immigration system.

While he and I differ on the details, and the feasibility of passing comprehensive immigration reform, we have been trying to do this for--laboring with this for at least the 10 or 11 years that I have been here. We have been unsuccessful. What does that tell us? It tells us we need to try something different. We need to break this down into smaller pieces. In the House, Speaker Boehner I know has made this pledge to the President and others. I know Senator McConnell, the new incoming majority leader, believes immigration reform is important and we ought to use our best efforts to make progress.

But unfortunately the message the President of the United States has sent is he is giving up. To listen to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who support this unprecedented Executive action by the President that is going to be announced on Friday, they have given up. They have given up.

What the Senator from Illinois did not say is even the President's deferred action order involving these young people--by the way, I support providing them an opportunity to become American citizens and productive members of society. I think we are all better off--these young people who are not culpable, they did not commit any offense or crime, they came with their parents, and we are much better off. They are much better off. Their families are much better off.

Our country is better off if we find a solution--which I am confident we could do. But the message the President has given and our Democratic friends have given is: We give up. We are not going to do our job as legislators.

We are going to let the President, with the stroke of a pen, provide an Executive amnesty to millions of people and create an awful lot of harm in the process.

The tragedy is we are a nation of immigrants and proud of it. Our rich, diverse heritage would not have been the same without the contribution of immigrants who have come from around the world, contributions that have become part of the very fabric of our lives and our society.

Millions of foreign-born immigrants who have come to the United States legally have become successful, patriotic citizens of the United States. We have been the beneficiary because of the opportunities that our Nation provides that nowhere else on Earth provides, and that is the opportunity to pursue the American dream.

But part of what makes the American dream possible is the rule of law. It is our Constitution. It is not Presidents getting frustrated with Congress, issuing an Executive order, defying the Constitution, and ignoring his oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States. That undermines the American Dream.

So I listened to my colleague and friend from Illinois saying that this is a question about: Are immigrants good for America or not?

I stipulate they are good for America. As a matter of fact, my ancestors weren't born in the United States. We all came from somewhere else.

This is really, at bottom, whether the President, when he put his hand on the Bible and he took a sacred oath to uphold and defend the Constitution and the laws of the United States, whether he really meant it or whether he had his fingers crossed behind his back.

Like many of my colleagues, I have had the privilege of participating in naturalization ceremonies all across my State, where I have seen individuals from Vietnam, India, Mexico, and from countries all around the world take the oath of allegiance to the United States of America. It is an inspiring and heartwarming occasion and, of course, many of them have taken that oath while wearing the uniform of the U.S. military, where they have served with honor and dignity as they await approval of their citizenship.

One of the first bills I passed when I came to the Senate was with Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, the liberal lion of the Senate. What we did is we passed a simple piece of legislation that expedited the process whereby immigrants who serve in the military can become American citizens. That was one of the first bills I was a part of that passed when I came to the Senate.

Of course, these naturalization ceremonies represent a proud day, not only for these new Americans but for all Americans and for our Nation as a whole, where we welcome new citizens with open arms to this country to find a better life for themselves, for their family and, in the process, for all of us.

But the President has now threatened--and he is the one who has made the threat: If you don't do it on my timetable, according to the terms I prefer, I am going to do it myself.

He said that time and time again. There is no President who has abused the authority to issue Executive orders more than the current occupant of the White House. All Presidents have issued Executive orders since President George Washington, but no one has held Congress and the Constitution in such contempt that they feel as if Congress is irrelevant--except when I need them to appropriate money or to help them serve my purposes.

But the President is going to take steps in the coming days that would send men and women--such as those I have mentioned--who came, playing by the rules, pursuing legal immigration to the United States. He is going to basically tell those folks: Get to the back of the line.

We are the most generous country in the world when it comes to naturalization--almost 1 million people a year. But the President is going to tell the people who have been waiting patiently in line, playing by the rules: Get in the back of the line. I am going to put millions of people ahead of you in front of the line who have not played by the rules.

Well, it is a sure way to send a message to the rest of the world that our country does not enforce its own laws, which is an essential part of who we are, and where everybody, from the humblest to the most exalted in our country, are all bound by the same laws, whether you are President of the United States or whether you are one of these new Americans who takes an oath to uphold and defend the laws and the Constitution of the United States.

I have to say, because I come from a big State that sees disproportionate negative consequences of illegal immigration, this is a sure way to continue to reward the criminal organizations that get rich on the status quo. The 60,000 unaccompanied children that came from Central America that were part of this humanitarian crisis we had last summer continue to come, and the criminal organizations that continue to profit from this money-making operation are continuing to get rich. It encourages children to take a perilous journey, for many of whom it ends in kidnapping, sexual assault or death to get to the U.S. border.

The worst part is we just had a national election, as we do every 2 years. I have been in Congress when my side of the aisle wins elections, and we have had a pretty good election. I have been here when we lost, as we did in 2008. But that doesn't mean we can give up on our job, which is to legislate.

One of the saddest parts about what the President is going to do is he will poison the well and make it much harder, if not impossible, for us to do the sorts of things for which a bipartisan, bicameral commitment exists to do, which is to make serious progress on our broken immigration system. I am not sure whether we will be able to do as much as I would like to do or the Senator from Illinois would like to do, but we all know the status quo is unacceptable.

The President seems intent on provoking a constitutional crisis by adopting policies that he previously said were illegal. He said he didn't have the authority to do it time and time again. Now he has totally done a flip-flop of 180 degrees saying: I have discovered I now do have the authority. I was wrong when I said I didn't have the authority to do it. He seems intent on exacerbating partisan polarization and weakening democratic accountability.

We are the ones who are responsible for making these decisions, and we are accountable to our electorate, our voters. Unfortunately, it is going to make it much harder for us to make necessary progress on a number of different matters next year.

The President says we haven't acted on his timetable in a way that he prefers, so he is going to go it alone. But just think for a moment about the larger implications of that argument.

Every President in history has clashed with Congress. That is part of what we do. That is what the separation of powers is all about. It forces us to build consensus as opposed to pursuing our own agendas, and that is important. That is essential. But failing to get your way in Congress doesn't mean the President can simply override Congress with the stroke of his pen.

There is broad support for passing a series of commonsense immigration reform bills. I know the Speaker has said that publicly. The majority leader in the House, Congressman McCarthy, I believe, believes that, and I certainly do. The incoming majority leader, Senator McConnell, has told me he does as well. But what there is no support for, other than purely partisan support, is what the President is proposing to do.

So in other words, if the President were willing to negotiate in good faith--and, yes, when your proposal is that I want everything I want or I want nothing, you frequently get nothing. You always get nothing because nobody gets everything they want, and it requires genuine compromise and it requires hard work. Nothing sustainable or meaningful will ever be done in this place without bipartisan support. We have learned that lesson time and time again.

But the President seems absolutely allergic--allergic--to good-faith negotiating and genuine compromise. In fact, I am not even sure he likes the job he ran so hard to get elected to, because that is part of his job--to work with Congress in a bipartisan way to achieve genuine consensus and compromise where possible.

He is claiming now, apparently, on Friday in Las Vegas, a right that no other President has claimed and, in fact, that he said he did not have, time and time again.

I know the White House Counsel's office is preparing a convoluted legal case to justify the President's actions. Most Americans will correctly view this as an abuse of power.

Earlier, I asked the President to think about the human costs of encouraging another massive wave of illegal immigration. My State is disproportionately affected, given our 1,200-mile common border with Mexico. It is not only people coming from Mexico; it is from Central America and around the world. But I urged him to think about all the men, women, and children from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador who have suffered terrible violence and, indeed, some have died during their long journey through Mexico from Central America.

I urged him to think again about whether what he is doing inadvertently rewards and helps fund the criminal organizations that are creating such havoc in Mexico and in parts of Central America.

I can only hope the President will reconsider. I certainly am not optimistic because now the White House is leaking press reports about this announcement on Friday. But I believe his unilateral action, which is unconstitutional and illegal, will deeply harm our prospects for immigration reform. It will be deeply harmful to our Nation's tradition of the rule of law and deeply harmful to the future of our democracy.

Many Democrats believe, as I do, that this is a mistake. The President should heed their advice, stop making threats, and respect the Constitution.

I yield the floor.

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