Immigration Reform

Floor Speech

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise to address two issues this morning, but starting with the issue that is confronting us here on the Senate floor. It is a great challenge, but it is also a great opportunity; that is, immigration. The opportunity we have to come together in the Senate, Democrats and Republicans, is to fix a broken system and to help our economy.

Along the way, as we are working through the immigration bill over the next days and weeks, I think we can not only get this issue on the right track substantively but we can also send a very strong message to the American people that on major consequential issues for the American people we can come together, work together, and get a good result for them. I think that in and of itself is worthy of a lot of attention.

SYRIA

But even as we are working on immigration, of course we have to concern ourselves with a whole range of other issues. One I will speak to briefly this morning is the issue of our policies as they relate to Syria. We are confronted this morning with a headline in the Washington Post. I will hold it up. It reads: ``Iran On Ascent As Syria Churns.'' The first page of the Post. I will read the first paragraph of this story:

As fighters with Lebanon's Hezbollah movement wage the battles that are helping Syria's regime survive, their chief sponsor, Iran, is emerging as the biggest victor in the wider regional struggle for influence that the Syrian conflict has become.

There is one of the reasons why I and others, for not just weeks but months now, have been urging the administration and the Congress to come together on a more focused and more effective strategy as it relates to Syria. We had a good bipartisan effort in the Foreign Relations Committee. We were able to pass out of the committee legislation that dealt with Syria that would provide a whole range of supports and efforts that will lead to a better result in Syria.

I know the White House has spent the last couple of weeks and will be spending even more time today to come up with a policy that makes sense. But I do not think we can any longer pretend this issue is not an issue that concerns our national security, because every day the Iranian regime and Hezbollah plot against us. Anything that results in the regime in Iran being strengthened, as the Washington Post points to today in this story, is bad for our national security.

We have a lot of work to do. Again, this should be bipartisan. But the administration needs to focus on Syria and come to a conclusion about the way forward that will be in the best interests of our national security and also in the best interests of the people of Syria who are fighting valiantly against the Asad regime.

We all agree the Asad regime should not be in power, but we can't just wish that. We will have to take the steps that will lead to that result in a concerted fashion with allies in the region.

I ask unanimous consent the story entitled ``Iran on ascent as Syria churns'' from the Washington Post this morning be made part of the Record.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source