senate.gov
By Senator Jeff Sessions
The American people have a right to be nervous. They have a right to be cynical about how we in Congress have handled immigration. We have consistently protested that we want a lawful system of immigration. People have run for President for the last 25 years or last 50 years saying they believed in a lawful system of immigration, but, in fact, they don't do anything about it. They never take the steps necessary to make the system lawful, to make it principled, and to do what it absolutely must do as a matter of national priority; that is, the bill should serve our national interests. Think about that simple concept. Any legislation we pass should be a product that serves our national interest, not special interests.
One of the things that has worried me about my colleagues who have been having these secret meetings is that there is some talk about them having stakeholders, I believe Senator Kennedy said that. I think Secretary Gutierrez from the White House, Secretary of Commerce, said interest groups. I don't know whom they pretend to be meeting with and deciding these issues, but I will tell you who was not in those meetings, and that was the American people. Not only were we not there, we were excluded from those meetings, and we had not been informed how those decisions were reached or what is in the bill--until perhaps Saturday morning.
Posted by tyne at May 30, 2007