Broader Options for Americans Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I come to the floor to talk about an issue that has occupied this floor, this body, this Congress for some time now: the challenge of how to fix our broken immigration system. As many of us have debated and talked and tried to find common ground and a bipartisan path forward, I wanted to speak about why I have optimism that we can find a bipartisan solution to this challenge.

I know I am not alone in my optimism about this. One of my very dearest friends in the Senate, someone I respect and admire deeply, someone who knows more about sacrifice and patriotism than anyone I have ever met, believes the same thing. This friend of mine is not just any Senator. It is Mr. John McCain, the senior Senator from Arizona, who also happens to be an American hero and someone who has literally fought for this country and its values throughout his entire life. He is someone whom our mutual friend, former Vice President Joe Biden, calls a ``man of . . . deep conviction, and unmatched character.''

John McCain is exactly the person the Senate and this country needs in times like this, when the way forward is unclear, when our disagreements seem too wide, when our instincts are to argue rather than listen. This Chamber and this country need someone who is able to show us a way forward and lead us out of our stubborn, sometimes too partisan fights--someone like Senator McCain.

As this debate has progressed in recent days, I have been reminded of something I heard Senator McCain say late last year when he accepted the Liberty Medal from the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. When speaking about our country and when speaking about the opportunity he has had here, he said:

What a privilege it is to serve this big, boisterous, brawling, intemperate, striving, daring, beautiful, bountiful, brave, magnificent country. With all our flaws, all our mistakes, with all the frailties of human nature as much on display as our virtues, with all the rancor and anger of our politics, we are blessed. We are living in the land of the free, the land where anything is possible. The land of the immigrants' dream, the land with the storied past forgotten in the rush to an imagined future.

What a country, indeed. Beautiful, brave, and magnificent, as John said, but also challenged by occasional frailty, rancor, and anger that we have seen too much of in this sustained debate over immigration.

The point Senator McCain made that night in Philadelphia--and the point he has made every day serving our Nation for more than six decades--is that working through our disagreements, our divisions is worth it, not just as Senators but as citizens.

The whole point is, we may be boisterous and intemperate, which John has certainly also been accused of being a time or two, but we don't stop striving for our ideals, believing in our future, and respecting one another. That is often difficult--especially here in politics--but it is the challenge that comes with the blessings of living and serving this great country.

So I was honored when Senator McCain reached out to me a week ago to say: Let's work together to introduce in the Senate legislation that could help solve our most pressing immigration issues and keep our country moving forward.

The bipartisan bill we have introduced--the McCain-Coons bill--in the Senate doesn't solve every immigration issue we face, and it doesn't try to. What our bill does is focus on two issues right in front of us that I believe we can address and resolve. It is an attempt to break through what have been messy and divisive political debates and to address, through a compromise, legitimate, substantive issues in front of us.

Our bill would do two things: secure our border and finally give Dreamers the pathway to citizenship they have long awaited for, and they deserve.

First, to address border security, our bill would ensure we gain operational control of the border by 2020 with new technology, new resources for Federal, State, and local law enforcement, and new infrastructure.

It would reduce the existing immigration case backlogs by funding new judges and new attorneys, while also addressing one of the root causes of migration into our country from Central America.

Our legislation would give certainty to 1.8 million Dreamers brought here as children through no fault of their own, who are American in every way but the paperwork. Dreamers who continue to play by the rules by going to school, serving in the military, or being consistently employed can become lawful, permanent residents and, at least 5 years later, U.S. citizens.

Senator McCain and I aren't the only ones who think this bipartisan solution makes sense. In fact, the reason we filed it here was because of the strength of its development in the other Chamber, the people's House, the House of Representatives. This bill was crafted by Republican Congressman Will Hurd of El Paso, TX, whose district has more than 800 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border--more than any district in our country with a U.S.-Mexico border--and his partner, Democratic Congressman Pete Aguilar, who is from Southern California. The two of them put this bill together after a lot of consultation and meetings with their colleagues in the House. Today, it enjoys 27 Republican cosponsors and 27 Democratic cosponsors. I often hear we shouldn't take up and consider anything that can't pass the House, but a bill that has 54 bipartisan cosponsors in the House is certainly on the right track.

Now, I am clear-eyed about the fact that this McCain-Coons bill is not perfect, and I understand some of my colleagues may want to make changes to it. Some of my Republican friends I have met with and heard from and talked to in recent days have suggested it needs more investments in border security to win their support, and that is fine because our bill is more than just a set of policies. It is a way to provide a framework for us to agree and not let our disagreements prevent us from moving forward.

So my message is simple about this bill: We may not be able to fix our entire immigration system this week--in fact, I am certain we can't--but we can, over the next few days, perhaps even over the next few hours, take important, even historic steps forward. We can lay the groundwork for securing our border with new investments, new technology, and new manpower. We can help Dreamers succeed in American schools, serve in our American military, and enrich American communities without living in constant fear of imminent deportation.

These are tough issues, but the solution can be fairly simple. I think our legislation offers a real solution for right now. There have been developments in recent days.

I have been proud to participate in a large bipartisan effort by the Common Sense Coalition, and as it has, as a group, tried to hammer out a bipartisan deal, I have been honored to have started this discussion, this debate, with Senator McCain by filing our bill that we brought over from the House. It is a bipartisan bill that I believe is the most bipartisan bill currently before this Chamber on this issue. If we can make more progress, if we can attract more bipartisan support through some amendments or revisions, I welcome that.

I believe this week, this day, this opening on our Senate floor is not only a challenge but an incredible opportunity to do the right thing. We don't have to agree on everything. We just have to agree on some things, and we can find a way forward together.

It is an enormous honor to have the opportunity to partner with Senator McCain in this legislative effort. While he is not with us today, I know he is with us in spirit and watching our deliberations, and he is someone who has shown not just courage on the battlefield but courage in American politics--a determined willingness to compromise and to work tirelessly to advance the interests of the American people. I can only hope my colleagues, when we get a chance to vote on this bill--which I hope we will later today--will join me in supporting it in recognition of his lifetime of service to our Nation and his commitment to bipartisanship.

It is my hope that as this day and tomorrow unfolds, we will have the open and fair process that has been promised, and that all of us, together, can do what we were sent to do: listen to each other, trust each other, work together, and find a path through compromise that can solve these two most important and pressing issues in the field of immigration.

Thank you.

(The Acting President pro tempore assumed the Chair.)

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