Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) released the following statement condemning Senate Republicans’ immigration bill endorsed by the White House yesterday:
“Without immigration, there would be no America—plain and simple—and my Republican Senate colleagues’ recent immigration bills show that they have not fully grasped that historical fact. Immigrants—from the first New England Puritans fleeing religious persecution in Europe to recent Central American migrants escaping unimaginable violence at home—have arrived at our country for a common purpose: a better life for themselves, their families, and posterity. This is why my grandfather came to the United States from Chihuahua, Mexico. Under this bill, he would have been turned away for not speaking English or having the required ‘merits.’ America has always been a place of refuge for immigrants and the persecuted and any attempt to hinder this foundational tradition is un-American.
“Senators Cotton and Perdue’s bill would do nothing more than destabilize our economy and keep thousands of families separated, all while shunning the countless cultural and economic contributions of generations of immigrants in our country.
“We need to work together to craft legislation that would result in meaningful change, such as comprehensive immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship. This cruel bill is counterproductive and only leads to more division. I urge my Republican colleagues to reconsider their actions. Immigrant communities will not be intimidated by these attempts to undermine them. I will continue to fight for compassionate, just, and economically sound comprehensive immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship. The human costs of our nation’s broken immigration system cannot persist.”
U.S. Senators Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and David Perdue (R-Ga.) unveiled the RAISE Act yesterday, which would reduce lawful immigration by half in the next decade, gut family visa provisions, limit immigration to English speakers, and eliminate vital low-skill immigration.
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