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Rubio: “One of the ways I think we can improve that is by not leaving the border and fence plan to chance. … Let’s mandate it in the bill, so that we’re not leaving it to guesswork. So that when you vote for this bill, you are voting for a specific security plan.”

Excerpts from U.S. Senate Floor Speech
Senator Marco Rubio
June 11, 2013
Full Speech: http://youtu.be/pF_yyJL4G-o

Senator Marco Rubio: “I filed an amendment to improve it even further. I’m saying that when you apply for that green card, after the ten-year period and more has expired, you’re going to have to prove that you’re proficient in English because I think that assimilation is important. Because I think assimilating into American society is important. I think learning English is not just important for assimilation, it’s important for economic success. You cannot flourish in our economy, you cannot flourish in our country if you’re not proficient in English. And we’re going to require that at the green card stage. Now, what’s the debate going to be about here over the next few weeks? Well, a couple of things are going to have to happen. First, like any other bill, there are some technical changes that are going to have to be made, and those will be made. I think there will be improvements to the bill on other issues like what I have just talked about, this amendment that I have to make English proficiency required at the green card stage. Then I think we’re going to move on and have a debate about the costs of this bill and ensuring that we truly tighten this.” 

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Rubio: “I refuse to accept the idea that the most powerful country on earth, the nation that put a man on the moon, is incapable of securing its own border. Our sovereignty is at stake in terms of border security. Border security is not an anti-immigration or an anti-immigrant measure. It is an important national security measure but it is also an important defense of our sovereignty, and we must protect our borders.”

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Rubio: “Now I personally believe that more than half of my colleagues on the Republican side, maybe a little more, maybe a little less, want to vote for an immigration bill. They want to modernize our legal immigration system, they want to improve our enforcement mechanisms, and they want to deal with the 11 million people that are here illegally. But they are only willing to do that if they can go back to their folks back at home and say, ‘We took steps in this bill to make sure this will never happen again. We didn’t repeat the mistakes of the past. This isn’t going to happen again.’ That’s going to be the key to this bill passing. And I think that we can do that. And that’s in our principles, by the way. The guiding principles before this bill was unveiled talked about border security. One of the ways I think we can improve that is by not leaving the border and fence plan to chance. Let’s not leave it to the Department of Homeland Security. … Let’s put the specific plan in the bill, the number of fences, the amount of technology.  Let’s mandate it in the bill, so that we’re not leaving it to guesswork. So that when you vote for this bill, you are voting for a specific security plan.”