Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On The Need For Bipartisan Action On Border Security Three Months After Republicans Blocked Serious Bipartisan Border Security Legislation

Washington, D.C. – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) spoke on the Senate floor on the need to take action on border security nearly 100 days after Republicans rejected serious bipartisan border security legislation after demanding we fix the border. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:

I want to thank my friend Senator Murphy, for bringing us to the floor this evening, to talk about the need to fix our southern border with bipartisan action.

Senator Murphy did outstanding work earlier this year—along with Senators Sinema and Lankford and others—by doing what many thought impossible: produce a real, necessary, and bipartisan border bill.

When our bill was first released, a lot of our Republican colleagues were surprised with how strong it was – but then, as we all know, Donald Trump came barging in and told his MAGA supporters to kill the bill.

Democrats have not walked away from this issue. We believe if you’re going to call something an emergency, then we cannot wait to act.

We hope, despite Republicans’ opposition a few months ago, that our colleagues are willing to join us to secure the border, as they’ve said they wanted to do.

After all, how many times have we heard from our Republican colleagues, through speeches and press conferences and letters, that fixing the border cannot wait. They said it cannot wait. Well, we don't want to wait any longer.

Just listen to the words from the other side—going back years—about the need to act: “this crisis requires swift, serious, and substantive action.” That is what my colleague from Wyoming said recently.

Or how about this: “The time to act on it is yesterday.” That is what Speaker Mike Johnson said, standing at the border, at the beginning of this year.

Or how about the words of Donald Trump? “Tonight, I am asking you to defend our very dangerous southern border out of love and devotion to our fellow citizens and to our country.”

That is what Donald Trump said in his 2019 State of the Union address.

And you know what? We Democrats agree Congress should act! We believe the status quo cannot continue.

But here’s the thing: the only real long term solution to the southern border is bipartisan legislation. That is the only way you get things done around here: bipartisan.

Bipartisan legislation like the bill we had here in the Senate three months ago!

Bipartisan legislation like the one we wrote to hire thousands of more border agents and thousands of more asylum officers and invest billions to stop the flow of fentanyl and other drugs.

The conservative Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, hardly a friend of this side of the aisle, here’s what they said   “a border bill worth passing.” The head of the US Chamber of Commerce called it “a common sense measure” And, most importantly, the President of the National Border Patrol Council, a union extremely conservative, very close to Trump, called it “far better than the status quo.”

I ask my Republican colleagues: if a border security bill was good enough to win the support of actual border patrol agents, shouldn’t it have been good enough to win the support of Senate Republicans?

If we want to fix asylum and stop fentanyl and hire more agents, shouldn’t we pass a bill that actually fixes asylum and stops fentanyl and hires more agents? That’s precisely what our border bill would have done.

That’s precisely why we made such a strong push to pass it in the Senate three months ago.

And that’s precisely the bill Donald Trump killed in a vain attempt to gain an edge on the campaign trail. He was clear about what he did. He said “please, blame it on me,” as if it were all a game to Donald Trump. I am used to Donald Trump saying it. Speaker Pelosi and I were in the White House when he was thinking about shutting down the government and he said “blame it on me.” Didn’t work out so well for him. It’s not going to work out so well for him this time either.

The American people do not have the luxury of playing partisan blame games. They want bipartisan action to secure our border. Democrats stand ready to work with Republicans to pass bipartisan border security. We hope our Republican colleagues stand ready to take action too. I want to thank my colleagues for being here. we’re going to continue to pursue this issue. We believe the American people agree with us. Passing a bipartisan bill is a lot better than making a lot of speeches, doing a lot of finger pointing, and getting nothing done on the border.

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