On Wednesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “MTP Daily,” Senate Majority Whip Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) argued against voting on an amendment to the coronavirus spending bill on Title 42 by stating doing so would delay passage of the spending bill that he hopes “would have a sense of urgency and emergency” to it.
Host Chuck Todd asked, “COVID relief funding is something that’s needed. I know you’re going to say they’re playing politics here, you know there are some Democratic votes for this. Why not include the amendment on Title 42, what’s the downside?”
Durbin responded, “We know that once we start the amendment process on the floor, we’re not going to get to any reasonable conclusion in a short period of time. We had hoped that this COVID bill would have a sense of urgency and emergency for both political parties. I want to salute the four Republican senators who have worked hard with Chuck Schumer and the Democrats to put together a package. We were ready to go, had a vote scheduled yesterday, and then the Republican lunch went the other way and all of the Republicans voted against it.”
Durbin added, “Our immigration system is broken and it’s badly broken and it’s been that way for decades. It’s not just a situation of a Biden problem. It’s a problem that goes back to President Trump and those before him. And the situation at the border is a challenge to a degree we’d never anticipated, and maybe even a greater challenge to come. What we need to do is finally sit down together and say, what is the orderly way to do it? We can’t accept everyone in the world who wants to come across our border. There has to be an orderly way that those who are truly deserving under our law have a chance to say so and prove it at a hearing, and we’ve got to make certain that we do it in a fashion that reflects the values — our values as a nation. That’s been the bottom line for a long time.”
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