Dick Durbin Uses Glenn Beck's Soccer Balls and Teddy Bears to Scold GOP

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) alluded to Glenn Beck’s flamboyant campaign to bring soccer balls and teddy bears to tens of thousands of illegal alien children streaming across the U.S. border while urging Republicans to stow their objections to billions in border crisis funding requested by the president and pass the bill anyway.

“Even some of the most conservative political commentators have said first, America, show your heart, that you care for these children. And that’s what the president is asking us to do. So let us take care when we consider the supplemental appropriations bill that we don’t lose sight of our values,” Durbin said in a Senate floor speech.

Durbin called on Senate Republicans to use that “compassion” to put away their fight for “another day.”

“The political debate can be saved for another day,” Durbin said on the Senate floor on Thursday afternoon. “I support this legislation. I think it’s the right thing to do. I want history to write this chapter about America and I want it to be a chapter we’re proud of. I want a future generation to look back to this year and say that in this year, when the United States was presented with this border crisis with children, America showed its heart. America stood up and did the right thing for these children, as we have so many times in the past.”

Beck recently traveled to Texas to bring soccer balls, teddy bears, and hot meals to illegal immigrants who have been detained along the U.S.-Mexico border, saying Americans must “open our hearts” to the illegal immigrant children who have been unlawfully entering the country.

Top conservatives have argued that many of the unaccompanied children traveling to the U.S. in hope of obtaining amnesty are being abused or dying en route and that it is not compassionate to encourage more of them to follow suit.

“More children will die, more children will end up in slavery, and more children will be in cages. How is that compassionate?” Rep. Matt Salmon (R-AZ) asked recently, referring to President Obama’s executive amnesty for illegal aliens who entered the country as minors.