Press Release

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the passage of the Senate’s bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill.

One year ago today, the United States Senate took a historic step by passing bipartisan, comprehensive immigration reform. And, one year later, the Republican-led House has still failed to act.

I think the President, if there is no action in the next few weeks, is going to be impelled by his moral responsibility to act himself.

One year ago tomorrow, the United States Senate passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill that would secure our border, fix our broken visa system, and establish a pathway to citizenship that will bring millions of undocumented immigrants out of the shadows. 

Today, as we celebrate the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the section of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act that prohibited federal recognition of same-sex marriages, let us pay tribute to all those who have stood up, marched, and spoken out for LGBT equality and pride. 

I’m pleased to follow my friend, [Sen.] Dick Durbin.  Leader Reid just told you that we came from a ceremony giving the [Congressional] Gold Medal to [Israeli President] Shimon Peres.  Shimon Peres, in many ways, is a founding father of his country, a country, which for millennia, was peopled by the Jewish people, but in another sense, a nation of immigrants, as America is a nation of immigrants, made great and courageous and entrepreneurial by its immigrants.

I join in congratulating President Shimon Peres of Israel on being awarded the Congressional Gold Medal today.

You know, I'm looked at as a civil leader in the House of Representatives, but I am a militant for civil rights, a militant for voters’ rights, and I have walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge with my friend [Rep.] John Lewis and so many people that are here, including [Democratic Leader] Nancy Pelosi and [Rep.] Steve Cohen.