Yesterday on the Senate floor, Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) gave a speech that was a fine illustration of how the emotion of immigration complicates the job of policy-making. The emotion was especially poignant in the last 400 words of her 2,300-word speech, in which she told her family's own story and projected it onto the current policy debate. I reproduce her comments here as she actually delivered them, not as they appear in the Congressional Record, which apparently relied on a written text. Then I offer a brief comment.
I am myself here because of Slovenian and Swiss immigrants. ... My grandpa on my dad's side worked 1,500 feet underground in the iron-ore mines of Ely, Minn. His family came to northern Minnesota in search of work, and the iron ore mines and forests of northern Minnesota seemed the closest thing to home in Slovenia. My grandpa never graduated from high school and he saved money in a coffee can to send my dad to college. My dad earned a journalism degree from the University of Minnesota after getting a community college degree in northern Minnesota at Vermillion Community College. He was a newspaper reporter and a long-time columnist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Mom was a teacher and she taught second grade until she was 70 years old. Her parents came from Switzerland to Milwaukee where my great grandma ran — guess what — a cheese shop. The Depression was hard on their family and, out of work for several years, my grandpa actually made and sold miniature Swiss chalets made out of teeny pieces of wood.
So I stand here today on the shoulders of immigrants, the granddaughter and great-granddaughter of iron ore miners and cheese-makers and craftsmen, the daughter of a teacher and newspaperman and the first woman elected to the Senate from the State of Minnesota. It could not have been possible in a country that didn't believe in hard work, fair play, and the promise of opportunity for people from other countries. It would not have been possible in a country that didn't open its arms to the risk-takers, pilgrims, and pioneers of the world. So this is a very special and enduring part of American history. And we need to be sure it continues for future generations in a way that is fair, that is efficient, and that is legal. Passing this bill is important to our economy. It's important to our global competitiveness. It's important to our national security. But it's also important millions of people who are here right now in the United States of America and others that want to come here and live that dream that my grandparents and my great grandparents lived. This is too important for us not to act. To my colleagues, join us in passing this bill. Let's get it done.
This is a powerful story, one that is obviously of tremendous importance to the thinking of Sen. Klobuchar. It is a wonderful evocation of our immigrant heritage. But policy-makers need to be at least as mindful of the world they are creating for our grandchildren as they are of the world created by their grandparents. The fundamental question of immigration policy is not will we have immigration, but how much will we have, and by what criteria shall immigrants be admitted. Everyone wants immigration policy that is fair, efficient, and legal. The lack of those qualities — due in large part to the decades-long failures of Congress — is why Congress is conducting its current debate. The danger is that this bill, despite its many admirable intentions, will extend some of those failures far into the future, widening the great divide between the haves and have-nots that is perhaps the greatest danger to the American dream.