On yesterday's "Al Punto," the Spanish-language TV network Univision's Sunday morning news program, Sen. Robert Menendez said he will introduce "comprehensive immigration reform" legislation in hopes of getting it passed during the upcoming lame duck session of Congress.
"If we are going to be ready for the opportunity that perhaps will exist during the session after the elections -- where many senators are retiring and have the freedom to vote without political considerations -- we have to have something so that we can make progress at that moment in November," the New Jersey Democrat said in an interview with host Jorge Ramos.
If the bill does not pass in November, he said, he and other supporters of the legislation will be ready to move when the new Congress convenes in January.
In a separate segment of the same program, Ramos interviewed Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who rejected claims that the state's controversial new immigration law, widely known as SB 1070, is racist and anti-Hispanic.
"The Hispanic population is part of our DNA, and that's why it's so painful when persons think that it is based in racism," Brewer said. (This is a translation of the program's Spanish-language voice-over of her remarks.) She called Hispanics "a fundamental part of our culture."
"We passed SB 1070 because we cant accept the costs of illegal immigration," Brewer told Ramos.
