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This is not about law enforcement. This is not about public safety. It is a campaign against people because of the color of the skin or where they are from.

If you support President Trump's policies, you have to ask yourself, wait a minute, it's not really about law enforcement. It's about 5-year-old kids. It's about US citizens, about people who have no criminal background. And you ought to ask yourself whether that's in fact what you support.

Immigrants are crucial and beneficial to the economy in Virginia and throughout America. Just some statistics. Nationwide, our immigrant families generated more than $236 billion in income in 2022 and paid nearly 66 billion in local, state, and federal taxes. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that immigration flows to the US that are projected currently will likely increase American gross domestic product by nearly $9 trillion between now and 2034 if we don't screw it up.

As of June 2025, 15.4% of US residents are immigrants, including naturalized US citizens. So, everyone in this room has in their state hard-working immigrant families who do not appreciate being demonized by the president and his policies. Mr. President, immigrants make up 13.2% of Virginia population. That's more than one in eight. When I was born, it was one of a hundred. I was born in 1958. One of a hundred Virginiaians in 1958 had been born in another country. Today it's one of eight.

And so I guess that must mean if you follow the president's logic that this has been a horrible thing for Virginia to the contrary. [snorts] Virginia by my last checking was one of only two states in the United States that in my lifetime has gone from bottom quarter per capita income to top quarter per capita income. There is nothing about life in Virginia today that is not dramatically better than in 1958. And the growth of our immigrant populations with their strength and their innovation and their culture has been a huge part of the reason that Virginia has gone from back of the pack economically to front of the pack economically.

Virginia has started to see some population decline in recent years except for immigration. Immigration has actually enabled our state to continue to grow. Growth is helpful to the economy. Immigrants contribute $ 104 billion dollars annually to the Virginia economy. Get this. 29% nearly onethird of our main street business owners in Virginia are immigrants. Our main street business owners, nearly 30% 16% of our workforce is immigrant.

Um, and let me tell you about a couple of industries in specific and give you some Virginia statistics. 34% of our chefs are immigrants. 44% of our community of our computer engineers are immigrants. 28% of our child care workers are immigrants. 52% of our painters are immigrants. 46% of our agriculture workers. And a forestry is still the number one industry in the United in in Virginia as it is in most states in the country. 46% of our a workers are immigrants. 43% of our construction workers are immigrants. Health aids. More than 20% of our health professionals are immigrants.

And and Mr. President, I noticed this particularly when I visit rural Virginia that if weren't for immigrant trained doctors and nurses and allied health professionals, many of the rural parts of our state would not have health providers at all.

Demeaning and attacking, terrorizing and frightening, disrespecting immigrants is not only the wrong thing to do, it hurts our country and it hurts our economy. What would we do without 46% of our a workers? What would we do without 43% of our construction workers or 20% of our health aids?

Don't they deserve like some positive words and some thanks like thanks for choosing us? You could have chosen someone else instead. You've chosen to come here and enrich our communities. And the and the skills I gave you are everything from sort of more manual skills to high-end computer engineering and health professions. I could have done this with virtually any profession in Virginia and I would have made the same case that we would not be the commonwealth that we are the success that we are without the growth of our immigrant populations.


Immigration is the transfusion into the bloodstream of the American economy and the American politic that keeps our nation young at 250.

New skills, new ideas, new connections to places around the world. Are there challenges? Yes. Do we need order? Of course we do. Should we reform? Yes. But it should be within the overall framework of immigrants like this little guy are not a problem. Our immigrant communities are part of what makes our nation great and successful. And I'm tired after more than 13 years of hearing immigrants just dragged down called illegals.

Why don't we call people convicted of fraud illegals? Why don't we call people convicted of sexual harassment illegals? There's only one kind of person that some label an illegal in the United States and that's if they have violated the laws to enter the country. What about all the other illegalities that people in this country commit?

But there's only one kind of person that we demonize with the label illegal. And I'm tired of it. I'm tired of people getting kicked around because of the countries they came from or the color of their skin.

I speak from personal experience having worked as a missionary in Central America. I know the kinds of people who come here and I know why they come here and they come here just for the same reason my great grandparents came here from Ireland beginning in the late 1840s because there weren't opportunities for them.

Now the laws may be a little different today than the motivations are no different. And virtually everybody in this chamber has an immigration story where thank god their family decided that they could make a better life for themselves in the United States.

And just as we don't demonize each other because we have immigrant roots, we shouldn't be demonizing people like this young 5-year-old's family and terrorizing them as we are.

Any policy that begins with the assumption that immigrations are a problem or a threat or a public safety concern instead of beginning with the reality that our immigrant communities have been part of the great success of this nation.

Any policy that starts with the wrong assumption is bankrupt morally, bankrupt legally, bankrupt economically. And it will hurt our nation. It's already hurting our nation. and it will continue to hurt it even further.

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