SEN. RAND PAUL: I am worried that the bill before us won't pass. It may pass the Senate, may not pass the House. I want to be constructive in making the bill strong enough that conservatives, myself included, conservative Republicans in the House will vote for this because I think immigration reform is something we should do.



In this bill I am worried, though, and this is similar to what Senator [Ron] Johnson said, that it says, well, you have to have a plan to build a fence, but you don't have to build a fence. And if you don't have a plan to build a fence, then you get a commission. I don't know what happens if the commission doesn't do anything. That's the story of Washington around here.



To me, it's a little bit like Obamacare. And I hate to bring that up, but 1,800 references to the secretary shall at a later date decide things. We don't write bills around here. We should write the bill. We should write the plan. We should do these things to secure the border whether it be fence, entry, exit, we should write it, not delegate it. What's going to happen in five years if they don't do their job -- maybe not even them, maybe somebody else who doesn't do their job in five years, and the border is not secured? We will be blamed for the next 10 million that come here illegally. (Senate Homeland Security Committee Hearing, May 7, 2013)