Schmitt Proposes Four Ways to Restore Immigration Enforcement, Defend Citizenship, and Protect American Sovereignty
WASHINGTON — Today, U.S. Senator Eric Schmitt (R-MO) took to the Senate floor to lay out a plan to stop illegal immigration into our country, permanently secure the border, defend American citizenship, and restore immigration enforcement.
Senator Schmitt’s proposed framework relies on four central planks: (1) permanently ending sanctuary cities; (2) enhancing penalties for illegal entry and re-entry; (3) protecting our law enforcement; (4) dismantling rogue non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
Read key excerpts from Senator Schmitt’s remarks, as prepared for delivery:
“There are two visions competing for the future of this country.
One vision holds that immigration law should be enforced, that borders matter, that citizenship means something, and that a nation has both the right and the obligation to decide who may enter, who may remain, and under what rules.
The other vision treats our sovereignty itself as immoral. In that vision, borders are an imperialist evil; the law is fascist oppression, and our identity as Americans is a source of guilt and shame, rather than pride and celebration.
All of these ideas are connected for the kinds of people who are attacking federal law enforcement in the streets of Minneapolis. They believe that we don’t deserve to enforce our laws as a nation, because they believe that we don’t deserve to exist as a nation.”
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“The rule of law is essential to the American Constitutional order.
It is the clearest, most visible expression of self-government. A people that cannot enforce its own laws cannot meaningfully govern itself.
As much as some of my colleagues across the aisle wish it was, immigration law is not some break with long-standing norms. A country that cannot say who belongs cannot remain a country at all for a long time.”
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“In the left-wing worldview, anything less than this is an unacceptable crime against humanity. For them, the problem is not illegal immigration; the problem is any and every attempt to stop it.
That worldview rejects a basic premise of nationhood: that a people has the right to decide who may enter, who may remain, and under what rules. It denies that citizenship carries meaning, that membership entails obligation, or that law applies equally to those who violate it.
And when a society reaches that point—when it treats enforcement as an offense and anarchy as virtue—it begins to dissolve from within.
The end state of this Democrat vision is plain as day.”
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“To understand how this vision is being put into effect—how our immigration laws are being hollowed out without ever being repealed—we must look closely at the specific demands now being advanced, and what each one is designed to accomplish.
The Democratic vision does not begin by repealing the law. It begins by making enforcement personally dangerous and professionally impossible.”
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“And when enforcement becomes dangerous for the enforcers, enforcement does not survive.
What emerges is not reform. It is amnesty by default.
Not the kind debated openly. Not the kind voted on. Not the kind Democrats would have to openly defend to the American people.
But amnesty achieved through attrition—through delay, exhaustion, and paralysis—so that no one has to claim responsibility for the result.”
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“Today I want to lay out a framework, four principles—four ways to restore enforcement, defend citizenship, and ensure that the United States remains a nation worthy of the name. Four legislative ideas to Protect America.
Each one restores something that has been deliberately weakened. Each one reasserts a basic function of sovereignty that no nation can surrender and expect to endure.
First: End sanctuary cities permanently.
Sanctuary policies are not acts of compassion. They are acts of defiance. They announce, openly, that federal law will be ignored within certain jurisdictions, and that those who violate immigration law will be protected from its consequences.”
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“Second: Enhance Penalties for illegal entry and re-entry.
Illegal entry is a misdemeanor. It’s time to increase that penalty to make it a felony. And for illegal reentry—entering, being deported, and then re-entering, we are going to meet that lawless behavior with swift, severe punishment. A system without predictable consequences invites mass violation.”
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“Third: Protect Our Law Enforcement
We should protect our law enforcement.
Let’s recognize—Law enforcement are increasingly targeted. Obstruction and assault have been normalized. Weak consequences invite escalation.
Modern obstruction is sophisticated. It avoids fists, but achieves the same result. Officers are surrounded, blinded, blocked, and drowned out. Operations are shut down not through violence, but through chaos engineered to appear “peaceful.”
Protecting officers is not about politics. It is about whether the state stands behind those who serve it. A government that abandons its enforcers invites disorder, because authority that will not defend itself cannot command obedience. Law must protect those who uphold it, or it will not be upheld at all.”
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“Fourth: Dismantle Rogue NGOs
There are organizations in this country—nominally ‘nonprofits’—that materially support obstruction, incitement, and even violence against law enforcement.
They coordinate interference. They publish officer information. They encourage confrontation.
And they do so while enjoying tax-exempt status subsidized by the American people.
That ends.”
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“If the Democrat vision prevails, the consequences will not arrive all at once. They never do. They arrive quietly, incrementally, under the comforting language of reform and restraint—until one day the reality can no longer be denied.
Enforcement retreats. Illegal presence becomes permanent. Citizenship is diluted—not by law, but by neglect.
The authority of law erodes first at the margins and then at the center. When rules are enforced selectively, obedience becomes optional. When consequences are delayed indefinitely, deterrence disappears. And when a nation signals that persistence matters more than legality, it invites exactly the behavior it claims to oppose.”
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“That is where we stand now.
The choice before us is unavoidable. We can affirm that the United States remains a nation governed by law, or we can allow that law to dissolve into suggestion.
Every subsequent generation inherits a country it did not build from scratch, and every generation decides what it will pass on.
Enforcement is the quiet, necessary work of self-government. A nation that cannot say ‘no’ cannot long say ‘yes’ to anything that matters—not to citizenship, not to equality under the law, and not to the promise it makes to future generations.
The future belongs to the countries that believe in themselves enough to enforce their laws.”
After his prepared remarks, Senator Schmitt continued speaking on the Senate floor alongside Senator Lindsey Graham. Watch his remarks HERE.
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