Speech #530131449

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. faces with his hospitalization from his injury from an accident. recognize his great contribution as a member of the committee to this debate on the question of how we limit numbers in the future based upon -the proposition of legalization. Now I do know what concerns this amendment raises over the issue of family reunification. For that reason. let me simply say that my intention here is not to jeopardize that in any way. My intention here is to lead this body to consider what this legislation. as a whole. means for our country 20 years down the road. Now I think we are capable here today of considering that. First of all. if we allow the legalization provisions in this bill to prevail. while placing no limits on legal immigration. we must be considering additional ramifications. While some Members yesterday declared that legal immigrants seldom take advantage of public assistance. studies have shown that both legal and illegal immigrants do sometimes rely upon public assistance. at least to the extent that U.S. citizens. native born. rely to the same extent on public assistance. In other words. studies have shown that whether one is legal or illegal. naturalized or a citizen. or undocumented. the proportion of reliance on public assistance for each of those populations is about the same. My point is that regardless of predicting the likelihood for this. regardless of whether we can assess today what those numbers might be in the future. by virtue of our increasing population we will be increasing the load on our public assistance system. I think we can probably all agree on that today.