Speech #960238937

Yes. political persecution is certainly a major occupation today. but largely because liberals have let Communists overrun major portions of the world. Just as the Monroe Doctrine has been the victim of liberal foreign policy weaknessincluding both Republican and Democratic administrationsso must our long and proud history of granting political asylum be limited or even abandoned because of that foreign policy. In the meantime. all the available room for legitimate refugees in America has been filled. overfilled. and quadrupled by the refusal of our Government. especially under the Carter administration. to enforce the immigration law. Carter has ships patrolling the Florida coast to stop Cubans. but the flow of illegal aliens from Mexicowho now number from 10 to 12 million in the United Statescontinues unchecked. The Carter administration. in direct violation of the law has stopped calling these millions of Mexicans illegal aliens. and is now calling them undocumented workers. as if they were Americans who had simply forgotten to provide a proper form for employment. Any room America might have had for legitimate refugees from tyranny is now packed and overflowing with economic opportunists pouring in from Mexico. As liberal foreign policy increases the number of truly persecuted people. liberal immigration policy has filled and overfilled any possible room for them we might have had in this country. As the flood of immigration across the Rio Grande has risen. the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) under the Carter administration has simply refused to give out the numbers of what they call undocumented workers. I have been attacking these policies since the Carter administration began. just as I had attacked President Fords lack of adequate enforcement of our immigration law previously. But it was under Carter that lack of enforcement became almost no enforcement. that the renaming of these aliens took place. and under which the clampdown on illegal immigration statistics was imposed. A letter from Justin Blackwelder of the environmental defense fund to Leonel Castillo. Carters Commissioner of INS in 1977. gives a clear picture of this clampdown and of the size of the illegal immigration problem: I am appealing to you for the information which your subordinates have been ordered not to give us. Otherwise. our footnote for the U.S. populations will include approximately the following statement: "Specifically these figures are: Fraudulent entries. 0.5 million. illegal overstays 0.4 million. and surreptitious entries (of those not apprehended) 0.8 million." The former INS Commissioner. General Leonard F.