Speech #960293037

I commend my colleague for offering his amendment and support it unequivocally. I recently tabulated the results of my annual questionnaire. and want to share with my colleagues the responses to a question: "Do you support the U.S. Census Bureaus efforts to have illegal aliens living in the United States included in the 1980 census. as a base for reapportionment of congressional and State legislative districts. and to increase Federal aid and revenue sharing to those areas with high concentrations of illegal aliens?" Those responding "yes" were 15 percent. those responding "no" were an overwhelming 79 percent. with 6 percent undecided. Obviously. my constitutents and I share the same conviction that being an American citizen must continue to mean something under our Constitutionat least the principle of one man. one vote. The Justice Department. however. thinks differently. The Justice Department asserts that the Constitution grants foreign citizens residing here illegally a legal right to representation in Congress. and maintains that States could constitutionally permit illegal aliens to vote for Congress and. presumably. the Presidency. Justice claims that once an illegal alien has secured a residence. he or she has achieved the same right to be counted as a citizen. The Justice Department has been strangely supportive of illegal aliens to the point of suspending enforcement of the law in some important respects. The Attorney General. chief legal officer of the United States. decided to partially suspend enforcement of the law. and on November 26. instructed the INS Commissioner that his agents were not to seek out illegal aliens in their places of residence. The only enforcement of the law is at places of employment. Consequently. illegal aliens not apprehended at the border face little chance of apprehension once in the United States. In March. the Attorney General further partially suspended enforcing the law. by instructing the INS Commissioner that his agents could not enter homes or workplaces without a search warrant. court order. or approval of a U.S. attorney. Included in the order were instructions not to act on anonymous tips unless the source would be willing to testify during legal proceedings. My colleagues will all recall a recent murder that took place in this city a few months agoan INS informant was publicly named and promptly murdered. The effort to search out and count illegal aliens in the 1980 census reached such epic proportions that the Attorney General even recorded radio and television commercials pledging that census data on illegal aliens "will not be sought by. accepted by or divulged to the Immigration and Naturalization Service or any other arm of the Department of Justice." Mr. Civiletti followed that by partially suspending enforcement of the law in order to encourage illegal aliens to participate in the census. Millions of dollars were spent on promotional campaigns across the country encouraging them to be counted. If illegal aliens are included in the 1980 census as a base for reapportionment. we will witness a decadelong erosion of the Constitution at every level of government. diluting the votes of some citizens. inflating the votes of others through malapportionment. The political balance will shift even more from the suburbs to the large cities. as more illegal aliens reside in the cities where greater anonymity exists and serves as a protective shield. This concerted effort to count illegal aliens in the census is a step toward legitimizing their presence. Does this then mean the Carter administrations undocumented alien plan will gradually take effect? Why not? They will have been counted. the Justice Department and the Immigration and Naturalization Service is not fully enforcing the law. the Justice Department urges that they be included in the base for reapportionment. and. if this philosophy continues. they might well end up voting in the 1982 elections. This should not be. The framers of our Constitution determined that all "persons" should be counted. Illegal aliens were not an issue when that document was written. Illegal aliens are an issue now. American citizens have one single. exclusive right that no one else in this world hasthe right. in a free democracy. to elect individuals to represent them in the Congress of the United States. If the oneman. onevote principle no longer holds true for American citizens. being a citizen loses one remaining distinction. and our political base is eroded by those who are in this country illegally. I urge adoption of the McDade amendment. It does not diminish in any way the flow of Federal funds to those communities now supporting illegal aliens. It simply prohibits the count of illegal aliens for the purposes of redistricting. Enough is enough. We spend millions every year supporting illegal aliens. We do not know how many are hereestimates range from 2 million to 12 million. The Chicago INS office will not even provide an estimate of the numbers in the Chicago area.