Speech #970274865

Chairman. I would like to take this opportunity to express my appreciation to the members of the Judiciary Committee. Chairman RODINO and Chairman MAZZOLI of the Subcommittee on Immigration. Refugees. and International Law. for the outstanding Job they have done in bringing this bill before the House. Last Friday I placed in the RECORD two recent news articles from the New York Times which I think underscore one of the most serious problem areas in the legislationour open borders. One article dealt with the increasingly common phenomenon of 9 months pregnant women from Mexico. walking across the border in time to deliver their children on U.S. soil. so that they will be U.S. citizens. The other dealt with a specific case of refugees from the impoverished Asian nation of Bangladesh who are also increasingly finding their way into our country in order to escape the terrible grinding poverty in their own part of the world. They came from Bangladesh to East Berlin. whence they took the subway to West Berlin. flew to the Bahamas and made the last leg of their Odyssey by boat to the Florida coast. In each instance. the specific cases are poignant examples of the larger problem of how our unsecured borders form part of the irresistible pull process that attracts illegal immigration like a veritable magnet. To pass this legislation without first establishing full control over our borders will be a shot heard around the world. a signal that the rush to America is on. Let us set aside for the moment the "pull" factorsthe attractions of Americaspecifically the jobs magnetto illegal Immigrants. They are wellknown and need little amplification here today. The real problems are the factors which push refugees out of their own countries. Those problems are primarily explosive population increases in the Third World and the corresponding inability of Third World countries to provide adequate Jobs for the millions of unemployed and underemployed who are already straining their economies. In Latin America. despite some progress toward reducing the rate of population increase. the population increase in absolute terms is now proJected to rise from its present level of 360 million to 845 million by the year Throughout Latin America. the total labor force. both employed and unemployed. will increase from 100 million at present to more than 314 million by For Mexico and Central America. the labor pool will double in size from 26 million today to 53 million in just 18 years. in the year 2000. and will reach more than 93 million by the year 2025.