Speech #980003675

Mr. Speaker. there are areas in the United States. for both reasons of geography and climate. that have borne the brunt of immigration into this country. These areas in many ways constitute a test tube experiment in the forced mixing of cultures. life styles. economic systems. and Government policy. San Diego County nestled along the populous Mexican border. is a popular transit point for undocumented immigrants heading northward. The flow of these illegal immigrants has become a river of uncertain proportions and economic effects. The climate and the culture of southern California have also drawn the legal immigrants from Southeast Asiathe boat people. the refugees. and those dispossessed by the war in Vietnam. The ballooning population of Cambodians. Hmong. Vietnamese. Laotians. and other ethnic and national groups has been drawn here by the weathersimilar in many respects to that of their native landand by "seed" populations of previous immigrants. Federal. State. and local governments have sought to alleviate some of the suffering of these immigrants. The result has become a jungle of aid programs. quotas. and illegal immigration. One cannot speak of the problem of illegal Mexican immigration without considering the federally funded programs for panAsians. Bilingual education has become a cruel joke as the number of common dialects spoken in a single elementary school reaches a dozen or more. and interpreters and aides must be employed for each. Without a goal on which we can agree at both the national and the local level. no effective means to deal with the problem can be devised. The goal for the local government has become mere survival in this web of conflicting laws and objectives. There seems to be a sound basis for the recognition of our responsibility for the less fortunate of other countries. In the past. we have encouraged immigration into the United States as a national policy. But that was when the Nation was young and labor was scarce. Newly arrived residents could pass through the ports and find work almost immediately.