Speech #980137709

Speaker. I want to commend first the gentleman from Kentucky. the chairman of the subcommittee. who is one of the hardest working Members of Congress. I would like to say that the State of Florida owes him a great debt of gratitude not only for the work he has done on this particular piece of legislation but also the work done on the immigration bill which bears his name and which I hope along with my other colleagues from Florida will be brought to this floor as rapidly as possible for a vote since I believe. as many others. that there is a national constituency out there that would like to see some form of change in the legislation as it currently exists. In the instant bill which we are discussing today let me say that I believe that it is another example of how the Federal Government can take the burden off the local level citizen for programs which have in fact been necessary because of what the Federal Government has done in the first place and because of what it is that is the policy of the Federal Government. The problem with refugees in Florida. and I know the gentleman from New Jersey stood here and talked about the number of refugees in his State. but let me reiterate for the record that in Florida just in the last 31/2 years we have had over 200.000 refugees come to Florida by virtue of what we will now characterize as what is called special status granted to them after they actually wound up inside the State. That special status has enabled them to stay in this country. many of them in Florida. but. at the same time. has impacted severely on the level of the local and State governments. That kind of impact would have been too great to bear if it was not for the Federal Government programs under the Refugee Assistance Act of 1980. And the continuation of that assistance through this legislation is extremely important to those people at home. constituents in my district. in your district. who have to pay for the costs beyond what the Federal Government is giving in the way of aid. I was one of those that opposed the block grant. I am very happy that it is not here and it appears that there is a consensus that the block grant would have been an inappropriate way to go. I also was opposed to the problem relating to the first 90 days of welfare being made unavailable to those new welfare refugee applicants because of the problem relating to dependency and how it looks as if we cannot get them off the welfare syndrome once they get on. I agree with the concept and I made this point very clear at the subcommittee level. it is something we need to do to get them out of the welfare dependency but we do not want it at the expense of the local taxpayers. If you shut them out of welfare at the Federal level all that means is that the local level will have to pick up and pay for that first 90 days themselves without reimbursement. That has not been put in this bill. I think that is a good idea. Overall this piece of legislation is something I would commend to the Members of this Congress to pass because it will help not only the hundreds of thousands of refugees but all of your constituents out there. I thank the Speaker.