Mr. Chairman. I came to this body 6 years ago dedicated in some ways to spending a sufficient period of time on the question of immigration. not that it was a burning issue with me in my law school days or growing up in southern California. Yet it was one I was concerned about. It was one that I was generally aware of because southern California. along with areas of Texas and other parts of the Southwest. is heavily impacted by immigration both legal and illegal. We are also impacted. as many people know. by the refugee flow. and I am not registering that as a complaint. only as an observation that of all places in the United States we are probably more aware of the situation as it exists. And that is one reason that many of us have for a long period of time tried to argue that this body ought to deal with this issue in a meaningful fashion. It took us several years just to get this issue raised in this forum. it took us several years to have it considered in a comprehensive way. and it took a Democratic administration. the Carter administration. to deal with it first by establishing the blue ribbon bipartisan commission that has been mentioned on this floor many times.
Keywords matched
immigration refugee