Speech #980217782

Mr. Chairman. I said once before when I came to this well that if you take the undocumented worker who achieves any form of legalization in the course of this legislation and becomes a permanent resident of some type and then can immediately proceed to the citizenship window. if you move from that undocumented status to the documented status and then to the citizenship window. we have to remember that we are looking at. for example. fifth preference numbers right now of a 1.4million backlog. and we will be looking at a chain migration question that would just blow our minds. There will be millions and millions of those seeking relative status by petition that simply will get the fast shuffle and will have no reasonable hope of ever achieving entrance in a legal way to our country. So I urge my colleagues to support the better alternative. the Lungren amendment. saving that. of course. we defeat ultimately the proposition of blanket legalization in exchange for the committees position that the registry date will provide all of us with that opportunity to achieve the very compassionate kind of immigration that we are looking for.