Speech #980217799

They are being addressed in a fashion to disadvantage them when the legislation. to begin with. I think. does precious little for them. I am concerned about the problems of immigration. the problems of granting legal residency status and citizenship to people who did not come in through the normal legal processes. I happen to be an immigrant myself. There was one term during my service here when I was the only nonnativeborn Member of the House. Now there are a handful of us. and I think that I speak for all of us when I say that I consider myself extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity to become an American citizen. But I think that when we start talking about "illegal is illegal." we ought to hark back to Audens poem entitled "The Law Is the Law." "Illegal is illegal" may state the truth but it does not necessarily state the whole truth. When we look back to how our ancestors came to the United States through legal processes we ought to be knowledgeable about the circumstances which then prevailed. We ought to remember that there was a long period of our history when the United States. for its own purposes. welcomed massive immigration. We wanted and welcomed people coming in by the millions during decades when we wanted to expand our development and when there were problems in other parts of the globe. At least we welcomed them when the bulk of the citizens who were coming to the United States were coming in from northern and western Europe. When the situation shifted and large numbers of immigrants started coming to the United States from southern Europe and eastern Europe. then for ethnic or religious reasons or. in the case of orientals. who for a large part of our history were never even given eligibility to become citizens for racial reasons. when those people started coming here by the millions. suddenly we discovered that there was something wrong with immigration. And in the early 1920s we started cracking down with a vengeance and we started imposing quota systems which were racially and ethnically and religiously obnoxious. That is our history. And whether we like to admit it or not. although there is an element of legitimate concern about jobs which theoretically could be said to be taken from American citizens.