Mr. Speaker. today I am introducing legislation that will assist many of our larger school districts in administering their refugee education programs by providing greater flexibility in the way in which eligible children are counted for Federal assistance. Under this bill. local education agencies. which apply for funds under the Refugee Education Assistance Act. are able to use data provided by the Immigration and Naturalization Service to determine the numbers of eligible children. Under the current system. large urban school districts are required to conduct an independent data count. which results in significant cost to the local district. This amendment would simply allow LEAs the flexibility to use either their own data or data provided by the INS. As New Yorks senior member of the House Education and Labor Committee. I have been actively involved in attempting to bring some administrative relief to this program. During our committees consideration of immigration reform legislation during the last session. I joined with my colleague on the committee. BILL GOODLING in offering this amendment. I also supported his efforts to offer this same initiative during House consideration of H.R. 1510. the Immigration reform bill. last month. Given the questionable status of H.R. 1510 at this point in time. I believe that introduction of this legislation is necessary to assure that this issue remains high on our agenda during debate on the future of the pending legislation.
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Immigration Refugee Naturalization immigration refugee