Speech #990079780

I think we have to understand those very strong feelings out there in the country and figure out some ways to manage to do this in a much more sensible and fair way. Fair. I say. as well literally to those hundreds of thousands of people who stood in line for 8. 10. 20 years. waiting to immigrate to this country legally. And now what a slap in the face to say. "Well. if you had cheated. if you had committed some iilegal act and secretively gotten yourself inside the borders of the United States of America. you would be far better off than having waited outside. continuing to persist and come legally to this great melting pot. this great country of ours." So I want to urge my colleagues and those who may be interested in the subject to really study carefully the consequences of amnesty and. on the other side of it. to recognize that I am looking for ways to support a bill that will get our borders under control. and swift. tough. expensive employer sanctions. in my judgment. coupled with a beefing up or a substantial increase in our INS enforcement actions will be two of those measures. with the guarding of our outyear numbers. and isolating that chain migration problem from the issue of amnesty. those can be the three things that we can do in immigration reform to find a middle ground here in Congress. to pass a bill and get it to conference. So I want to commend the gentleman for his bright and careful draftsmanship. for his concern for the difficulties that we do face in our country as a result of the serious problem of undocumented workers in our country. I indicate to the gentleman that I. as one Member. will do all that I can to cooperate and to seek a solution that the gentleman is trying to perfect in his legislation. I thank the gentleman for taking out this time to better inform our membership on what will be an important debate here in this 99th Congress.