Mr. President. I appreciate the thoughtful remarks of our fellow member of the Subcommittee on Immigration and Refugee Policy. and indeed. he has expressed that we must indeed turn our attention to the fact that this is not Just our Nations problem. although certainly the first duty of a sovereign nation is to control its borders and. of course. that must be done unilaterally. I have visited and debated many times with my friend from Mexico City. Jorge Bustamonte of Collegio de Mexico. who has shared common platforms with me many times. insisting and with great zeal and enthusiasm that this is indeed a bilateral issue. And yet it is critical that we realize that if we were to tell our neighbors to the South what to do with their immigration policies. they would be offended. And that same type of thing could arise here and nearly did during the debate on the first bill when there was an expression from the Senate of Mexico that they felt that this was a bilateral issue and they needed to be heard on the issue. And. of course. if we had intruded in that manner in their legislative deliberations I believe it would have been distressful. As I visited with President Lopez de Portillo. I said to him. "What is it that you would have us do as deal with illegal immigralon?" There was no response. I said. "Im not from the State Department. Im not from the executive branch.
Keywords matched
Immigration Refugee immigration illegal immigralon