Speech #990183191

It is called the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Can anyone really believe that at a time of budget austerity. at a time when we are actually reducing the number of political refugeesnot regular legal immigrants. but political refugees. those people who have suffered persecution in their own country because of their ethnic backgrounds. their political beliefs. their religious beliefs. those sorts of things. at a time when we are actually reducing those numbersthat we would allow to enter our country such large numbers of people coming through a separate Legalization Program. Let me just give you the figures that I got recently on what total immigration is in the United States for 1985. It is 532.306. That is total legal immigrants and refugees. the total. Now. if we are talking about a green card concept for people coming in on our Guest Worker Program. it could very well be 350.000 to 500.000. If they are made permanent resident aliens as opposed to temporary workers. they then qualify to bring their families in. If you just assume that they would bring in a spouse and 2 children. which I think that is very. very conservative estimate. you will then say that we are talking upwards of 1 to 2 million people being added to the legalization program in another part of the bill and the annual yearly total of 532.306. This year. we are only accepting something in the neighborhood of 65.000 or 67.000 refugees from all over the world. and yet we are going to sell this program here? The further irony is that those who have come here to work in the United States in agriculture since the 1880sthis is not a recent phenomenon. but at least since the 1880sare largely a migratory work force. The nature of the work itself is such that permanent settlement here has not been characteristic of their behavior in general.