Speech #1010044101

We do not turn away the sick. the ill. the pregnant woman just because they do not have a ticket or because they do not have an appropriate document. And so these communities neither ask for this responsibility nor do they have the ability to effect those decisions that were made by thousands of people and. yes. they have been obligated to accept very significant social and financial responsibilities. And now we are about to say that in spite of all of that. that in some perverse manner. these communities have been the beneficiaries of this failure of the National Government to fulfill its constitutional responsibility to establish a uniform rule of naturalization and that they should be punished again by having another failure by changing a 200year definition of the U.S. Constitution of who is counted for purposes of the census. This is a count which is not only for political purposes. the allocation of seats in the national Congress. but also for the allocation of everything from sewer grants to provide basic community services which these. as well as other persons. are going to require. to all the other ways in which the Federal Government allocates funds to meet the responsibilities and needs of our communities and their citizens. Why. by what standard of fairness for justice could you say that we should now punish these communities a second and a third time by denying them what. by all accounts. is just a Juy1.1989 fair allocation of funding because we are going to say that we will riot count these people who buy Federal policy in the establishment of a uniform rule of naturalization has caused to come to their communities. Madam President. I believe that this amendment. while motivated by reasons that are sufficient and Justifiable to the sponsors. has a perverse twisting of the very responsibilities of this Federal Government and that rather than move along this track. that we should take another path. and that path should be one of accepting as a national responsibility the consequences of the application or the failure to apply and enforce our standards of a uniform rule of naturalization. That would be a policy that would be worthy of a great Nation. When the Statue of Liberty was accepted from the French people and set down in New York harbor. it was not a statue for the City of New York or the State of New York or the immediate environment. It was a statue that stood for the United States of America. and the statements that were contained there about our sense of universality were for all Americans. I believe that in carrying out that concept of the national responsibility for naturalization that we should defeat this amendment which moves in exactly the opposite direction by denying national responsibility. and we should instead be prepared to accept the national challenge and obligation of seeing that the appropriate needs of those communities which have been so heavily impacted and which have borne for so long this special responsibility is eased. Thank you. Madam President.