Chairman. if I may add. I appreciate what my colleague from California was trying to do with regard to his perfecting amendment. But I would ask the gentleman from California if he would look closely. what he does is he tries to make sure that any religious organization or place of worship is allowed to provide worship services to the undocumented. but as the National Conference of Catholic Churches indicates. they do more than just provide services in places of worship. They also provide soup kitchens. they provide legal services. they provide aid to the indigent. The amendment of the gentleman from California would do nothing to alleviate the problem. With regard to the issue of law enforcement. let us take a look at how anomalous this particular amendment by Mr. BAKER is. The Immigration and Naturalization Service. which is empowered to enforce our immigration laws. would not be allowed to employ national service participants to help them in activities under the INS. because they provide services as border patrol. INS officers. which benefit or go to undocumented immigrants. So. the INS border patrol under the Baker amendment would be prohibited from receiving national service participants. That is unfortunate. That is the same reason why a police department would not be allowed to hire police explorers because you would end up having a police department providing a safety service which obviously would benefit an undocumented if he or she happens to reside in that city area. For that reason. both law enforcement departments would not be able to partake in national service. and that is unfortunate.
Keywords matched
undocumented immigration Immigration immigrants Naturalization border patrol