Speech #1030066424

I call on all of the Members of this body to lessen the acrimony and to be about the business of the people of the United States of America. who have always been supportive of those who are less fortunate than we. It seems to me in America today that because of our own economic deprivation caused by years and years and years of inattention to the inseparable triumvirate of inadequate jobs. inadequate housing. and inadequate educational opportunity of our own citizens. that folk look for scapegoats. When we look for scapegoats. we can best describe that as xenophobia. I decided to coin a new phrase today. as this immigration measure is attached to national service wrongfully. It is not immigration and illegal immigration. it is demagration. akin to demagoguery. that is being offered by those that would attach such an amendment. Please note. perspective needs to be added. The precedent that is being sought by this amendment would allow for inherent danger such that each measure offered by this body could have such an amendment attached. and we would spend taxpayer money here deciding whether or not we are going to proceed on allowing for any measure in this country for illegal immigrants. or to be able to undertake or to receive benefits therefrom. Where were these people when illegal immigrants were picking lettuce and tomatoes and people were crying out that they were under labor conditions that were wrong? Where were all of these people in the sweatshops of places in this country where illegal immigrants have come and legal immigrants have come. and they are not there to attend to the labor laws? Illegal aliens enter the shores of Florida in my district and in the districts of my colleagues every day. When they come into this country. they cause an occurrence that we describe in south Florida as megashocks. Where were these people when those illegal immigrants were coming day after day and impacting upon the social services? Where is the money that they voted that Florida would receive its fair share of the proceeds of this Nation for having to absorb any number of immigrants? Recently with our chairman. the gentleman from Florida . and the gentleman from New Jersey . as a codelegate. I visited for the first time the Continent of Africa. We went to the Horn of Africa. and it was there in Uganda and Kenya and Somalia and the Sudan and Ethiopia and Eritrea and Djibouti that I came to understand that even in their deprived conditions. Ugandans have refugees in their country. Even with the advent of disease and all of the problems that Sudan has. in the southern Sudan. Somalians are there as refugees. In Kenya. that has a devastated economy. Somalians and Sudanese are there. In Ethiopia and Eritrea. Somallans and Sudanese. Kenyans and Ugandans. are there as refugees. Those poor countries are willing to try and help poor people. It is divisive for us to have this kind of law.