Speech #1030075331

We have also vividly seen the rusty freighters loaded with mainland Chinese intending to enter the country illegally. If stopped. these aliens. too. will claim asylum. often alleging fear of punishment for violation of Chinas family planning laws. This alien smuggling operation. carried out by Asian organized crime gangs in the United States. has been called a modernday "slave trade" by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. We cannot let CNN or the networks drive our immigration policy. What makes good television does not make good immigration policy. nor does it necessarily reflect the serious problems that we do have with immigration today. However. although tens of thousands of illegal aliens enter our country because of asylum abuse at our airports and through organized* smuggling operations. they are but a drop in the bucket compared to the number of aliens who walk. swim. and drive across our borders. illegallyevery single day. Each night. thousands of persons enter illegally to seek jobs in the United States. and the Immigration Service apprehends over 3.000 of them daily but twice as many slip through. More than 1.2 million persons attempting to enter illegally were apprehended and were required to leave in 1992. Many of these aliens attempt to reenter the same day. Thousands of other aliens enter the country legally with temporary visas and simply stay on illegally. after their visas have expired. The illegal population in the United States is in the millions. and growing. This illegal population is a heavy financial burden on State and local governments. The costs for education and medical care are particularly high. and it is not only a school budget problem. but the quality of education is affected. The growing number of students who have difficulty with English causes tremendous problems for nativeborn students. as teachers attempt to accommodate the limitations of the newcomers. County officials tell us that 70 percent of the babies born in the Los Angeles County hospitals are born to illegal alien mothers. Under current law. these children become citizens at birth and are eligible for welfare assistance. which their families seek and accept. In Los Angeles County. 11 percent of the prison population is illegal. and over 40 percent of those illegal aliens are rearrested within a year after their release. In the Federal prison system. 25 percent of all prisoners are aliens. Millions of illegal aliens are working in the United States. most in jobs that pay in excess of the minimum wage. Although the knowing employment of illegal aliens is prohibited by law. illegal aliens purchase fraudulent documents. or craft them. to prove their legality to employers. The widespread sale and use of fraudulent documents has serious consequences for the United States. not only with illegal immigration. but also with regard to access to welfare assistanceand what will be access to our health care systems when we complete any kind of health care reformparticularly health carefirearms purchases. a tremendous gimmickry regarding fraudulent documentation. and even voter registration. The growing illegal population in the United States is causing still further problems. Debates have arisen in the Congress and elsewhere regarding the counting of illegal aliens in the census for apportionment purposes. and some studies indicate that many aliens. legal and illegal. are voting in State and local elections. Some localities have even passed legislation permitting such voting by aliens. Illegal aliens live and work in the United States for years without being detected. If detected. may claim political asylum as a defense to deportation. despite the fact that the alien may have been in the United States for years. Our asylum process is burdened with so many layers of appeal and opportunities for delay. Any alien fleeing to the United States to avoid persecution should make his claim of asylum at the time he enters. rather than violating the laws of the country in which he seeks protection. This practice of not claiming asylum until the illegal status is detected. combined with the builtin opportunities for delay in our asylum procedures. has created an enormous backlog of more than 300.000 asylum claims. The United States has only half as many asylum officers as Sweden. and our asylum system is completely overwhelmed. There are also hundreds of thousands of aliens in the country who entered illegally. and then asked for "temporary safe haven" hereuntil conditions improved in their home country. El Salvadorans constitute one of the largest such groups. More recent arrivals include the more than 10.000 Haitian boat people brought here from our refugee processing camp in Cuba after claiming fear of persecution following the coup against President Aristide. We have allowed temporary safe haven to become permanent residence as these groups remain here months and years after conditions have changed for the better at home. They cannot be returned unless things have changed for the better at their homenone would want that. Legal immigration to the United States is at its highest level ever. Approximately 700.000 immigrants are admitted legally each year. In addition. we have been admitting more than 120.000 refugees annually in recent years. On top of that we grant temporary protective status to hundreds of thousands of persons. many. if not most. of whom stay on permanently. Finally another 10.000 were given "humanitarian parole" into the country in the past year.