Speech #1030136259

Mr. Chairman. the end cost Is minimal. even to the Federal Government. I think the public. when they are listening to this debate. will understand we are being told. "You cannot do anything about the illegal Immigration problem. Leave it to the Immigration and Naturalization Service." In my State. we know by providing tens of thousands of dollars worth of benefits. education. health benefits. housing benefits to illegal aliens. what we have done Is enticed a flood of illegal immigration from all over the world Into California. and it is breaking our bank. Again. if Members defeat my amendment and this amendment. no one from California. from the Southwest. should come back to this body and say. "We need money to help take care of the education or health needs of illegal immigrants." because they have refused to permit us to set up a system where we can quantify the problem. By the way. leaving it up to Immigration. we know it has not worked In California. We know it has not worked. They can build a wall 10 feet high. dig a trench 20 feet deep. and if we are giving a package of benefits to people to come here illegally. especially if It Is aimed at helping their families. and these are good and decent people. we are not saying that the people who are coming here Illegally. whether it is from Canada. as was suggested. in Michigan. or whether it is from Mexico. as many of the people from California are from Mexico. or from Asia. or from Europe. or from Ireland. these are not bad people coming here. We just cannot afford to spend tens of millions. hundreds of millions. billions of dollars educating people from other countries who are here illegally. The bottom line Is when we hear the other side of this argument. talking with all sorts of compassion about "we cannot waste the money to even determine the problem." the American people can understand what Is going on. The American people are going to see that what we are being told is we cannot do anything about a problem that is draining billions of dollars out of our system. draining billions of dollars that should be going to provide education for our own kids. meaning kids of legal residents and U.S. citizens. and giving this money to provide benefits for the children of Illegal aliens. That is not to say that we do not like these children or that they are bad people. We hiuve to care about our own people first. Now. you can talk about all kinds of parliamentary maneuvers and things of why it cannot be done and use all of these words. The people back home will Just know that what is happening is an attempt to prevent at least a first step of coming to grips with this problem. And that is. we have got to take down the welcome sign that says. "If you can get across this border. we are going to give you all kinds of benefits. the same benefits package that any American has." because we are inviting people to come. and the Immigration Service that you are talking about. you are saying let the Immigration Service do it. I will tell Members. if we are providing this benefit. they are never going to be able to do that job. and you know they will never be able to do that Job because we are giving people an incentive to break the law and come here. I have supported legal immigration. This is not an antiimmigrant bill. This is an antiillegalalien move to try to stem this flow that is coming into our country and dissipating all of the funds that our people have saved up. whether it is retirement or whether it is health care. those people who come from our own country who have been here for a long time. legal residents and U.S. citizens and have contributed to the pot. We are about them.