Speech #1040010605

Looking at the Women Infants and Children Program [WIC]. which provides coupons for food staples such as milk and eggs to very poor pregnant women to meet basic nutritional needs. we find that through WIC: Medicaid costs were reduced on average about S12.000 to $15.000 per infant for every very low birthweight baby. On the initial investment. total saving in health and education related expenditures over the 18 years of life of WIC children amounted to over S1 billion. Setting aside the issue of humanity for a moment. are we willing to incur these huge debts just because immigrants have become unpopular? The WIC Program has proven itself over and over again. why stop the savings we know we can accrue? Are we willing to deny a pregnant woman who is a legal immigrantwhose child will be a citizen at birththe benefits of the WIC Program? Are we willing to all but guarantee the birth of a low birthweight citizen? And as for emergency food aid. are we willing to say that a legal immigrant who is disabled on the job and becomes unemployed cant go to a soup kitchen? In recent days. there have been reports that the Republicans may resolve the matter by allowing individual States to decide whether their noncitizen residents will be barred from aid. A Republican Member was quoted as saying. "We should not be mandating to the States how they should best decide who they consider most deserving and most in need of social assistance." What do you suppose would have happened if there had never been a Brown versus Board of Education Supreme Court decision? Do we now value one person in this country more than another? What message does this send to legal immigrants? Why should they leel less worthy than any other individual? Why should one baby born to a lawabiding mother not get benefits when another baby will? We cannot begin this debate by stigmatizing a whole group of people who certainly do not deserve it. Welfare reform is supposed to be about fixing the system and giving people a chance to succeed. Lets not get confused and try to balance the budget on the backs of immigrants. The Senate has said it will not pass legislation which would cut ofI benefits to noncitizen immigrants. I think this is the only option we have before us. I encourage all Members to reject a proposal that has at its base a return to segregation. but this time it is segregation where one group of people is stigmatized. discriminated against. and denied access to programs simply because the peopleregardless of how responsible and committed to this country they may bewere not born in this country.