Speech #1040042247

Well. I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for yielding. And. obviously. the whole issue of alien welfare is very important to Californians. particularly those who voted last November for proposition 187. which would have imposed a flat prohibition on the providing of social welfare services to illegal immigrants. And. unfortunately. the statewide ballot initiative is now tied up in the Federal courts pending some sort of adjudication. But it is very clear. just talking to voters and looking at the election results in California. that California voters are saying we need to put our own citizens first. It is equally clear that as we look at a streamlined welfare system. a welfare system that allows us to achieve real reform. a welfare system that allows us to help move people from welfare to work. a welfare system that. yes. through dramatic reform and overhaul will contribute to our overall goal of reducing the deficit and ultimately balancing the budget. that that welfare system cannot provide welfare benefits to aliens. So what we have attempted to do in the Economic and Educational Opportunities Committee on which I serve is come up with a provision that we think will reflect what Americans think and feel on the subject of welfare benefits for aliens. both legal and illegal. So I want to take a moment because we are going to hear the argument. in fact. it came up today. that we on our side of the aisle are engaged in punitive. almost unAmerican activities in that we do want to restrict benefits for. particularly for illegal aliens and that we are engaged in a notsosubtle form of immigrant bashing. I want to respond to that. I said earlier today on the floor that we are not bashing immigrants. We are giving strength to the longstanding Federal policy that welfare should not be some sort of magnet for immigrants. legal or illegal. We should be putting out the welcome mat for those who want to enter our country legally. who want to go through the process of establishing residency and ultimately achieving citizenship. But. on the same hand. we should not be oncouraging through some sort of perverse incentive in the welfare system the hordes of illegal immigration that those of us who hail from and represent border States such as myself and the gentleman from Arizona have been seeing firsthand for several years. Again. that is what really prompted the overwhelming response by California voters when they approved Prop 187 in California by a vote of nearly twothirds to onethird. So what we are trying to do to eliminate the magnet for immigrants is take four simple steps to reform welfare in this whole area. One. we prohibit legal aliens from participation in the big five magnet programs. And they are cash welfare that the gentleman from Arizona was talking about just a moment ago. food stamps that we are going to talk about in just a few minutes.