Speech #1040191129

Chairman. I rise in strong support of the Gallegly amendment. I want to congratulate him for his hard work as chairman of the Speakers task force on illegal immigration. Mr. Chairman. there are many arguments that have been made very eloquently by a number of my colleagues in opposition to this. One of the points that has been made consistently by those who would oppose this amendment out in California is that as we look at people who have come into this country illegally. we have a choice of having them on the streets committing crime or in the classrooms. which would we rather have? Well. of course we do not want to have people on the streets committing crime. One of the major reasons that we are dealing with this legislation is to comprehensively reform. reform our law as it relates to illegal immigration. We have amendments that I am pleased to say have passed and will go a long way toward dealing with that. but quite frankly. we need to recognize that this is not a meanspirited amendment. This is an amendment that simply follows down the road that we have been pursuing over the past 15 months. that is. trying to allow State and local governments to have the opportunity to make decisions for themselves.