Speech #1040193039

There is a need to deal with that In many ways and one way. of course. to deal with that is to make sure we have the proper education and the proper training. We cannot emphasize too much the necessity to take the initiative on education and maintain the initiative on education. During this busy week we also took up the immigration bill. The immigration bill is very important to me and to my district. I do not know of any other district in the country that probably has as many legal immigrants as my district has. I have not checked it. so I do not know. but I know that according to the last census 150.000 of the 581.000 people in my district are not citizens. 150.000 of the 581.000 people in my district are not citizens. and I interpret that to mean that they are legal immigrants because the illegal immigrants do not allow themselves to be counted. Illegal immigrants do not come forward and do not get counted. The people who have been counted and who have admitted that they are not citizens is a staggering number of 150.000 in my congressional district. The 11th Congressional District of Brooklyn has more than onethird of all the immigrants who are legal and who are counted in the census in New York City. New York City has between 400.000 and 500.000 legal immigrants and 150.000 of them are in my district. The immigration bill is very important. These are people who are hoping to become citizens. We have an intense drive on telling everybody who can become a citizen. do become a citizen as rapidly as you can. You need to defend your own interests. your own rights. We think that the attack on immigrants reflected in the immigration bill. that attack is unwarranted. We think that the attack on immigrants is unAmerican. Never before have the people of America attacked immigration. Immigration has always been the great source of new life and new blood in America. We are a country of immigrants. Why all the sudden are immigrants considered bad people? Immigrants helped to build the country. Right now in the country we have fewer immigrants than any period in history. In New York City we have 400.000 to 500.000 immigrants. whereas 20 years ago 1.5 million people in New York City were immigrants. Why are we attacking immigrants with such intensity and hostility now? Is it because the immigrants now are not white? Most of the immigrants are Asians or Hispanic. or they are people of African descent from the Caribbean area. Is the attack another form of racism? I think so. We have fewer immigrants. According to a New York Times editorial. the immigrants in New York earn on average greater income than a lot of other people who have been there longer than they have been. The immigrants In New York put back into the economy a large amount of money because they serve as entrepreneurs or are very active in many different ways in the economy of the city. The immigrants of New York are a benefit to New York. In fact. one of the things I am going to talk about in the allnight teachin that I will be hosting at Lower Manhattan Community College will be diversity and the contribution of immigrants to New York City. One of the great strengths of our city Is that it is a diverse city. The population is one of the most diverse in the country. just as the population of the country as a whole is a diverse population. and that is one of the great strengths of America. People of all kinds from all over the world live here. It is not a weakness. it is definitely a strength. We should not. through hostile immigration legislation. turn our backs on what is a selfevident truth. All of a sudden we have grown very stupid and very dumb. We are blinded by racism which tells us that we do not want Hispanic immigrants or we do not want Asian immigrants or any black immigrants from the Caribbean area. We are blinded by the truth of the matter. and that is that immigrants have always contributed to our Nation through immigration and our diversity puts us in a position that is advantageous in the rest of the world. As we move in this socalled global economy and the United States is competing for global markets with other nations. because of our diversity we will always have a salesman out there in that marketplace. no matter where the marketplace is. we can have a salesman that looks just like the people there. who talks like the people there. and who can share a cultural heritage of the people there. whether you are talking about the Pacific Rim countries or you are talking about China. China is now the third largest economy in the world.