Speech #1040193039

The diversity helps the Nation as a whole. I would like to report good news. In the debate on the immigration bill somebody convinced somebody. because we had bipartisan support. for a separation of the legal immigrant issues from the illegal immigrant issues. Many have counseled that for some time and begged for it. We thank the President and the White House for coming out at the last minute. but they did come out In support of a separation of legal immigrant issues from the issues of how to take care of illegal immigrants. Nobody is going to stand on this floor and countenance illegality of any kind. Illegal immigration is a representation of the inadequacy of our Government to take care of its basic business of guarding the borders and making certain that certain laws are enforced. Illegal immigration Is a signal that there is a tremendous incompetence in the way that we handle certain matters. We should move to end that incompetence. Maybe we are not allocating enough resources. We should move to do that. But we should not be preyed upon by illegal immigrants. just as we should not be subject to the ravages of any other kind of illegal activities. We did vote and I am happy to report to my constituents and to many others that basic issues of how to handle legal immigration. how to establish new numbers. how to deal with families being reunited. a number of issues were separated out. and this bill in the end finally dealt mostly with illegal immigration. There were some bad moments. and there was a provision voted in that said that immigrants coming Into this country must be proficient in English. That. I think. is a step in the wrong direction. and there were some other things that I consider steps in the wrong direction. but we did get the separation of the legal immigration issues from the illegal. One other thing was voted down. and that was an attempt by the corporations to bring in selected personnel so that they could drive down the costs of doing business. The same people who argue that we should limit immigration in general. the same people who have made war on immigration in general suddenly want to make an exception. They want to bring in computer programmers. They want to bring in people from countries where salaries are much lower for technicians and professionals. and use them to undercut the wages of professionals and technicians in this country. including nurses.