Speech #1040197337

President. I will continue on with my comments. Arizona is not the only State dramatically affected by illegal immigration. The INS estimates that there are 4 million illegal immigrants in the United States and that this number is growing by 300.000 to 400.000 each year. While the United States has always been. and should continue to be. a land of opportunity for U.S. citizens and for those who come here illegally. we simply cannot afford as a nation to continue to incur the unrestrained costs of illegal immigrationin jobs. in welfare. in education. in health care. in crime on our streets. and on our penal system. To illustrate the effect. consider that over onequarter of all Federal prisoners are foreignborn. up from 4 percent as recently as 1980. Again. over 25 percent of all Federal prisoners are foreignborn. It was only 4 percent just 15 years ago. As we all know. yesterday was tax day. It is not fair. given our $5 trillion debt and annual $200 million in deficit spending. to ask lawabiding taxpayers to pay for those who choose to violate our laws to come to this country illegally. or even to pay for legal immigrants who. once here. quickly come to depend on our Nation for welfare and other public benefits. S. 1664 will go a long way toward eliminating those incentives. Under the bill. illegal immigrants are banned from almost all public benefits programs outright and legal immigrants will have to work 40 quarters before becoming eligible for most benefits. I was pleased that the committee passed a number of amendments I offered to deal with this general issue: these include requiring the Education Department to report to Congress on the effectiveness of a new system designed to ensure that ineligible aliens do not receive higher education benefits. and requiring the Federal Government to reimburse States for the costs of providing emergency medical services and ambulance services also passed. The latter was offered on behalf of Senator McCAIN. I also plan to offer an amendment during this debate to ensure that. as the House did. illegal aliens do not receive assisted government housing benefits. So that aliens do not come to this country illegally and take jobs away from lawabiding taxpayers. the bill directs the Attorney General to conduct regional and local pilot employer verification projects to ensure that employees are eligible to work in the United States. Employers are already required to fill out the 19 form to verify the eligibility of employees. However. the 19 system is open to fraud and abuseparticipants in the new system will be. for the most part. exempt from the 19 requirement. An improved verification system will protect employers from unintentionally hiring illegal aliens and also protect potential job applicants from discrimination. The bill specifically prohibits the establishment of any national ID card. Employee verification can only be used after an employee is offered a job. and would require a subsequent vote in Congress before a national system could be established.