Speech #1040260053

Speaker. I yield myself such time as I may consume. and I rise in opposition to the motion to instruct conferees. The appointment of House conferees for H.R. 2202 marks another important juncture on the road to immigration reform. Hopefully it also means that the final destination is very close. The Immigration in the National Interest Act is just what it says. an effort to fundamentally reorient national immigration policy so that it protects first and foremost the needs of American workers. taxpayers. and families. We worked long and hard within the Committee on the Judiciary to bring this bill to the House floor where it passed by a margin of 333 to 87. Other Senate colleagues also labored intensely to bring forth a slightly different version of this legislation. passed by a vote of 97 to 3. These lopsided majorities clearly reflect the will of the American people. that Congress get serious about immigration reform. Not tomorrow. Not next session. But now. Illegal immigration has reached a crisis. One million permanent illegal aliens enter the country every 2.5 years. Half of these illegal aliens use fraudulent documents to wrongly obtain jobs and government benefits. and one quarter of all Federal prisoners are illegal aliens. Think of the human cost in pain and suffering to innocent victims. Think of the financial cost to taxpayers of incarceration in the criminal justice system. H.R. 2202 will better secure our borders by doubling the number of border patrol agents and cracking down on repeat illegal border crossings. It will increase interior enforcement and make it more difficult for illegal aliens to take jobs away from American citizens. And it will reduce the number of criminal aliens and the flow of illegal drugs into our country. The bill adopts the most comprehensive overhaul of our deportation system in this century. Deportation procedures are streamlined. and opportunities for illegal aliens and criminal aliens to "game the system" in order to stay in the United States disappear. Aliens who show up with no documents to legitimately enter the United States will be quickly turned back. rather than be given lengthy immigration hearings to which a vast majority new show up. H.R. 2202 also tackles the pressing problem of immigration and welfare. Our official national policy for almost a century has been that aliens should not be admitted to or remain in the United States if they become a "public charge"-dependent on welfare. Today. that presumption is turned upside down. Noncitizens receive a disproportionate share of welfare benefits in large States such as California. When all types of benefits are included. immigrants receive $25 billion more in benefits than they pay in taxes. The number of immigrants on Supplemental Security Income increases by 50 percent each year. We cannot continue down this road. Americas generosity towards those immigrants who want to work and produce and contribute will continue. But we should not admit immigrants who will live off the American taxpayers. H.R. 2202 ensures that sponsors of immigrants will be legally responsible for those they bring into the country. The bill also ensures that sponsors first have the means to meet this financial commitment. It makes no sense. as current law allows. for sponsor who are themselves on welfare to promise that they will keep the new immigrants they sponsor off of welfare. Obviously. this is a promise that cannot be kept. and the taxpayer foots the bill. This is truly landmark legislation. And it is long overdue. Its time to put the interests of American workers. taxpayers. and families first. Its time to push through to the finish. and complete passage of the Immigration in the National Interest Act. Mr. Speaker.