Speech #1040269407

President. I have to say I am very disappointed. The Clinton administration is playing political games with the illegal immigration reform bill. This is one of the most important bills of this whole Congress. The Congress has worked very hard on this very necessary legislation. On August 2. 1996. President Clinton wrote to Speaker GINGRICH. The only item on which he said he would veto the immigration bill was the Gallegly provision on the free public education of illegal aliens. The provision was. in fact. contained in a draft conference report proposal circulated on the evening of September 10 by Republican conferees. At no time in the next 2 weeks. as this draft proposal was circulated. was I advised that the administration wanted to remove title V of that proposal. dealing with restrictions on benefits for aliens. Indeed. the administration mentioned the Gallegly provision was really the big item to them. that if we took Gallegly out. the President would sign the bill. In order to accommodate this administration and facilitate passage of this very tough illegal immigration bill. the Republican conferees dropped the Gallegly provision outright. and I argued for the dropping of that provision. mainly because I wanted to get this bill through because there are excellent provisions in this bill that are desperately needed. Additional changes were made to accommodate other concerns expressed by some Members on the other side of the aisle. For example. illegal aliens use of Head Start programs. English as a second language programs. and jobtraining programs would not count in the determination of whether the alien had become a public charge and. therefore. subject to deportation. A legal immigrants use of emergency medical services would not be subject to deeming. But the administration is now engaging in a shell game. Even though we removed the one item the President said would lead to a veto and made still other changes in the September 10 draft. and even though the President had 2 weeks to weigh in and did not do so. the administration is now calling [E 25361 upon its congressional allies to slow down and even derail this bill unless wholesale changes are made to it.