Speech #1050029615

I want us to stop for a moment and not pat ourselves so much on the back because we are about to pass this amendment. Let us recall what created this problem in the first place. Let us recall that it was a discriminatory welfare reform bill that cut 324 billion out of legal immigrants assistance. $24 billion that the legal immigrants of this country pay taxes for. far in excess of what they ever get back in human and social services. and yet this Congress felt there was no distinction to be made between illegal aliens and legal residents. They felt that the immigrants were such a dirty word amongst the American public that we could bash immigrants and scapegoat immigrants all the way through the last Congress. and that Is exactly what the bill. that the welfare reform bill that passed last Congress. did. It made no distinction between legal immigrants and Illegal aliens. Let me remind my colleagues that 24.000 legal immigrants serve In our Nations military. Imagine them on duty in Bosnia today without us passing this bill. In essence. we are going to pass a supplemental bill to fund liesnia. but we are not going to pass a bill that would allow-