Chairman. I thank the gentleman from Florida for yieldIng me this time. and I am pleased to join with the gentleman from Florida. the gentlewoman from Florida [Ms. RosLIITLiNEN] and even the gentleman from Rhode Island as a cosponsor of this amendment which I think is very much needed to bridge the time from August 22 when the welfare reform bill. as It applies to legal immigrants. is going to go into effect until the first of the year to give us the time to work out a reasonable solution. Mr. Chairman. I think a history lesson is necessary here. Right now. 51 percent of the moneys that we spend on the elderly in SSI goes to noncitizens. We have found that the payment to noncitlzens Is growing at 10 times the rate that it is growing for citizens. Now that is not to say that we need to pull the rug out from under people who are already here. and that message is out there. and that message has boon heard. and we are going to solve that problem as part or the budget negotiations and reconciliation that we will be going through in the month of June. There is nobody In this House that wants to see people who have absolutely no place to turn to be dumped out on the street. and we are not going to allow that to happen. But also there is nobody In this House that I think really wants to continue to use SSI as a pension system for noncitizens. It was never designed that way. and if that is what we are going to do. then we should face that as a separate pension system that we would have to take a look at. But I do not believe that the American people would want to do that.
Keywords matched
noncitizens immigrants