Speech #1050099271

This legislation will amend the Uniform Relocation Assistance and Real Property Acquisition Policies Act of 1970 to prohibit an alien not lawfully present in the United States from receiving assistance under that act. The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works has reviewed this bill and approved it for Senate floor action. My purpose in bringing this bill before the Senate is to address a loophole that was inadvertently created when immigration and welfare reform bills were recently enacted. In part. these bills were crafted to prevent illegal immigrants from entering the United States by denying Federal taxpayer paid benefits to illegal aliens. Currently. illegal aliens are still eligible to receive relocation assistance. Often. this assistance turns out to be a significant sum of money. This legislation was originally introduced in the other body following an incident in California in which an illegal immigrant was awarded $12.000 because her legal status in this country made her ineligible to be moved into section 8 housing. In other instances. relocation assistance is being awarded to illegal aliens who then use the money to buy homes in their countries of origin. This legislation simply closes a loophole which was overlooked in previous legislation and fully complies with the intent of Congress when it enacted immigration and welfare reform laws. I note that this legislation will not affect foreign nationals residing in the United States as legal residents or under the legal protection of a valid visa. In addition. the bill provides Federal agencies the ability to waive the provisions of this act in case of an exceptional and extremely unusual hardship. I have one technical amendment to bring the bill into conformance with the legislation already passed by the other body.