Speech #1050119657

Chairman. 1 yield myself such time as I may consums. Lot me go Into a little bit more detail as to why so many of us. Including tie administration. feel that if we expand the program to include any other country. it will Increase Illegal Immigration in our country. While the United States. as we have seen In the past couple of years. has increased security along our land borders. we have found out that those who want to enter Illegally are increasingly looking for other avenues. such as conIng In through visawalvered countries. State Department visa officers who Issue the visas are in fact our first line or defense against illegal immigration. Through facetoface Interviews with the visa applicants. the consular officors can weed out Individuals who do not plan to leave the United States when thair visas expire. .Jubt as Border Patrol agents defend our land borders every lme a Border Patrol agent apprehends an illegal alien. so our consular officers defend our borders every time they deny a visa to an individual who would have stayed In the United States Illegally and would have overstayed their visa. Mr. Chairman. the INS. through their Border Patrol agents. last year apprehended 1.6 million illegal aliens. Consulate officers denied visas to 1.5 mlllion foreign applicants. almost the exact same number apprehended in the United States by the Border Patrol agents. Without our visa screening. therefore. we would have at least 1.5 million more Illegal aliens In the United States. and pertaps many times that number. Mr. Chairman. a lot of people do not realize that 40 percent. or at least 40 percent of the number of Illegal aliens in this country today did not eross the border illegally. they came In tn a tourist visa or a business visa and then overstayed that visa. That is 40 percent of our Illegal alien problem in America today. If we eliminate a visa screening process for additional countries. we are simply going to be asking for more Illegal Immigration. I have to say also that one of the Irticular problems we have with admitting a country like Portugal is that Lite problem will be worse with that country than with any other visawalverod countries. Today. there are 26.000 pepie In thim Utlttd States who are here Illegally and who came from Portugal. If we did not have a visa program for individuals coming from Portugal and if thevisa program was eliminated and if Portugal became a visawalvered country. think how many times that 26.000 illegal alien number from Portugal we would have iti the country today. So clearly it does not make any sense to give . country that already has so many people who have already come 1it Illegally. to give any special consideratIon to not. have to go through the visa process. Finally. I have to say to many of my colleagues. and I know there are several who support expanding the program. that I am surprised by their stand. and It is not clear to me why any individual who has supported reducing illegal Immigration in the past by their votes in Congress would support an expansion of this program when so clearly that expansion would mean an Increase in illegal immigration. Mr. Chairman.