Speech #1050119701

Charman. I yield myself such tLim as I may consume. at ma conclude by saying once again tllat. today our colleagues are seeng a rarO alignmenlt of uris here where we have the Department of Justleo. the State Department. and the White House itself Joining many of us il Congress wlo are Republicans in saying that we need to extend the program. liut we need to oppose any weakonlng anelidnents. Thp primary leasoil for opposing those weakuning amendments is because of the danger of Increasing illegal immigration In America. As I pointed out. unfortunately and rogrei.tahly. the country that seems to have lei. a lot. of people into the country Illegally Is Portugal. 26.000 today. And Ihat Is why the visa soreening process Is ix place. If Portigal becomes a Visa Pilot Program and It has ill exemption for obtaining visas. than we are going to be In a situation whore It is even easier for individuals from that country Io come Into the United States aild stay illegally. That 2.(10 figure Is simply going Io explode. we will have more Illegal aliens from Portugal lhan any other visa exemption country. Seconi of all. In tile case of Orecc. then their record is going the wrong direction. We should not be going in a direction that Is going to continue to onilermine tile Integrity of the immigration system. One more point. about Portugal. We have there. in the State Department as well. onn of the real conczrns that we have and that aley have Is that. If Portugtl became a visa walver countiry. we would see a dramaic lileroaso In child smuggling. The reason for that Is that Portugal has passports that do not have the plotographs of children on them. and joel. becausu a documenl. Eli a passport Is machine readable does netl. requie that they have the pllol.ogialihs of the children. And that Is one lreson the State Department has also opposed admission of Portugal as a visa waiver state. Mr. Chalirman.