Speech #1090100134

I appreciate the majoritys acceptance of this amendment for discussion. I did have other amendments which I thought were more important and more helpful to this bill. For example. in this bill. in section 607. we compensate various local law enforcement agencies of border counties. of which I represent two. for detaining. housing and transporting undocumented persons. The biggest problem for the counties on the border is the emergency health care providers who are not reimbursed for treatment of undocumenteds. My amendment. introduced in the House as H.R. 2934. is called "PayUp." Pay for All Your Undocumented Procedures. It authorizes the Federal Government to make payment to emergency ambulance and medical services for the cost of uncompensated care of undocumented persons that come to their facility aided by the Border Patrol or any other Federal immigration agency. Unfortunately. that amendment was not accepted for discussion. Another amendment would have allowed children in Mexico who have serious medical problems. for example birth defects. to come across the border as they did before 9/11 with 1day visas for emergency treatment. For the 40 years before 9/11. we were able to give lives back to about 125.000 young children. poor children who were treated in my city of Calexico at the Valley Orthopedic Center. After 9/11. these 1day visas were prohibited. That would have helped not only our relationship between our two countries but allowed our medical technology to help poor and young people who are living in Mexico. That amendment was not accepted. What was accepted is a technical correction that I will briefly explain. because the bill in most respects takes a wrong approach toward our illegal immigration problem. In this case. instead of making it a criminal act to sell and distribute fraudulent documents. the bill targets those who are trying to stay in the United States. My amendment fixes this fundamental problem by making the distribution or intent to distribute false. fake. or counterfeit immigration documents as much of a crime as creating or using them. Let us be clear. We are talking about the sale and distribution of illegal documents.