Speech #1090100188

Mr. Chairman. I congratulate and agree with the notion that no immigration benefit should be given to any alien until all relevant background and security checks have been completed and any suspected fraud related to the granting of such status or benefit has been fully investigated and found to be unsubstantiated. The gentleman from Florida is right. He has.said in the context of his comments for this amendment that he believes that is happening now. and he may be right. I do not know that it Is not. But all I know is that for my congressional office and for my colleagues congressional offices. every time our staffs call regarding the processing of an immigration application. we hear there is nothing we can do. We are waiting for the FBI to get an answer. Why the FBI is just choosing the cases our congressional offices do. to hold back on providing information and denying immigration benefits. I do not know. In other words. what you say and what you ask for is correct. but the problem is not so much with the immigrant. The problem is with the bureaucracy. The resources. the leadership to get these terrorist lists. these watch lists. the criminal database up to date so we can get this information in a quick time is very important. I would just like to tell a quick story about the NSEERS program in Los Angeles. They had a registration date for different countries. If you are here from Iran on a nonimmigrant visa. come in on such and such date and register. People did that. Huge numbers of people flocked into the Los Angeles office of INS to do that. The FBI was totally unable to give any clearance to the people who were coming in. Huge numbers of people were held. detained and kept overnight over a weekend thinking they were just going to file a registration form because the FBI could not get the clearance. That Is a scandalous way to treated a number of people who came here as refugees fleeing the tyranny of the ayatollah because our bureaucracy failed to provide the answers. So to me the answer here in Homeland Security and the FBI and in the other critical agencies is to get these lists and this other critical information online and accurate and quick so that we can move ahead with legitimate requests for these benefits that should be conditioned on getting that information out. Mr.