Speech #1090120003

That is not unusual. It wasnt unusual to hear that in Nicaragua or El Salvador. and it wouldnt be unusual to hear that in most parts of the world. If we had no immigration laws at all and we said tomorrow to any one else of this worlds population of roughly 6.3 billion who want to come here: Come on along. you are welcome in this country. Come and stay. Come and grab a job. if you likewhy dont we do that? Why do we have immigration laws? Why do we have quotas of the number of people we can allow in each yearand we do allow people inwhy do we have those numbers? Simply because we cant absorb a massive inflow of immigration from around the world willing to work at substandard wages. We cant absorb that. The social services that are required to attend to it. the jobs they take. we cant do that. So we have a process called immigration by which people legally come into this country. People have come to this country illegally. It is estimated we now have 11 million people here illegally. I heard an actorwell. actually he is not much of an actorbut I heard this fellow on television yesterday on CBS. I believe it was. and he was doing his commentary about immigration. This is a fellow who has been wrong about most things. so it didnt surprise me what he said about immigration. He said: No one should call this illegal immigration. Well. I am sorry. but if people come here illegally. it is illegal immigration. We have 11 million people here illegally. In addition. 1.1 million people tried to come across our southern border last year. but were stoppedl.1 million were stopped at our southern border trying to come into this country. In addition to that. somewhere between 400.000 and 700.000 people we estimate came into this country across the southern border illegally last year. Finally. above that number. 175.000 immigrated from Mexico last year legally. That is in addition to the other quotas from the other countries. So the fact is. we have a very significant number who come into this country. and many of them come in illegally. So my colleagues bring an immigration bill to the floor and the President descibes the need for an immigration bill. as well as the President of Mexico. What they say is: We cant arrest and detain and deport 11 million people. I understand that.