Speech #1090120275

We passed major legislation which included an amnesty program. and the problem grew by 400 or 500 percent. a problem that was maybe 3 million illegal workers in our country back then. Even after so many of them were granted amnesty and given legal status. what do we face now? We face 12 million. perhaps more. illegal immigrants in this country. What is the simple lesson of that bit of history? The simple lesson is that we never got real with border security. We never got real with enforcement. And perhaps the most important lessonthat anything akin to an amnesty program is going to encourage a lot more of that illegal activity which we are still not fully prepared to deal with on our borders. The simple but basic conclusion I reached from that important history is that we need to address border security and enforcement first. We need to get real and prove ourselves on that side of the equation first because we have never effectively addressed that in the past. including 1986. My plea to all of my colleagues is that we address this major issue in a simple twostep approach. First. lets do what there is wide consensus on. lets pass important border security provisions. Lets pass important and vital enforcement provisions. including those which go directly at employers who break our law by hiring illegals. And lets prove to ourselves and our constituents that this can and will be done.