Speech #1090135375

We sometimes have people leave the United States to go live somewhere else in the world. but they are few and small in numbers compared to the people that will do about anything to come to the United States to live here. In fact. we have seen plenty of that. We have the most generous legal immigration policy in the world. both in terms of sheer numbers and as a percentage of our population. We have been extraordinarily liberal with our immigration policies. and yet every Nation must establish their immigration policies. There has been a backlash to that in Europe. You will see in countries like Denmark. where they have started to shut down their immigration. The Netherlands. they have shut down to some degree. they started again to shut down their immigration. We saw what happened in France with thousands of cars that were burned. That is the results of essentially having more of an open borders policy. and you will see them tightening that down. We did that in this country too in 1924 when we saw that the massive legal immigration that was coming into the United States that started in the last quarter of the 19th century and ended in the first quarter of the 20th century. the wisdom of the Members of this Congress in this very Chamber. Mr. Speaker. took the position that we needed to allow a rest time. a time out. sotospeak. a break. so that there could be assimilation take place and that newly arrived immigrants could be assimilated into the American civilization. to the American economy. to the American culture and the American way of life. Had we not done that. we wouldnt have this distinct character and quality that we have. We wouldnt have had this robust Nation. this sense of togetherness and patriotism that allowed us to fight and win World War I and essentially emerge from that conflict as the worlds only surviving industry. The worlds only surviving superpower was the United States of America. up on the world stage because we got assimilation right. we got free enterprise capitalism right. we got our values right. our faith in God and the qualities of that foundation that grew from old English common law and their faith that came with that. tied into our Declaration and Constitution and fused into the culture of America. and we have that dynamic. the Protestant work ethic some say. But we emerged from World War II this dynamic Nation. And we held down the immigration throughout World War II and throughout the fifties. all the way up until 1965. and we did that because we wanted to allow for assimilation. We had a high birth rate. I am a product of the babyboomer generation. as most of us in this Congress are. Mr. Speaker. Then as the laws were changed in 1965. they put In place a thing that allows for the thing we now call chain migration. The chain migration. once you come into the United States. presumably legally. with the exception of the 86 amnesty and the six subsequent amnesties to that which we passed. you come into this country during chain migration. then if you become a citizen. even as a green card holder. you can bring in your spouse and your dependent children. When you become a citizen. then you can bring in your parents. your spouse. your dependent children and I believe your siblings. But this allows for an uncontrolled immigration that is no longer controlled by statute. no longer controlled by Congress. it is controlled by the people who want to come to the United States. not by the people in the United States and not by the people in this Congress. At least we havent intervened. Yet we find ourselves today watching 11.000 people every single day pour across our southern border.