Speech #1100028120

Mr. Speaker. and before the American people. This immigration issue that is before America is I believe the most complicated and least understood piece of policy that I have seen debated in this country in my lifetime. I have been involved in the immigration issue since well before I came to Congress 5 years ago. Today as ranking member of the Immigration Subcommittee. I sit through immigration bearings two times a week. sometimes three times a week. sometimes more than that. Witnesses bring a lot of information before the committee. and we are required to read a lot of information. And then one has to read the press clippings to try to understand what the American people are trying to divine out of the things that we are wrestling with here in this Congress. As I state how complicated this issue is. and I look at the chart that Mr. GINGREY had up. the one that I believe demonstrates the 273 people that could be brought into the United States under the chain migration program. the family reunification plan. the plan that presumes that all family reunions. however minor or major. are reunions that all must take place in the United States as long as there is any one person of one of those families that is here. That is quite a presumption. that you cant have a happy family reunion except in America. And the 273 that can generate from one individual that is lawfully present in the United States and starts this process. this is a calculation that isnt something that we happen to know in this Congress. because Mr. GINGREY has presented that here tonight. this is a calculation that is done by illegal immigrants and legal immigrants across the world. not just across our southern border into Mexico and points down south towards the Panama Canal. but China as an example. So the going rate. if you are a pregnant Chinese lady. is $30.000 for a roundtrip ticket to come illegally into the United States. have the baby. get his little footprints put on a U.S. birth certificate and go on back to China. Then after the 18th birthday. that child can start the famfly reunification plan. and you start down the path of this chart that shows