My colleague Senator KENNEDY is. of course. as is Senator GRAHAM. But my impression is this is not the result of a careful deliberation by the committee of jurisdiction here in the Senate. Instead. this is one of these floor amendments that is intended to demonstrate that legislators want to "~get tough on crime" and particularly want to get tough on crime if it involves immigrants. So that is what is going on here. I think the strongest argument I know. and I am sure this is what the Senator from Massachusetts was mentioning. is the cost that is involved in actually going ahead with this amendment. We are talking about taking people. and instead of kicking them out of the country. we are requiring those individuals be incarcerated in this country at very substantial expense to the U.S. taxpayer for a very long period of time. I dont know that it makes good sense for us to be doing this. One of the purposes of this immigration legislation that is before the Senate right now is to reduce the burden on U.S. taxpayers of all of the immigrants coming into the country. This amendment does the exact opposite. This amendment puts an enormous additional expense on the taxpayers of the United States by saying: If you come into this country illegally. we are going to lock you up and we are going to be sure you stay locked up for a long time.
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immigrants immigration