Speech #1140007184

The House has offered as part of their bill a rider which defunds Executive actions treating domestic violence. sexual abuse. and child exploitation offenders as secondary priorities for removal. In other words. the Presidents Executive action took people who have actually committed crimesnot just entered the country illegally but committed other crimesand made them nonpriority in terms of removal. Then. of course. there is the provision of the House bill that says we dont want to disadvantage legal immigrants and people who played by the rules because the House recognized that is exactly what the Presidents Executive action did. It kicked the people who played by the rules to the back of the line and the people who did not to the front of the line. But our friends in the minority obviously dont want to talk about that either. Millions of foreignborn immigrants have become successful. patriotic American citizens. We are richer as a country because of the contributions they have made to our great land. The fundamental choice we have is. are we going to have controlled immigration or uncontrolled immigration? The President and apparently his political party have embraced uncontrolled. illegal immigration as their cause. We. on the other hand. have said we believe in the benefits to our great country of legal immigration and assimilation because that is who we are. All of us have a family story somewhere back in our history. Mine goes back to the 19th century following a potato crop famine in Ireland that caused my forebears to immigrate to Canada and then to the United States. Everybody has a story like that. But it is a sad and important realization that the President. through his Executive action. is disrespecting the very individuals who have played by the rules and whom we celebrate as great. patriotic Americans.