No
terrorist ties.'' And then, lo and behold, we find out, eventually,
there certainly are. One of the problems that has been created during the last 8 years and
a little bit during the last part of the Bush administration is the
development discussion of countering violent extremism. But I do want
to touch on something about the diversity visa lottery program. My first year in Congress, in 2005, we eliminated the diversity visa
lottery program--at least voted in the House to eliminate it--but the
Senate would not take it up, wouldn't take it up. We had a Republican
majority in the House and Senate, and the Senate wouldn't take it up. Then, in November of 2006, we lost the majority in both Houses. And,
of course, the Democratic majority in both Houses loved the diversity
visa lottery program. In fact, I have a floor speech from Senator Chuck
Schumer where he extols the virtues of the diversity visa lottery
program. Here are some highlights. Senator Schumer said--this is May 24, 2006: ``As a Member of the
House, I helped create this program, which my colleague, Senator
Kennedy, created in the Senate in 1990.''
He said: ``In fact, my city of New York has dramatically benefited
from this program, and diverse countries such as Ireland, Poland, and
Nigeria have had large numbers of immigrants to be able to come, set
roots, and help the diversity of New York and of America.
``So this is an excellent program. Nobody has said it has done a bad
job.''
Those were his comments in 2006. Well, I am here to say it has done a bad job.
Keywords matched
visa immigrants