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[Congressional Record: October 29, 2000 (House)]
[Page H11513-H11514]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:cr29oc00-56]
EXPLANATIONS FOR WHY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES IS BEING KEPT IN
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the
gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher) is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, we have heard many explanations of why
we are being kept in. It is important again to reiterate the President
is asking us to spend more money in several different areas. Whatever
his initial request was, it is irrelevant.
The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) has come up and very
eloquently explained to us his point of view on why that is no longer
relevant. But the fact is, the President's demands at this time are
what is relevant. What is relevant to us and what is keeping us is the
President of the United States is threatening to veto pieces of
legislation unless we include more money, more money in different areas
like health care, education, and different things that he has in mind
for his priorities.
However, amongst that list of demands, it is not just more money for
these things, but amnesty, a general blanket amnesty for millions of
illegal immigrants into our society.
I think the American people who are paying attention to what is going
on in Congress right now, when we say that the President is putting
politics before people, he is putting politics before the American
people. For some reason, he must believe that granting blanket amnesty
to millions of illegal immigrants, making them eligible for these
education and health benefits that should be going to our own people,
that that in some way is going to get him votes for somebody. Give me a
break.
[[Page H11514]]
The American people should be outraged that their President is
holding the Congress hostage, trying to force us in order to get home
to campaign, for us to grant a blanket amnesty to millions of illegal
aliens which then in the long run will drain money from education
benefits, drain Federal dollars from health care benefits, will make
our Social Security and Medicare systems less stable.
{time} 2215
Why, because we put millions of new people into the system who have
come here illegally from other countries. When they were in the other
countries of course, they never paid into those systems. So granting an
amnesty, blanket amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants is
demonstrably against the well-being of our people; and Congress should
stay here and fight to the last ounce of our strength to prevent this
travesty from happening.
We have also compromised somewhat. We have said we will go along with
the President and agree to a family reunion for those immigrants who
are here legally now and have families and have been separated and
overseas for a number of years waiting to get in and we will let them
come into the country. There is a responsible number of people that we
would then permit to come in for humanitarian reasons.
But to grant a blanket amnesty for millions, the last time we did
this was 1986 and what happened after 1986? It was like a welcome sign
had been lit over the United States, ``come on in'' to everybody in the
world who would want to participate in our free society and receive
government benefits, I might add.
What we had was a flood of illegal immigration that in my State of
California has come close to destroying the viability of our health
care system, of our education system. If we take a look at the
education scores in California, much of it has to do with the fact that
we have had a massive flood of illegal immigrants into our society and
we have to pay for their education, even though they just arrived and
never paid into our system. That is unfair to our people.
Mr. Speaker, we care about the people of the United States of
America. Yes, we care for other people as well. And most immigrants,
illegal and legal, are wonderful people. But this bill that the
President is demanding insults those people who are legal immigrants,
who have stood in line and proven to be our very best citizens because
they have come here legally. They respect our laws and they love the
United States of America. We cherish their citizenship. But we have
made fools out of them if we grant amnesty to people who have just
jumped the line and come into our country illegally, thumbing their
noses at our laws.
We must resist the President's efforts to force this Congress to
ignore the well-being of our own people and bring in millions upon
millions of illegal immigrants and give them blanket amnesty. It is
unfair. It is not right. We have agreed to a compromise here. We have
agreed that we will have some family reunification and that is a
responsible position, because it helps those people who are here
legally and already in our country to unite with their loved ones. But
a blanket amnesty is outrageous, and I ask the American people to pay
close attention.
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