[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 4 (Tuesday, January 21, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E106]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           ``IMMIGRANTS ARE NEW YORK CITY'S GREATEST ASSET''

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. PETER T. KING

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, January 21, 1997

  Mr. KING. Mr. Speaker, throughout his years as U.S. Congressman, 
mayor of the city of New York and as mayor for life of the city of New 
York, Ed Koch has secured for himself the title ``The Voice of 
Reason.'' Mayor Koch has a unique capacity to find common sense 
solutions for the problems that plague our society. Even more 
importantly, he is not afraid to be controversial. He is a true New 
Yorker who knows how to get to the heart of the problem. This quality 
was most recently typified in his recent column entitled ``Immigrants 
are New York City's Greatest Asset'' which appeared in the New York 
Post on January 17. I commend this column to my colleagues because it 
touches so meaningfully on the issue of immigration which is being 
exploited and demagogued by too many politicians today.

             Immigrants Are New York City's Greatest Asset

                              (By Ed Koch)

       Ellis Island is holy ground: My parents landed there 
     separately in the early 1890s. Before 1924, there were no 
     limits on the number of people permitted to enter this 
     country. If you survived the voyage in steerage and did not 
     suffer from a contagious disease, you gained entry.
       My parents and millions of others came here looking for a 
     better life. They sought economic opportunity and freedom 
     from anti-Semitism. They did not believe the streets were 
     paved with gold. But, like millions of others, they did 
     believe America would be free of the daily cursing they 
     endured from their non-Jewish neighbors in Poland. And they 
     believed America would offer them and their children a future 
     denied them elsewhere.
       Several years before my father's death, my sister and her 
     son Jared sat down with him and taped some of his early 
     memories. She asked, ``Daddy, what did you do for fun in the 
     winter?'' He replied, ``Mostly we went inside to get warm.''
       My mother's home in Poland was part of the Austro-Hungarian 
     Empire. I recall asking her, when I was quite young, ``Mama, 
     why do you always refer to Kaiser Franz Joseph as the `good 
     Kaiser Franz Joseph?' '' She replied ``Sonny, because he 
     didn't kill the Jews.''
       For years, I always wondered if she was right. After her 
     death, I read that Kaiser Franz Joseph issued a decree that 
     there was to be no Jew-bashing in his domain. Mama was always 
     right.
       I've visited Ellis Island a number of times, both before 
     and after its renovation and designation as a federal museum. 
     Like many others whose parents or grandparents came through 
     the Great Hall, I was elated when given an opportunity by the 
     new museum to mark my parents' passage with metal markers.
       Now, when I go to the island, I visit those markers. I 
     touch my lips with my finger-tips in a symbolic kiss and then 
     touch my parents' names inscribed on the metal plates.
       My parents, who were marvelous people with very few worldly 
     goods and a very limited education, nevertheless made it, 
     raising three children--my brother, Harold, the eldest; my 
     sister, Pat, the youngest; and me--and becoming part of 
     America's middle class.
       My mother died at age 62, my father at age 87. Mother 
     lingered in excruciating pain before her death, an experience 
     that has made me believe in physician-assisted suicide. I 
     will never forget her screams of unending pain as she pleaded 
     with me, ``Eddie, please let me die.'' And I, in tears, 
     replied ``Mother, you're getting well,'' when I knew that she 
     was not.
       My father, a gentle and beloved man with an enormous number 
     of friends, died easily, quickly and painlessly. We thanked 
     God for allowing him to pass over to the next world in such 
     peace. We were not so appreciative of the painful passage of 
     our mother.
       I've always been bewildered by the Catholic acceptance of 
     pain in the onset of death. If I understand the concept 
     correctly, the pain of one dying individual is in some 
     mystical way a great benefit for humanity and provides 
     enormous good for others.
       Two princes of the Catholic Church--Joseph Cardinal 
     Bernardin, whom I met briefly and admired, and Terence 
     Cardinal Cooke, with whom I had a warm friendship--both 
     embraced death and pain.
       My mother told me early on, ``Ed, don't mix in someone 
     else's religion.'' So I won't. While I do not fear death, 
     having had a full life, I do ask God to allow me to pass over 
     without pain when the time to go arrives.
       Why am I dwelling on the lives of my parents? Because 
     recently there has been a spate of stories on immigrants, 
     particularly those who came to New York in the last 10 years.
       The City Planning Commission issued a report entitled 
     ``Annual Immigrant Tape Files, 1990-94, U.S. Immigration and 
     Naturalization Service Population Division.'' I won't list 
     its many conclusions -- all favorable -- concerning the 
     impact of legal immigrants on the City of New York. But these 
     conclusions reinforce the need to fight the mean-spirited 
     efforts by Congress to punish immigrants.
       It isn't wrong to require sponsors of immigrants to fulfill 
     their legal obligations to support those they brought here 
     who otherwise would become public charges, as the new law 
     mandates.
       But it is wrong to deny legal immigrants who arrived before 
     this law went into effect the SSI coverage and welfare 
     benefits they'd been receiving. The new laws stripping legal 
     immigrants of welfare inclusion should have been prospective 
     and not retroactive.
       Recently I read the comments of Massachusetts Gov. William 
     Weld, a Boston Brahmin, on the value to our country of the 
     immigrant: ``I have long said that in the 1920's and 1930's 
     the best Americans were Europeans, and principally 
     European Jews who had reason to know what made this 
     country special. In the 80's, the best Americans were 
     Asians, for the same reason.'' I silently cheered.
       According to the City Planning Commission report, legal 
     immigrants are coming to the U.S. in even larger numbers, and 
     increasing percentages of the total number of these 
     immigrants hail from parts of the world that did not 
     participate in large-scale immigration when my parents came 
     here, including Africa, Asia and Latin America.
       These immigrants, like their predecessors--my parents among 
     them--add to the richness of this country. They give us the 
     benefit of their intelligence, their labor and their 
     children. In the words of Martha Stewart, ``It's a good 
     thing.''
       My father never learned to write anything besides his name 
     in English, although he could read. He worked hard all of his 
     life, generally holding two jobs to support his family. He 
     retired from his small fur coat manufacturing business at 75, 
     but, bored, he went to work for Bloomingdales' fur coat 
     storage six months later.
       When elegant ladies asked him to store their coats, he 
     would ask them to write their name and address on a ticket. 
     He would invariably look at the ticket and say, ``I see by 
     your address that my son is your congressman.''
       It made no difference if these women lived in Brooklyn or 
     Jersey City. My father saw me as representing the entire 
     United States.
       We should acknowledge the enormous contributions of 
     immigrants, embrace them and warmly welcome them. Immigrants 
     are New York City's greatest asset, today and for the future.
       Updating the philosophy of the good Kaiser Franz Joseph, 
     ``Let there be no immigrant-bashing in the U.S.''

                          ____________________