[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 95 (Wednesday, June 30, 1999)]
[House]
[Page H5099]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 IT IS TIME TO ADDRESS THE ISSUE OF OUR REFUGEE SYSTEM AND IMMIGRATION 
                                 POLICY

  (Mr. BILBRAY asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BILBRAY. Mr. Speaker, I apologize but I just had to come up and 
make a statement about something that one of my colleagues was 
addressing, the issue of the Cuban immigrants who were basically forced 
to be accepted within the United States shores. It was one of the 
interesting situations where we had a group of people in a boat that 
were directed to stop by the Coast Guard and a few of them jump 
overboard and violate the direction and swim ashore and get to stay on 
U.S. soil permanently under a refugee status, while those who played by 
the rules, at least took direction, technically were not supposed to 
stay here. The absurdity of the situation is that then somebody has a 
demonstration protesting the fact that those who abide by the rules 
have to go back to Cuba, and they reverse the policy and say all of 
them can stay.
  Mr. Speaker, it is time that we address the issue that our refugee 
system and our immigration policy do not follow common sense. I know 
this is not politically correct to talk about, but frankly I think that 
common sense is always politically correct; that we have people that 
want to come to this country legally, play by the rules, want to enter 
legally and they are told they cannot, while we reward those who are 
breaking the rules and coming into our country illegally.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask us to correct this issue and address it here on 
the House floor.

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