[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 78 (Thursday, June 7, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H2990-H2994]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
IMMIGRATION REFORM SHOULD BE TOP PRIORITY FOR AMERICA
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) is
recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, once more, I rise to the podium to discuss
an issue I think is of significant importance to the United States. I
believe, as a matter of fact, it is perhaps the most significant public
policy issue with which this body could or should be dealing. It is the
issue of immigration reform.
Each evening at the end of business in this House, ladies and
gentlemen from both sides of the aisle approach the mike to talk about
particular issues of interest and concern to themselves. And each
evening for the last several, Members, especially from the California
delegation, have come to the microphone to talk about the problems that
they face in that State as a result of a lack of sufficient energy
resources. And each evening, they rail against the President's
policies, the energy plan that he has put forward, the first such plan
ever put forward by any administration, and suggest that the problems
we face in this Nation with regard to energy are those that can be
dealt with more by conservation than by production.
But all of the debate, Mr. Speaker, about energy problems, whether
they concentrate on the issue of production as a solution or the
possibility of conservation as a solution, miss the underlying problem.
The fact is, Mr. Speaker, the rolling blackouts we see in California
and now some places beyond the borders of California, the skyrocketing
costs of fuel oil, the fact that as we approach summer people are
concerned about whether they are going to be able to keep their homes
cool and in the wintertime whether they are going to be able to keep
their homes warm because of the cost of energy. All of these things
really are a result of a phenomenon I refer to as the numbers. It is
numbers. It is the number of people in this country demanding the
various resources that are available to them, but at varying costs.
[[Page H2991]]
Every year, Mr. Speaker, we allow legally into this country 1 million
people under an immigrant status. Each year, we allow in another
quarter of a million people under what is called refugee status. And
each year, we have about 2 million to 3 million, the estimates vary
widely of course, naturally, 2 million to 3 million illegal people
coming across the borders and staying. We have far more coming across
the borders, something like 800,000 a day, coming across the border;
but I am saying that just those that we net out every year amounts to 2
million or 3 million.
I have a chart, Mr. Speaker, actually two charts, if I could ask a
page to set them up, that show the growth of the population of this
Nation over the last 20 years or so. We just had the census and the
headlines across the Nation scream out, population growth
extraordinary, more than we have anticipated, more than could have been
anticipated, more than was expected. And we sometimes wonder how this
could have happened; how it could happen that the numbers of people
could actually grow so rapidly.
This, Mr. Speaker, is a chart that describes what has happened from
1970 when the population was about 203 million and the growth in
population identified here in green that could be attributable to what
we would call the native-born population, or specifically, the baby
boomers. As we can see, the population growth was increasing, has
increased, just the natural population growth, since 1970; and there
has been a lot of concern about that.
However, the population would, in fact, level off, the population
growth that is identified by this Baby Boomer Echo, as is shown here in
green, that would level off in about 2020, and we would actually begin
a decrease in population growth. That does not mean a decrease in
population, just that the trend line is going down, were it not for the
fact that we have an immigrant population that has actually doubled the
size of growth in the United States, the rate of growth. So we would be
right now at 243 million people in the United States, had it not been
for immigration over the past 30 years. We are at 281 million people in
the United States as a result of it; we have actually doubled the
growth rate.
Now, this is intriguing, the numbers are interesting, and we can
discuss what the implications are; but the fact is, we will be in a
relatively short time, at a point where our resources will be stretched
to the limit. We are not able to actually accommodate the population
growth of this Nation with the resource allocation and with the problem
of environmental protections that we perhaps rightly, perhaps blindly
place on the actual development of our natural resources. For whatever
reason, we cannot produce enough to supply the demand of the population
we have in the United States in terms of energy. So when people from
California rail against whatever political party is in power, either at
the State or at the national level, and suggest that that is the
problem, that we would all have lots and lots of fuel oil, gasoline,
energy supplies if it only were not for some particular problem with
the political philosophy of one party or the other.
Mr. Speaker, it has nothing to do with that. It has everything to do
with the fact that both political parties refuse to deal with the real
problems we face in America today brought on by this enormous growth in
population, and that specifically, that growth in population, that part
of it that is brought on by immigration.
{time} 1515
For many years, Mr. Speaker, we have had, of course, immigration in
the United States of America. It is a country of immigrants. We all
came here as a result of someone's decision at some point in time to
leave their country and to come to the United States.
I am quite sympathetic with all those people, who still today are
hardworking, God-fearing, law-abiding in every other way except they
will come across the border illegally.
For the most part, these people are people who have all of the
intentions, all of the desires to become part of the American dream, to
obtain a part of the American dream, that our grandparents had. I
certainly do not blame them for coming. I do not blame them for trying
to come across the border legally, or sometimes illegally. I would not
doubt for a moment that if I were living in some of their
circumstances, I would be trying to do exactly the same thing.
So it is not the immigrant, the individual immigrant, that I am
concerned about here or that I am in any way trying to degrade. It is
our own policy, it is the policy of this Nation with regard to
immigration. It is the head-in-the-sand policy, we should call it, with
regard to immigration that I am concerned about. It is a refusal on the
part of the Nation to deal with the fact of the numbers.
It is the numbers. It is not where people are coming from, it is how
many people are coming here that has an impact on the quality of life
in the United States. We are witnessing it in California on sort of a
major scale, but every one of us, I believe, throughout our districts
can observe the effects of immigration, and I would suggest to the
Members, the negative effects of it, depending on who we are in the
process.
If one is an employer desirous of obtaining the cheapest labor
possible, desirous of paying people even below minimum wage, desirous
of having people who would never think about perhaps filing a claim or
something like that, then they are on the other side of this issue.
They are happy about massive immigration, public or private, because
they can take advantage of it. They take advantage of those people
coming in asking for help, needing a job, doing anything for a job and
fearful of causing a problem in any way, because, of course, they may
find the INS at their door.
However, the possibility of that is quite remote. We actually deport
only 1 percent of the illegals that enter the country every year, 1
percent. So as I say, they should not really be too concerned. But if
they make waves, then they might end up being identified by the INS.
Maybe somebody would place a call. Why? Because they have had the
audacity to ask for a minimum wage job, or that their benefits be
increased, but they are here illegally. We take advantage of them. They
are manipulated. They are exploited by greed.
So if they are on that side of the equation, I can understand full
well, Mr. Speaker, that those people would not be too excited about the
possibility of reducing the levels of immigrants into this country to
something that we can handle, something that can allow immigrants to
actually prosper themselves, and allow the United States to prosper
itself. It could be mutually beneficial.
We need to reduce immigration dramatically, but as I say, it is just
not a Californian who has a concern about this. Every single one of us
sees something happening in his or her district that is a result of
immigration.
In Colorado, I see it all the time. We see the demand for more and
more highways, the demand for more and more schools. We keep wondering,
where are these people coming from? How is it that this demand is
growing so dramatically? It is a result, of course, of massive
immigration, both legal and illegal. We will begin to see much more of
its effects as time goes by if we do not do something about it.
Mr. Speaker, I showed the Members a chart a little bit ago that
identified this part of the growth of this Nation from 1970 to 2000. We
see again that 243 million would have been the population of the Nation
had we in fact not had immigration in the last 30 years, but with
immigration, we have more. Remember, we are just talking here about
legal immigrants. We do not know how many illegal immigrants. We assume
10 to 15 million people here in the country are here illegally.
But our country at the end of 2000 was at 281 million people, so that
part was the result of immigration, as I say, doubling the actual
growth rate normally.
I ask Members to look what happens, look what happens if this growth
rate is allowed to continue at the present level of 1 million legal
immigrants in here. This does not reflect illegal immigration, which of
course is about double, at least double legal immigration.
This just looks at what would happen, what is going to happen. This
is not hypothetical, this is not a maybe thing; this is a direct, an
absolutely defensible explanation, a visible explanation, of what is
going to happen in
[[Page H2992]]
this country within the rest of this century, even in the next 30
years, if we continue to have immigration levels at the present level.
We will be, at 2050, at 404 million, and we will be at 571 million
people in the country at 2100.
Think about that when we are looking at where we are way down here.
Think about the taxes that we have to pay in order to support the
infrastructural demands of a population increase of this nature. Think
about the number of schools that have to be built to support this.
Think about the number of highways. Think about the number of
hospitals. Think about the social service demands.
This population actually uses social services to a greater extent
than the indigenous population. Think about this, just this. If nothing
else will impress the Members, think about the quality of life at this
level, at 571 million people in this country. Think about that little
green belt that is not too far from our houses today.
Think about the fact that maybe today we can get in the car and
within an hour or so we can be out in the more pristine areas enjoying
the beauty of nature. Think about the ability of going to the
Yellowstone National Park or Rocky Mountain National Park in my State,
but think about having to make reservations to do that 4 or 5 years in
advance to get into a national park.
This is what is coming, I assure the Members, and it will not be in
the next 100 years, that will be in the next few years. We are already
planning on how to try to deal with the massive numbers of people
coming into the park systems of the United States without destroying
them, destroying the ecology. There is only one way to do it, of
course, and that is to parcel it out.
So today when we can get in our car and in fact drive freely across
the United States, we can go into areas where it is hard to see another
person, and that is sometimes what we all would desire, that kind of
great quiet and solitude, think about it, Mr. Speaker, when the country
is at this level of population, it will not be a place where solitude
will easily be found. It will not be a place where one could enjoy the
beauty of nature by simply getting in our vehicles or taking a stroll
for a while, getting out of town, away from it all. It will be much
more difficult to get away from it all because it will all have come
here. It will all be here because of massive immigration, both legal
and illegal.
Again, I want to reestablish something here. When we look at this
incredible chart and we look at what is going to happen to the
population of the United States because of the red part here, please
remember this, this is not talking about illegal immigrants who stay
here, this is just from legal immigration at the present level. Can
anybody understand the implication of this? Does anybody want to deal
with it?
Do Members think we have rolling blackouts now in California, rolling
brownouts? Well, we are going to have a much more significant problem
then when the population reaches these levels, and it will be, of
course, much higher because illegal immigration rates are far greater
than the legal.
Yes, then we will come here to the floor of the House and we will
talk about maybe having to do something about immigration. We cannot
sustain it at these levels, we will say. Maybe we will say that. I do
not know. But why not say it today, Mr. Speaker? Why are we so afraid
of bringing this issue to the attention of our colleagues here and to
the attention of the general public?
There are a couple of reasons, but primarily they deal with fear,
fear of being called a racist, fear of being called xenophobic, and a
variety of other terms that certainly I have thrown at me every time I
do this speech on the floor of the House. The phones start ringing in
our office. People from all over the country express their displeasure
with what I say.
Mr. Speaker, I will suffer the slings and arrows of those folks who
feel so outraged by what I am saying here just to get people to begin
to pay attention to the issue.
I want to read a part of a letter that is dated March 19, 1924. The
letter is addressed to the Congress of the United States, and it reads
as follows:
``Every effort to enact immigration legislation must expect to meet a
number of hostile forces, and in particular, two hostile forces of
considerable strength.''
It goes on: ``One of these is composed of corporation employers who
desire to employ physical strength, `broad backs,' at the lowest
possible wage, and who prefer a rapidly revolving labor supply at low
wages to a regular supply of American wage earners at fair wages.''
Remember, this is 1924. It goes on:
``The other hostile force is composed of racial groups in the United
States who oppose all restrictive legislation because they want the
doors left open for an influx of their countrymen, regardless of the
menace to the people of their adopted country.''
This was Samuel Gompers, founder and president of the American
Federation of Labor, the AFL, and himself, by the way, an immigrant.
He is right, Mr. Speaker, it has not changed. It has not changed, I
assure the Members, in the last 76 years. It is still those hostile
forces we meet when we bring an issue like this to the floor. It is
still the employer who threatens me, threatens other Members of this
body with a lack of support if we do not understand that they need to
bring in illegal and legal immigrants so they can have these jobs that
``no American will take.''
Yes, I am sure there are many jobs out there that no American will
take for the wages that are paid at that level. Yes, I am sure that is
true. As long as they can continue to get by with paying those low
wages to those people, of course they are going to be coming here
demanding that we do nothing about the massive immigration that is
flooding the United States, that is coming across the borders; and I
should say, by the way, also to the detriment of the immigrant.
The other thing, of course, is that there is a political side to
this. There are a lot of people here who want to have massive
immigration because they believe it accrues to their political
advantage. We saw this, Mr. Speaker, we will recall, when President
Clinton demanded that the INS go through a hurry-up procedure in order
to make citizens out of hundreds of thousands of people who were here
as immigrants, in order to get them registered to vote, in order for
them to become good Democrats and vote for Mr. Clinton.
There was such a rush to do that that literally thousands, I read
somewhere it was 69,000 that sticks in my mind, people who were given
this citizenship in this rushed-up fashion who were in fact felons.
They had committed felonies here and they had committed felonies in
their country of origin. We gave them citizenship status because the
Clinton administration wanted a massive number of people here because
they believed that they would in turn become good, solid Democrat
votes.
Mr. Speaker, I do not care whether they come here and vote Democrat
or Republican or do not vote at all. The fact is, the issue of numbers
is what we have to deal with today, the numbers. Because of
immigration, the United States is currently growing at a rate faster
than China. Because of immigration, within the lifetime of an American
child our population will double.
{time} 1530
There is an organization called Project U.S.A., from which I am
taking much of the following information, and I suggest that anyone who
wants to get any kind of information that we have talked about here
tonight go to our Website, www.house.gov/tancredo. From that, we have
links to any of these other sites. That is www.house.gov/tancredo. Then
one can go to the other sites here, Project U.S.A. and many others. Go
to our site on immigration reform first.
A writer by the name of Brenda Walker talks about the social
contract, talks about what happens again in terms of what the impacts
are of massive immigration into the country.
She says experts increasingly agree that Third World poverty is
largely the result of generations of citizens' passivity and the
failure to build governments based on democratic values. Democracy
cannot survive in cultures where women have no rights, where there is
little respect for the rule of law, where there is tolerance for
bigotry, petty thievery, bribery, corruption, nepotism, ethnic
hostility and
[[Page H2993]]
where citizens fail to build the political coalitions and the citizen
movements to effect real change.
She says, when we reward those who run from the problems in their own
native land in order to save their own skin, then we undermine the
citizen activism and the loyalty to one another that is absolutely
necessary if Third World people are going to unite and solve their own
problems.
It is not kindness on our part when we allow our corporations to
employ their most educated and their most talented citizens. Where
would South Africa be if Nelson Mandela had decided to cut and run for
America?
Encouraging massive migration to the United States will not solve the
problems in poorer countries. We can be much more effective through
foreign aid and by teaching people how to build democratic societies
for themselves. Teaching people how to fish is the path to true
compassion and human dignity.
Consider this, no one can fail to notice the connection between
poverty and rapid population growth. No one can fail to see the
connection between population growth and the degradation of the global
environment.
For our sake and for the sake of the world, we must work for a U.S.
immigration moratorium. Certainly appropriate words.
Today, Mr. Speaker, my wife brought me a copy of the most recent
issue of Time Magazine. It is a Time Special Issue, it says, identified
by the June 11 date. It says, ``Welcome to Amexica,'' A-M-E-X-I-C-A.
The subtitle is ``The border is vanishing before our eyes, creating a
new world for all of us.''
I could not agree more, Mr. Speaker, with that headline. The border
is vanishing. A new world is being created. What does this world look
like? Well, it will look very much like the border that presently
exists between the United States and Mexico, the border region referred
to in this particular Time Magazine article.
This is from Time Magazine: ``To enforce immigration policies over
which they have no control, border counties lay out $108 million a year
in law enforcement and medical expenses associated with illegal
crossings, money most of these poor counties cannot afford. Yes, there
is a shortage of truck drivers, but there is also a shortage of judges
to hear all the drug and smuggling cases. Arizona ambulance companies
face bankruptcy because of all the unreimbursed costs of rescuing
illegals from the desert. Schools everywhere here are poor, overcrowded
and growing.
``Good health care has always been scarce here, but the border boom
makes it worse. A third of all U.S. tuberculosis cases are concentrated
in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. In the El Paso hospitals,
50 percent of the patients are on some kind of public assistance,
mainly Medicaid.''
`` `Border towns have the double burden of disease,' says Russell
Bennett, chief of the U.S.-Mexico Border Health Commission,'' those
diseases of emerging nations like diarrhea as well as first world
diseases like stress and diabetes.
The cost of immigration, I mean, the world is definitely changing,
Mr. Speaker. There are no two ways about it. But I would not suggest it
is changing especially on these border communities for the better, and
it is because of numbers. It is not because, again, of where people
come from. It is because of the numbers of people that are coming here.
Again, I repeat, 31 percent of all tuberculosis cases are found in
the four border States. Colorado, by the way, is not too far behind in
those statistics.
We are told that other countries are doing something to try to stem
the flow of migrants to the United States. Well, let me suggest to my
colleagues that that is almost a hollow promise.
Although Vicente Fox and others often speak of attempting to do
something to reduce the flow of immigrants to the United States, the
reality is that they are encouraging it. The reason why they are
encouraging this out-migration from their countries is because they
cannot deal with it. They refuse to deal with it.
Remember the petty larceny, the incredible amount of problems they
have in trying to actually run their own government, the massive amount
of corruption in the government itself and in the policing? All of
this, of course, does not bode well for us, for those of us who hope
that Mexico will be able to turn this around, to provide an economic
arena in which their own people can thrive, in which they can achieve
their own economic dreams. This is what we hope for all citizens all
over the world.
But I suggest that it is counterproductive for the United States to
accept so many legal and illegal people into our country based upon
some bizarre rationale that we are actually helping them and we are
helping the countries from which they come. We are doing neither. We
are doing ourselves an injustice and we are doing an injustice to the
nations from which these people come because we are allowing these
countries to avoid dealing with the harsh reality of life; and that is,
one better change one's system, one better become a more free
enterprise, capitalistic system, understanding the benefits of a
democratic republic based upon capitalism. That is the first thing one
has to do.
One has to work to root out corruption in one's own government. One
has to make sure that the police are honest, that the civil service at
every level are not on the take.
But the fact is, Mr. Speaker, that in most of these Third World
countries, that is just exactly what the case is. Most of these is
incredibly corrupt and, as a result, of course they cannot provide
governmental services as a result of socialistic economies. They cannot
provide their own people with the quality of life that they deserve.
So what happens? They look for someplace to go, and that place to go
is the United States of America. We can handle it. We can handle maybe
100,000 a year. We can handle maybe 150,000 a year. We can handle maybe
200,000 a year. But we cannot handle millions and millions of people a
year. It does not help us, and it does not help them.
Vicente Fox ``dreams of a day when the border will open and his
countrymen will no longer flee to survive. As Fox told Ernesto Ruffo,
his top aide on the region, `Put holes in the border.' '' That is his
attempt to stop illegal immigrants from entering the United States. Put
holes in the border. What does Mr. Fox mean by that? Believe me, it
would be difficult to find where one could put the hole, because there
is essentially an open border.
There is hardly anything that prevents the flow of illegals into this
country from his country. Not only is Mr. Fox not attempting to stop
it, but he and his government are abetting it. They are actually, as
hard as this is to believe, Mr. Speaker, even in light of what Mr. Fox
is telling the rest of the world, they are, in turn, handing out kits
to illegals preparing to cross the border into the United States, kits
that are designed to help them make their trip easier, kits that
include water and condoms and Band-aids and maps and food supplies for
a day or so. They are being handed out by agencies of the Mexican
Government.
At the same time, they tell us that they are trying to help reduce
the flow of immigrants into the United States. This is simply untrue,
Mr. Speaker.
There is the corruption. This article in Time Magazine goes on to
talk about the corruption and how it affects the immigration policies.
It says, ``Police and Customs people pay for their government jobs so
they can get in on the mordida, the payoff system. Midwives in
Brownsville have sold thousands of birth certificates to be used as
proof of U.S. citizenship. The Arellano Felix brothers, Tijuana drug
kingpins known for torturing, carving up and roasting their rivals, are
paying $4 million a month in bribes in Baja, California alone, just as
the cost of doing business.''
Remember, Mr. Speaker, we are talking about corrupt officials both in
Mexico and in the United States. $4 million a month in bribes in Baja,
California alone.
``The $4 million reward for their capture is one of the highest the
U.S. has ever offered, and is something of a bad joke under the
circumstances. There hasn't been a single nibble in four years. What
good is the money if you're dead?'' The article goes on.
``The border patrol has a mission impossible. No matter how many
surveillance cameras and motion detectors it installs, still the
immigrants come.'' It goes on to describe the plight of those who cross
the border and do so in the
[[Page H2994]]
heat of the day without proper care, without proper nutrition, without
the ability to escape the burning rays of the sun. Many, many die in
the process.
Those who do not come that way often employ the services of what are
called coyotes. A coyote is a person who is employed to get one from
Mexico to the United States doing so illegally. One has to pay them. It
averages between 500 to sometimes several thousand dollars, depending
upon the circumstances, to get one across the border.
What happens, these people get shoved into vans, into the backs of
trucks, get compacted, if you will, into any vehicle that is coming
across the border. Many of them die. This has happened several times in
the last few months in my own State of Colorado. I think we are up to
now 9 or 11 people who have died in this process being transported here
by coyotes.
Again, Mr. Speaker, I do not blame them for trying. I understand
their desire. It was the same as the desire of my grandparents and
perhaps my colleagues to come to the United States and seek a better
life. One of the things that we accomplished with that generation was,
to a large extent, the ability to separate oneself from the culture and
from the country from which one came. This is important. This is one
reason why we do have the problem with massive migration, both legal
and illegal from Mexico, because the border is of course adjacent to
the United States, and it is harder.
When my grandparents came here from Italy in the late part of the
1800s, they came essentially to escape an old world, came to seek the
benefits of the new world, to enter into what they believe was a place
of streets of gold. They wanted to become upwardly mobile, and they did
that. One of the ways they did it was by abandoning their native
language.
I know a lot of people suggest that should not happen. I, for one,
wish I could still speak Italian. I wish my grandparents had taught my
parents and they had taught me, but they did not. One reason they did
not was because they understood the need to learn English if they
wanted to be upwardly mobile in this country.
Massive immigration from countries that do not speak English puts
pressure on the school systems. It puts pressure on jobs. The ability
of someone to be upwardly mobile is severely hampered by their either
unwillingness or inability to learn the English language.
Bilingual education now being taught in so many schools with the
exception of California, which by proposition threw it out, and soon it
will happen in Arizona if it has not already occurred. I may be
mistaken there. I think Arizona has already passed their initiative to
do the same thing, and I hope Colorado is next in line to eliminate
bilingual education. But this is an example of the problem of massive
immigration and this dual-language nation we are beginning to develop.
Not only is there a problem with people being able to actually become
upwardly mobile if they do not speak English, can they really get to
the next level in their job, can they afford to leave that particular
field, maybe low skilled, low pay job, and move into something better
if they cannot speak English? The answer is no.
{time} 1545
So why do we keep so many people in another language? Because it has
become a political issue. I go back to what I said earlier about the
reasons why we have massive immigration, one of them being political.
And bilingual education has become a very political issue. It is used
here in the House of this Congress to encourage either certain ethnic
groups to support one party or another, or as an issue of attack on
another party, those of us who believe that bilingual education is not
the best thing for the children in that system.
If we really and truly care about the child, Mr. Speaker, and I have
been a teacher, my wife just completed 27 years as a teacher in the
Jefferson County Public Schools, we sent our children to public
schools, but if we really and truly care about children, then we will
do several things for them: one, we will allow them to have the choice
of any school they want to go to by giving them tax credits; and,
secondly, we will make sure that they are not forced to participate in
bilingual classes that are taught in a language other than English. If
we really care about children, that is where we should be.
We should be providing immersion classes for these kids so they can
learn English quickly and move on and get in line for part of the
American Dream. But massive immigration retards that pressure to
achieve English proficiency. But the fact remains that these are all
problems that develop as a result of this massive immigration and
problems that we must begin to deal with.
I say over and over again that it is an issue whose time has come. We
must talk about it. Do we want this to be the future? Is this what we
expect our children and grandchildren will have to deal with in terms
of the quality of their lives? We can achieve a better future, Mr.
Speaker, by controlling our own borders. It is uniquely in the power of
the people of this House and in this other body to do that. States
cannot do it. States have absolutely no control over the borders. They
look to us. And we look away all too often, and we have done so time
and time again on this issue of immigration because we fear either the
political or social ramifications to us.
It is hard to go into that cocktail party where somebody may say, oh,
gee, that is that guy or that lady that wants to reduce immigration.
People might shy away from you, thinking that you are a racist, that
you have some evil motive, that there is something bad in your heart,
and they want to get away from you. Mr. Speaker, I assure you, at least
from my own perspective and from the bottom of my heart, it is not the
type of people that come here, it is not the color of people that are
coming here, it is not their ethnicity, it is, in fact, the numbers
that makes it difficult to deal with.
The numbers make it harder for us all to accomplish our goals,
whether it is to reduce the problems faced by California, and which
will be faced by States throughout the Nation soon in terms of energy
and lack thereof, to the various other kinds of cultural issues and
political issues that we face as a result of massive immigration of
these kinds of numbers.
So once again I ask the Speaker to be aware of the need for change,
to encourage others, others of my colleagues, to begin to study this
issue and become acquainted with it. It is an important one for every
one of us no matter what district we represent. It will become more
important as the time goes on, and there will be a point in time when
we will be confronted by this issue in a way that perhaps we have no
way of avoiding it.
We have to deal with it, Mr. Speaker. Now is better than later. Now
is better than later.
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