[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 79 (Tuesday, June 8, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1064]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           IMMIGRATION REFORM

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. SAM GRAVES

                              of missouri

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, June 8, 2004

  Mr. GRAVES. Mr. Speaker, I rise today still afraid for our Nation's 
security. Not because of terror alerts, but because our borders remain 
porous. The enforcement of our immigration policy is impotent, 
resulting in a continued flood of illegal immigrants across our 
borders.
  It is time for the federal government to stop letting unchecked mass 
immigration undermine the wages, safety, and benefits in one occupation 
after another. It is time for the federal government to moderate 
immigration and to treat American workers, citizen and immigrant, with 
the respect they deserve.
  Our constituents did not elect us to help cheapen the quality of 
their lives by importing foreign workers at six to eight times the 
historical average. There is no getting around the fact that when we 
cheapen labor with unchecked illegal immigration, we cheapen our 
neighbors, both citizens and immigrants alike.
  If we moderate immigration in the context of an historical average, 
we will remain the most open society in the world, and begin to halt 
America's slide from a middle class, to a poverty class, society.
  I call on my colleagues to join me in working to reform our 
immigration policies and to halt the cheapening of America's citizen 
and immigrant workers. Without real immigration reform, our borders 
will not be safe and our citizens will be at risk.

                          ____________________