Pete Domenici: “I wish to tell about both my parents who came to this country as aliens, but I don't believe in 3 or 4 minutes that I…”

“I wish to tell about both my parents who came to this country as aliens, but I don't believe in 3 or 4 minutes that I can do that adequately. So I will try to find another time in the next 5 or 6 days to tell you, Americans, who are listening, that you have a Senator whose parents were both born in a foreign country, whose parents came here as youngsters. It is a very interesting story because on my mother's side, she married my father after consultation with a lawyer about citizenship requirements. They were told that my mother was a citizen once they got married because my father was a citizen. He became a citizen because he served in the First World War. He came over right at the turn of the century and was drafted into the First World War. It turned out that the lawyer gave them wrong advice, and my mother was not a citizen. She raised her children here and lived here as a perfect model citizen. Then one day during the Second World War, she was arrested by several men who came in black cars to the back door while we four children were playing with marbles, or whatever we did. In came the people, the agents that work for the U.S., saying this lady was an illegal alien and she should be arrested. Of course, that was a shock, needless to say. My father came hurrying home from work and, guess what, the lawyer who had given him advice, my dad brought him along.…”