Political Quotes

“We believe that the sponsors who can, should and must pay for people they sponsor to come to the country. But I want to make a point to my friend. It is worthy to note that approximately 400,000 legal immigrants receive AFDC in California. Out of those, 62 percent are refugees. They do not have a sponsor. This goes back to your debate with the Senator from Florida last night. We also have a situation where many of those on SSI, who are sponsored, something may have happened to their families or their sponsors in the interim. So, my friend is talking about a principle that we agree with. But yet in the underlying bill there is no recognition of the fact that a lot of these legal immigrants do not have a sponsor to fall back on. A lot of these elderly do not have a sponsor to fall back on. I think before we pass this sweeping reform, what Senator Feinstein and my amendment does is say, we are willing to say as of September, even though we have some reservations and we know it is tough and we know it will hurt our State, we are willing to go along with it. But please, we say to you, Senator from Pennsylvania, taking a lead in this bill, consider what we are telling you.”