Political Quotes

“I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, if we were to have a discussion on outcome, my distinguished colleague from Detroit, Michigan, and I could endlessly quote figures. I'm going to quote a few because I think they're germane to the last speaker's close. In 2009, the numbers of the top three Diversity visas were as follows: Ethiopia, 3,829; Nigeria, 3,720; and Egypt, a country I visited many, many times, 3,336. No question at all they're all on the continent of Africa. But as recently as 1994, earlier on in this longstanding 30-year piece of set-aside, it went more like this: Poland, 17,396; Ireland, 15,659; the United Kingdom--Great Britain-- 3,174. Mr. Speaker, one of the problems with the Diversity Visa is, in fact, it's a question of whether you've put in all the names in the phone book or not. It's a question of who's gaming the system. It doesn't have any sort of, if you will, set-aside to ensure an outcome. And within the outcome, whether you're taking from Poland, Ireland, United Kingdom, or, in 1999, a few years later, it switched to Bulgaria, Nigeria, and Albania. These top names that occur have a lot to do with how many people throw their name in a hat and nothing to do with whether or not they really want to be Americans, whether they really have the qualifications, whether they have any connection to America that would allow them to get a job.…”