Dianne Feinstein: “I wanted to make a brief response, both to the Senator from Georgia and the Senator from Idaho. One of the reasons why I…”

“I wanted to make a brief response, both to the Senator from Georgia and the Senator from Idaho. One of the reasons why I think it is so difficult to look at a broken immigration system is because our immigration system is so big. America takes more immigrants in its regular immigration quota a year than other industrialized countries put together. If you take that and you take all of the other programs, H-1B, H-2B, the L visas, and all these other visas, it adds up to about 5.5 million people a year who come into our country under one visa or another. It is an enormous job to look over this whole breadth and scope of immigration programs and make the necessary changes. I think one logical change is if a quota of people coming from Mexico is perhaps too small, people have to wait too long; therefore, there is a huge illegal immigration problem. Nonetheless, we are a nation of laws. If we have the law, we should follow the law. So I am one who believes reform should be done, but in the name of reform I don't believe we should pass a bill quickly on an appropriation bill without going through the necessary steps to adjust it and amend it in the committee. Let me make a point in response to the Senator from Idaho, and I am pleased that he is a great expert on California agriculture. Since he is, he will know that the great bulk of the workforce is illegal. That workforce has been there for a very long time.…”