Lateefah Simon: “I, with all due respect, differ with my colleague from Wyoming on this. Were I to vote on the Feinstein amendment…”

“I, with all due respect, differ with my colleague from Wyoming on this. Were I to vote on the Feinstein amendment regarding this, I would vote against that, also. I think our colleague from Michigan is correct that we have to keep legal and illegal separate. Now, it is true, as Senator Simpson has said, that the majority of people who are here illegally came in legally. But we have to add that this amendment will do nothing on that. These are people who came in on visitors' visas, or student visas. This amendment does not address that. A second thing has to be added that somehow has escaped so far this morning, and that is, the majority of the people who come in as immigrants to our society are great assets to our society. Illinois is one of the States that has major numbers in immigration. But a smaller percentage of those who come into our country legally are on various Government programs, such as welfare, than native-born Americans, with the exception of SSI. That is an exception. And there are some problems we ought to deal with. There are problems we ought to deal with in illegal immigration. But not on this particular bill.”