Xavier Becerra: “I do not think anyone is saying that if the Federal Government could--and it can at this stage--tell States they do not…”

“I do not think anyone is saying that if the Federal Government could--and it can at this stage--tell States they do not have to provide education to a particular individual, that therefore there would be some demand upon a State. Clearly there would not if in fact there were no requirement by the Federal Government to do so. But what the 2 gentleman forget completely in their colloquy is that there has to be a determination made that someone is here without documentation. Someone has to adjudicate that a child or an adult is not legally here. I say to the gentleman from California [Mr. Rohrabacher] that his amendment does nothing to provide school districts the money they need to go through the adjudicatory process to determine that. The gentleman leaves it up to the States and the school districts, the schools themselves, to pay for the cost of adjudication, and, therefore, that is a heavy, large unfunded mandate. What some of us on this side of the aisle are saying is, ``Let's deal with those immigration issues, but let's deal with the issues in the immigration law, not in education law, where we are going to impact tremendous numbers of children.''”