Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I do want to address the issue of membership in the Communist Party. It has long been part of the Immigration and Nationality Act that if you were a member, you are not admissible. I will read the section. ``Any immigrant who is or has been a member of or affiliated with the Communist or any other totalitarian party (or subdivision or affiliate thereof), domestic or foreign, is inadmissible.'' Now, there are some exceptions, for example, if your membership was not willing. We do know that in some cases, and not just in China, Russia signed up, essentially, Boy Scouts as members of the Communist Party against their will, and they were 12 years old. So the consular officer can find exceptions based on that, and that is sensible. Now, the one point that the gentleman did make in committee had to do with applying this Communist Party inadmissibility provision explicitly to H-1B applicants, and we did take him up on that suggestion. In fact, that is a reasonable thing to do. The gentleman made that point because H-1B visa applicants have dual intent. So the application is eminently reasonable when it comes to those dual-intent immigrants. Although we did not draft the amendment at the markup, we did contact the gentleman's legislative director and went back and forth with the lawyers on the staff, so there was full knowledge of this provision, and I thank the gentleman for raising the issue.…”