On the recordJune 13, 2013
I thank the gentleman from California for yielding and for bringing up this critical issue. My father was a veteran of both World War II and Korea, and he taught me, growing up, that there's no greater demonstration of American citizenship than serving one's country in the military. And in my congressional district, there are a lot of young people who came to this country by their parents illegally, who grew up in the United States, who went to school here, and who want to serve this country in the military. It is the only country that they've known, and so they ought to be afforded the right to do that and to demonstrate what is the greatest, I think, form of citizenship, and that is service in the United States military. So I think that this is something that we've got to accomplish as a part of comprehensive immigration reform and something, certainly, that will make our country a better place.
