Patsy T. Mink: “I make the assumption in my district that everyone who wants to participate in my campaign is welcome. If they want to…”

“I make the assumption in my district that everyone who wants to participate in my campaign is welcome. If they want to make a contribution to my campaign, they are welcome. I am not going to ask them to prove to me that they are a citizen of the United States. I do not carry around anything in my pockets or anywhere in my possession that I know of that proves that I am an American citizen. I pay taxes, I was born in America, my parents were born here. Why do Members want to impose this kind of incriminating disability on tens of thousands of honest, hard-working people in districts like mine? But that is what Members are going to force me to do. They are going to put me in jail and make me a criminal because I have taken a contribution from someone in my constituency that I love and I respect, because I did not have the whatever it was to insult him by saying, are you a citizen? That is really what we are doing tonight, we are absolutely tearing away the very shreds of this democracy which says that people who come to this country and love this country ought to be able to participate in it. I ask this House to please defeat this amendment.”