Chuck Grassley: “My amendment to the Department of Defense authorization bill is meant to strengthen our efforts to verify if people in…”

“My amendment to the Department of Defense authorization bill is meant to strengthen our efforts to verify if people in the United States are here legally to do their work. It deals with the Department of Defense because when it comes to the Department itself and to contractors who do Defense Department work, we ought to make sure that everybody who is working here has been here legally. That is for two reasons: One, because that is what the law says. You should not be in the country if you don't have the permission of our Government legally to be here. No. 2, one of the things we are concerned about in enforcing of the immigration laws is to make sure that terrorists don't get into the country. We should be particularly concerned that we don't have people with terrorist connections working for our contractors or working for the Government itself. Without a doubt, we have an illegal immigration problem.”