Political Quotes

“Mr. President, we have talked a lot about how the immigration bill would or would not prevent illegal immigration in the future. This is a huge concern because we don't want to be back in 25 years proposing the same short-term solutions to the problems. I wish to take a few minutes about the national security implications of the bill. There are valid concerns that the bill will put public safety and the homeland at risk. I will walk through some of the issues and point out how we tried in committee to change the bill in this effort and, of course, we failed. First, the bill contains a dangerous national security loophole that would render the U.S. Government unable to share information with foreign governments about immigrants who have had their status revoked. An amendment to preserve the ability of law enforcement to access critical, national security, public safety information and at the same time authorize the Secretary of State to share limited information with a foreign government while protecting legitimate privacy interests was rejected. Second, the bill provides the Secretary of State with authority to limit in-person interviews of visa applicants abroad. The Secretary of Homeland Security is not required to interview anyone who applies for registered provisional immigrant status. We learned a valuable lesson after September 11, 2001, because the hijackers were not interviewed and applications were rubberstamped.…”