Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, the ranking member, for yielding. Listening to the debate here, the first thing that I think was missed in this discussion was the subject of amnesty. This bill is clearly amnesty, and it is amnesty for a large chunk of people, whether they do the math at 2 million, 2.2 million, 2.7 million, or whatever that number may be north of that. Whenever we have had amnesty in this country, it has always been a lot more than was calculated. I recall those days back in 1986 when Ronald Reagan let me down. He only did it twice in 8 years, but this was one time. I watched the debate in the House and the Senate on whether to grant amnesty to roughly a million people. All along, I believed that the wisdom of the House and Senate would prevail, and they would understand that amnesty destroys the rule of law. I listened carefully, and the debate went the other way. The bill was sent to the President's desk. But I was confident that Ronald Reagan would see the principle and protect the rule of law and veto the amnesty act. Well, we all know he signed it that day in 1986. He regretted it after that, as did many of his Cabinet members, but that was a big mistake. This is an amnesty bill, and it goes a long way toward the destruction of immigration law. When you send out an advertisement that if you can get into America, you get to stay in America, people are going to keep coming here.…”