Political Quotes

“this is a simple issue. There are 12 million, give or take, applications for visas every year submitted around the world. There are about 200 stations around the world where American foreign service officers process those applications for visas. What the gentleman from Florida wishes to do is to take the issuing of the visas, the administrative function, 12 million of them every year, and put them in the Homeland Security Agency. I am suggesting that that is impractical, that it is not going to work. You are not doing the Homeland Security Agency any favor by dumping an administrative task in their lap. The present foreign service officers have done, for the most part, a very good job, although I will agree with the gentleman from Florida, we do need some changes. This is not status quo. The gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Berman) are cosponsors of this bipartisan bill which has been approved by the Committee on the Judiciary, the Committee on International Relations, the Committee on Government Reform, and the Select Committee on Homeland Security. What we do is we do turn over the administration of the office to the Homeland Security. The training, the review, the regulatory power, the authority, the running of the whole operation is turned over to Homeland Security.”