Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I guess the House is about to vote on the theory of the infallibility of the bureaucracy. The chairman of the subcommittee believes that when visa applications come, they are decided with a degree of precision and exactitude rarely equaled in American government. They are apparently perfect within a very small margin of error. Indeed, none of us has yet found a pollster in our own elections who could come closer to exactitude than the gentleman from Texas thinks can be found in the consular offices. Now I think highly of the Consular Corps, I just do not get them quite as high as the gentleman from Texas, who appears to have gotten them celestial in their perfection and absence of error. People make mistakes. What we have is a situation where residents of countries strongly allied to our own, countries that share our democratic commitment, countries which have living amongst us relatives and friends, innocent citizens, clearly innocent citizens of those countries, are to be penalized because of errors that second parties make about third parties. Now I understand the gentleman from Texas talked about overstays. Let us be very clear. If there are people who are overstaying, and the invincible bureaucratic officials know about it, why do they not make them go home? We are not protecting people who are here illegally.”