Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, the distinguished gentleman from Georgia has just offered us a vivid demonstration of what is wrong with this bill and how the rhetoric supporting it doesn't support the bill. He describes an indescribably tragic, terrible case where an undocumented alien is driving a car and kills people in the gentleman's district. First of all, that person already could be deported just by virtue of being undocumented. Secondly, under current law, having killed someone, he would be immediately deportable. He was convicted of his offense, sentenced to jail, and he would be deported immediately upon leaving. In fact, the President could commute his sentence, which is what he has been doing, and have him deported right now. You don't need this bill in order to make that happen. That is a demonstration of why this is superfluous legislation. All it does is to say in a case where, say, nobody is hurt at all, the case of somebody who is asleep in their car in Arizona, for example--there are statutes like that where you don't even have to be in a moving vehicle. If someone is drunk inside a vehicle, nobody is hurt, and there is no property damage, that person could be deported as a permanent resident even if they have been here for 20 years with kids in school and nothing else on their record. That is all this bill is doing.”