Gilbert Gutknecht: “I will be real brief here, but the point the gentleman is really making, and this is what we need to debate and discuss…”

“I will be real brief here, but the point the gentleman is really making, and this is what we need to debate and discuss here in Congress and for too long we have been cowed, and I want to come back to that, from having an honest debate about immigration, but Americans are being injured. We talk about what happened September 11, and the list was very, very instructive from my colleague from Virginia, but people are being injured every day by legal, semi-legal, and illegal immigration in America today because no one is minding the store. They are losing their jobs, people are being injured through crimes, rape. We have had that actually happen in my town of Rochester, where illegal people or people who were here on visas have committed serious crimes, and yet there was no consequence. They are losing their jobs and they are losing their futures because of this immigration, and at the same time the INS is taking this unbelievably bizarre attitude. Worse than that, we in Congress, the people who are elected to set the policy for this country are cowed from debating this, or have been up until the last several months, because we are all sons and daughters and grandsons and granddaughters of immigrants. We are a Nation of immigrants, and we understand that immigration is part of our culture. And as Ronald Reagan said, we are one of the only countries where people can come here and become Americans.”