Rob Portman: “I would think that some people might take from the last comments that somehow the underlying legislation takes benefits…”

“I would think that some people might take from the last comments that somehow the underlying legislation takes benefits away from legal immigrants. No es verdad. The truth is that there is no change with regard to illegal immigrants in this legislation. If anything, we have improved the benefits for legal immigrants because in the farm bill which was just passed we are now providing food stamps for legal immigrants. Since 1996, there are nearly 3 million children who have been lifted out of poverty. This has been a huge success. What the legislation does before us today, the underlying bill, is it builds on what works. They fix someone's car if it is broken, they help people with child care, they help people with medical bills. They provide that bridge, and they are flexible about it. They like this new flexibility built into the legislation. They are using this already, and they want more of it. What has worked is requiring work.”