Political Quotes

“we will soon begin a debate on the conference report entitled ``Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996.'' I am concerned that, when we commence that debate, we are not going to be in as advanced a position as we should be, for several reasons--two in particular. One of those is that, when this legislation was considered in the House of Representatives, a provision was attached which would have given to individual States the prerogative of denying public education, elementary and secondary education, to the children of illegal immigrants. That provision became so inflammatory that it tended to focus total attention on this legislation on that single provision. That provision has now been eliminated. It has been withdrawn. Therefore, we are now focusing for the first time on the totality of this legislation. A second reason why we are not in as advanced a position as we should be for legislation which is as significant as this, has to do with the process by which this conference committee prepared its report.”