John Hope Bryant

They made this pledge not under political duress, not in response to protest, but we thought out of conscious and clean hands.

We're one America. America as a country is an idea. We can make it whatever we want. And that is not demonizing people. It's a dog whistle and it needs to stop.

Let me respond briefly that the Constitution itself talks about impeachment as well as election. The two processes are compatible, according to our forefathers, since they completely understood that you had first to be elected in order to…

With over 60,000 documents, in the presentation of the White House lawyer, Mr. Ruff, he made no challenge to the testimony of Betty Currie, Monica Lewinsky or anyone else in the factual situation that we have had before us.

It is a difficult task to stand up here and follow the fine gentleman from Pennsylvania... let us do the right thing and vote for this amendment.

I think it is all our responsibilities to take the next step and say what would be the actual result of doing what the gentleman is advocating. Nobody wants illegal immigrants to be in this country, but the simple fact is not one single…

How does the gentleman distinguish, now? We are talking about a Federal issue here. Ought it not be the same in all States also, that we require they be in school?

Integrate. The Federal Government now requires the school systems to be integrated, to permit all students to come to schools. Do you think that we should continue that policy?

I would observe that the same taxpayers that the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Deal, was speaking of would have to pay the cost of the law enforcement which would result from having all these kids on the street, the cost of the schools…

I urge Members to do what is right for our kids, do what is right for our neighborhoods, do what is right for our police departments. Do not put another burden on the school districts, and vote against this bill.

Well, I asked a question of the gentleman: Does he think the States should have the power to decide whether or not the schools are going to be integrated? ... So the answer is, yes, I do think that States should have the right to determine…

Members of the House, I was a cosponsor of this legislation. I stood in a press conference alongside the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Smith] and said we have got to do something to reduce legal immigration and to reduce illegal immigration…

I would simply conclude by saying that this motion to recommit would put into the immigration bill a provision that ensures that U.S. workers cannot be laid off and replaced with foreign temporary workers. Every Member of this House ought…

I just want to say that in the subcommittee we had hearings on parts of this bill. We had no hearings on this. No evidence was brought forth to tell us if there was a need to import nurses to take the jobs of American nurses that are…

I think it is extremely unfair and extremely inaccurate for the advocates of this amendment to describe the bill as antifamily. It is not antifamily. What it does is recognize what the Jordan Commission observed, and that is that we have…

The harm is simply this. The diversity program, in my opinion, is a bad program anyway, because it is really a scheme to let a lot of white folks into the country, because some folks do not like it if there are a lot of people coming in…

Reclaiming my time, they presumably are on a track toward citizenship, and you cannot become a citizen unless you learn to speak English. My point is we have historically required of everyone who becomes a citizen English proficiency. This…

I want to pose a question to the gentleman from Florida. Is there some report or some evidence or some indication that we have a problem with immigrants in these categories coming over here and refusing to learn to speak English? Because…

Reclaiming my time, let us get this pinned down. Is it or is it not the case that your amendment would say that a person who crossed the border at an early age and later in life married an American citizen, could not come in the country to…

Reclaiming my time, let us talk about immigration. So a Canadian wanders across the border at a young age and wants to get a job and goes back again and finds out 20 years later, when he goes to apply to come here legally, maybe he has got…

Suppose a person gets married. You mean, they cannot come in the country with their new wife because at a young age they crossed the border illegally, for the rest of their life they cannot come across and live with their spouse.

Reclaiming my time, I think everybody agrees with that. That is kind of a platitude. We are talking about the difference of a 10-year ban and lifetime ban. Why would you stick anybody with a lifetime ban, for goodness sake?

All I am saying to the gentleman from California is that I cannot say what happened with regard to the gentleman's initiatives. I know of the initiatives that were made in the past; I think they were good ones. Some things happened that I…

In the 1986 Immigration Reform Control Act, I put an amendment in there that required 100-percent reimbursement to all border States and border communities for any immigration cost. The Reagan administration, year after year after year…