Ted Poe: “our individual heritage of the past is important, but our future as Americans is more important. Many Americans trace…”

“our individual heritage of the past is important, but our future as Americans is more important. Many Americans trace their past through Ellis Island. Mrs. Maribeth Burgess Ray of Baytown, Texas, recently went there, and she says: ``While at Ellis Island, I found a profound statement. An article had a picture of a mother and her two sons. The newcomers' attire was that of the country from which they had fled. The statement was, `If the ones who flee do not change their appearance and speech, they only bring what they fled from to America, thus changing America into the country that they were fleeing from.''' Today, we forget what America is and what it stands for. If what you are fleeing from is so bad, leave it behind and adapt to what it is you are looking for. Let us keep America America, with the beautiful quilt of immigrants that make it up, but let us not turn America into something it is not. Don't let our borders be penetrated by the baggage that some refuse to leave behind. Mr. Speaker, people who come to America should assimilate and just become Americans. And that's just the way it is. ____________________”