Political Quotes

“I am not in any way trying to derail this bill. I am just saying that this is something that was tucked into it in the middle of the night. Nobody ever had a chance to debate it. It is in here. And it is going to make it impossible, or nearly impossible, for anyone from Fidel Castro's sister to somebody escaping torture and religious persecution to come to the United States, if traveling through a second country or traveling with a false passport to do it. That makes no sense. That is not an antiterrorist situation. Look at ``Schindler's List.'' Remember Raoul Wallenberg. Think about those who escaped persecution by using false passports as a way they could get out of the country. They may well have to go through an intermediate country to get to the greatest nation of freedom on Earth. Just because somebody slipped these provisions into the conference report, let us not go along with it. This is something that should be debated. Our own Department of Justice does not support these provisions of the bill. I think in fact the Justice Department reiterated their opposition to them in an April 16 letter on similar provisions in the immigration bill to the majority leader. Deputy Attorney General Gorelick wrote us, ``absent smuggling or an extraordinary migration situation, we can handle asylum applications for excludable aliens under our regular procedures.''”