Political Quotes

“I thank Congresswoman Lofgren for her tremendous leadership, not only on this bill, but also on the Immigration and Citizenship Subcommittee as our chairwoman. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the EAGLE Act. I believe I may be the only one, or one of very few, Members of Congress who has actually been on an H-1B visa back when processing times to transition to a green card weren't nearly as bad as they are today. It still took me 17 years and a multitude of visas to become a U.S. citizen. Today, an estimated 1.6 million people in the family backlog and 200,000 in the employment backlog will die, in some cases, before they receive green cards because of an arcane system that puts a 7 percent per-country limit on employment and family-sponsored green cards. Many of the people who are stuck in this backlog are Asian immigrants, people who were denied the right to become U.S. citizens for most of U.S. history, from 1790 to 1952, through the Chinese Exclusion Act and the Supreme Court's 1923 decision barring Indians from becoming naturalized U.S. citizens. Anti-Asian policies have informed these future anti-immigrant efforts. As the first South Asian American woman elected to the House, I am very aware that Congress did not repeal that Supreme Court decision until 1946.…”