Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi


Rep. Nancy Pelosi Supports Food Stamps for Immigrants

April 18, 2002



Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Baca) for yielding me the time and for his leadership on this very, very important issue to this Congress and to this country.

Mr. Speaker, every day our country is blessed by the coming to our great country of many, many immigrants. We are constantly, as a society, reinvigorated by their courage, by their determination, by their family values, by their commitment to community and to a brighter future in America.

Every day from the day they arrive and throughout the contributions they make to our country it is a blessing to us. Indeed, I think just about every person in this
House and in this room certainly at this time is a product of those aspirations and dreams.

Then it is sad to see how those immigrants to our country before they become citizens, but while they are legal immigrants, are not valued by our country. Many of them work, and I have good news for our colleague. The gentleman from California's (Mr. Baca) motion to instruct does allow children to be eligible for food stamps regardless of when they enter the country.

So the concern that the gentleman raised that the gentleman from California's (Mr. Baca) motion does not address children and their needs is incorrect, and I know that that will be good news to him; and his amendment and his motion to instruct does address work and does have a worker requirement in it, and it does allow refugees to be eligible for food stamps without a time limit. So the concerns that he raised, saying that his motion did not address it, I am happy to inform my colleague that he does because he is asking us to agree to the Senate language.

This is really unfortunate because it is the third incident in less than 2 months where the Republicans have brought to the floor amendments or motions which are unfriendly to newcomers to our country. We saw this first during the campaign finance reform bill where one Republican Member even referred to legal permanent residents in the United States who were not citizens as potential enemies of the State.

We saw it in the debate on 245(i), which is a very important correction in our immigration bill where we only won that vote by one vote, and some Republicans did vote for it, but many voted against it and voted with the Republicans who wanted to squelch that important initiative to the immigrant community.

What we are talking about today is really about fairness, fairness to our newcomers as our ancestors had anticipated and hoped for fairness when they came here. We talk about family values. Nowhere are those family values stronger than the immigrant community. We talk about living the American dream and aspiring for a better life. Those people bring courage to our country. They are a constant source of invigoration to our society, and I hope that my colleagues will support the amendment of the gentleman from California (Mr. Baca). A family of four with two wage earners making the minimum wage are still eligible for Food Stamps because the minimum wage is so low.