We need to build bridges between the LGBT community and the larger immigrant community. In the end, the bigger the tent we build, the more successful we'll be.
— Luis Gutierrez
According to the study, approximately 16.7 million U.S. workers born in Latin America had a combined gross income of $450 billion last year, of which 93 percent was spent locally.
Are we going to go out and arrest and detain and deport 11 million people? Nobody would argue that that is what we are going to do, because we have never demonstrated the political will to do that, nor have we ever committed the requisite resources to do that.
It is not new or unusual for the real Americans, meaning those immigrants who came to America a little bit longer ago, to fear the outsiders, the pretenders, the newcomers.
Mr. Speaker, our Nation depends on immigrants' labor, and I hope we can create an immigration system as dependable as they are.
The underlying part of any comprehensive immigration bill is family unit.
And let us not forget the Social Security system. Recent studies show that undocumented workers sustain the Social Security system with a subsidy as much as $7 billion a year. Let me repeat that: $7 billion a year.
As far as income tax payments go, sources vary in their accounts, but a range of studies find that immigrants pay between $90 billion and $140 billion in Federal, State, and local taxes.
Let me respond with a few points, the first being that all immigrants pay taxes, income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, gasoline taxes, cigarette taxes, every tax when they make a purchase.
Uncertainty and fear and ignorance about immigrants, about people who are different, has a history as old as our Nation.
According to the Privacy Rights Center, up to 10 million Americans are victims of ID theft each year. They have a right to be notified when their most sensitive health data is stolen.
And they do those jobs not because they want to take away anything from America, but because they want to give their skills, their sweat, their labor, for a better life and to help build a better America, just as those who came before them.
Because the truth is, today's immigrants, as they have for generation after generation, work the longest hours at the hardest jobs for the lowest pay, jobs that are just about impossible to fill.
Mr. Speaker, Americans want, need, and rightfully expect Congress to protect them from the prying eyes of identity thieves and give them back control of their Social Security numbers and personal health information.
We watched the U.S. citizenship immigration services web site in March. They had six million, two hundred thousand hits, and two million people downloaded applications for citizenship. So what we're doing is attempting to help people in that process.
