President Bill Clinton, 1995, immigration, SOTU
Bill Clinton talking about immigration in the 1995 State of the Union.Watch Video
Bill Clinton
Mr. President, Mr. Speaker,
Members of the 104th Congress, my fellow Americans: Again we are here in the
sanctuary of democracy, and once again our democracy has spoken. So let me
begin by congratulating all of you here in the 104th Congress and
congratulating you, Mr. Speaker.
Bill Clinton
If we agree on nothing else
tonight, we must agree that the American people certainly voted for change in
1992 and in 1994. And as I look out at you, I know how some of you must have
felt in 1992. [Laughter]
Bill Clinton
I must say that in both years we
didn't hear America singing, we heard America shouting. And now all of us,
Republicans and Democrats alike, must say, "We hear you. We will work
together to earn the jobs you have given us." For we are the keepers of a
sacred trust, and we must be faithful to it in this new and very demanding era.
Bill Clinton
All Americans, not only in the States most heavily
affected but in every place in this country, are rightly disturbed by the large
numbers of illegal aliens entering our country. The jobs they hold might
otherwise be held by citizens or legal immigrants. The public service they use
impose burdens on our taxpayers. That's why our administration has moved
aggressively to secure our borders more by hiring a record number of new border
guards, by deporting twice as many criminal aliens as ever before, by cracking
down on illegal hiring, by barring welfare benefits to illegal aliens. In the
budget I will present to you, we will try to do more to speed the deportation
of illegal aliens who are arrested for crimes, to better identify illegal
aliens in the workplace as recommended by the commission headed by former Congresswoman
Barbara Jordan. We are a nation of immigrants. But we are also a nation of
laws. It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to
permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws we have seen in recent years,
and we must do more to stop it.
Over 200 years ago, our Founders
changed the entire course of human history by joining together to create a new
country based on a single powerful idea: "We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all men are created equal, . . . endowed by their Creator
with certain unalienable Rights, and among these are Life, Liberty and the
pursuit of Happiness."
