Hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee - Transcript
Title: Hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee
Date: 10/5/2004
Location: Washington, DC
Federal News Service October 5, 2004 Tuesday
SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING
HEADLINE: HEARING OF THE SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
(BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT)
SEN. HATCH: Your full statement will be placed in the record. I understand you have to leave, and we appreciate you coming. Thank you.
Representative Conyers, welcome over here. We've enjoyed a long relationship.
REP. JOHN CONYERS (D-MI): Chairman Hatch, I'm honored to be with you and my colleagues and the distinguished gentleman from Oklahoma. I just want to tell you how I came about this. I started attending the swearing in ceremonies of naturalized citizens in the courthouse in Detroit, downtown Detroit. And the enthusiasm and the families and the children. And they were outside. There were voter registration booths where they could register to become voters right after they raised their right hand and were sworn in as naturalized citizens.
And it was a young lady there named Ms. Mumtars Hak (ph) from Pakistan, who herself was a naturalized citizen, who got me going around the country in these sort of things. And then there was another factor that impressed me, was this tremendous governor of the state of Michigan, who I didn't know until after she'd become governor that she was actually born in Canada. And so, without too much consultation with all of the distinguished congressmen at this table, I said this ought to be changed.
And I think you gave some good reasons why. In 1789 they thought that this might be preferable, and I don't disagree with that decision in 1789. But, you know, to make a person almost a full citizen except for one little tiny thing, and that is you can never be president. And I presume that means you can't be vice president either.
So I thought we ought to do something about it, and so I wrote this amendment, and without any consultation, I began to find that 10 percent of the citizens in Oakland County, right next to my own county of Wayne, are people who are naturalized citizens, because of the engineering requirements of many of the automobile plants. And so I came over here today to join-I had no idea that this was growing as fast as it is, and I think we're onto something good.
I finally wanted to point out that we have 30,000 members of the Armed Forces who are naturalized citizens. And so for you and our colleague, Senator Craig, I want to thank you for holding this hearing. And I also wanted to get a picture of you and I at your last hearing as chairman so that it will be celebrated in two different ways by different people in Detroit, depending on how they feel about it.
SEN. HATCH: I fully understand.
REP. CONYERS: But I want them to understand that you and I have worked together on more issues on the Judiciary Committee than most people realize. And I appreciate that so much and I want to thank you for your tenure here as chairman.