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Real ID Act of 2005

Date: Feb. 10, 2005
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Immigration


REAL ID ACT OF 2005 -- (House of Representatives - February 10, 2005)

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Mr. BACA. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition of this bill.

It does nothing to make America safer. It is simply anti-immigrant legislation placed under the mask of homeland security.

The bill will prevent States from giving licenses to undocumented immigrants. It will not prevent terrorists from obtaining identification forms. All of the 9/11 hijackers were in this country legally.

In fact, allowing immigrants to have licenses actually improves homeland security by allowing our government to track who is in our borders.

This bill will also raise insurmountable hurdles for refugees seeking asylum and will deport victims of persecution into the hands of their persecutors.

Proponents of this provision claim that we need to tighten asylum laws, yet, they cannot pinpoint a single terrorist given asylum in the United States.

This bill will also require the completion of a fence on the Mexican border, waiving environmental laws in California. This fence is a complete waste of money and resources. People will go over it, under it and around it to enter our country.

Our immigration system is a broken system that needs to be fixed. We need reform that provides hardworking people of good character with a real path towards citizenship.
But this bill is simply a Band-Aid on the problem that will not provide lasting reform.

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