(Washington, DC) Regarding amnesty proposals, Congresswoman Brown made the following statement:

"Although the President has said that he opposes broad legalization for unauthorized migrants, prior to September 11th there was a lot of discussion about the administration's plans to recommend legislation to legalize an estimated 3 million Mexicans working in the United States without legal authorization.

Early in August last year, my Democratic colleagues and I designed a set of principles to guide fair broad immigration legislation. The Democratic proposal does not plan to limit amnesty to nationals of any one country, instead, it would focus on longtime, hard-working residents of good moral character, with no criminal problems, who are otherwise eligible to become U.S. citizens.

However, since the September 11th bombings, all amnesty proposals have been frozen. I imagine that once our nation begins to distance itself emotionally from the bombings, these issues will once again return to the forefront, especially as the midterm elections approach. As far as our national security is concerned, instead of bringing in more people on temporary work visas, I believe that it would be in our country's security interest to allow people who are already here to come forward and go through the legalization and nationalization process. This approach would be especially beneficial to Central Florida because of the great importance of the tourist industry and the large number of immigrants that are employed in this area."