Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, we've just heard one of the least persuasive arguments that we have ever heard in this body. We hear them repeatedly. People who are opposed to doing something use the argument that we shouldn't do it, even though they're objecting to it on its own basic grounds because it doesn't go far enough. If, of course, it went far enough, they would be even more upset, Mr. Chairman.

The argument that if you cannot solve every problem for everybody, you should not try to improve the situation for large numbers of people is never what people really think. It is always advanced by people who don't want fully to defend the position they take. The objection is to accommodating the many millions of Americans for whom Spanish is the primary language.

I have to say, I do not understand the impulse to make life harder for others when making it easier for them has no cost to us. I represent a large number of people who speak English. Nobody has ever said to me, you know what? My life is now more difficult because people who speak primarily Spanish can get a refund.

What is the impulse that drives us to object to making life easier for many if our hardworking fellow citizens in some principle when it comes at no cost to us?

And by the way, I have a large number of people for whom Portuguese is a primary language. I do not think they will tell me, when I go back to march in parades in that area, we're very upset because you supported allowing tens of millions of our Spanish-speaking friends this advantage and you didn't do everything for us. It is, of course, reasonable for a community to take into account large numbers.

And so again, I am really troubled by this lashing out at our fellow citizens when it comes at no cost to the rest of us. You talk about benefit cost analysis. What is the cost, it's minimal, of letting people who work hard who have trouble with the English language?

And as the gentleman from New York has pointed out, overwhelmingly the younger people learn English. No one who has had any association with an immigrant community has any doubt about the accuracy of what he said. The young people learn English, they become the translators and interpreters for their parents and their grandparents.

There are people who came to America out of love for this country and they work hard, and they are much more comfortable, particularly reading sort of technical information, in the language they grew up with than the new language. Their children and those who come after will speak English. Why do we want to make their lives harder? Why this objection to trying to ease the transition for these people?

I very much hope this amendment is defeated. I would hope we would say we are a better country than to begrudge people who have taken the difficult decision to immigrate to make their lives better, this very small accommodation.

I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.