Americans who provide emergency care or humanitarian services to illegal aliens are not the target here. [Legislation] is focused on prosecuting individuals who purposefully seek to assist in the smuggling of illegal aliens.

Right now we wink and we nod and we give many of the same services and privileges to illegal aliens.

There are 350,000 illegal aliens in the state of Georgia, ... Every dollar we spend on services for [them] is a dollar that's not able to go to a Georgian or some of our neediest citizens or even people like the evacuees who are here legally and need our help.

It's certainly possible that illegal (or legal) aliens are taking some Americans' jobs, but I am not sure those who are proposing these laws have a real handle on the magnitude of that as a problem. Frankly, I am not sure it is a significant problem. What we are aware of is that there are at least 12 million aliens working in this country and we know that today there aren't 12 million unemployed Americans waiting to replace them in those jobs if they leave the U.S. work force.

Emergency health care for illegal aliens along the southwestern border is already costing area hospitals $200 million a year, with perhaps another $100 million in extended care costs.

We also have to provide services to the emergency personnel who are working the search and rescue. It's an amazing operation right now, and no one organization is doing it by itself. We are all pulling together to try and help each other due to the sheer mass of the storm and damage done.