[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 180 (Tuesday, November 14, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S17042-S17043]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           IMMIGRATION REFORM

 Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I would like to bring to the 
attention of my Senate colleagues an important article prepared by 
Stuart Anderson and Steve Moore of the Cato Institute entitled ``GOP 
Breaches of Contract.'' This piece explains why the immigration reform 
bill moving through the House violates the core principles of more 
freedom and less government that form the basis of the GOP's Contract 
With America. I would also like to highlight a recent statement signed 
by several business leaders on the need to maintain America's historic 
commitment to legal immigration. As we begin debate on immigration 
legislation here in the Senate, I would urge my colleagues to consider 
this information carefully. I ask that these materials be printed in 
the Record.
  The material follows:

               [From the Washington Times, Nov. 6, 1995]

                      GOP Breaches of `Contract'?

                 (By Stuart Anderson and Stephen Moore)

       The ``Contract With America'' was not simply a list of 10 
     bills to be voted upon, but rather it represented the 
     governing philosophy of the Republican Party. Unfortunately, 
     the immigration bill recently voted out of the House 
     Judiciary Committee, with unanimous Republican support, 
     violates the four key precepts of the ``Contract with 
     America.''
       (1) Family values. The Contract states: ``The American 
     family is at the very heart of our society. It is through the 
     family that we learn values like responsibility, morality, 
     commitment, and faith.'' The House immigration bill, H.R. 
     2202, strikes at the heart of family unification by 
     preventing brothers, sisters and nearly all adult children 
     from joining their families here in the United States.
       A guarantee to admit 25,000 eligible parents annually (half 
     the current yearly total) was included in the bill, but only 
     after an outside analysis confirmed that no parents could 
     have immigrated if the bill had passed without amendment. But 
     the bill contains a new obstacle for parents--only those who 
     purchase nursing home and Medicare-comparable health 
     insurance will be allowed to 

[[Page S 17043]]
     immigrate. That leaves only spouses and minor children, who could 
     immigrate only if their sponsors meet new income 
     requirements.
       (2) Fiscal responsibility. ``Controlling spending is the 
     primary means to controlling the deficit,'' states the 
     Contract, yet the House immigration bill carries several big 
     ticket items. First, up to $80 million would be needed to 
     return fees paid by petitioners whose siblings or adult 
     children have received permission to immigrate but who will 
     be cut off the waiting list if the bill passes in its present 
     form. Second, estimates by the Cato Institute, the 
     Immigration and Naturalization Service, and the Social 
     Security Administration reveal that hundreds of millions of 
     dollars would eventually be needed to pay new and current 
     federal bureaucrats to staff, maintain and clean up the 
     proposed computer verification system. The system is designed 
     to check the legal status of new private and public sector 
     hires via telephone or modem. Third, the federal government 
     will assume the potentially quite large liability for 
     compensating any individual who loses a job or wages from 
     being wrongfully denied employment due to an error under the 
     new employment verification system.
       (3) Rolling back government regulations. The Contract 
     notes, ``To free Americans from bureaucratic red tape, we 
     will require every new regulation to stand a new test: Does 
     it provide benefits worth the cost? To help our cities and 
     states, we will ban unfunded mandates.'' The bill's various 
     new mandates on cities, counties and states, including 
     requiring such entities to verify new hires through a federal 
     computer system, violate the intent of the recently passed 
     Unfunded Mandates Reform Act, which requires that new 
     mandates be paid for.
       According to the Justice Department report on the nine-
     company pilot project that the bill's new computer system is 
     based upon, compliance cost for companies using the system 
     has averaged $5,000 annually. During the Judiciary Committee 
     markup, Republicans defeated an amendment to stop the 
     computer system if a GAO study found the new program cost 
     small businesses more than $5,000 a year to implement. 
     However, even this figure understates the true cost to 
     businesses, since the pilot project allowed companies to 
     check the legal status of only self-identified immigrants, 
     while the House bill requires companies to check citizens as 
     well. As for the cost-benefit analysis for new regulations 
     recommended in the Contract, any benefit from this new system 
     is only hypothetical, since there is no evidence this new 
     mandate on businesses will reduce illegal immigration.
       (4) Individual liberty. The Contract criticized the 
     ``Clinton Congress'' when it argued, ``Big Brother is alive 
     and well through myriad government programs.'' In committee, 
     Ohio Republican Rep. Steve Chabot attempted to delete the 
     computer system from the bill, calling it 1-800-BIG BROTHER, 
     but his effort lost on a 17-15 vote. He promises to fight the 
     measure on the House floor.
       Advocates of individual liberty should at least question 
     any program that would centralize data on all Americans in a 
     place where future social engineers can wreak havoc on the 
     citizenry. Senate legislation attempts to ensure that only 
     Americans and legal residents are listed in the computer 
     system by requiring that everyone be fingerprinted or provide 
     other biometric data (such as a retina scan) to 
     ``personalize'' birth certificates by age 16. The House bill 
     moves in that direction by mandating a study of 
     ``counterfeit-resistant'' birth certificates. Moreover, at 
     least one computer system supporter in the House has said the 
     system will not work without some type of national ID card.
       Supporters of smaller government and family values will 
     find that the House immigration bill violates the spirit, 
     indeed the essence, of the Contract. It also contradicts 
     Majority Leader Dick Armey's vision of a freedom revolution 
     and Speaker Newt Gingrich's desire to create a ``Conservative 
     Opportunity Society.'' The immigration bill's provisions 
     against families, the mandates on businesses, cities and 
     states, and the specter of creating yet another 
     uncontrollable government program should give pause to 
     reformers. These measures would represent business as usual, 
     not the Republican Revolution promised by the ``Contract With 
     America.''
                                                                    ____


      [From the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, Arlington, VA]

                 Business: Immigration Helps Not Hurts

       We are concerned that legislation on immigration before the 
     Congress will significantly damage U.S. economic growth, 
     jobs, and competitiveness. It seems to proceed from the 
     assumption that immigration is a mild ill which can only be 
     tolerated to a degree. Yet far from being a drain on U.S. 
     society or the economy, immigrants are a vital engine.
       Immigrants generally pay more to the U.S. government in 
     taxes than they use in services, as a number of studies have 
     shown. In fact, a sudden drop in immigration levels would 
     sharply reduce Social Security revenues.
       Immigrants play a key role in product and technological 
     development, the cutting edge of U.S. industrial growth. Many 
     of our fastest-growing firms, and largest exporters, employ a 
     significant share of immigrants in research and overseas 
     marketing. Most of them cannot be replaced, and their loss 
     would mean the loss of thousands of other jobs for Americans. 
     Each year, many immigrants, some of them at our firms, obtain 
     patents for products and processes that generate jobs, 
     growth, indeed entire industries.
       Immigrants own a significant share of small businesses. 
     These small businesses are the engine of jobs growth in the 
     U.S.: As a number of studies have shown, a large number of 
     new jobs are generated by the smallest U.S. firms. Often 
     these small operations become the driving force by which 
     whole communities and cities are revived: Cuban renewal of 
     Jersey City; the Vietnamese corridor of Arlington, Virginia; 
     prosperous Asian communities throughout California.
       On balance, a survey of Nobel economists released by the 
     Alexis de Tocqueville Institution showed near-unanimous 
     agreement immigration is a major economic plus.
       Of course, we believe measures to increase the costs and 
     complexity of hiring immigrants, and to reduce ceilings on 
     such hirings, and other measures pose a special threat to 
     American competitiveness. But we recognize that restrictions 
     on family re-unification, refugees, and other categories not 
     labeled as economic are vitally important as well. Workers 
     have husbands, wives and children. Many present employers 
     came to this country not as major business executives, but as 
     victims of persecution, famine or civil war. If these 
     categories, or general immigration levels, are reduced, 
     economic immigration will suffer, too.
       U.S. immigration policy could certainly be improved, and 
     illegal immigration brought under more reasonable control 
     (without national databases and i.d. cards). But the core of 
     any reform should involve extension and refinement of present 
     immigration levels, not tighter restrictions. And it should 
     be based on the understanding that high levels of immigration 
     are no liability; they are part of America's strength.
       John Whitehead, former co-chairman, Goldman Sachs, former 
     deputy secretary of state
       George Soros, president, Soros Fund Management
       Kenneth Tomlinson, editor-in-chief, Reader's Digest, former 
     Director, Voice of America
       Richard Gilder, Gilder, Gagnon and Howe
       Lewis Eisenberg, co-chairman, Granite Capital International 
     Group
       Cliff Sobel, CEO, Bon Art International
       Ed Zschau, International Business Machines
       Donna Fitzpatrick, president and CEO, Radiance Services 
     Company
       Dr. J. Robert Beyster, chairman and CEO, Science 
     Applications International Corporation
       Lawrence Hunter, president, Business Leadership Council
       Barton M. Biggs, chairman, Morgan Stanley
       Jerry Junkins, chairman, President and CEO, Texas 
     Instruments
       T.J. Rodgers, president and CEO, Cypress Semiconductor
       Felix Rohatyn, managing director, Lazard Freres & Co.
       Mortimer Zuckerman, chairman and editor-in-chief, U.S. News 
     and World Report
       Lee Iacococca
       Thomas Weisel, chairman, Montgomery Securities

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