[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 204 (Tuesday, December 19, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S18914-S18917]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     THE IMMIGRATION REFORM DEBATE

  Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I would like to set forth my general 
concerns about S. 1394, a bill passed out of the Judiciary Subcommittee 
on Immigration a few weeks ago. In general, this bill would combine 
measures aimed at reducing illegal immigration with dramatic reductions 
in legal immigration. In my view, illegal and legal immigration are 
very different issues. Illegal immigration is a significant national 
problem, one that we should address by discussing ways to deal with 
people who cross our borders unlawfully. In contrast, legal immigrants 
are overwhelmingly law-abiding and hardworking people who contribute to 
our economy and our society. We should deal with the real problem of 
illegal immigration without retreating from America's historic 
commitment to legal immigration.
  Mr. President, I would like to make an obvious point: America is a 
land of immigrants. For most of our history we have welcomed anyone 
with the desire and fortitude necessary to come here in search of a 
better life.
  Lady Liberty has held our door open to the teeming masses of the 
world, not out of pity, but out of respect for our Nation's immigrant 
roots, and in the knowledge that immigrants made this country strong 
and prosperous, and will continue to do so, so long as we let them.
  We as a people will remain a vibrant, shining example to the world, 
so long as we continue to look out to that world, welcoming those who 
would join us in building a free and open society.
  We have every right and even responsibility to expect those who come 
to our land to live up to our standards of decency and responsibility. 
We can and should expect able-bodied immigrants to work. We can and 
should expect them to forego the often debilitating effects of welfare.
  But we should not slam the door shut to people yearning to be free, 
and to build a better life for themselves and their families.
  My grandparents were all immigrants. They came to this country from 
Lebanon about a century ago in search of freedom. None of the four 
could speak English. And they had few material resources to speak of. 
But they came to America because they wanted to live in a country that 
was free and they wanted their children and their grandchildren to live 
in a nation that was free. My grandparents did not come here pursuing 
government benefits. They believed in their own capacity to do things, 
and they wanted a place where they would have a chance to enjoy the 
freedom to do the things they wanted.
  My parents did better in America than their parents. My parents were 
very hard-working folks. Neither of them had a college education. My 
dad worked almost 20 years as a UAW member on an assembly line in an 
Oldsmobile factory in Lansing, MI. After that, he and my mom started a 
small business. They worked hard; 6 sometimes 7 days a week in order to 
give me and my sisters a chance to share in the American Dream--to have 
more freedom and opportunity than they did. Their hard work has allowed 
me to succeed in turn; I was the first child in our family to go to 
college.
  Unfortunately, I believe that this bill will make it more difficult 
for people like my grandparents to come to America.
  Specifically, S. 1394 would significantly reduce the quotas for legal 
immigration, restrict immigration as a means to re-unite separated 
families, and eliminate whole categories of legal immigration.
  I believe these measures will cause real harm to our economy and to 
our Nation as a whole. Most damaging, they will keep us from benefiting 
from the hard work, experience and expertise of legal immigrants.
  Immigrants are the ultimate entrepreneurs. They are people willing to 
risk it all in a new and different land. They are self-selected and 
seek to make a better life for themselves and their families.
  As economist Thomas Sowell writes in his Ethnic America: A History:

       The fact that immigrants not only equal, but eventually 
     surpass, their native-born counterparts suggests that they 
     brought some advantage in terms of human capital, that 
     migration is a selective process, bringing the more ambitious 
     or venturesome or able elements of a population.

  Mr. President, these are the kind of people we want to become 
Americans. These are the kind of people who sacrifice so their children 
can rise to the top of their class.
  Immigrants also create a brain gain for the United States. One in 
three people who have graduated from college in engineering in this 
country is an immigrant, according to the National Research Center.
  Immigrant expertise is widespread and impressive. In the 20th century 
between 20 and 50 percent of all Nobel Prize winners, depending on the 
discipline involved, have been immigrants to the United States. As of 
1988 there were more Russian Nobel Prize winners living in the United 
States than living in Russia.

[[Page S18915]]

  These highly educated, highly skilled immigrants are essential to the 
competitiveness of America's high-technology industries. Consider 
Intel, one of the most prolific and expanding companies in the United 
States, employing tens of thousands of American workers.
  Intel constantly develops cutting edge technologies that will define 
the computer industry in the 21st century. And it is doing all of this 
with a great deal of help from America's newest immigrants.
  At one point not long ago three members of Intel's top management, 
including chief executive officer Andrew S. Grove, from Hungary, were 
immigrants.
  Intel and other high-technology firms must seek out and hire 
immigrants because the demand for highly skilled workers exceeds the 
supply. After recruiting on American campuses, these companies still do 
not have enough highly skilled engineers, scientists, and computer 
specialists they need to remain competitive. Only because their need is 
real do companies go through the trouble, expense and government 
paperwork necessary to hire foreign workers.
  But productive immigrants are not just computer programmers in 
Silicon Valley. Arab-Americans in Dearborn and Detroit, Vietnamese in 
Arlington, Cubans in Miami, and a number of other immigrant groups in a 
number of cities have revitalized America's urban areas.
  Whether it is the Korean grocer or the Chinese restaurateur, our 
urban areas in particular owe a great deal to entrepreneurial, hard-
working immigrants willing to take chances, to start small businesses 
in areas others have ignored.
  Mr. President, immigration is not a zero-sum game in which every job 
that goes to a foreign-born worker means one less job for an American 
worker. Immigration is a positive-sum gain for Americans in terms of 
jobs, living standards, and economic growth. When a business adds a new 
resource--whether it is a labor or capital resource--it generates more 
jobs, more income, and more opportunities for Americans, not less. This 
is especially true when the resource is a talented, creative, and 
inventive worker. As George Gilder points out, the beneficial impact of 
immigrants on the U.S. economy ``is overwhelming and undeniable: it is 
all around us, in a spate of inventions and technical advances, from 
microwaves and air bags to digital cable and satellite television, from 
home computers and air conditioners to cellular phones and lifesaving 
pharmaceutical and medical devices.'' Mr. Gilder estimates that without 
immigration over the last 50 years, U.S. real living standards would be 
at least 40 percent lower. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that 
an article by George Gilder on the economic benefits of immigration in 
yesterday's Wall Street Journal be placed in the Record immediately 
following my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, lowering the legal immigrant quota will 
lower the benefit we can gain from hard-working and highly-skilled 
immigrants. Tightening restrictions on family unification also will 
cost us a great deal. It will cost us our principles because we know 
well that U.S. citizens should be able to bring their elderly parents 
to this country after he has established himself here. And we know well 
that others, adult sisters and brothers and other relatives, 
particularly those living under the many repressive regimes in this 
world, should be allowed to join their relatives in the land of 
freedom.

  And keeping families separated also will be bad for our economy. 
Skilled workers will be less likely to come to America if they know 
that they will not be allowed to reunite their families. Most people 
are reluctant to move out of town if they cannot see their families. In 
my view, America will not be able to attract the ``best and the 
brightest'' from around the world if we impose barriers that prevent 
people from re-uniting with their parents and siblings.
  Mr. President, in my view S. 1394's provisions restricting legal 
immigration are misconceived; they are misconceived because they are 
based on misconceptions: first, that immigrants take jobs away from 
Americans who need them, second, that immigrants are a drain on our 
governments and third, that immigrants are a danger to our culture.
  Contrary to popular myth, immigrants do not increase the rate of 
unemployment among American workers.
  There is a great deal of empirical evidence to support this position.
  First, the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution studied immigration 
patterns over the long term in America. They found that, historically, 
periods of heavy immigration have not been associated with subsequent 
higher than normal unemployment.
  Second, the Manhattan Institute compared the ten states with the 
highest immigrant presence with the ten states with the lowest 
immigrant presence and found that the high-immigrant states actually 
had lower unemployment rates, in the aggregate, than did the low-
immigrant states.
  The median unemployment rate in States with large immigrant 
populations was 5.1 percent while that for the 10 States with low 
immigrant populations was 6.6 percent--a full 1.5 percent difference.
  I could go on, Mr. President, but there is no need. Let me instead 
quote Julian Simon. This University of Maryland professor and author of 
the seminal work on ``The Economic Consequences of Immigration'' 
recently finished an immigration report for the Cato Institute. In that 
report he states unequivocally: ``The studies uniformly show that 
immigrants do not increase the rate of native unemployment.''
  It's as simple as that. Immigrants do not increase unemployment. In 
fact, Mr. President, immigrants do not take jobs, they crate jobs. By 
advancing our technology, by developing better products, by starting 
new businesses and by themselves consuming goods, immigrants expand and 
create whole new areas of production employing thousands of native-born 
Americans.
  This brings us to the second mistaken assumption underlying attempts 
to restrict immigration: that legal immigrants are a drain on the 
public coffers.
  Mr. President, when total government expenditures per capita are 
considered, the government spends about one third less per immigrant 
than it does per native. This is because immigrants are more likely 
than natives to be of working age. They pay into the tax system without 
taking out, for example, Social Security payments. Further, refugees 
fleeing persecution automatically qualify for government benefits when 
they are admitted into the United States. If we factor out the use of 
welfare among refugees, immigrants or working age are less likely to 
use welfare than are the native born.
  As Julian Simon of the University of Maryland reported recently in 
the Wall Street Journal, ``the immigrant family contributes yearly 
about $2,500 more in taxes to public coffers than it obtains in 
services.'' And those who still fear the costs of immigration should 
remember a policy option which we already have substantially put in 
place: ``immigration yes, welfare no.''
  Current law already forbids almost all immigrants from receiving 
welfare for their first three years in this country. We can 
legitimately toughen these standards. And our welfare reform bill does 
so by denying noncash benefits such as supplemental security income and 
food stamps to immigrants.
  But we should recognize that the vast majority of immigrants are 
working hard, in real jobs that add to the well-being of our people and 
our country.
  There is one final misconception underlying S. 1394's provisions 
restricting immigration. It has been said that America needs a 
reduction in immigration for the sake of our culture.
  Some Americans have expressed concern about a new wave of immigrants, 
bringing new customs and ways of life to our shores.
  Despite the scare tactics we sometimes hear, however, immigrants are 
not breaking down our culture. First, Mr. President, immigrants are not 
coming to America in unprecedented numbers. Professor Simon's cautious 
estimate, based on census data, is that as of 1990, immigrants made up 
only 8.5 percent of our population. That compares with averages over 13 
percent between 1860 and 1920. As a proportion of 

[[Page S18916]]
the total population, then, immigrant numbers have dropped by more than 
a third.
  What is more, the Manhattan Institute's ``Index of Leading 
Immigration Indicators'' shows that, compared with the native born, 
immigrants are more likely to have intact families, more likely to have 
college degrees, more likely to be working, and no more likely to 
commit crimes than native born Americans.
  We are not being swamped by unmanageable numbers of immigrants. 
Further, Mr. President, immigrants are like the rest of us in all the 
ways that matter. They are hard-working, family-oriented people who 
come here to make a better life for themselves and their children. They 
are, in fact, the kind of people each and every one of us would and 
should be happy and proud to have as neighbors.
  It seems clear to me, Mr. President, that legal immigration is a boon 
to our Nation's economy and society. Unfortunately, S. 1394 tends to 
obscure the benefits of legal immigration because it contains 
provisions addressing illegal immigration as well. Indeed, much of the 
driving force behind S. 1394 is directed, not at those who legally come 
to this country, but at those who come here illegally. We can address 
the illegal immigration problem through better border policing and 
better and swifter methods of deportation, particularly in regard to 
criminal illegal aliens. And as I mentioned earlier, we have addressed 
the welfare magnet problem in our welfare reform bill.
  That's why I think we should split S. 1394 and move on illegal 
immigration reform separately from legal immigration reform.
  But even some of the illegal immigration components of S. 1394 go 
much farther than is necessary. Illegal immigrants now constitute 1.5 
percent of our population. That is too high a percentage, but we need 
to examine more effective--and less intrusive ways--to control illegal 
immigration.
  This legislation proposes to end illegal immigration by requiring a 
national Identification system for all employees. In order to get a new 
job, every American will have to prove his or her citizenship by 
showing that he or she is listed on a specific, national computer 
registry.
  Before an employer can hire a new worker that employer will have to 
contact the Federal Government for verification of the would-be 
employee's citizenship. Thus we will construct a vast new Government 
bureaucracy, with vast new powers and, Mr. President, with cast new 
costs.
  Current estimates suggest that, with a national I.D. system, each 
work place would have to spend nearly $800 for equipment alone. And the 
Immigration and Naturalization Service Telephone Verification Pilot 
System, often seen as a prototype for the new I.D. System, shows that 
operating costs could put many companies out of business. It is for 
this reason that the Nation Federation of Independent Businesses--
America's leading small business organization--strongly opposes the 
I.D. system in S. 1394.
  It is clear that the system itself will not work. It will be riddled 
with errors. Indeed, current Social Security Administration files and 
error rates show a probable error rate of between 25 and 28 percent for 
the new system, making it far from effective. Even assuming an error 
rate of only 3 percent, the system would put in bureaucratic limbo or 
even deny jobs to 2 million Americans, most of them native-born U.S. 
citizens.
  Advocates of the proposed I.D. system in S. 1394 claim that it is 
only a ``pilot project'' that would cover workers in just five States. 
However, these States--Texas, Florida, Illinois, New York and 
California--have a population greater than that of Mexico, indeed of 
all but the 10 largest countries in the world. According to Stuart 
Anderson of the Cato Institute, employers in these States would have to 
check the legal status of each new hire--an estimated 22 million 
annually in these five States--through this government I.D. system.
  In my judgment, we should reject the national I.D. Cards and other 
similar schemes designed to control illegal immigration because they 
will result in more government intrusion in the affairs of U.S. 
citizens and businesses.
  I am also troubled by other aspects of this bill that I will comment 
upon in more detail in the near future. For example, I am very 
concerned about the proposed border tax, which would in effect 
discourage foreign tourists from spending their money in this country.
  The debate over immigration reform will be a major issue in this 
chamber over the next year. I hope that we in this body will, first, 
reject some of the severe provisions of S. 1394 and second, move 
separately on bills dealing with legal and illegal immigration. This 
would constitute a statement of confidence in ourselves, in our nation 
and in the ability of immigrants, when extended the opportunities of 
our land to become productive members of our communities.
  In closing Mr. President, I believe that our immigration policy both 
reflects and projects our Nation's character and level of decency. One 
man above all said it best. In his farewell address to the Nation, 
President Ronald Reagan declared:

       I've spoken of the shinning city all my political life, but 
     I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I 
     said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on 
     rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and 
     teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, 
     a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and 
     creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had 
     doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and 
     heart to get here. That's how I saw it and see it still.

  The question for America is this: Shall we have a shining city on a 
hill or will we construct a fortress America? It is my hope that we 
will choose the shining city.
  I yield the floor.

                               Exhibit 1

             [From the Wall Street Journal, Dec. 18, 1995]

                          Geniuses From Abroad

                           (By George Gilder)

       The current immigration debate founders on ignorance of one 
     huge fact: Without immigration, the U.S. would not exist as a 
     world power. Without immigration, the U.S. could not have 
     produced the computerized weapons that induced the Soviet 
     Union to surrender in the arms race. Without immigration, the 
     U.S. could not have built the atomic bomb during World War 
     II, or the hydrogen bomb in the early 1950s, or 
     intercontinental missiles in the 1960s, or MIRVs in the 
     1970s, or cruise missiles for the Gulf War in the 1990s.
       Today, immigrants are vital not only for targeted military 
     projects but also for the wide range of leading-edge ventures 
     in an information age economy. No less than military 
     superiority in previous eras, U.S. industrial dominance and 
     high standards of living today depend on outsiders.
       Every high-technology company, big or small, is like a 
     Manhattan Project. All must mobilize the personnel best 
     trained and most able to perform a specific function, and 
     deliver a product within a window of opportunity as fateful 
     and remorseless as a war deadline. This requires access to 
     the small elite of human beings in the world capable of 
     pioneering these new scientific and engineering frontiers. 
     For many specialized high-technology tasks, the pool of 
     potential talent around the world numbers around 10 people, 
     or even fewer.


                            The Right people

       If you are running such a technology company, you will 
     quickly discover that the majority of this cognitive elite 
     are not citizens of your country. Unless you can find the 
     right people wherever they may be, you will not be able to 
     launch the exotic innovation that changes the world. Unless 
     you can fill the key technology jobs, you will not create any 
     other jobs at all, and your country will forgo the cycle of 
     new products, skills, and businesses that sustain a world-
     leading standard of living.
       Discussing the impact of immigration, economists and their 
     followers are beady-eyed gnatcatchers, expert on the 
     movements of cabbage pickers and au pair girls and the 
     possible impact of Cubans on Miami wage levels. But like 
     hunters in a cartoon, they ignore the tyrannosaurus rex 
     crouching behind them. Thus sophisticated analysts, such as 
     George Borjas of the University of California, San Diego, and 
     artful writers, such as Peter Brimelow, conclude that the 
     impact of immigration on the U.S. economy is slight or 
     negligible.
       In fact, the evidence is overwhelming and undeniable; it is 
     all around us, in a spate of inventions and technical 
     advances, from microwaves and air bags to digital cable and 
     satellite television, from home computers and air 
     conditioners to cellular phones and lifesaving 
     pharmaceuticals and medical devices. Without immigration over 
     the last 50 years, I would estimate that U.S. real living 
     standards would be at least 40% lower.
       The underplaying of immigration as an economic force stems 
     from a basic flaw in macroeconomic analysis. Economists fail 
     to account for the indispensable qualitative effects of 
     genius. Almost by definition, genius is the ability to 
     generate unique products 

[[Page S18917]]
     and concepts and bring them to fruition. Geniuses are literally 
     thousands of times more productive than the rest of us. We 
     all depend on them for our livelihoods and opportunities.
       The feats of genius are necessarily difficult to identify 
     or predict, except in retrospect. But judging from the very 
     rough metric of awards of mathematical doctorates and other 
     rigorous scientific and engineering degrees, prizes, patents, 
     and publications, about a third of the geniuses in the U.S. 
     are foreign born, and another 20% are the offspring of 
     immigrants. A third of all American Nobel Prize winners, for 
     example, were born overseas.
       A stellar example of these elites in action is Silicon 
     Valley in California. Silicon Valley companies have reduce 
     the price of computer MIPs and memory bits by a factor of 
     some 10,000 in 2\1/2\ decades. Although mainstream economists 
     neglect to measure the qualitative impact of these 
     innovations, most of the new value in the world economy over 
     the last decade has stemmed, directly or indirectly, from 
     the semiconductor and computer industries, both hardware 
     and software.
       Consider Intel Corp. Together with its parent, Fairchild 
     Semiconductor, Intel developed the basic processes of 
     microchip manufacture and created dynamic and static random 
     access memory, the microprocessor, and the electrically 
     programmable read-only memory. In other words, Intel laid the 
     foundations for the personal computer revolution and scores 
     of other chip-based industries that employ the vast bulk of 
     U.S. engineers today.
       Two American-born geniuses, Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, 
     were key founders of Fairchild and Intel. But their 
     achievements would have been impossible without the help of 
     Jean Hourni, inventor of planar processing; Dov Frohmann-
     Benchkowski, inventor of electrically erasable programmable 
     ROMs; Federico Faggin, inventor of silicon gate technology 
     and builder of the first microprocessor; Mayatoshi Shima, 
     layout designer of key 8086 family devices; and of course 
     Andrew Grove, the company's now revered CEO who solved 
     several intractable problems of the metal oxide silicon 
     technology at the heart of Intel's growth. All these Intel 
     engineers--and hundreds of other key contributors--were 
     immigrants.
       The pattern at Intel was repeated throughout Silicon 
     Valley, from National Semiconductor and Advanced Micro 
     Devices to Applied Materials, LSI Logic, Actel, Atmel, 
     Integrated Device Technologies, Xicor, Cypress, Sun 
     Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard, all of which from the 
     outset heavily depended on immigrants in the laboratories and 
     on engineering workbenches. LSI, IDT, Actel, Atmel, Xicor, 
     and Sun were all founded or led by immigrants. Today, fully 
     one-third of all the engineers in Silicon Valley are foreign 
     born.
       Now, with Silicon Valleys proliferating throughout the U.S. 
     economy, with Silicon Deserts, Prairies, Mountains, and even 
     Alleys being hopefully launched from Manhattan to Oregon, 
     immigration becomes ever more vital to the future of the U.S. 
     economy. And microchips are just the beginning. On the 
     foundation of silicon have arisen world-leading software and 
     medical equipment industries almost equally dependent on 
     immigrants. As spearhead of the fastest growing U.S. 
     industry, software, Microsoft offers some of the most coveted 
     jobs in the U.S. economy. But for vital functions, it still 
     must turn to immigrants for 5% of its domestic work force, 
     despite the difficult and expensive legal procedures required 
     to import an alien.


                         freedom of enterprise

       In recent congressional testimony, Ira Rubenstein, a 
     Microsoft attorney, declared that immigration bars could 
     jeopardize the 58 percent of its revenue generated overseas, 
     threaten American dominance of advanced ``client-server'' 
     business applications, and render ``stillborn'' the 
     information superhighway. In particular, Corning and other 
     producers of fiber-optic technology have faced a severe 
     shortage of native engineers equipped to pursue this 
     specialty crucial to both telecommunications and medical 
     instruments.
       With U.S. high school students increasingly shunning 
     mathematics and the hard sciences, America is the global 
     technology and economic leader in spite of, not because of, 
     any properties of the American gene pool or dominant culture. 
     America prevails only because it offers the freedom of 
     enterprise and innovation to people from around the world.
       A decision to cut back legal immigration today, as Congress 
     is contemplating, is a decision to wreck the key element of 
     the American technological miracle. After botching the issues 
     of telecom deregulation and tax rate reduction, and wasting a 
     year on Hooverian myths about the magic of a balanced budget, 
     the Republican Congress now proposes to issue a deadly body 
     blow to the intellectual heart of U.S. growth. Congress must 
     not cripple the new Manhattan Projects of the U.S. economy in 
     order to pursue some xenophobic and archaic dream of ethnic 
     purity and autarky.

     

                          ____________________