[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 48 (Tuesday, April 16, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3351-S3352]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      IMMIGRATION CONTROL AND FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY ACT OF 1996

  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I just reflect that Senator Kennedy and I 
are ready to go forward with this measure. It is an issue that is very 
topical and must be addressed--the issue of illegal immigration, the 
issue of legal immigration. Both bills are here. One is at the desk and 
one is being processed.
  I want to assure all that immigration reform is not a partisan issue. 
It never has been and it never will be. It cannot be. I just hope that 
before we go on with these maneuvers, we recognize that I do not think 
anyone, especially in an election year, would want to be known as the 
person that took this bill down and left it down. It is an issue that, 
as I say, is not going to resolve itself. It is a Federal issue, not a 
State issue. We either resolve it, or we will have proposition 187's in 
every State of the Union. From me, I have buried my dead many times 
before with regard to both legal and illegal immigration, and life will 
go on if you bury it one more time.
  Thank you.
  Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I join with the Senator from Wyoming in 
believing that it is premature to draw this bill down. This issue is of 
enormous importance in terms of dealing with the borders of this 
country and the flow of illegal immigration. It is enormously important 
in terms of enhancing the various criminal statutes that would deal 
with struggling, and it is enormously important to make sure we are 
going to protect American jobs by refusing illegals the opportunities 
for employment. And as the Jordan Commission and the Hesburgh 
Commission pointed out, jobs are the issues which attract the illegals. 
This particular measure deals with those particular proposals.
  We had 6 days of markup on this in committee. As the Senator from 
Wyoming pointed out, there was significant participation by Republicans 
and Democrats. It was devoid of partisanship in the consideration of 
various amendments. Last evening, the Senator from Wyoming offered 
three important amendments, which we were about to accept--one to make 
it a deportable offense to falsely claim to be a citizen while applying 
for jobs or welfare benefits. That is important. That can make a 
difference in terms of protecting the American taxpayer and the 
American worker. There is an amendment to keep track of the foreign 
students, to make sure they stay in school and not work illegally. We 
do not have the information of what is happening to many of the 
students, whether or not they circumvent the current laws and melt on 
into the population and use what is a legitimate cause to come here, to 
subvert the efforts to try and deal with illegal immigration. The third 
proposal is where you have students that come here to go to a private 
university and end up, at the public taxpayers' expense, allegedly 
going to public education at the burden of the taxpayers. These are 
significant and important amendments. We debated and discussed those 
last evening. We are prepared to act on them.
  So there are probably eight or nine extremely important and 
controversial items that I was prepared to work out a time agreement on 
and urge colleagues to do so. And there were the other two items, which 
as Senator Dorgan and I will speak to briefly, about the minimum wage.
  I would have been glad to urge the minority leader to agree to an 
hour or half hour, if that was going to be the cost of getting a vote 
on the issue of the minimum wage. We have been unable to get 
consideration of that measure now for over a year. And we have seen 56 
Members of the Senate--bipartisan--who have indicated they want to 
address that issue. We are still denied an opportunity to consider a 
bill on its own merits with a relatively short period of time, since 
this is an issue that is understood by the Members.

  Every day that goes on where we deny the opportunity for an increase 
in the minimum wage makes it clearer and clearer that there are those 
in this body, the U.S. Senate, that refuse to recognize that the work 
is important of the men and women in this country that work 40 hours a 
week, 52 weeks a year and are entitled to a livable wage. That issue is 
not going to go away. We are going to keep revisiting that, as the 
minority leader pointed out, over the objections and opposition and 
stress to those opposed to that, until we are at least able to deal 
with it in a way in which that particular issue is dealt with with a 
sense of dignity because of the importance that has to many of our 
fellow citizens.
  So I am disappointed that we are not able to move ahead. We are 
prepared to move along. I think many of those amendments that have been 
published here could be disposed of with broad bipartisan support. 
Probably, a dozen need our full attention. We were quite prepared--I 
know the leader on our side had instructed us to make every effort to 
move the program forward. That was the sense of the Democratic members 
of the Judiciary Committee. So, Mr. President, I am distressed by that. 
Also, as a matter of information on the terrorism bill, they did strike 
provisions that were in the previous law that permits the Internet to 
publish information about how to make bombs, and then a measure that 
was worked out by Senator Feinstein, and also Senator Biden, that 
ensured that we were going to deal with that particular item. It was a 
matter that I brought to the floor. Someone had sent it to me over the 
Internet itself, and it provided in detail about how to make bombs. 
Senator Feinstein and Senator Biden provided leadership to deal with 
that on the Internet. And now, as I understand, for some reason that I 
cannot possibly understand, in this terrorism conference report that 
particular provision has been eliminated.
  I heard the leader say that this is pretty much the same measure that 
came through the Senate. I have just listened with great interest. I 
wish our ranking member of our Judiciary Committee, Senator Biden, was 
on the floor to respond to that. I know we will have a debate on some 
of those measures. But that, along with other provisions dealing with 
the explosives and tagging explosives and also the reduction of the 
provisions, which were accepted in the Senate in terms of wiretapping, 
which the FBI indicated would be such a powerful force in terms of 
dealing with the terrorist organizations and potential terrorist bombs, 
have all been dropped in that conference report. For what reason I do 
not know. But I heard the leader say that this measure was pretty much 
what was passed in the Senate. Certainly, if those measures have been 
addressed and deleted or compromised, I think that we ought to--as I am 
sure we will--hear Senator Biden and others address it.

  Mr. DOLE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.
  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, the Senator from Massachusetts is correct. 
Senator Hatch is prepared, and he will start on the conference report. 
We are not going to debate the immigration bill. It is being held 
hostage now because of the demands on the other side. If we do not want 
to do anything about illegal immigration, I guess the Democrats can 
make that happen. Most Americans, by 80 percent, think we should deal 
with this issue. But now we are going to be held hostage by Social 
Security amendments and minimum wage amendments. They have five or six 
others. Then they have the gall to stand up and say, ``We want to move 
ahead on illegal immigration.'' We know what is happening.

[[Page S3352]]

  If we can work out a time agreement on relevant amendments, we will 
pursue illegal immigration or the immigration bill. It passed the 
committee, as I understand, by a vote of 13 to 4. But if we are going 
to have extraneous amendments and nonrelevant amendments to help 
protect some of those who voted wrong on the balanced budget amendment, 
we could be having this every day--and every day and every day. I just 
hope the six on the other side who voted for a balanced budget 
amendment 2 years ago would now, when we have the vote sometime this 
month or probably next month, vote for the balanced budget amendment--
we are just a couple of votes short--and send it to the States for 
ratification. If three-fourths of the States ratify it, it becomes part 
of the Constitution.
  But we are now prepared to proceed on the antiterrorism conference 
report. Obviously, not every provision the Senate passed survived the 
conference. But as I think, as the Senator from Utah outlined to us in 
our policy luncheon, nearly every important feature in the Senate bill 
survived the conference, and we believe that it is a good bill that 
should be passed as quickly as possible so the House might act.
  If we can work out some agreement on immigration, we will go back to 
immigration. If not, we may go to something else. It does not have to 
proceed here one day at a time. I know some would like to frustrate any 
efforts on this side of the aisle. But we do have the majority, and we 
will try to do our best to move legislation that the American people 
have an interest in. Illegal immigration--wherever you go illegal 
immigration is a big, big issue. If we are going to be frustrated by 
efforts on the other side to hold the bill hostage, that is up to them. 
They can make it happen. Then they can explain that to the voters in 
November.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The minority leader is recognized.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I thought we had completed the discussion 
on immigration. But since it appears that is not the case, let me 
respond again.
  We did not pull the bill. We could be on that bill right now. We 
could be taking up amendments right now. We have already agreed to 
short timeframes within which to debate the minimum wage amendment and 
the Social Security amendment. We can resolve them by 5 o'clock this 
afternoon and come to completion on the bill itself sometime tonight. 
We are prepared to do that.
  So do not let anybody be misled. We are not holding this bill 
hostage. We did not pull it down. We did not ask that there be no 
opportunity to vote. Welcome to the U.S. Senate. Welcome to the U.S. 
Senate.
  If our Republican colleagues are prepared right now, this afternoon, 
to say that throughout the rest of the 104th Congress they will never 
offer an irrelevant amendment to any bill because doing so would 
somehow indicate that they do not want a bill to pass or they are going 
to hold the bill hostage, we might be prepared to talk about that. But 
everyone knows that is not what this is all about. There are some here 
who do not want to deal with the issues that we are attempting to 
address in these amendments.

  So I do not think there ought to be any misunderstanding or 
obfuscation of the question. The question is, Do we support passage of 
an illegal immigration bill? The answer is not only yes, but 
emphatically yes. Do we support timeframes within which every amendment 
could be considered? The answer is yes.
  So I hope we can reach an agreement. I hope now we can move on to the 
counterterrorism bill and address that in a timely manner. I am 
prepared to sit down this afternoon, tonight, or tomorrow to find a way 
to resolve the procedural issues regarding how we take up the 
immigration bill itself.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. HATCH addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. DeWine). The Senator from Utah.

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