[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 54 (Wednesday, April 24, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4017-S4047]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      IMMIGRATION CONTROL AND FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY ACT OF 1996

  The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.


                           amendment no. 3726

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, we will have a brief quorum call to 
discuss with the floor manager whether or not they want to have a 
series of rollcalls. I hope we will dispose of the amendments in a 
timely way. If we can move ahead with voice votes on all of those--
well, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SIMPSON. We will proceed now, but I would make a remark because I 
certainly can understand the position of Senator Kennedy and the issue 
that is driving him in this debate, but not necessarily on this bill, 
and also Senator Dorgan. As I heard Senator Kennedy describing what is 
out there, eventually, it reminded me of Edgar Allan Poe in ``The Pit 
and the Pendulum,'' as the arc of the blade swung closer and closer to 
the object. I just wanted to state that. It was a great iteration that 
came over me--the blade swinging back and forth, and eventually it will 
hit, and we will have to do what we always do here, which is sometimes 
difficult. It is called vote. And that is a time to come.
  So with that, I urge the adoption of amendment No. 3726.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there further debate on the amendment?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, we were just trying to follow the 
numbers. We had a series of amendments. Could the Senator just restate 
that amendment number.
  Mr. SIMPSON. That is the pilot program, originally Simpson No. 2.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I appreciate that.
  I urge support of the amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment.
  The amendment (No. 3726) was agreed to.


                Amendment No. 3727 to Amendment No. 3725

  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I send a second-degree amendment to the 
desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Wyoming [Mr. Simpson] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 3727 to amendment No. 3725.

  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:
       Strike the last word in the pending amendment and insert: 
     ``act (8 U.S.C. 110(a)(15)

     ``SEC.   . FALSE CLAIMS OF U.S. CITIZENSHIP.

       ``(a) Exclusion of Aliens Who Have Falsely Claimed U.S. 
     Citizenship.--Section 212(a)(9) (8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(9)) is 
     amended by

[[Page S4018]]

     adding at the end the following new subparagraph:
       `(D) Falsely claiming citizenship.--Any alien who falsely 
     represents, or has falsely represented, himself to be a 
     citizen of the United States is excludable.'; and
       ``(b) Deportation of Aliens Who Have Falsely Claimed U.S. 
     Citizenship.--Section 241(a) (8 U.S.C. 1251(a)) is amended by 
     adding at the end the following new paragraph:
       `(6) Falsely claiming citizenship.--Any alien who falsely 
     represents, or has falsely represented, himself to be a 
     citizen of the United States is deportable.'.''.

  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, this amendment, which was the original 
Simpson amendment No. 3, creates a new ground of exclusion and of 
deportation for falsely claiming U.S. citizenship.
  Mr. President, this amendment would add a new section to the bill. 
This is repetitive of remarks when we began the legislation, but this 
section would create a new ground of exclusion and of deportation for 
falsely representing oneself as a U.S. citizen.
  This amendment is a complement to another one I am proposing. The 
other amendment would modify the bill section providing for pilot 
projects on systems to verify work authorization and eligibility to 
apply for public assistance.
  One of the requirements of that other amendment is that the Attorney 
General conduct certain specific pilot projects including one in which 
employers would be required to verify the immigration status of aliens 
but not persons claiming to be citizens. Such persons would be required 
only to attest to being citizens. That came up in debate in the markup 
in the Judiciary Committee, that Americans, U.S. citizens, should not 
have to do some of the things that we require of others, and so there 
would be an attest provision.
  Obviously, the major weakness in any such system as that is the 
potential for false claims of citizenship. That is why I am offering 
the present amendment, which would create a major new disincentive for 
falsely claiming U.S. citizenship. Lawful, permanent resident aliens 
who falsely claim citizenship risk deportation and being permanently 
barred from entering the United States of America. Since they are 
authorized to work, they would have little reason to make a false claim 
of citizenship.
  Illegal aliens, on the other hand, would know that they could not be 
verified if they admitted to being aliens and the verification process 
was conducted; yet they would also know that if they falsely claimed to 
be citizens and were caught, they could be deported and permanently 
barred. Thus, the risk involved in making false claims would be high 
for them, too, under such a pilot project if the present amendment were 
enacted into law.
  Therefore, if this amendment were enacted, and the pilot project 
involving citizenship attestation were conducted, a significant number 
even of illegal aliens might well be deterred from seeking jobs in the 
United States.
  That is the purpose of the amendment.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, the Senator has made a very clear 
statement on the substance of the legislation. It is, I think, an 
important addition to the effort that we are undertaking to try and 
control illegal immigration, and I think it is very worthwhile. I hope 
the Senate will support it.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there further debate on the amendment No. 
3727?
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I urge adoption of the amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. If there is no further debate, the question is 
on agreeing to the amendment.
  The amendment (No. 3727) was agreed to.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                Amendment No. 3728 to Amendment No. 3725

(Purpose: To criminalize voting by aliens for candidates for a Federal 
    office, and to make unlawful voting a ground for exclusion and 
                              deportation)

  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I send a second-degree amendment to the 
desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk report the amendment.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows.

       The Senator from Wyoming [Mr. Simpson] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 3728 to amendment No. 3725.

  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       Strike all after the last word in the amendment and insert: 
     ``deportable.

     ``SEC.  . VOTING BY ALIENS.

       ``(a) Criminal Penalty for Voting by Aliens in Federal 
     Election.--Title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding 
     the following new section:

     `Sec. 611. Voting by aliens

       `(a) It shall be unlawful for any alien to vote in any 
     election held solely or in part for the purpose of electing a 
     candidate for the office of President, Vice President, 
     Presidential elector, Member of the Senate, Member of the 
     House of Representatives, Delegate from the District of 
     Columbia, or Resident Commissioner, unless--
       `(1) the election is held partly for some other purpose;
       `(2) aliens are authorized to vote for such other purpose 
     under a State constitution or statute or a local ordinance; 
     and
       `(3) voting for such other purpose is conducted 
     independently of voting for a candidate for such Federal 
     offices, in such a manner that an alien has the opportunity 
     to vote for such other purpose, but not an opportunity to 
     vote for a candidate for any one or more of such Federal 
     offices.'
       `(b) Any person who violates this section shall be fined 
     not more than $5,000 or imprisoned not more than one year or 
     both.';
       ``(b) Exclusion of Aliens Who Have Unlawfully Voted.--
     Section 212(a) (8 U.S.C. 1182(a)) is amended by adding at the 
     end the following new paragraph:
       `(9) Unlawful voters.--Any alien who has voted in violation 
     of any Federal, State, or local constitutional provision, 
     statute, ordinance, or regulation is excludable.'; and
       ``(c) Deportation of Aliens Who Have Unlawfully Voted.--
     Section 241(a) (8 U.S.C. 1251(a)) is amended by adding at the 
     end the following new paragraph:
       `(6) Unlawful voters.--Any alien who has voted in violation 
     of any Federal, State, or local constitutional provision, 
     statute, ordinance, or regulation is deportable.'.''.

  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, this is the amendment to criminalize 
voting by aliens in Federal elections and make unlawful voting a ground 
for exclusion and deportation. That is what this amendment is. This is 
the original Simpson No. 4.
  This amendment has three parts. It has been changed from the 
discussion that we had in the markup of this particular amendment. 
First, the amendment would create a criminal penalty for voting by 
aliens in any Federal election.
  Please note that this new criminal offense would cover only Federal 
elections, unlike the provision that was in the original version of the 
bill and that was deleted at the committee markup, because you will 
recall there was debate and discussion as to what that would do in a 
school board election or county commissioner election, and certainly 
those States should have the options to control that. That is the 
substance of this amendment.
  This new offense would be a misdemeanor. It is not a felony. It would 
be a misdemeanor.
  An alien who voted in any election, who voted solely or in part 
electing a candidate for President, Vice President, Presidential 
elector, Member of the Senate, Member of the House of Representatives, 
Delegate from the District of Columbia or resident commissioner, would 
be punishable by up to 6 months in prison and a $1,000 fine--not a 
felony.
  The second part of the amendment would create a ground of exclusion 
for aliens who have unlawfully voted in any election, Federal, State, 
or local, in violation of a Federal, State or local constitutional 
provision, statute, ordinance, or regulation.
  And, third, the amendment would create a ground of deportation for 
such unlawful voting by an alien.
  This amendment would help to guarantee that a majority of citizens of 
the United States, those who owe their full political allegiance to 
this country, retain political control of every political unit and 
every political issue.
  If aliens are allowed to vote, it becomes quite possible that a 
relatively small group of citizens in a particular jurisdiction could 
outvote a citizen

[[Page S4019]]

majority, if the group had enough noncitizen allies. I do not feel that 
that is acceptable. That is not consistent with the form of government 
that the Founding Fathers believed to be a fundamental right of the 
American people.
  I have not covered State or local elections in the criminal offense 
provision, in the provision I just described, because  of  the  
objections  of  some Members who believe, and sincerely believe--as I 
believe my friend from Illinois indeed believes--that a temporary 
majority of citizens in a local jurisdiction or a State should be able 
to authorize voting by aliens. They believe this, despite the fact that 
if aliens are once given the right to vote in a jurisdiction, it might 
be difficult or nigh impossible for a majority of citizens in that 
jurisdiction to reverse the decision later.
  However, my amendment also creates new grounds of exclusion and 
deportation for voting, if it is unlawful. It applies to any election. 
Therefore, there would be an additional disincentive for aliens to vote 
if there is a law prohibiting them from doing so.
  During the markup and subsequently, some have raised the issue of 
constitutionality of this prohibition. At this time, just may I say a 
few words about that issue of constitutionality. A doubt has been 
expressed about whether Congress has the authority to prohibit voting 
by aliens. I believe that view is unfounded. There are 
several constitutional grounds for this authority, including the 
plenary power of Congress over immigration matters, which has been 
referred to so many times over the years by the U.S. Supreme Court and 
also the clause that guarantees what is called a republican form of 
government. That standard to be applied is a ``rational relationship to 
a legitimate Federal Government purpose.''

  So, obviously, enforcing the immigration laws of the United States 
and, in particular, the naturalization laws--the requirements and 
procedures an alien must follow to become a naturalized U.S. citizen is 
a legitimate Federal Government purpose. Indeed, immigration and 
naturalization is, along with national defense, the most fundamental of 
the Federal Government's responsibilities. That is undoubtedly why the 
Supreme Court has made such extraordinary statements over the years, 
about just how plenary--``plenary'' meaning complete and absolutely--
how plenary that power is.
  Just one example, quote from the case of Oceanic Steam Navigation Co. 
versus Stranahan, and then quoted later with approval in Fiallo versus 
Bell and Kleindienst versus Mandel:

       Over no conceivable subject is the legislative power of 
     Congress more complete than it is over the admission of 
     aliens.

  The encouragement of naturalization has been explicitly recognized by 
the Supreme Court as a legitimate purpose of Federal actions favoring 
citizens. That was the case of Hampton versus Mow Sun Wong.
  So the prohibition of voting by aliens in Federal elections only 
would clearly be rationally related to a purpose encouraging 
naturalization, which is, as I say, one of the premium subjects in the 
legislative power of Congress. So that is the extent of the amendment 
and my explanation of the amendment.
  Further debate?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Frist). The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, we support this legislation. I want to 
make sure this does not displace what we have already agreed to in the 
motor-voter legislation, which also deals with fraudulent elections, 
and where the penalty is somewhat larger. As I understand, this would 
apply in the Federal, as compared to the participation in local or 
State, elections. At least I am informed by the Justice Department that 
they, too, would feel illegal voting in a Federal election could be 
prosecuted under the Federal law. I am glad to accept this measure, or 
urge the measure be accepted. We can work this thing through to clarify 
it, perhaps, on our way to the conference.
  We want to do what the Senator has rightfully pointed out is 
necessary to be done, in ways that are not going to minimize other 
provisions which might deal with this, also in a substantive way, that 
may be even more effective. I will be glad to recommend we accept this 
now. We can work through this and get a clearer definition as to how 
this interacts with motor voter. I completely agree with the Senator in 
terms of the objectives.
  I just inquire of the Senator what his feeling would be on this.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, the concern my friend from Massachusetts 
expresses, and what he has pointed out as something disturbing to him, 
certainly is not the intent of this author, especially with regard to 
motor voter. There may be some things that would have to be done here, 
because I believe in motor voter we had a criminal penalty when we 
passed that legislation. So I will just leave it in good faith, as we 
have done for 17 years, with the Senator from Massachusetts to work 
that out.
  Mr. KENNEDY. That is fine.
  Mr. SIMPSON. And be certain the things that cause him concern are not 
anything that I am intending to do in this amendment. We can work that 
out.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, Mr. President, I think we might as well move ahead. 
I think we are absolutely--and the Senate would be--in accord with the 
description by the Senator. I urge we accept it. We will review those 
measures together to make sure we are consistent with what both the 
Senator wants to do and any other potential inconsistencies in current 
law.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I appreciate that. My amendment is not 
intended to supersede the present prohibition on unlawful voting. I 
make that assurance once again. I therefore urge the adoption of the 
amendment under those conditions.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. If there is no further debate, the question is 
agreeing to amendment numbered 3728.
  The amendment (No. 3728) was agreed to.


                Amendment No. 3729 to Amendment No. 3725

  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I send a second-degree amendment to the 
desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Wyoming [Mr. Simpson] proposes amendment 
     numbered 3729 to amendment No. 3725.

  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further 
reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       Strike all after the last word and insert the following: 
     ``deportable

     ``SEC.   . USE OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS BY NONIMMIGRANT FOREIGN 
                   STUDENTS.

       ``(a) Persons Eligible for Student Visas.--Section 
     101(a)(15)(F) (8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(15)(F)) is amended--
       ``(1) in clause (i) by striking `academic high school, 
     elementary school, or other academic institution or in a 
     language training program' and inserting in lieu thereof 
     `public elementary or public secondary school (if the alien 
     shows to the satisfaction of the consular officer at the time 
     of application for a visa, or of the Attorney General at the 
     time of application for admission or adjustment of status, 
     that (I) the alien will in fact reimburse such public 
     elementary or public secondary school for the full, 
     unsubsidized per-capita cost of providing education at such 
     school to an individual pursuing such a course of study, or 
     (II) the school waives such reimbursement), private 
     elementary or private secondary school, or postsecondary 
     academic institution, or in a language-training program'; and
       ``(2) by inserting before the semicolon at the end of 
     clause (ii) the following: `: Provided, That nothing in this 
     paragraph shall be construed to prevent a child who is 
     present in the United States in a nonimmigrant status other 
     than that conferred by paragraph (B), (C), (F)(i), or (M)(i), 
     from seeking admission to a public elementary school or 
     public secondary school for which such child may otherwise be 
     qualified.';
       ``(b) Exclusion of Student Visa Abusers.--Section 212(a) (8 
     U.S.C. 1182(a)) is amended by adding at the end the following 
     new paragraph:
       `(9) Student visa abusers.--Any alien described in section 
     101(a)(15)(F) who is admitted as a student for study at a 
     private elementary school or private secondary school and who 
     does not remain enrolled, throughout the duration of his or 
     her elementary or secondary school education in the United 
     States, at either (A) such a private school, or (B) a public 
     elementary or public secondary school (if (I) the alien is in 
     fact reimbursing such public elementary or public secondary 
     school for the full, unsubsidized per-capita cost of 
     providing education at such school to an individual pursuing 
     such a course of study, or (II) the school waives such 
     reimbursement), is excludable.'; and
       ``(c) Deportation of Student Visa Abusers.--Section 241(a) 
     (8 U.S.C. 1251(a)) is

[[Page S4020]]

     amended by adding at the end the following new paragraph:
       `(6) Student visa abusers.--Any alien described in section 
     101(a)(15)(F) who is admitted as a student for study at a 
     private elementary school or private secondary school and who 
     does not remain enrolled, throughout the duration of his or 
     her elementary or secondary school education in the United 
     States, at either (A) such a private school, or (B) a public 
     elementary or public secondary school (if (I) the alien is in 
     fact reimbursing such public elementary or public secondary 
     school for the full, unsubsidized per-capita cost of 
     providing education at such school to an individual pursuing 
     such a course of study, or (II) the school waives such 
     reimbursement), is deportable.'.''.
       This section shall become effective 1 day after the date of 
     enactment.

  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, this is in essence Simpson No. 1 which we 
discussed the other day when we began our debate on this issue. There 
is a minor change, of course, to accomplish one thing so that we can 
address it here since it is the original underlying anchor on the 
procedural aspects of where we are at this moment.
  So the purpose of the amendment--again, it is a bit repetitive from 
our discussion when we proceeded with this legislation originally--this 
is an issue brought to us by Senator Feinstein. I want to say at this 
moment that I have received a tremendous amount of support and 
assistance from Senator Feinstein. She, of course, represents a State 
that is most powerfully affected by everything that is happening today 
and everything that is happening tomorrow with regard to illegal 
immigration and legal immigration. So I say that I am deeply 
appreciative of her and her staff who have worked with my staff on many 
issues.
  These children who are involved here are described as parachute kids. 
And that is a concern. This amendment is intended to prevent foreign 
students coming to the United States to obtain a free taxpayer-financed 
education at a public elementary, secondary school. This is a growing 
problem of children who come to the United States, stay with friends or 
relatives, or even strangers, to whom they pay a fee, and attending 
public schools then as residents of the school district.
  This amendment prohibits consular officers from issuing visas for 
attendance at such public schools or the INS from approving such cases 
unless the foreign student can demonstrate that he or she would 
reimburse the public elementary or secondary school for the full 
unsubsidized per capita cost of providing such education or unless the 
school waives reimbursement.
  The amendment also provides for the exclusion and deportation of 
students who are admitted to attend private elementary or secondary 
schools but who do not remain enrolled then at the private school for 
the duration of their elementary or secondary study in the United 
States. The purpose here is designed to prevent students from obtaining 
admission to a private school, which they often do, and then switching 
to a taxpayer-funded public school soon after arrival in the United 
States.
  The amendment would not prevent these children who are validly in the 
United States as dependents of persons lawfully residing here from 
applying for admission to public schools nor would it prevent public 
schools hosting foreign exchange students. We do not want to intrude on 
that wonderful program, those who would continue to be admitted as 
exchange visitors on J visas.
  The amendment is, however, designed to deal specifically with the 
problem of the parachute kids which has received some attention and 
certainly in California and in other locations, those who come here to 
receive a U.S. education at taxpayer expense.
  That is the conclusion of my remarks with regard to the amendment. I 
look forward to further debate.
  Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, this has been a phenomenon that has 
developed in very recent years. It is now becoming more frequently 
utilized to the disadvantage of taxpayers in these local communities. 
The Senator has made an excellent presentation. It is increasingly a 
problem. We ought to address it. This particular proposal does address 
it. I hope, for the reasons that have been outlined earlier, that the 
amendment will be accepted.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I urge the adoption of the amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to amendment No. 
3729 to amendment No. 3725.
  The amendment (No. 3729) was agreed to.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further 
proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                Amendment No. 3730 to Amendment No. 3725

 (Purpose: To repeal the ban on the search of open-fields by employees 
of the INS when they have probable cause to believe an illegal act has 
                               occurred)

  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I send a second-degree amendment to the 
desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Wyoming [Mr. Simpson] proposes amendment 
     numbered 3730 to amendment No. 3725.

  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further 
reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       Strike all after the last word in the amendment and insert: 
     ``enactment

     ``SEC.   . OPEN-FIELD SEARCHES.

       ``(a) Repeal.--Section 116 of Public Law 99-603 and section 
     287(e) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 
     1357(e)) are repealed.
       ``(b) Redesignation of Provision.--Subsection (f) of 
     section 287 of that Act is redesignated as subsection (e) of 
     that section.''

  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, this is not one that will pass by voice 
vote. We will require a rollcall vote on this issue. It is and always 
has been contentious. This is the original Simpson amendment No. 8 
which is to repeal the current ban on open field searches. Therefore, 
any staff watching these proceedings at this moment will have 
immediately pressed a button, and the ejection device will propel their 
principal here to the floor to proceed with vigorous, vigorous debate 
on this issue. But this one, like all, up or down, and then move on.
  But here is where we are, ladies and gentlemen. Do not miss the 
impact of this. This happened back in the days of putting together the 
original legislation and what you want to recall is that no other U.S. 
law enforcement agency--none--except the Immigration and Naturalization 
Service requires a warrant, a search warrant, to enter and/or search 
open agricultural farmland. No other agency of enforcement in the 
United States is required to do that. That requirement that the INS 
agents obtain a warrant for such a search was placed in the law in 1986 
by what I refer to as an unholy alliance between the agricultural 
growers and the ACLU. You really will not find the ACLU and the 
agricultural growers in the same sack very often.
  All other law enforcement agents--that is a DEA agent, a local police 
officer, even a local sheriff--can, without a warrant, and if they have 
probable cause, search an open field for drugs or for a dead body. INS 
officers alone are prohibited by law from entering a field to enforce 
immigration laws. Of course, the effect of this requirement is to make 
it extremely difficult to enforce our laws against the employment of 
illegal agricultural workers. There are tremendous abuses in that 
field.
  A further effect is to make it safer--that is the word--for employers 
to use illegal workers, at a time when the experts tell us that there 
are more than 1 million American agricultural workers that could 
perform that work. The present ban on open field searches, in other 
words, then protects those who hire illegal workers. That helps to deny 
those jobs to American workers. As a result, up to 40 percent of the 
agricultural workers on the west coast are illegal aliens.
  One of our Nation's most noted immigration experts, Prof. Barry Fuchs 
of Brandeis University, and the executive director, Rev. Ted Hesburgh, 
Select Committee on Immigration Policy and a member of the current 
Commission on Immigration Reform, has specifically recommended to us 
that a

[[Page S4021]]

high priority be placed on repealing the ban on open field searches. 
Professor Fuchs has noted that the ban has taken away an ``important 
enforcement tool of the INS.''
  I hope we might listen to the words of our friend, Larry Fuchs. He is 
our friend. Senator Kennedy has known him longer than I. Larry Fuchs is 
a remarkable resource for this country on legal and illegal immigration 
reform.
  As I have indicated in the past, Senator Kennedy and I were both 
original Members of the U.S. Senate on the Select Commission on 
Immigration Refugee Policy, chaired so ably by Father Ted Hesburgh, who 
was an inspiration to us and who is, to this day, one of the most 
remarkable people in this land and a loving friend.
  We should heed the words of Professor Fuchs. Proponents of the 
requirement--and you will hear that argument coming forth momentarily--
proponents of the requirement for warrants argue that it prevents INS 
officers from entering an open field simply because those who are 
working there ``look Hispanic.'' That argument ignores the fact that 
seeing workers who look Hispanic is not probable cause. That is not 
probable cause for a search. You cannot use that argument in that sense 
in any way. Entering a field for that purpose, that particular purpose, 
would be illegal, even if search warrants were not required. I think 
that is a very important distinction. I hope we will hold closely as we 
debate this issue.
  The American public wants us to enforce our laws against illegal 
immigration. The case is even stronger when, by doing so, we would be 
making jobs available to hundreds of thousands of U.S. agricultural 
workers, and there are hundreds of thousands of U.S. agricultural 
workers.
  Even though this is not quite ancillary to the debate, I was 
fascinated in my work in this field many years ago to find out what 
happens when they go to the open field. Some agriculture employers back 
then--not now, I do not know what the situation may be now--but they 
were often putting some expendable people next to the highway with el 
emigres and the green truck came by so that there would be someone to 
pick up, and then when all of that took place there was another rank in 
the foothills who would come down and be ready to go right back to work 
again.
  Further, way up in the foothills where we were told there were never 
children, never spouses, personal investigation of the select committee 
found obvious, obvious hovels of people who were just simply slave 
labor for some agricultural pursuits--pampers, diapers, cans of milk 
all there in the foothills.
  That was, as I say, not truly on target with this, but let me tell 
you there is no reason in the world why the INS should be the only 
Agency of the Federal Government that cannot do a search with a search 
warrant in an open field. And to say, then, the target would simply be 
to target people who ``look Hispanic'' so you can add a racist touch to 
the argument, it will not sell, because if that was the only reason you 
would not get the search warrant. That is not probable cause.
  With that initial volley on this contentious issue, I look forward to 
the debate.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I intend to speak on this issue. I saw my 
friend and colleague from California, Senator Boxer, who had wanted to 
address the underlying issue briefly, has been waiting here for some 
period of time. If she can be recognized, I will come back to address 
this amendment before the Senate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gregg). The Senator from California.
  Mrs. BOXER. Thank you, I say to both my friends who are managing this 
bill, Senator Simpson and Senator Kennedy, who have been so helpful to 
me as I work on a couple of amendments that I hope will be accepted, 
which I will talk about briefly.
  Mr. President, I am pleased to be here today to speak about an issue 
that profoundly impacts my State of California. That issue is illegal 
immigration. I know that there has been a big debate in the Senate 
committee of jurisdiction over whether we should blend in the issues of 
legal and illegal immigration.
  I want to restate and reaffirm my position that I hope they will be 
handled separately. I know that Chairman Simpson, who has worked so 
hard, would prefer to combine these two issues. The reason I believe it 
is important to have a separate debate is that one group of people, 
illegal immigrants, choose to break our laws, and legal immigrants 
choose to follow our laws. Those are two distinct and important 
differences.
  Mr. President, no State in the entire country receives more illegal 
immigrants than the State of California. Out of the approximately 
300,000 illegal immigrants that come to the United States and stay each 
and every year, about 35 percent to 40 percent of them live in 
California.
  Why do most illegal immigrants come to America? Clearly, it is to 
find work. They are hired because we are not fully enforcing the laws 
we have on the books, which make it unlawful to hire illegal 
immigrants. That is clear. It is against the law.
  Now, it seems to me we have to do more to enforce those laws.
  I have always said that in order to control the problem of illegal 
immigration, we need to do it at the border and at the workplace. To 
intercede elsewhere, in my opinion, is not particularly effective. 
Clearly, if you enforce the immigration laws at the border, you stop 
the problem immediately. If you miss that opportunity, the workplace is 
the next best place to go.
  The bill before us that deals with the issue of illegal immigration 
has many provisions I very strongly support. I strongly support the 
provisions in title I of the bill, which strengthens law enforcement's 
ability to stop illegal immigration. For instance, the bill will 
increase the number of Border Patrol agents by 4,000 for the next 4 
fiscal years--a 90-percent increase over current levels, and it is 
needed.
  I also strongly support the bill's provisions to add up to 900 new 
INS investigators over the next 3 fiscal years to enforce the laws 
against alien smuggling and the unlawful employment of illegal 
immigrants. This increase of 900 new INS investigators is a 100-percent 
increase over current law. So, clearly, this bill is moving us in the 
right direction in regard to stopping illegal immigration at the border 
and the workplace.
  I want to take an opportunity to thank and compliment the Clinton 
administration for getting serious about enforcement at the Southwest 
border. It is long overdue. We have had protestations from detractors 
of this administration that they do not do enough. The fact is that 
this is the first administration to do anything about illegal 
immigration.
  Let me repeat that. The Clinton administration is the first 
administration to do anything about illegal immigration. Whether it is 
to begin to reimburse the States for the costs they have to bear, which 
are outrageous--costs for emergency medical care, costs for putting 
those criminal aliens into prison--we are finally beginning to see some 
reimbursement here. However, it is not enough, and we need to do more.
  I compliment the leaders of this bill because there is an 
authorization in there for full reimbursement for the costs of 
providing emergency medical assistance to illegal immigrants.
  We have also seen an increase in the National Guard at the border. 
Their presence relieves Border Patrol agents from desk jobs, and their 
work on such things as building fences and roads and repairing sensors 
and night scopes is very important.
  At the time that I recommended bringing more National Guard to the 
border, the National Guard at that time was about 145 in San Diego. Now 
they number up to 400. So we see that there has been an increase in 
National Guard at the border, doing such things as relieving the Border 
Patrol of desk jobs and these other engineering jobs that I have 
outlined for you.
  When I first injected more National Guard presence, people thought I 
was going to send them down to the border in uniform with weaponry. 
That was never the point. We said it is a resource that ought to be 
used, and I think we ought to use them more.
  In 1994, the Immigration and Naturalization Service kicked off 
Operation Gatekeeper, its initiative along California's border with 
Mexico. In the last 2 fiscal years, we have seen an increase of 500 
Border Patrol agents in San Diego.

[[Page S4022]]

  So we see that this administration is moving forward. But this bill 
is very necessary and gives us more resources at the border than we 
have had up until now, and, I might add, more technology and equipment 
that we need at the border--equipment such as infrared scopes, sensors, 
automated fingerprint ID systems. INS will be installing a new radio 
network in San Diego to handle encrypted voice communication, and that 
is very important.
  As I said before, we have to stop illegal immigration at the border, 
and if we fail there, at the workplace. I think we have to remember 
that that is why illegal immigrants come here--for work.
  Now, how badly are our wage and hour laws being violated? We only 
have to look at the case of the sweatshop uncovered in El Monte, CA, to 
get an idea. In El Monte, alien smugglers brought in 72 foreign workers 
from Thailand, where they were subsequently forced into involuntary 
servitude at a garment sweatshop. We thought we saw the end of that in 
the pre-Depression era. The El Monte case is an extreme example, but it 
is not an isolated incident.

  Mr. President, most employers in our country abide by our immigration 
and our labor laws, but, unfortunately, some choose not to, and they 
are undermining our laws and the wages of our workers as well. They are 
guilty of the lowest form of greed--human exploitation--and it must be 
stopped.
  It is well known that employers engaging in wage and hour law 
violations are often the same ones who hire illegal workers. I am very 
pleased that the bill before us provides for 350 new wage and hour 
investigators at the Department of Labor over the next 2 fiscal years 
to enforce the existing employer sanctions we already have on the 
books. The bill also contains enhanced civil penalties for repeated or 
willful violations of our Federal labor laws, which I strongly support.
  I am disappointed that the committee voted to delete provisions to 
increase the sanctions on employers who violate immigration laws. I am 
disappointed about that. But I am glad that there are enhanced 
penalties for those who violate Federal labor laws.
  Now, I think it is important that we give employers a better tool so 
they can identify who is legal and who is not. The bill before us moves 
us forward toward worker verification. I have always opposed a national 
ID card because I think if someone is walking in the street, they 
should never be stopped and asked to show an ID card. But when they go 
for a job, right now it is virtually impossible for employers to verify 
whether they are legal or not. I think the approach taken in this bill 
is a good one, and I hope it will be part of the bill when it leaves 
this Chamber.
  I also think it is important that the bill authorizes an increase of 
300 new investigators at INS to go after the visa overstayers, because 
so many of our illegal immigrants are those who overstay their visa. So 
that is excellent.
  I have long supported cracking down on those who manufacture and use 
fraudulent documents. The last time I had a chance, on the crime bill, 
I offered an amendment that increased the penalties on those who 
manufacture forged documents. But I think we need to do more, and this 
bill does go further to increase civil and criminal penalties for 
crimes involving document fraud.
  I want to take just a moment to talk about a problem we are seeing in 
California now more and more, where smugglers are driving vehicles 
crashed through a checkpoint and lead local law enforcement on high-
speed chases. We all know what happened nationally when we saw one case 
where there was apparent overreaction from the police and use of 
excessive force--that is what it appears to be.
  But the fact of the matter is, we have to stop that kind of 
recklessness, driving on a 60-, 70-mile chase where you endanger the 
lives of the police following you and you endanger the lives of those 
people you are smuggling. Following that case when force was used, we 
had seven illegal immigrants killed, who fell over a cliff when the 
smuggling attempt led to disaster.
  So, I was very surprised to see that there are no Federal penalties 
for such reckless behavior. What I am offering, and what Senator 
Simpson and Senator Kennedy are working with me on, is a Federal 
penalty for those who crash through a Federal checkpoint and, in fact, 
do not stop.
  We want to make sure there is a Federal penalty of 5 years in prison 
for those who do that, and perhaps--we are working with Senator Simpson 
on this--an even tougher penalty where those people could be deported. 
Because anyone who would lead law enforcement on a high-speed chase not 
only endangering the police officers themselves but also the cargo they 
are carrying--by that I mean human cargo--and all the drivers on the 
road, they deserve to be thrown in jail or deported.
  I also want to briefly touch on an amendment that I am cosponsoring 
with Senator Feinstein which deals with the triple fence authorized in 
the bill. I will not go into all of the details in the interest of 
time. But we feel that the Border Patrol could do better if we did not 
dictate exactly that a $12 million fence should be built, or inhibit 
their ability to design fencing in the way they want and to use some of 
the money for other needed infrastructure improvements. Moreover, we 
certainly do not want to force law enforcement to build a triple fence 
if they feel it would endanger their lives. And that is what they have 
told us.
  Mr. President, I am pleased to be here today to speak about an issue 
that profoundly impacts the State of California. That issue is illegal 
immigration.
  And before I go any further, I want to reaffirm my position that 
legal and illegal immigration must be treated separately. I know that 
Chairman Simpson, who has worked very hard on the issue of immigration, 
would prefer to link these two issues together.
  However, I believe having a separate debate on the two issues will 
better ensure that Congress recognizes the critical difference between 
those illegal immigrants who choose to break our laws, and those legal 
immigrants who choose to follow them.
  Mr. President, no State in the entire country receives more illegal 
immigrants than California. Out of the approximately 300,000 illegal 
immigrants that come to the United States and stay every year, about 35 
to 40 percent of them live in California.
  Why do they come here? Most of them come to find work. And they are 
hired because we are not enforcing the laws we have on the books which 
make it unlawful to hire illegal immigrants. That must change.
  I have always said that in order to control the problem of illegal 
immigration, we need to do it at the border and the workplace. To 
intercede elsewhere, in my opinion, is not effective.
  The bill before us today is S. 1664, the Immigration Control and 
Financial Responsibility Act of 1996. The bill contains many provisions 
which are praiseworthy. I strongly support the provisions in title I of 
the bill which strengthen law enforcement's abilities to stop illegal 
immigration. For instance, the bill would increase the number of Border 
Patrol agents by 4,000 for the next 4 fiscal years--a 90-percent 
increase over current levels.
  I also strongly support the bill's provisions to add up to 900 new 
INS investigators to enforce the laws against alien smuggling and the 
unlawful employment of illegal immigrants. This is an increase of about 
100 percent over current law.
  I want to take this opportunity to compliment the Clinton 
administration for getting serious about enforcement at the Southwest 
border. It is about time and long overdue, for despite protestations 
from detractors of this administration in California--this is the first 
administration to do anything about illegal immigration.
  And we have seen an increase in the National Guard at the border. 
Their presence relieves Border Patrol agents from desk jobs, and their 
work on such things as building fences and roads, and repairing sensors 
and night scopes. At the time I recommended bringing more National 
Guard at the border, they numbered 145 at the San Diego border. Now 
they number as high as 400.
  In 1994, the Immigration and Naturalization Service [INS] kicked off 
Operation Gatekeeper--its initiative along California's border with 
Mexico. In the last 2 fiscal years, we have seen an increase of 1,150 
border patrol agents nationally--more than 500 of

[[Page S4023]]

whom have been deployed in San Diego.
  Counting the 800 new Border Patrol agents for this fiscal year, the 
Border Patrol force will have been increased by 40 percent since the 
Clinton administration took over. California now has over 1,500 Border 
Patrol agents patrolling our border and enforcing our immigration laws.
  But as we all know, Mr. President, any smart strategy to regain 
control of our borders will take heightened technology which is being 
used in Operation Gatekeeper. Infrared scopes, low-light-level 
television systems, and ground sensors are all being used to enhance 
our effectiveness at the border. San Diego has been the recipient of 
new infrared scopes, sensors, and a new automated fingerprint 
identification system. INS will be installing a new radio network in 
San Diego to handle encrypted voice communication.
  And we cannot forget why most illegal immigrants come here in the 
first place: work. How badly are our wage and hour laws being violated? 
We only have to look at the case of the sweatshop uncovered in El 
Monte, CA, to get an idea. In El Monte, alien smugglers brought in 72 
foreign workers from Thailand where they were subsequently forced into 
involuntary servitude at a garment sweatshop. The El Monte case is an 
extreme example. But it is not an isolated incident.
  Mr. President, most employers in our country abide by our immigration 
and labor laws. However, those who choose not to, not only undermine 
our laws, but the wages of American workers as well. They are guilty of 
the lowest form of greed--human exploitation. It must be stopped.
  It is well-known that employers engaging in wage and hour law 
violations are often the same ones who hire illegal workers. I am 
pleased that the bill before us provides for 350 new wage and hour 
investigators at the Department of Labor over the next 2 fiscal years 
to enforce the existing employer sanctions we already have on the 
books.
  Furthermore, the bill contains enhanced civil penalties for repeated 
or willful violations of our Federal labor laws, which I strongly 
support. However, I am deeply disappointed that the committee voted to 
delete provisions to increase the sanctions on employers who violate 
immigration laws.

  Of course it is imperative for employers to better ascertain who is 
authorized to work, and who is not. The bill before us moves us toward 
improved verification for work and public benefits through the creation 
of several regional or local demonstration projects.
  After the pilots have been tested, the administration will be 
required to return to Congress to make a recommendation on a permanent 
system. Implementation of a recommended system will require 
congressional action. The approach contained in the bill will allow 
Congress to review which methods of verification are the most effective 
before enacting a larger scale system.
  I support the privacy protections contained in the bill to provide 
balance as we move toward a national verification system. I am further 
pleased that the bill explicitly prohibits a national ID card which I 
oppose.
  It is important to have a foolproof method to ensure a potential 
employee is legal--I believe it would be dangerous to put in place a 
system where someone walking down the street could be stopped and asked 
for their papers. That situation would infringe on our lives.
  A key fact of illegal immigration which often is overlooked is that 
approximately half of the illegal aliens currently in our country 
entered legally and overstayed their visas. This bill authorizes an 
increase of 300 new investigators at INS to go after these visa 
overstayers. I support this.
  Mr. President, I strongly support the provisions in the bill to 
increase penalties on alien smugglers and those committing document 
fraud. I have long supported cracking down on those who manufacture and 
use fraudulent documents. When I toured the California-Mexico border 
with Attorney General Reno and Senator Feinstein, we met with INS 
agents who told us it was key to beef up penalties for document 
forgery. Thousands of illegal immigrants each year use these documents 
to enter the United States illegally or continue to stay and work here 
illegally.
  In the 1994 crime bill, I proposed an amendment to double the 
criminal penalties for forgers and distributors of fraudulent 
documents. These heightened penalties passed and are now law.
  The provisions contained in S. 1664 go even further to increase 
criminal and civil penalties for crimes involving document fraud. We 
must send a message to these wrongdoers that we will not tolerate those 
who flout our immigration and criminal laws. These tougher penalties 
should serve as an effective deterrent to such actions.
  For instance, for fraudulent use of government-issued documents, the 
bill increases the maximum fine from $250,000 to $500,000, and the 
maximum criminal sentence from 5 years to 15 years.
  I would like to take a minute to specifically discuss alien 
smuggling. Recent incidents involving alien smugglers have received 
considerable press attention. The beating of two illegal immigrants 
after a 80-mile chase ending in El Monte put a face on the human cargo 
being brought into our country by alien smugglers.
  Recently in California, 7 people were killed and 19 injured when a 
pickup carrying immigrants being smuggled into the country skidded, 
flipped over, and plunged off a rural road west of Temecula while being 
followed by Border Patrol agents. We must stop such occurrences.
  S. 1664 stiffens criminal penalties for alien smuggling. The bill 
also contains provisions to expand the Federal Government's ability to 
pursue alien smugglers through expansion of the RICO [Racketeer 
Influenced and Corrupt Organizations] statute and wiretap authority.
  I plan to offer an amendment to provide a new, tough Federal penalty 
on those who flee border checkpoints, creating dangerous high-speed 
chases. My amendment would provide a Federal penalty of imprisonment of 
up to 5 years. I am working with Senator Simpson and Senator Kennedy 
and hope this amendment will be accepted.
  Alien smugglers do deserve to be punished. They take advantage of 
people in desperate situations--often threatening their safety and 
potentially those of hundreds who could be exposed to them. We must 
make every effort to ensure that such tragedies do not continue to 
occur.
  One concern I have with the bill relates to the authorization of a 
14-mile triple fence for the 14 miles eastward of the Pacific Ocean in 
San Diego. Let me be clear about one thing: I support fencing and 
reinforcement of physical barriers along the border. But when the 
Border Patrol itself says these provisions would endanger the physical 
safety of their personnel, I think we should defer to their expertise.
  Along with the INS, the Border Patrol points to the tactical and 
logistical problems of a contiguous triple fence. They also raise 
concerns about alien smugglers taking advantage of the triple fence 
configuration to ambush Border Patrol agents.
  That is why I am cosponsoring an amendment with Senator Feinstein to 
put the $12 million authorized for the triple fence toward needed 
border infrastructure improvements--including construction of all-
weather roads, low-light television systems, lighting, sensors, and 
multiple fencing where it makes sense to do so.
  Title II of the bill addresses immigrant--legal and illegal--use of 
public benefits. Illegal immigrants are largely ineligible for public 
welfare benefits. Where they are eligible, I support full Federal 
reimbursement for any resulting costs to States and localities.
  The bill sets out the general prohibition barring illegal immigrants 
from receiving public benefits but exempts a limited number of 
services. In fiscal year 1994, the General Accounting Office estimated 
that the cost of providing elementary and secondary education, 
emergency Medicaid, and incarceration of alien felons was $2.35 billion 
for my State of California.
  Immigration is a Federal responsibility. However, until this 
administration, California had not received any reimbursement for its 
costs resulting from illegal immigration. Today, California is 
receiving reimbursement for its costs of incarcerating criminal aliens 
under the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program. And while the crime 
bill authorized $1.7 billion to reimburse these costs, California has 
yet to receive full repayment.

[[Page S4024]]

  I want to commend the chairman for including an authorization to 
fully reimburse States and localities for emergency medical services 
provided to illegal immigrants. Right now, the Federal Government pays 
half of this cost and the remainder is borne by the State. In 
California, this amounted to a cost for California of $395 million in 
fiscal year 1994. I strongly support reimbursement for these costs.
  With respect to benefits for legal immigrants, I support 
strengthening the responsibility of sponsors. That is why I agree we 
must make affidavits of support signed by sponsors legally enforceable. 
Individuals who want to sponsor a family member must not shirk their 
responsibilities to the immigrant once they arrive.
  By making the affidavits legally enforceable, the agency providing 
assistance to a needy legal immigrant has the ability to be repaid for 
their costs. This approach makes sense.
  As a final note, Mr. President, I want to briefly discuss the 
importance of naturalization. Naturalization--the process by which a 
legal immigrant is granted the full rights and responsibilities of 
citizenship--represents the final step in a journey toward the American 
dream, a journey played by the rules.
  The latest surge in naturalization applications submitted is nowhere 
more evident than in California. In fiscal year 1995, over 380,000 
eligible legal immigrants applied to naturalize in California. This is 
a 500 percent increase over the totals for fiscal year 1991.
  I am pleased that we now have a leader at INS who is doing something 
about it. Under Commissioner Doris Meissner, INS has been actively 
attempting to meet the latest surge in naturalization through its 
initiative, Citizenship USA. I commend Commissioner Meissner for the 
agency's efforts to put the ``N'' back in INS.
  However, an immigrant who has already waited for at least 5 years to 
become eligible to naturalize can wait for an additional 12 to 16 
months in cities like San Francisco and San Jose, CA, for their 
application to be processed because of enormous increases in demand.
  We owe it to those who patiently follow the rules to do better.
  Mr. President, I plan to offer an amendment to create demonstration 
projects around the country that set up citizen swearing-in ceremonies 
around July 4. The amendment which passed the House, authored by 
Congressman Sam Farr, would authorize INS to use the fees it already 
collects to fund the minimal additional costs of holding these symbolic 
ceremonies for 500 people.
  Under the amendment, 10 demonstration projects would be authorized 
each year for 5 years. The demonstration projects would enable INS to 
reach out to local communities to encourage their involvement in the 
celebration of citizenship. The swearing-in ceremonies would be a 
communitywide celebration reminding citizens why we are proud to be 
Americans.
  Mr. President, I am committed to those who want to follow the rules 
and become full participants in American society. Earlier this month, I 
introduced S. 1677, the Citizenship Promotion Act.
  My bill would establish a Citizenship Promotion Agency [CPA] within 
INS to assist eligible immigrants with naturalization. The CPA would be 
able to work with government agencies as well as nonprofit 
organizations to assist in its naturalization outreach obligations.
  My bill would also create a nine-member National Advisory Board on 
Citizenship to advise on naturalization objectives. And finally, my 
legislation would establish a naturalization examinations fee account 
within the U.S. Treasury to ensure that naturalization fees are spent 
on naturalization--not redirected elsewhere. Such naturalization 
activities could include English language instruction for immigrants 
trying to become citizens.
  In closing, I would like to reiterate my support for many of the 
provisions in the illegal immigration bill. I look forward to working 
with both Chairman Simpson and Senator Kennedy in making further 
improvements to this legislation. Thank you.
  I will close by saying this. I said at the outset that there is a 
real difference between illegal immigration and legal immigration. My 
own mother became a naturalized citizen in 1937. When she died in 1991, 
she left me a very special little pouch that had two things in it: Her 
wedding band and her certificate of naturalization. I think Americans 
understand how much naturalized citizens cherish this homeland.
  Therefore, I am working with Senator Simpson and Senator Kennedy to 
get an amendment adopted which would recognize the beauty of those 
naturalization ceremonies. And I pick up on an amendment that passed 
overwhelmingly in the House that would give some modest sums of money 
to conduct those naturalization ceremonies. We want to put the ``N'' 
back into the INS--``naturalization.'' It is a beautiful ceremony, and 
those are some of our finest citizens.
  I could give you the list of some of those naturalized citizens. But 
I think you all know how many of our wonderful leaders in this country 
in entertainment, in politics, and in all fields are naturalized 
citizens.
  So I want to thank the Senator from Massachusetts for yielding me so 
generously of his time. I feel this is such an important issue to my 
State. I wanted to have this opportunity to compliment my friends who 
have led on this bill, for what they have done, and I hope to be able 
to support it.
  Again, I thank you very much, Mr. President.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I see a number of our colleagues who have 
been very interested in this issue that would like to speak to it. I 
will respond at an appropriate time after they speak to the current 
amendment--to the Simpson amendment.
  But I want to just point out to the Members about where we are. The 
parliamentary situation effectively excludes the opportunity for 
recognition of the minority, the Democratic manager of this 
legislation. Under the right of recognition it always goes to the 
majority as the time-honored tradition, and we understand that and 
respect that. But given the parliamentary situation we are effectively 
denied on our side any Member offering an amendment. I mean, with 
respect to the processing of amendments, we are at the point now where 
we are processing nongermane amendments because eventually at some time 
we will move toward cloture. By beginning to understand what the 
situation is we will dispose of various amendments that apparently are 
agreeable to the floor managers prior to the time that a cloture 
petition is put down which will exclude any chance of other Members to 
come back in here and offer any amendments. That is an extraordinary 
process and procedure.
  We have to ask ourselves about how long we really want to put up with 
that. I have been trying as a matter of comity in working with the 
Senator from Wyoming to move through this in a way which permits us to 
try to deal with some of the basic substantive issues. But we, as the 
time moves on, are caught in this particular situation. We are 
effectively dealing, and only dealing, with the amendments represented 
by the majority, and we are precluded under this whole process of 
offering any amendments.
  This is not a personal comment on my good friend, the Senator from 
Wyoming, because he is responding to the wishes of the majority leader 
in this case. And the matters that he is raising here are matters that 
have been raised in the Judiciary Committee, matters which he had 
indicated to us that during the course of the debate he was going to 
raise, and matters which are of very fundamental importance in terms of 
the substance of the issue.
  But we are still in a situation where we are being told we can only--
the Senate of the United States on an important piece of legislation 
like this can only--deal with those amendments that are put forward by 
the manager of the bill because under the right of recognition he gets 
it. If there are other Members that want to have amendments considered 
they would go to him. If he thinks that he may support them, I imagine 
he will put them forward. And, if he does not, he will not.
  So we are in a situation where we have effectively a very small gate. 
My good friend and colleague--again I say with deference to him--
because he has always, as I have stated on every occasion, been 
entirely up front and entirely fair in dealing with all the members of 
the committee, Republicans and

[[Page S4025]]

Democrats alike. But he is caught in this position was well.
  So it does seem to me that our colleagues ought to understand that 
effectively we have a clearance system here that unless an amendment is 
cleared through the acting majority leader we are being closed out. And 
I think the American people and our Senators ought to know that this is 
not a freewheeling debate where we are going to have the opportunity 
for the Members who want to represent their States and their interests 
to be able to get recognized to be able to pursue that.
  This is an extremely important amendment, and I hope we can deal with 
this amendment in a timely way. But at some time we are going to have 
to ask ourselves whether we are going to just go ahead and consider all 
of the nongermane amendments that come through our colleague over here 
and none of the nongermane amendments to be considered by other 
Members. Then we get into cloture, and they have taken care of those 
nongermane amendments. We will be just back on the germane amendments. 
It is a rather unusual way to proceed.
  I just raise that now because there are those, myself included, who 
want to try to get at least some opportunity for recognition so that we 
would have a chance to offer at least a minimum wage amendment on this 
with a very short time agreement. We are effectively being closed out 
from that possibility. We understand that. But the other Members of the 
Senate ought to understand that as well. Hopefully the majority and 
minority leaders can bring their good common sense and judgment to help 
us find a way through this particular dilemma.
  I will yield the floor because others want to speak. I will come back 
and speak to the substance of this measure. I want to again point out 
that the substance of this issue is enormously important. It is 
absolutely relevant. We ought to address it. It is extremely 
significant. But some time in the not-too-distant future I think we 
ought to have some kind of a decision about how we want to proceed.
  This issue of illegal immigration is extremely important. We have 
supported the expansion of the border guards. We have supported the 
measures that Senator Simpson and I cosponsored--measures to try to 
create a more effective process for being able to identify the 
legitimate Americans versus illegals in the job market, which is 
extraordinarily important. There are other provisions as well in the 
illegal immigration bill which are very, very important and some which 
there is some difference on.
  But we are in an unusual situation, and it is something that I know 
Members have to be concerned with as well.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I can understand the frustration of the 
Senator from Massachusetts. He expressed that frustration in a very 
clear way. Let us then review the bidding so that we do all hear what 
we are doing.
  We are dealing with illegal immigration. That has been the pending 
business before this body for over a week. The pending business of the 
Senate is the measure with regard to illegal immigration, which when we 
finish the amending process will probably pass by a rather significant 
vote. So if we are talking about important legislation, then surely we 
should be talking about this.
  So what occurred here today is nothing mysterious, nothing sinister, 
nothing harsh. It is called legislating, and it is called using the 
rules of procedure, and it is done beautifully by the Democrats when 
they are in the majority and by the Republicans when they are in the 
majority.
  So if we are talking about what is germane, what could be more 
nongermane than Social Security and an attempt to say that Social 
Security somehow is not to be dealt with when we do a balanced budget, 
when Social Security is $360 billion of the national budget.
  That is what we are talking about, nothing mysterious, nothing 
sinister. What are we talking about that is germane about minimum wage? 
But there might be something very interesting and germane with minimum 
wage because the same people who are seeking an increase in the minimum 
wage are at the same time restricting efforts--some--restricting 
efforts to reduce the number of low-skilled immigrants who are entering 
under the family preference system.
  I hope that we are able to divine that extraordinary difference. It 
is these low-skilled newcomers who flood the labor market which results 
then in stagnant wages. That is what happens. So this is one of the 
most curious parts of the entire debate to me.
  I am not attributing that to Senator Kennedy. I am attributing it to 
some who continue to resist the fact that we are trying to say that 
low-skilled persons are no longer required to come here under our 
immigration laws. We need people with skills. We need people with 
ability. We need people who are here to pull their share. We need 
people to come here whose sponsors say, ``When you come here, I will 
assure that you do not become a public charge.'' That is what we are up 
to here. No mystery, nothing sinister.
  You asked how we could be precluded from dealing with things that are 
very important to Senator Kennedy or to Senator Dorgan. The same would 
be my argument. I am being precluded from dealing with illegal 
immigration reform. And I think that we want to keep all those 
interesting balances before the body. That is a very important thing.
  I wish to insert in the Record a very interesting column that was in 
the Washington Post in the Outlook section last Sunday about this 
extraordinary argument about the minimum wage and the extraordinary, 
remarkable flight from common sense of those who will not allow us to 
reduce the number of those people presently entering under the 
preference system.
  We have a situation now with regard to naturalization, with regard to 
a movement toward naturalization created by the legalization of the 
1986 bill, created by people who are stunned and alarmed by proposition 
187 and think, boy, if they are going to treat people who are permanent 
resident aliens like that, I want to get naturalized. There is another 
movement toward that, and so you are going to have more numbers coming 
to the United States than you ever did before, even if we did the 
minimum under the ``legal immigration bill.''
  And remember, there is a legal immigration bill at the desk which 
passed the committee by a vote of 13 to 4. That is legal immigration. 
There is also the illegal immigration bill, which passed the committee 
by a vote of 13 to 4, and that is what we are considering at the 
present time.
  Let me assure you that if you are talking about germane and 
nongermane, there should be not much question, at least in the eyes of 
the general American public, of a certain thing which is total reality, 
which is sometimes difficult to attain here, that the reason we talk 
about them together--whether you split them or puree them is not the 
issue--split, whole or pureed, you do not escape the fact that over one 
half of the people who come here legally become the illegal aliens 
which are the subject of this bill.
  Please hear that, I hope, and know that we are talking about people 
who come here, half of them who come here legally become illegal. They 
then go out of status with a tourist visa. They go out of status with a 
student visa. They then become part of the illegal community.
  So those are some things, and we are not here to disrupt things but 
we are here to deal with the bill as we do health care, we do line-item 
veto, we do this and we do that, and try and proceed. If the entire 
exercise should end in an hour, I can assure you that it will come back 
at some future time, but I thank my colleagues on both sides of the 
aisle for at least processing four or five amendments. That is what we 
should be doing. There are two choices here: Be about our business on 
an illegal immigration bill or the leader will be required to pull up 
something else and the issue will simply never go away, either of the 
issues or all of the issues.
  So I just wanted to express that with I hope some clarity, that we 
are moving on an illegal immigration bill with a significant amendment 
here at the present time.
  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, will the distinguished Senator from Wyoming 
allow me to ask him a question?
  Mr. SIMPSON. Indeed, I say to my friend from Kentucky, Mr. President.
  Mr. FORD. The Senator from Wyoming understands better than most

[[Page S4026]]

why the minimum wage amendment is being placed here. That is about the 
only place we can get a chance to do it. He understands that well. And 
also the sense of the Senate on the balanced budget amendment, not 
using Social Security. He understands that question well. Could it not 
be worked out and taken off the bill? If a time agreement to vote on 
this bill--on those two questions be agreed to in 30 seconds, they 
would both be off the bill, would they not?
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, it will be up to our leader to determine 
the course of business. The Senator from Kentucky and I both filled the 
role as assistant leader of our parties, and I think we both realize 
that we were somewhat muted on final decisions.
  Mr. FORD. I understand that. But we do know that if the leaders would 
make a decision and give us the time for a stand-alone vote on it, 
these two items would not be on the immigration bill. And as we have 
seen both sides do in the past, you take an opportunity when it is 
presented to you. All I wish to know is if the Senator would agree that 
if the leaders would give us an opportunity to vote on minimum wage and 
the opportunity to vote on a sense of the Senate as it relates to the 
balanced budget, not using Social Security, that they would not be on 
this bill.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I think that all of us know when we reach 
these sticking points in this body--and that is often--people then 
huddle and decide what to do. The leaders trust and admire each other 
and they will work together and move the legislation of the Senate. And 
that is the way it will always work.
  On the other issue of minimum wage, I understand there are serious 
discussions going on about minimum wage, training wage, and getting the 
minimum wage to the people who do require it most and not to someone 
from a fine family that decided to go work in McDonald's for the summer 
and pretend that that is the issue of minimum wage when someone is a 
privileged young person who is simply in the work force.
  There are real things here. For every horror story on one side, we 
have the horror story on the other side. That is the only way I have 
been able to exist in this body for 18 years.
  So, for every one that is presented to us, then there is something on 
the other side about people who lose their jobs, employers who are on 
the edge and say, ``Minimum wage? I cannot do it.''
  You can make fun of those people and say they should, I guess, be 
subsidized by the Government or something to pay the minimum wage. But 
the issue is, they say ``I will go broke. So, therefore, I will not do 
that. Or, if that is the law, I cannot do it and I'm out.'' That is an 
argument just as valid as the one about children and spouses and the 
working man, and all of those things are what the American people know 
and see that is what we do. And that is what we do.
  So, I am going to leave the issue for resolvement to that. And know 
that, at this point, this procedure of filling the tree and moving 
forward is not a patented process by the Republican majority; it is a 
patented process by the Democratic majority when they are in power. It 
is a tool to move legislation.
  We have two choices here. Pull up something else or move forward. How 
can anyone argue--regardless of the passion of what you want to present 
to the body--how can you argue about not moving forward with a very 
important bill, and that is what we are attempting to do. It really is 
not as strange as it would appear.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I agree that the points the Senator from 
Wyoming made are valid points which ought to be part of a debate on the 
minimum wage. But effectively we are being precluded from the 
opportunity for action and for resolution. That is all we are asking 
for, whether 13 million families are entitled to 30 minutes of the 
Senate's time so we can make a decision on the issue of the minimum 
wage and also the proposal of Senator Dorgan. That is really what we 
are asking. It is not a great deal, but in order to preclude the Senate 
from taking that action we are finding out that we are using the 
unusual--and it is unusual--process by which the only amendments we are 
going to debate are going to be the amendments of the Senator from 
Wyoming or amendments that come through the process of the Senator from 
Wyoming.
  So this is not progress in the sense it is giving Members of the 
Senate an opportunity to be able to raise issues that are important. 
They are effectively precluded from that because they are denied the 
right of recognition.
  So we have to press, again, and indicate at the first opportunity we 
are going to offer it. Eventually the opportunity is going to come, 
because eventually--and people ought to understand it--when the time 
comes, and the final amendment is either agreed to or rejected, that 
prior to the time there is going to be disposition or a vote on this, 
it is going to be open, and others will be able to offer their 
amendments. So it might take a little while to be able to do that. We 
understand that. But that will eventually be the reality on that.

  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, if I might.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I enjoy, obviously, the Senator from 
Massachusetts because he does his work with a--down there, always--a 
crinkle in his eye and a twinkle. I know that one. I have seen it many 
times. This is, really--this is theater. It is Shakespeare--minor, 
minor, I can assure you. It is street Shakespeare. I do it, too. I will 
be Lear, raging into the wind, and Senator Kennedy will be Puck.
  Let me tell you, the minimum wage, when the Democrats had the control 
of this body and the House of Representatives and the Presidency, never 
appeared in this Chamber under any scenario from the wings--not once. 
Not once did President Clinton ever suggest we deal with the minimum 
wage. And since it became something that appeared in the focus groups, 
or the Knight tracking polls, it has been mentioned 47 times by the 
President.
  So it is theater. But, really, if you stay in this game long enough--
and I have been legislating for 30 years and obviously love it, but I 
am ready to do something else--if you play with the wheel with the 
fanny kicker on it, it will come around and get you. Hear this from my 
friend, Senator Ted Kennedy, as we dealt with the health care reform 
bill. The Congressional Record, April 18, 1996, page S3513, quote of my 
friend, Senator Kennedy:

       Members of the Senate who are serious about insurance 
     reform should vote against all controversial amendments--
     including medical savings accounts. Senator Kassebaum and I 
     have agreed that we will vigorously oppose all such 
     amendments--even those that we might support under other 
     circumstances.

  Now, with the approval of the body, I ask unanimous consent that we 
insert the phrase ``illegal immigration reform'' and then just adopt 
that, because that is exactly what I am saying.
  Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, Senator Simpson may say that this is 
theater, but it has dramatic results, by our action or inaction, for 
the 13 million families that would be affected about whether we are 
going to address the increase in the minimum wage, No. 1.

  No. 2, the Senator, by mentioning the health care debate, 
understands--or should understand or may understand after this--that 
the increase in the minimum wage was deferred at that time because the 
impact and the effect on the hourly worker was considered to be a 40-
cent to 50-cent increase as a result of a health care system. Those of 
us who had responsibility in that asked the workers do they want us to 
fight for an increase in the minimum wage, or do they want us to try 
and fight for health care, and overwhelmingly they said health care. We 
know it is 40 to 50 cents an hour. That was the battle. That was the 
battle then.
  So the idea that we did not bring it up then--we did not bring it up 
then because we were fighting for the expansion of health care for the 
protection of workers, and we were denied that opportunity to have it 
because of Republican opposition.

[[Page S4027]]

  I keep reading about who is responsible and who is not responsible 
about it. It was basically a Republican decision not to permit a vote 
on the U.S. Senate floor on health care, in order to show that we could 
not deal with that issue, and the Congress was ineffective in dealing 
with it. We understand that. We are not trying to rewrite history at 
this particular time, and we should not attempt to do it here today. 
That was the bottom line.
  The value of health care, if we had gotten it, would have been that 
40 to 50 cents an hour. So, once the Republicans effectively defeated 
it we moved on in, in terms of the introduction of the minimum wage as 
one of the first orders of business, if you look on our side. It was 
one of the first six pieces of legislation, and we have been asking for 
a vote on it for over 1 year and still are denied it, even though the 
Republicans support it and even though Republican Presidents 
Eisenhower, Nixon, and Bush actually voted in support of that measure.
  So, I welcome the opportunity to have a substantive judgment and 
decision on that matter, which, eventually, when we go through these 
various amendments, we will have the chance to do, because we are not 
going to be closed out. We can go on and use these Senate rules in a 
way to put our good friend and colleague as the gatekeeper for the 
amendments, and he can use the rules in that particular way. But you 
are not going to get away from acting on the minimum wage at some 
particular time.
  Finally, I do not think I really have to justify the decision that 
was made with regard to health care. That was a judgment that was made 
by Senator Kassebaum as well as myself.
  So, if the Senator wants to have that kind of dispute as a way of 
getting legislation effectively through, it is a procedure which is 
used at other times, generally when the floor manager and the minority 
agree. We differed on this legislation, for some very important 
substantive reasons.
  So, I think the circumstances are very much different. All we are 
looking for is 30 minutes on the minimum wage. Then we can get about 
concluding this very important legislation and be able to vote on it. 
We had, as the Senator from Wyoming knows, excellent markups with 
overwhelming participation, Republicans and Democrats, in the Judiciary 
Committee.
  It was a great tribute to the Senator from Wyoming, for the 
involvement of the Members and the expression of differing views, that 
this legislation was reported out of committee. I am sure the Senate is 
going to make a judgment on this measure as well. But the idea that 
taking 30 minutes or an hour out of this kind of debate while we are 
processing amendments is unreasonable is incorrect--I would be glad to 
cut back our time.
  I do not think I have used very much time in agreeing with the 
amendments of the Senator from Wyoming on these measures. Surely, we 
can cut out 1 hour of this day or tomorrow or whenever to debate the 
minimum wage when we have had important Republican support. The issue 
will not go away. I appreciate and understand the Senator's position on 
it.
  Mr. SIMON. Will my colleague yield for a question?
  Mr. KENNEDY. I will be glad to.
  Mr. SIMON. When Senator Simpson mentions the health care bill and 
your statement and Senator Kassebaum's statement that they would resist 
any amendments, is it not true that any Member could offer an 
amendment, and, in fact, Senator Domenici offered an amendment with 
Senator Kerry here in this body? Any single Member could have offered a 
minimum wage amendment at that point. The procedure we are following 
here is dramatically different. Is that not correct?
  Mr. KENNEDY. The Senator is entirely correct. We did not attempt to 
gag the membership, which effectively this process does. The only way 
you get consideration is to have the Senator from Wyoming, with the 
position of the majority leader, recognized. That has been a time-
honored tradition which I respect and support. If not, then it goes to 
the minority leader. Under the Senate rules, Senator Daschle could come 
out here and offer that amendment. Then Senator Dole would have to come 
out here and proceed in order to block that amendment.
  We could go through that kind of a routine and put the Senate in 
stalemate. I mean, we are all dealing with this and understand the 
nature of these rules. I suppose sometime that will come to pass. But 
what we are trying to do is get an orderly procedure to be able to go 
forward.
  Just finally, I say to my friend and colleague, maybe these 
discussions about how we could try to find common ground in the minimum 
wage are going on, but I do not know where they are going on. I do not 
think those of us who have been most involved--myself, Senator Kerry, 
Senator Wellstone, other Members, and, to the best of my knowledge, 
Senator Daschle--are aware of these negotiations.
  What we are aware of is the preposterous position that the majority 
leader of the House of Representatives put forward yesterday as a 
position of the Republicans in the House, which effectively would say 
we are going to repeal the EITC, and therefore save $15 billion. That 
would be funds that would go to the people who are working on the 
lowest rung of the ladder, the economic ladder, and then we will set up 
an entirely new entitlement with the Internal Revenue Code to subsidize 
these workers who are working in restaurants and as teachers aides and 
as other health aides, working in Head Start programs, cleaning out 
buildings, that they would still get the $4.25 but get another subsidy 
from the Federal Government--a new entitlement.
  Of course, that subsidy will be paid for by taxes that are coming 
from other workers. That is a new entitlement, a new bureaucracy, a new 
subsidy for companies. If that is the proposal, why do we not just get 
about the business of debating it and disposing of it. Maybe there are 
those who want to do it. But as the Senator from Illinois points out, 
let us at least permit a vote on this measure. Let us at least permit 
the Senate to speak. Let us get a short time period and have a debate 
on it.
  That is what we are prepared to do. We are not trying to say, well, 
we are not prepared to go through, even though we are being denied an 
opportunity to vote on the minimum wage, which has received Republican 
and Democratic support. We are not at this point saying, well, we are 
not going to play ball with you on immigration. We could certainly have 
done that. We believe that is an important measure. But up to this time 
that has not been done. Eventually we will, under the Senate rules, 
have an opportunity to have these offerings of amendments on the 
minimum wage on other measures.
  Mr. SIMPSON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I think we could go on--and we may--but I 
think, as we get back to the substance of minimum wage--and apparently 
the Senator does that--and I think I misspoke earlier about 
Shakespeare. I think Senator Kennedy is King Lear and I am puck, 
because certainly he launched one end of the tempest there, and here I 
am. But we will resolve this.
  We will move forward perhaps, or we will not. If suddenly the 
procedure fails at this time, we will come back to it tomorrow or the 
next day, whatever it may be. But since we want to talk about the 
substance of minimum wage, I think it is important then just quickly, 
if I may, to talk about it in connection with immigration, because the 
other day in debate the Senator from Massachusetts talked about 
janitors.
  Do you know what happened to janitors in the last 15 years? Janitors 
in Los Angeles in public buildings were making $12 an hour or $14. You 
know what they make now? $6. You know why? Because we in this body have 
allowed a glut of immigration to come to the United States and 
especially to that city, and the union janitors no longer are in a job 
at $12. The nonunion foreign immigrants came and knocked off the union 
wage.
  Now we have the situation--if we are wanting to talk about the plight 
of janitors--there is a study by the General Accounting Office noting 
that janitors in downtown Los Angeles office buildings had won 
excellent wages and working conditions through their unions since World 
War II. By 1983, the prevailing wage reached $12 an hour--this is a GAO 
report. The ability to deliver credible threats to strike if wage 
increases were not forthcoming played a very important role in that 
success.

[[Page S4028]]

  I know where Senator Kennedy is on that one. But Congress, those of 
us in Congress, overriding the recommendations of a Federal commission 
on which Senator Kennedy and I served, continued a legal immigration 
program that poured hundreds of thousands of foreign workers into the 
country annually during the 1980's--hundreds of thousands. Thus, 
Washington, thus us, inadvertently provided the opportunity for 
aggressive, nonunion businesses to take the jobs or deflate the wages 
of union workers, union workers in the Los Angeles area, taking over 
the office building contracts. Most of the native born workers were 
then driven from their jobs. Real wages for the foreign born and 
remaining native born have fallen further toward and even down to the 
minimum wage. There is a tie here somewhere, and we will get to it. We 
will discuss it. Now I have opened Pandora's box once again, but 
realizing the hazard of that. But there is where we are. We go ping 
pong all day long. It is theater, any way you cut it.
  Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.
  Mr. GRAHAM addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. The Senator from Florida has been very accommodative. I 
will just take one moment.
  The Senator's comments are old news, old news to certainly this 
Senator and, I think, to most Senators. That is why in the legal 
immigration we have effectively cut out the unskilled workers. That was 
initially either a proposal of mine or Senator Simpson on which we both 
had agreement. So that particular feature is excluded.
  The reason we are continuing to see the depression in terms of those 
wages is because of illegal, not the legal, because we have effectively 
terminated that.
  I will welcome the opportunity for debate about how this legislation 
and the legal immigration is going to protect American workers. I say 
in fairness that the Senator from Wyoming had included in initial 
proposals some additional provisions for the protections of American 
workers which I supported. I think we could have expanded on it.
  Now, with regard to the legislation actually reported out of the 
committee, we have moved back from those kinds of protections. I think 
it is enormously important that we have those kind of protections. We 
will have a chance to talk about that as well.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, the issue of illegal immigration is an 
extremely serious one for America. Few places are as affected by that 
issue as my State of Florida. My State represents approximately 6 
percent of the population in the United States. It is estimated that 10 
percent to 15 percent of the illegal aliens who are in the United 
States are in the State of Florida. Within the last 4 years there were 
periods in which over 4,000 persons from Haiti alone entered into small 
boats in order to get to the United States, primarily through Florida, 
and would have added further to that population of illegal aliens.
  Mr. President, my concern, therefore, is not that this Congress 
should deal with this subject. It is important, critical that we do. 
Rather, I believe there are at least two areas of this bill through 
which a serious fault line runs. This is not Shakespearian theater. 
This is structural engineering. The first of those fault lines, and the 
two are related, is that while this bill has as its label, illegal 
immigration, S. 1664 says in its heading, in its title, ``To Amend the 
Immigration and Nationality Act to Increase Control Over Immigration to 
the United States by Increasing Border Patrol,'' et cetera. The focus 
of this bill is illegal immigration.
  The first fault line, however, is that within this bill on illegal 
immigration there are major provisions which affect legal aliens, 
either totally affect legal aliens or substantially affect legal 
aliens. To pick one specific example which I hope will be dealt with 
before we complete action on this legislation, this bill that purports 
to deal with illegal immigration would change the conditions under 
which persons who are in this country with a legal status are allowed 
to adjust that legal status.
  Since the early 1980's, the United States has recognized the special 
circumstances of Cubans coming to the United States and have had 
special provisions in which persons who were here legally of Cuban 
nationality can adjust their status. This bill, which purports to deal 
with illegal aliens would substantially restrict that right. This is 
only available to persons who are here legally. I cite that as just one 
example.

  Other examples of the mixture of illegal and legal go to the fact 
that by changing the eligibility standards for legal aliens, 
substantial additional costs are going to be imposed upon the 
communities and States in which these aliens live. So the second 
faultline in this legislation are significant unfunded mandates which 
are being imposed upon States and local communities.
  It is ironic, Mr. President, that the very first bill introduced in 
this Congress, S. 1, was a bill which had as its title the Unfunded 
Mandates Reform Act of 1995. Let me read from the statement of the 
purpose of the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995. The purpose of 
this act, which is now Public Law 104-4, the fourth bill that became 
law as a result of actions of the 104th Congress, the purposes of the 
act are:

       To strengthen the partnership between the Federal 
     Government and State, local, and tribal governments; 2, to 
     end the imposition in the absence of full consideration by 
     Congress of Federal mandates on State, local, and tribal 
     governments without adequate Federal funding in a manner that 
     may displace other essential State, local, and tribal 
     governmental priorities . . . 6, to establish a point of 
     order vote on the consideration in the Senate and the House 
     of Representatives of legislation containing significant 
     Federal intergovernmental mandates without providing adequate 
     funding to comply with such mandates.

  Those were some of the purposes that led this Congress to adopt as 
its fourth legislative action of the 104th Congress the Unfunded 
Mandates Reform Act of 1995.
  When the Senate was debating this proposal, Mr. President, the 
majority leader, Senator Dole, stated,

       Mr. President, the time has come for a little legislative 
     truth in advertising. Before Members of Congress vote for a 
     piece of legislation, they need to know how it would impact 
     the States and localities they represent. If Members of 
     Congress want to pass a new law, they should be willing to 
     make the tough choices needed to pay for it.

   That statement by our majority leader was an important part of this 
Senate's determination to pass the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 
1995.
  So what are we about today, Mr. President? We are about legislation 
which would impose massive unfunded mandates on States and local 
communities in America. The Congressional Budget Office has, in a very 
limited time, reviewed this legislation's very broad sweeping impact on 
State and local governments. They have determined that this bill does, 
in fact, meet the $50 million threshold for unfunded mandates 
procedures due to the bill's requirements governing just two items: 
Birth certificates and drivers' licenses. Thus, although the bill would 
impact literally hundreds of programs run by State and local 
governments, just these two relatively minor programs reach the 
threshold of $50 million, which under the legislation constitutes 
unfunded mandates.

  With respect to the all-encompassing deeming requirements imposed on 
hundreds of Federal, State, and local programs in this legislation, the 
Congressional Budget Office says,

       Given the scope and complexity of the affected programs, 
     however, the Congressional Budget Office has not been able to 
     estimate either the likelihood or magnitude of such cost at 
     this time. These costs could be significant, depending on how 
     strictly the deeming requirements are enforced by the Federal 
     Government.
  On another issue, the Congressional Budget Office has stated under 
the terms of means tested State and local tested programs,

       It is likely that some aliens displaced from Federal 
     assistance programs would turn to assistance programs funded 
     by State and local governments, thereby increasing the cost 
     of these programs. While several provisions of the bill could 
     mitigate these costs, CBO states that such tools would be 
     used only in limited circumstances in the near future. At 
     some point, State, and particularly local governments, become 
     the providers of last resort, and as such we anticipate that 
     they would face added financial pressure on their financial 
     assistance programs.

  Mr. President, this bill fails to meet the majority leader's truth-
in-advertising test. It is not strictly an illegal immigration bill, 
and it does have serious

[[Page S4029]]

financial implications for States and local communities. We are 
preparing to vote on a bill that we truly have not the foggiest idea 
what the impact will be on our constituents. They certainly are 
extremely concerned and strongly supportive of resolving this issue of 
unfunded mandates.
  I have a letter dated April 16 from the National Conference of State 
Legislatures. This letter is also joined by the National Association of 
Counties and the National League of Cities. This letter urges all 
Senators to support a point of order against S. 1664, the illegal 
immigration bill, based on the violation of the unfunded mandates bill. 
This so states--the President of the National Conference of State 
Legislatures, the President of the National Association of Counties, 
and the President of the National League of Cities--``This constitutes 
a critical test of your commitment to preventing cost shifts to an 
unfunded administrative burden on State and local governments.'' This 
is what the leaders of State and local governments have described as 
the seriousness of the issue of unfunded mandates raised by this bill.

  During the Judiciary Committee markup of this bill, Gov. Tommy 
Thompson of Wisconsin and Gov. Bob Miller of Nevada wrote in a letter, 
dated March 6, on behalf of the National Governors' Association, 
expressing concern about ``administrative provisions contained in the 
bill,'' which, if enacted, ``could result in an unfunded mandate being 
passed on to State and local governments.''
  This concern of Governors Thompson and Miller has, of course, now 
been confirmed by the Congressional Budget Office. Moreover, the 
National Association of Public Hospitals wrote to all Senators on April 
12, noting, ``This bill will lead to an increase in the number of 
uninsured patients and exacerbate an already tremendous burden of 
uncompensated care on public hospitals.''
  This gets to another point that I offered in the unfunded mandates 
bill, which seemingly has gone unnoticed by the Congressional Budget 
Office, despite a vote of 93 to 6. That was a provision, which is now 
part of the Public Law 104-4, which states that any Federal reductions 
in ``reimbursements to State, local, and tribal governments for the 
costs associated with illegal, deportable, and excludable aliens, 
including court-mandated expenses related to emergency health care, 
education, or criminal justice,'' constitute part of the potential new 
obligations imposed upon States and are subject to the point of order 
as unfunded mandates.
  In numerous ways, S. 1664 does exactly that. It eliminates Federal 
reimbursement to the States, according to the Congressional Budget 
Office, by about $7 billion. I repeat, it eliminates Federal 
reimbursement to the States by about $7 billion over the period 1996 to 
2002, a substantial portion of which is in health care costs associated 
with immigrants.
  In short, this bill, once again, creates an enormous unfunded mandate 
on State and local governments. Once again, I repeat the quote from the 
Congressional Budget Office: ``Given the scope and complexity of the 
affected programs, however, CBO has not been able to estimate either 
the likelihood or magnitude of such costs at this time. These costs 
could be significant, depending on how strictly the deeming provisions 
are enforced by the Federal Government.''

  Mr. President, while the CBO has been unable to do a comprehensive 
report, the National Conference of State Legislatures has undertaken 
that task. Our colleagues in the State capitals across the Nation, 
legislators, as are we, who administer these programs we are talking 
about today, have assessed what the impact will be on States. Although 
they were, like the Congressional Budget Office, limited in the time 
available to complete this analysis, the National Conference of State 
Legislatures developed a very conservative cost estimate for just 10 of 
the affected programs.
  This study did not include Medicaid and 40 other Federal means-tested 
programs. What did the National Conference of State Legislatures find?
  First, after contacting more than 10 States, States of varying size, 
they concluded that ``regardless of the size of the immigrant 
population, all States and localities will have to implement these 
unfunded mandates.''
  In other words, the bill impacts a city in Iowa or Delaware just as 
it might in Los Angeles, CA, or Miami, FL. The bill requires all 
Federal, State, and local means-tested programs to have a new 
citizenship verification bureaucracy imposed upon them.
  All programs, regardless of whether the new bureaucracy costs exceed 
benefits, regardless of whether it imposes a very large unfunded 
mandate on State and local programs, all programs are impacted by this 
bill. What are the estimated costs, even for just the 10 programs which 
have been studied? According to the NCSL study, ``The cost of these new 
requirements for 10 selected programs would result in a $744 million 
unfunded mandate.'' Repeating, ``The cost of new requirements for 10 
selected programs would result in a $744 million unfunded mandate.''
  The National Conference of State Legislatures adds, ``Of course, if 
the 40 other programs, including Medicaid, adoption assistance, and the 
WIC programs, are included, the unfunded administrative burdens on 
States and localities would substantially increase.''
  Mr. President, the NCSL study indicates that unfunded mandates for 
just 10 programs will be $744 million. Once the other multitude of 
programs are analyzed, the costs imposed on State and local government 
could far exceed a billion dollars. It could very well amount to 
several billion dollars.
  However, Mr. President, there are no provisions in the pending 
legislation to reimburse State and local governments for the 
administrative costs and the cost shifts which will be imposed upon 
them by this bill.
  As the majority leader said on January 4, 1995, when we were passing 
the unfunded mandates bill:

       We do not have all the answers in Washington, DC. Why 
     should we tell Idaho, or the State of Kansas, or the State of 
     South Dakota, or any other State, that we are going to pass 
     this Federal law and we are going to require that you do 
     certain things, but we are not going to send you any money? 
     So you raise taxes in the local communities or in your State. 
     You tax the people, and when they complain about it, say, 
     ``Well, we cannot help it because the Federal Government 
     passed this mandate.'' So we are going to continue our drive 
     to return power to our States and our people through the 
     104th Congress.

  Those were the words of Senator Dole on January 4, 1995. Mr. 
President, we have now come to a point of decision as to our 
credibility. When we passed this legislation, as the fourth bill of the 
104th Congress, one of the items in the Contract With America, one of 
the items upon which State and local governments are now making 
important decisions, which they have believed the legitimacy of our 
representations that we are no longer going to be casually and in an 
unstudied way, imposing major costs upon them. Are we now going to be 
prepared to meet the test?
  We have a bill which says that it only relates to illegal aliens; 
yet, an analysis indicates that it clearly has major impacts on legal 
aliens.
  Second, we find that a significant part of that impact on legal 
aliens is to impose significant new unfunded mandates--financial 
responsibilities--on States and local communities. I do not think that 
is what we want to do. We have a choice. Clearly, a point of order is 
now available against this bill. We could end further discussion. I am 
reticent to raise that point of order because I believe it is important 
that we pass an illegal immigration bill that will in fact strengthen 
our ability to protect the borders of America and to assure that our 
lawful means by which persons can come to the United States are 
available and are not dismissed, as they have been so frequently in the 
recent past, by persons who come here illegally.
  I also am reluctant to raise this point of order at this time because 
we still have an opportunity to correct this legislation and to remove 
those provisions which are imposing these mammoth unfunded mandates on 
States and local communities.
  We are in a strange parliamentary process, but I hope that even 
through this byzantine process we will be able to consider those 
amendments that will be faithful to our commitments not to impose new 
unfunded mandates in the manner in which we are doing in this 
legislation upon our citizens at the State and local level.

[[Page S4030]]

  So, Mr. President, my purpose in these remarks is to raise these two 
important structural defects in the bill--a mixture of impacts on legal 
aliens, and a bill that is labeled ``illegal immigration'' and the 
imposition of major unfunded mandates on States and local communities.
  It is my hope that by raising these issues, it will contribute to 
reforming this bill in a way that brings a good engineer into the 
foundation of this legislation, pour some concrete, and strengthen the 
integrity of this legislation. If that is done, then the unfunded 
mandate point of order would no longer be available.
  If that is not done, I want to assure my colleagues that the point of 
order will be raised because I am committed that we not only strengthen 
our resolve against illegal immigration but that we also demonstrate 
our credibility to not impose mammoth unfunded mandates on our State 
and local governments.
  I ask unanimous consent that the letter and other material from the 
National Conference of State Legislatures be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

         National Conference of State Legislatures, National 
           Association of Counties, National League of Cities,
                                                   April 16, 1996.
       Dear Senator: On behalf of the National Conference of State 
     Legislatures (NCSL), the National Association of Counties 
     (NACo) and the National League of Cities (NLC), we are 
     writing to alert you that according to both the Congressional 
     Budget Office (CBO) and our own analysis S. 1664, The 
     Immigration and Financial Responsibility Act of 1996, is in 
     violation of P.L. 104-4, The Unfunded Mandates Reform Act.
       Certain portions of S. 1664 would place unfunded federal 
     mandates on states and localities through new national 
     requirements for driver's licenses and birth certificates and 
     by extending legal immigrant benefit restrictions to all 
     federal means-tested programs. CBO estimates that the 
     driver's license and the birth certificate mandates alone 
     could cost states and localities in excess of $200 million. 
     This clearly exceeds the $50 million threshold needed for a 
     point of order against S. 1664 in accordance with P.L. 104-4.
       In addition, a study by the National Conference of State 
     Legislatures has found that the deeming requirements of S. 
     1664 would impose even greater unfunded federal costs on 
     state and local governments. (CBO was unable to conduct an 
     analysis of the deeming requirements, but stated that ``it is 
     possible that the administrative costs associated with 
     applying deeming requirements to some federal means-tested 
     entitlement programs would be considered mandate costs as 
     defined in P.L. 104-4.'') The NCSL study of just ten affected 
     programs, not including Medicaid and 40 other programs, 
     reveals that the costs to state and local government of these 
     new requirements is $744 million.
       As you know, ``deeming'' is attributing a sponsor's income 
     to the immigrant when determining program eligibility. S. 
     1664 would extend deeming from three programs (AFDC, SSI and 
     Food Stamps) to 50 federal means-tested programs including 
     foster care, adoption assistance, school lunch and WIC. 
     Regardless of the size of the immigrant population, all 
     states and localities will have to implement these unfunded 
     mandates. By mandating that state and local governments deem 
     for all these programs, the legislation requires states and 
     localities to extend a complicated administrative procedure 
     to more than 50 federal programs. These mandates will require 
     states to verify citizenship status, immigration status, 
     sponsorship status, and length of time in the U.S. in each 
     eligibility determination for the deemed federal programs. 
     They will also require state and local governments to 
     implement and maintain costly data information systems.
       Therefore, we urge you to support a point of order against 
     S. 1664 based on the violation of P.L. 104-4. This is a 
     critical test of your commitment to preventing cost-shifts to 
     and unfunded administrative burdens on state and local 
     government.
       NCSL, NACo and NLC will support subsequent amendments to 
     reduce the scope of the deeming provisions and the onerous 
     administrative requirements. We oppose the provision to 
     extend the deeming requirements to all non-cash, federal 
     means-tested programs. These mandates also garner almost 
     no federal savings and should be eliminated as part of the 
     Congressional commitment to eliminating cost shifts to 
     state and local budgets and taxpayers. We urge you to 
     support amendments to limit deeming to the federal 
     programs that deliver income support and food assistance 
     and to ensure that states and localities will not have to 
     implement deeming for any program where administrative 
     costs would exceed any estimated net savings or benefit 
     expenditures.
       Without this amendment, states and localities will have to 
     deem applicants for everything funded by federal means-tested 
     programs from foster care to children's soccer leagues to 
     mobile meals to after-school tutoring programs. The 
     administrative burden would severely restrict the number of 
     services that could be provided and be a bureaucratic 
     nightmare, especially for states and localities with fewer 
     immigrants.
       We also strongly support amendments to exempt vulnerable 
     populations such as legal immigrants who become disabled 
     after arrival, children under 18, pre-natal and post-partum 
     women, and veterans and their families from the deeming 
     restrictions. These groups are among the most vulnerable 
     members of our communities. NCSL, NACo and NLC are also 
     concerned about immigrants who enter the U.S. legally and 
     comply with U.S. immigration laws in good faith. Legal 
     immigrants who play by the rules should not be barred from 
     the SSI program if they become disabled after arrival. No one 
     can predict when they might suffer a disability; these 
     immigrants must be included in the SSI program.
       We are especially concerned about the impact of extending 
     the deeming requirements to the Medicaid program. Without 
     this program eligibility, many legal immigrants will not have 
     access to health care. Legal immigrants will be forced to 
     turn to state indigent health care programs, public 
     hospitals, and emergency rooms for assistance or avoid 
     treatment altogether. This will in turn endanger the public 
     health and increase the cost of providing health care to 
     everyone. Furthermore, without Medicaid reimbursement, public 
     hospitals and clinics and states and localities would incur 
     increased unreimbursed costs for treating legal immigrants. 
     Exempting emergency Medicaid services from sponsor deeming is 
     especially justified because emergency medical care must be 
     provided by all hospitals with emergency rooms without regard 
     to the patient's ability to pay or immigration status.
       Finally, we are also concerned about the provisions 
     mandating national standards for state and local documents 
     such as birth certificates and driver's licenses. We support 
     maintaining state and local choice in the design of these 
     documents. These are very sensitive public policy issues. S. 
     1664 would preempt a number of state laws including those 
     that specifically prevent using social security numbers as 
     identification on driver's licenses and other identification 
     cards. These mandates may violate the Supreme Court decision 
     in New York v. United States that prohibits making states the 
     administrative arm of the federal government. Furthermore, 
     these provisions also place costly unfunded mandates on state 
     and local governments that prevent such use of social 
     security numbers or do not use tamper-proof paper for birth 
     certificates.
       We appreciate your consideration of our concerns and urge 
     you to support these amendments to minimize the cost shift 
     and unfunded mandates to states and localities.
           Sincerely,
     James J. Lack,
       New York Senate,
       President, NCSL.
     Douglas R. Bovin,
       Commissioner, Delta County, MI, President, NACo.
     Gregory S. Lashutka,
       Mayor, Columbus, Ohio, President, NLC.
                                                                    ____


                               Memorandum

     To: Interested Parties.
     From: Sheri Steisel, National Conference of State 
         Legislatures. Jon Dunlap, National Conference of State 
         Legislatures. Marilina Sanz, National Association of 
         Counties.
     Date: April 15, 1996.
     Re: Unfunded Mandate Violations of More Than $900 Million In 
         S.1664/S.269.
       As you may be aware, on Friday (4/12/96) the Congressional 
     Budget Office released its score of S.269 (now S.1664), the 
     Immigration Control and Financial Responsibility Act of 1996. 
     In this score, CBO states that a number of provisions in 
     S.1664 would place unfunded federal mandates on states and 
     localities. CBO estimates that the driver's license and birth 
     certificate provisions alone could cost states and localities 
     in excess of $200 million. This alone is a violation of the 
     provisions of S.1, the Unfunded Mandates Act of 1995 and is 
     certainly more than the $50 million threshold needed for a 
     point of order against S.1664 on the Senate floor.
       As for S.1664's new deeming requirements for all federal 
     means-tested programs, CBO states that given the scope and 
     complexity of the affected programs, they were unable to 
     estimate these costs at this time. CBO found that ``it is 
     possible that the administrative costs associated with 
     applying deeming requirements to some federal means-tested 
     entitlement programs would be considered mandate costs as 
     defined in Public Law 104-4.'' As you know, S.1664 would 
     extend deeming from the 3 current programs (AFDC, SSI, and 
     Food Stamps) to more than 50 federal means-tested programs, 
     most of which provide social services at the local level.
       The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) has 
     developed cost estimates for 10 affected programs (not 
     including one of the largest, Medicaid, and 40 other federal 
     means-tested programs). We have consulted with more than 10 
     states of varying size. However, regardless of the size of 
     the immigrant population, all states and localities will have 
     to implement these unfunded mandates. The NCSL study found 
     that the cost of these new requirements for 10 selected 
     programs would result in a $744 million unfunded mandate. Of 
     course, if the 40 other

[[Page S4031]]

     programs, including Medicaid, Adoption Assistance, and WIC, 
     are included the unfunded administrative burden on states and 
     localities would substantially increase.
       In the Senate debate, NCSL and NACo will strongly support a 
     point of order against S.1664 and subsequent amendments to 
     reduce the scope of the deeming requirements and the 
     administrative burden the requirements place on states and 
     localities.
                                                                    ____


               National Conference of State Legislatures


 Unfunded Mandates in Immigration Bill: Cost Estimate of S.269/S.1664 
                            Deeming Mandate

       Enclosed are the following: (1) the list of programs that 
     we believe meet the unfunded mandate criteria contained in 
     S.1 Unfunded Mandates Act and CBO's interpretation of the 
     law; (2) an estimate of the infrastructure, training and 
     implementation costs that states and localities would incur 
     in order to implement deeming for these 10 programs; and (3) 
     the list of over 40 additional federal means-tested programs 
     that do not meet the criteria in S.1 but the states and 
     localities would also have to implement deeming for. We 
     estimate that the total cost of the deeming unfunded mandate 
     in S. 1664 for the 10 programs that meet S.1 criteria is 
     $743.66 million. These costs rise substantially when all 
     other federal means-tested programs, such as Medicaid, 
     Adoption Assistance, WIC, and others, are included (see 
     attachment part III).

                       Assumptions about deeming

       In order to comply with the deeming mandates in S.269 (``to 
     implement deeming for all federal means-tested programs'') we 
     believe that states and localities will have to adhere to a 
     process similar to the following.
       A citizenship verification must be made for all applicants 
     of all federal means-tested programs. This means that each 
     applicant must have an interview with a caseworker who will 
     verify citizenship status and check valid documentation 
     (e.g., birth certificate, passport, etc.). We do not believe 
     that a written attestation of citizenship will be sufficient 
     because any applicant for assistance could claim citizenship 
     status, even illegal immigrants. Federal means-tested 
     programs that do not have an intake process and an 
     eligibility determination system in place will have to create 
     them to provide a credible verification of citizenship 
     status. We believe that creating these systems and hiring 
     staff to administer them will be very costly (see #1 below).
       After establishing who the noncitizens are, the caseworker 
     must use the System of Alien Verification of Eligibility 
     (SAVE) secondary verification process to determine which 
     noncitizens have sponsors. As with the citizenship 
     verification, we believe that requiring a written attestation 
     of sponsorship status is not credible because of the enormous 
     loophole in creates. At this time the SAVE secondary 
     verification process is the only credible way to verify 
     sponsorship status. With extensive training, caseworkers may 
     be able to identify as many as \1/3\ of all noncitizen 
     applicants who would not have sponsors without accessing SAVE 
     through secondary verification. Therefore, we estimate that 
     \2/3\ of all noncitizen applicants will need to be checked 
     for sponsorship through the SAVE secondary verification 
     process.
       States and localities report that it currently takes INS an 
     average of 3.5 weeks to respond through secondary 
     verification on sponsorship requests for the three programs 
     that deem. We would expect this time lag to increase as more 
     programs deem (whether it be the 10 that meet S.1 criteria or 
     the 50-odd possible means-tested programs) and SAVE's 
     secondary verification process is overwhelmed. This may 
     conflict with federal application processing requirements 
     leading to difficulties with audits and quality control 
     sanctions, especially in programs like AFDC, Medicaid, Foster 
     Care and IV-D Child Support.
       After INS informs the caseworkers about sponsorship, 
     caseworkers must calculate deemed income. State and local 
     administrative staff will have to be trained to verify 
     citizenship, identify immigration documents, use the SAVE 
     secondary verification process, calculate deemed income and 
     understand deeming exceptions to make this process workable 
     and credible. In addition to infrastructure and training 
     costs, states and localities will also experience on-going 
     implementation costs associated with the staff time needed to 
     access SAVE and make the complicated deeming calculation.
       For more information please contact Jon Dunlap, or Sheri 
     Steisel, in NCSL's Washington, DC office.


I. Selected Federal Means-Tested Programs Affected by Deeming Unfunded 
                           Mandate in S. 269:

       No Intake Process and No Current Deeming Requirement: 
     School Lunch, School Breakfast, Child and Adult Care Food 
     Program, Vocational Rehabilitation, Title XX Social Services 
     Block Grant.
       No Current Deeming Requirement: Foster Care, IV-A Child 
     Care, IV-D Child Support, Medicare--QMB.
       Deeming: Food Stamps, AFDC.


                           II. Cost Estimate

       We have separated the costs into three parts: (1) capital/
     infrastructure; (2) staff training; and (3) on-going/
     implementation.
       1. Capital and Infrastructure Costs: A citizenship 
     verification must be made for all applicants of all federal 
     means-tested programs. This means that each applicant must 
     have an interview with a caseworker who will verify 
     citizenship status and check valid documentation (e.g., birth 
     certificate, passport, etc.). Federal means-tested programs 
     that do not have an intake process and an eligibility 
     determination system in place will have to create them to 
     provide a credible verification of citizenship status.
       A. What federal means-tested programs do not have an intake 
     process?
       1. Examples: School Lunch/Breakfast, Child and Adult Care 
     Food, Title XX, Voc. Rehab.
       B. What is the cost for creating an intake process?
       1. Number of programs needing intake process = 4.
       2. Number of new staff/program needed to admin. new intake 
     processes:
       a. School Lunch-Breakfast = 1 staff/school district 14,881 
     school districts = 14,881 staff (American School Food Service 
     Association).
       b. Adult and Child Care Food = 1 staff/county x 3,042 
     counties = 3,042 staff.
       c. Title XX SSBG = 1 staff/county 3,042 counties = 3,042 
     staff.
       d. Vocational Rehabilitation = 1 staff/county 3,042 
     counties = 3,042 staff.
       3. Total number of new staff to create new intake processes 
     = 24,007 staff.
       4. Average annual salary of new staff = $30,000/staff/year 
     (National Eligibility Workers Association and National 
     Association of Social Workers).
       5. Total cost of new staff = 24,007 new staff $30,000 avg. 
     staff salary = $720.21 million.
       6. Creating or updating eligibility manual (including 
     pictures of acceptable documentation) and reprogramming 
     computers = $2 million (this could be higher, we are checking 
     with state welfare agencies)
       Subtotals: New Staff = $720.21 million, Other Costs = $2.0 
     million, Federal Administration Contribution = $0 (None of 
     these programs would be federal admin. funds).
       Total: $722.21 - $0 (Fed Share) = $722.21 million.
       2. Staff Training for Immigration Verification, SAVE and 
     Deeming Administration: After establishing who the 
     noncitizens are, the caseworker must use the System of Alien 
     Verification of Eligibility (SAVE) secondary verification 
     process to determine which noncitizens have sponsors. With 
     extensive training, caseworkers may be able to identify as 
     many as \1/3\ of all noncitizen applicants who would not have 
     sponsors without accessing SAVE through secondary 
     verification. Therefore, we estimate that \2/3\ of all 
     noncitizen applicants must be checked for sponsorship through 
     the SAVE secondary verification process. When INS informs the 
     caseworkers about sponsorship, caseworkers must calculate 
     deemed income. State and local administrative staff will have 
     to be trained to verify citizenship, identify immigration 
     documents, use the SAVE secondary verification process, 
     calculate deemed income and understand deeming exceptions.
       A. Staff time costs: 1 day training at $15.00/hour8 
     hours=$120.00/day/person.
       B. Trainer's costs: $1200/training session (Center for the 
     Development of Human Services--NY).
       C. Number of people needing training:
       1. school lunch-breakfast=14,881 staff.
       2. child and adult care food=3,042 staff.
       3. Title XX=3,042 staff.
       4. Vocational Rehabilitation=3,042 staff.
       5. IV-E Foster Care=3,042 staff.
       6. Medicare QMB=3,042 staff.
       7. IV-A Child Care=3,042 staff.
       8. IV-D Child Support=3,042 staff.
       Total=36,175 staff.
       D. Number of people trained per session=35 (Ctr. for Dev. 
     of Human Services--NY).
       F. Total number of training sessions: 36,175 staff/35=1,033 
     sessions.
       G. Total cost/session=$1,200 trainer+($120/person35 
     attendees=$4,200 staff time/session)=$5,400.
       Subtotal: Total cost of start-up training=$5,400 (cost/
     session)1033 (number of sessions)=$5.58 million Total Federal 
     Administration Contribution=$1.8 million (30% Federal 
     reimbursement after accounting for average of 50% federal 
     administrative reimbursement for most programs but no federal 
     assistance for the large nutrition programs such as school 
     lunch/breakfast and child and adult care food admin. cost).
       Total: $5.58 million-$1.8 million (Fed Share)=$3.78 
     million.
       3. On-Going Implementation Costs: After consulting with a 
     range of state and local officials, including LA County, 
     Colorado, New York, Rhode Island, Iowa, West Virginia, 
     Virginia, Minnesota, and Texas, we believe that the on-going 
     implementation of deeming will be cost prohibitive. According 
     to the 1994 Census, 15 million noncitizens reside in the U.S. 
     After consulting with the INS and the urban Institute, we 
     estimate the approximately 10%, or 1.5 million, will apply 
     for a federal means-tested program each year. This percentage 
     would be even higher if we used research from George Borjas, 
     a well-known immigration demographer, who estimates immigrant 
     public assistance use at closer to 20%. Many noncitizens will 
     apply for multiple programs or apply for a single program 
     multiple times. We are unsure about how to account for the 
     number of noncitizens who might file multiple applications. 
     Because no comprehensive information system exists to record 
     and unify data on all federal means-tested programs, each 
     application will require a separate verification and inquiry 
     of the SAVE secondary verification system. After consulting 
     with Los Angeles County, we multiply the number of

[[Page S4032]]

     applicants by a factor of 1.5 to account for additional 
     procedures resulting from multiple applications. After 
     consulting with the INS, we estimate that if caseworkers 
     receive extensive training in reading immigration documents, 
     they will be able to vet up to \1/3\ of all noncitizen 
     applications. The remaining applications will have to be 
     referred to the SAVE secondary verification process. We 
     estimate that 50% of all secondary SAVE inquiries will 
     require a deeming procedure (Congressional Research Service). 
     We divide the total number of SAVE inquiries in half to bet 
     the total number of deeming procedures per year.
       A. Total number of noncitizens applying for selected 
     federal means-tested programs per year = # SAVE 2nd 
     verifications inquiries to be scored by CBO: 15 million non-
     citizens in U.S. (census 1994)--10% (1.5 million) apply for 
     one of the selected federal means-tested programs--we use a 
     1.5 multiplier for selected federal means-tested programs 
     (1.5 million 1.5 multiplier = 2.25 million applications)--
     One-third of applications can be vetted through immigration 
     document checking (2.25 mil - 742,500 = 1.49 million) = 1.49 
     million SAVE inquiries per year for the selected federal 
     means-tested programs.
       B. Total number of deeming procedures/year = 1.49 million 
     2nd SAVE inquiries .5 for noncitizens without sponsors = 
     742,500 deeming procedures/year for selected programs.
       C. Average cost per inquiry of SAVE 2nd verification (staff 
     time, costs for accessing save):
       1. 30 min. of staff time per 2nd verification inquiry at 
     $15.00/hour = $7.50/inquiry of staff time (HHS Office of 
     Inspector General).
       2. Other costs for accessing SAVE might include phone, 
     copying, mailing, etc. = $1 million.
       D. Average additional cost of administering deeming 
     procedures (reinterview, calculation, exemptions).
       1. 1.5 hours staff time/deeming procedure at $15.00/hour = 
     $22.50/deeming procedure (National Eligibility Workers 
     Association survey).
       E. On-going training costs:
       1. Avg. annual turnover of caseworker staff = 10% (National 
     Association of Social Workers).
       2. Number of new staff/year = 36,175 staff 10% turnover = 
     3,617 new staff/year.
       3. Number of new training sessions/year = 3,617 new staff/
     35 per session = 103 sessions/year.
       4. Total cost of on-gong training/year = 103 sessions 
     $4,500/session = 556,200/year.
       Subtotals: SAVE inquiry costs = $7.50/per inquiry 1.49 
     inquiries = $11.18 million. Other ongoing admin. costs = $1.0 
     million. Deeming staff costs = $22.50/per deeming procedure 
     742,500 procedures = $16.71 million. On-going training cost = 
     $556,200.
       Federal Administrative contribution: $8.84 million (30% 
     Federal reimbursement after accounting for average of 50% 
     federal administrative reimbursement for most programs but no 
     federal assistance for the large nutrition programs such as 
     school lunch/breakfast and child and adult care food admin. 
     costs).
       Net Total: $29.45 million (On-going cost) - $8.84 million 
     (Fed Share) = $17.67 million.
       Estimated total net Capital/Infrastructure cost: $722.21 
     million.
       Estimated total net training cost: $3.78 million.
       Estimated total net on-going implementation cost: $17.67 
     million.
       Estimated total net cost: $722.21 million + $3.78 million + 
     $17.67 million = $743.66 million.


                iv. other federal means-tested programs

       Medical Benefits: Medicaid, Maternal and Child Health 
     Services Block Grant, Migrant Health Centers, Community 
     Health Services, Title XX Family Planning Services.
       Cash Benefits: SSI-Supplement, Adoption Assistance, 
     Emergency Assistance to Needy Families with Children. Child 
     Care Development Block Grant.
       Food Benefits: WIC, Summer Food Service Program for 
     Children, Commodity Supplemental Food Program, Special Milk.
       Housing Benefits: Section 8 Housing Assistance, Public 
     Housing, Rural Housing Loans, HOME, Rural Rental Housing 
     Loans, Section 236 Interest Reduction, Farm Labor Housing 
     Loans and Grants, Section 101 Rent Supplements.
       Education Benefits: Title I Grants for Educationally 
     Deprived Children, Pell Grants, Head Start, Stafford Loans, 
     Even Start, College Work Study, Supplement Education OPP. 
     Grants, Perkins Loans, State Student Incentive Grants.
       Services: Community Service Block Grant, IV-B Child 
     Welfare, Emergency Food and Shelter Program.
       Jobs and Training: Adult Training Program, Summer Youth 
     Employment, Youth Training Program, Foster Grandparents, 
     Senior Companions, Senior Community Service Empl.
       Energy Assistance: LIHEAP, Weatherization Assistance.

  Mr. DeWINE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Campbell). The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, let me first compliment my colleague and 
friend from Florida for his very fine statement, particularly in regard 
to his recitation of the unfunded mandates that are in this bill. I 
have several of the same concerns that he does.
  We have an employer verification system here that is going to cost 
money. It is going to cost money for employers. It is going to cost 
money for States and local communities.
  I have other serious concerns about this employer verification system 
as well.
  My colleague from Michigan, Senator Abraham, will be offering later 
in this debate an amendment dealing with that employer verification 
problem that is in the bill. My friend from Florida has also pointed 
out another, I think, very important problem, a huge unfunded mandate; 
that is, the birth certificate changes that are required in this bill.
  I think it is going to come as a shock, when we get into this debate, 
to my colleagues and to the American people to find that under the 
terms of this bill the birth certificates that every American has are 
still going to be valid after the bill passes. They just will not be 
able to use them much for anything. You are going to have to go back to 
the place where the birth took place and get a new birth certificate if 
you want to get a passport or if you want to use it for other official 
business. It is just going to be absolutely a total nightmare.
  Now is not the time to get into this in detail, but I will be 
offering an amendment at the appropriate time to strike that provision 
because it would be very, very ironic that a U.S. Congress that has put 
itself on the block and said finally we are going to heed what local 
elected officials are telling us, finally we are going to listen, 
finally we passed this unfunded mandate bill saying we are not going to 
do this anymore, or at least, if we do, we are going to recognize that 
we are doing it and admit that we are doing it--it would be the height 
of irony if this Congress which said that would pass such a huge 
unfunded mandate that my colleague from Florida has pointed out is 
absolutely huge.
  Imagine telling everybody in this country that your birth certificate 
is still valid technically but you just cannot use it for much of 
anything. Imagine the cost to the counties, or whatever local 
jurisdiction you have in your home State that issues birth 
certificates, when people start flocking back and going home to get 
these new birth certificates issued to qualify. The only way they 
qualify is if some Federal bureaucrat in Washington, DC, says, ``Well, 
yes, that is OK. That type of format is OK. The paper is OK. The format 
is OK. The information is OK. Yes, you can use that type of birth 
certificate.'' A huge unfunded mandate that is absolutely crazy.
  I think when my colleagues look at this issue and we get into the 
debate about the cost of this, people are going to really be shocked.
  Let me turn, if I could, Mr. President, to what I understand is the 
pending business; that is, the Simpson amendment that deals with open 
field searches.
  Let me just bring my colleagues up to date, or kind of capsulize 
exactly where we are on this issue. This issue was looked at by the 
Judiciary Committee. In fact, by a vote of 12 to 5, Senator Simpson's 
position was rejected. The position that he has taken and the position 
that this amendment would take would be to reverse--let me say that 
again--reverse a very delicate compromise that was reached in 1986 in 
the Simpson-Mazzoli bill in regard to open field searches.
  Let me go back and review very quickly some of the history behind 
this. In 1984, the U.S. Supreme Court said that a search warrant was 
not required for open field searches but in its opinion invited 
Congress to look at the issue and to take action in this regard.
  In 1986, some 2 years later, when we looked at this whole issue of 
illegal immigration, Congress did speak, and it was an integral part of 
that compromise. A very delicate compromise was worked out when I was 
in the House of Representatives. Senator Simpson was the leader here in 
the Senate. That compromise provided that, for an open field search, a 
search warrant would, in fact, be required. So, if we accept the 
Simpson amendment, it really is a rejection of a compromise that was 
made in 1986.
  The bill, Mr. President, as it currently stands on the Senate floor 
with the vote by the Judiciary Committee--a 12 to 5 vote to reject the 
Simpson position on open field searches--the current bill is the status 
quo. The current

[[Page S4033]]

bill is where the law is today. I want to emphasize that.
  Let me talk a little bit about the merits of this issue. The current 
law is that the INS has to get permission to conduct a search in an 
open field involving agricultural workers. That is the same situation 
that exists today if the INS wants to go into a restaurant or wants to 
go into some other building and conduct a search. If they want to 
conduct a search, under current law, they can get permission, which 
oftentimes is granted; but if they cannot get permission, then current 
law treats all employers and all employees equally in this regard. The 
INS has to go in and get a search warrant, if they do not get 
permission. That is true whether they are dealing with a building or 
whether they are dealing with work that is taking place on a farm or a 
ranch.
  To change this, as the Simpson amendment would do--first of all, 
there is no compelling reason to do it. In fact, there is no reason to 
do it at all.
  In fact, there is no reason to do it at all, if you ask the INS. They 
are the ones enforcing it. They are the ones who have the duty imposed 
by Congress to get the search warrant.
  What the INS says is we do not need to change the law. They are not 
here asking for the change. We do not need the change in the law is 
what the INS says. They are the ones who in a sense we have been 
restricting.
  Second, a change in the law, which adoption of the Simpson amendment 
would be, puts a burden on farmers, and, yes, on ranchers. I do not 
have to remind anyone in this body who has a farmer or a rancher in 
their State--and that includes every State I guess--how time sensitive 
the harvest of any crop is.
  I experienced this in my home county. My family ran a seed business 
for many years. And when it came time to harvest the wheat, they 
harvested the wheat. You had a fine window in there to get it done. If 
you did not do it at the time to do it, you might lose the crop. It 
might rain; you might have problems. The same is true for any 
perishable crop--tremendous disruption of going in and conducting these 
searches without a search warrant. That is one of the compelling 
reasons that this was such an important part of the compromise that was 
reached in 1986 in the Simpson-Mazzoli bill.
  In addition to the burden that this amendment would place on 
employers, equally important, and maybe even more important, is the 
burden it is going to place on employees.
  Open fields. Let us think of the real world. Let us think of the real 
world. INS would drive by and look at this open field. Where are they 
going to go? It is not unreasonable to think that there is certainly a 
distinct possibility, however well intentioned people who work at INS 
are, that they are going to go where they see people look a little 
different than the vast majority of Americans, or at least the vast 
majority of people in most parts of the country, that they are going to 
go where maybe someone's skin is a little browner. They are going to go 
where they have some suspicions.
  I think that is wrong. I think they should be held to the same 
standard they have been held to for the last decade under the Simpson-
Mazzoli compromise, and that is they have to get a search warrant. It 
is not too burdensome.
  Again, I think it is important that all employers be treated equally 
and all employees be treated equally. The situation has to be dealt 
with in the same sense, and that is true of the status quo, and that 
will be changed if the Simpson amendment today is adopted.
  What was the background of this? What led to people looking at this 
and saying, ``Hey, there is a problem.'' It is my understanding that 
before the 1986 act was passed, 15 percent of the illegal immigration 
problem in the work force was in agriculture and yet 75 percent of all 
searches, all the raids occurred in agriculture. That is no 
coincidence. They went where it was easier. They went where they could 
see into the open fields. I would submit they sometimes may have gone 
where somebody's skin was brown or somebody looked a little different, 
looking at that as a good prospect. I think it is wrong to change that 
law.

  We are going to hear the argument in the Chamber that the only law 
enforcement agency that is required to have a search warrant in an open 
field situation is the INS. Yes, that is technically true. To state 
that is to state the obvious, but it is also looking at it from a very 
simplistic point of view. Those of us who have been involved in law 
enforcement know that searches by law enforcement agencies that are 
looking at what we consider to be crimes historically--rape, murder, 
theft--they are not just going and looking at fields and walking into 
those fields because they see who is working there. That just is not 
the way it works. There is a normal progression of the research that 
has to be done, the evidence that has to be presented, even if the 
plain view doctrine to go onto a field does in fact apply, which I 
think it does. That is frankly the argument that proponents might make, 
comparing apples and oranges--just a totally different situation.
  Senator Hatch received a letter on March 13, and this letter is 
signed by a number of groups in this country that oppose the Simpson 
position. Let me read the names of these groups and then let me take a 
brief excerpt from the letter itself.
  Groups that oppose this amendment include the American Farm Bureau 
Federation, Agricultural Affiliates, American Association of 
Nurserymen, American Sheep Industry Association, California Farm Bureau 
Federation, Florida Strawberry Growers Association, Florida Fruit and 
Vegetable Association, Illinois Specialty Growers Association, Michigan 
Farm Bureau, National Cattlemen's Beef Association, National Council of 
Farmer Cooperatives, Northern Christmas Trees and Nursery, Northwest 
Horticultural Council, Society of American Florists, Sun-Maid Growers 
of California, Texas Produce Association, United Fresh Fruit and 
Vegetable Association, Ventura County Agricultural Association, 
Virginia State Horticultural Society, Wasco County Fruit Produce 
League, Washington Growers Clearinghouse, Western Growers Association, 
Wisconsin Christmas Tree Producers' Association, and Wisconsin Nursery 
Association.

  Let me point out that this letter, dated March 13, obviously did not 
have to do with this specific amendment. What it did have to do with is 
the same identical subject. Let me quote from this letter. This letter 
was signed by the groups that I just read. This is paragraph 2.

       S. 269 also proposes to repeal the open agricultural field 
     search warrant requirement enacted as part of the Immigration 
     Reform and Control Act of 1986. This provision requires 
     Immigration and Naturalization Service to obtain the 
     permission of the property owner prior to entering the 
     property searching for illegal aliens, or to obtain a search 
     warrant. This is the same procedure required of INS searching 
     for illegal aliens in any other workplace, such as factories, 
     restaurants, and retail establishments enclosed by buildings 
     or other structures. This provision of current law affords 
     growers the same protections from warrantless searches and 
     unreasonable disruption of business activity enjoyed by any 
     other businesses with walls and doors.

  The fourth paragraph reads in part as follows, again the same letter 
signed by the same groups:

       Prior to enactment of the open agricultural field search 
     warrant requirement, INS was accused in several instances of 
     unlawful detention of America's citizens and legal permanent 
     resident aliens, damage to crops and property, violations of 
     property rights, and injuries to agricultural workers fleeing 
     INS searches. We believe the requirement that INS obtain 
     either property owner permission or a search warrant prior to 
     conducting a search for illegal aliens has fostered 
     cooperation between INS and growers, and has reduced property 
     damage, crop losses and farmworker injuries.

  Again I would point out in light of this statement that I just read, 
that is INS' position in the sense that they are not asking for a 
change in the law.
  Let me also cite, if I could, Mr. President, a letter from the 
American Farm Bureau Federation--actually not a letter but a statement 
that was put out. I have no date on this but it was within the last 
month. Let me just read a portion of this:

       Farm Bureau has been very active in lobbying Capitol Hill 
     to seek retention of the open-field search warrant provision 
     enacted as part of the 1986 Immigration Reform bill. The 
     provision of S. 269 repealing the open-field search warrant 
     requirement has received no examination in public hearings, 
     despite the fact that it reverses policy adopted by clear 
     majorities of both Houses of Congress during the 1986 reform 
     debate.


[[Page S4034]]


  Continuing the quote now:

       Congress enacted the so-called open-field search warrant 
     requirement as a part of the 1986 immigration reform bill in 
     response to concerns among the agriculture community that 
     farmers were treated differently by Immigration and 
     Naturalization Service as a result of the nature of their 
     business; that it is conducted outdoors rather than indoors 
     and it thus had been more vulnerable to abusive searches.

  That is a partial quote from the letter.
  Let me also point out what the INS can do today, again under the 
current status of the law, again under the 1986 compromise, the 
Simpson-Mazzoli compromise.
  They can go in property in hot pursuit. They can do that today. We do 
not need to change the law today to do that. They can do that hot 
pursuit. Further, they do not need a search warrant if the land is 
located within 25 miles of the border. So, again, two of the problems, 
or what you might think would be serious problems, have been dealt with 
and were dealt with in 1986.
  Finally, of course, to again restate the obvious, if permission is 
granted, consent is given, they can go on right now.
  So let me state I think this is an important issue. The Simpson 
amendment changes the status quo. I see my friend is on the floor and 
may at this point or later want to respond. But I think the status quo 
is correct. The Judiciary Committee voted by a 12-to-5 vote to keep the 
status quo. The INS does not see a reason to change the law, and 
therefore I ask my colleagues to vote against the Simpson amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. Feingold], is 
recognized.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise today in opposition to the 
legislation before us. Before I do, let me just say a word or two about 
the comments about the minimum wage. I am pleased that that issue is 
being discussed at this time. I am pleased to see the reemergence of 
some bipartisan support for an increase in the minimum wage. I think 
the time is now. Whether it be on this piece of legislation with a 
limited time agreement or some other piece of legislation in the near 
future, I think it is something we ought to take up now rather than 
wait until later. It is at least of as great importance as the matter 
before us today.
  But I do rise in opposition to this bill. I fear this legislation not 
only embraces the wrong approach to curbing illegal immigration, but I 
think it contradicts past efforts to reform the Federal regulatory 
framework and to prevent the Congress from passing unfunded Federal 
mandates that will needlessly burden employers and local governments 
alike.
  In 1994, we witnessed a very emotional and pointed debate in 
California over a ballot issue that we have all come to know and 
describe as proposition 187. That debate, which evolved into a 
rhetorical backlash against both legal and illegal immigrants, clearly 
demonstrated that the issue of immigration has the very strong 
potential to further divide and alienate those in our communities who 
are now faced, even more than at any time in the past, with the daily 
anxieties of economic insecurity and social instability.

  During the extensive consideration of this legislation in the Senate 
Judiciary Committee, I did oppose certain efforts to curtail legal 
immigration, whether it was an effort to prevent families from 
reuniting with loved ones or an effort to place additional hurdles 
before persons who are fleeing persecution in their home countries and 
have a legitimate right to ask for asylum. As I indicated then, my 
strong support for preserving ample levels of legal immigration does 
not compromise in any way my feeling, and the feeling I think of every 
Member of this body, that we do need to take bold and aggressive steps 
to curtail illegal immigration.
  I do believe there are reforms that are responsible and reasonable, 
and that we should make every effort to pursue on this bill. For 
example, the bill authorizes the hiring of over 4,500 new Border Patrol 
agents over the course of the next 5 years. This massive increase in 
personnel will nearly double the existing number of Border Patrol 
agents under the jurisdiction of the INS.
  I was also, therefore, pleased that an amendment I offered in 
committee was adopted by the committee, which provides that these many 
new personnel will be hired and adequately trained, pursuant to 
appropriate standards of law enforcement.
  I am also strongly supportive of provisions in S. 269, offered by 
Senator Kennedy, to enhance the penalties for virtually all forms of 
alien smuggling and document fraud, as well as related offenses.
  Additionally, these provisions provide stiff penalties for those 
individuals who operate sweatshops which force people, many in this 
country illegally, to work in often inhumane conditions for minimal 
compensation. Like these new enforcement personnel and alien smuggling 
penalties, it is critical that any measure we consider to curtail 
illegal immigration be targeted against those who are actually breaking 
our laws.
  Nothing stands in more stark contrast to this sort of targeted 
approach than what I believe to be the single most troubling component 
of this legislation and that is the creation of a new, costly and 
massive worker verification demonstration project which is intended by 
the proponents, I believe, to lead to a nationwide verification system 
within a few years.
  The worker verification proposal contained in this legislation, and 
the worker verification concept itself, is not a targeted approach to 
confronting the problem of illegal immigration. Instead, it is an 
approach which seeks to deputize thousands of business owners and 
farmers and other entrepreneurs, and virtually turn our Nation's 
workplaces into some kind of internal border patrol, mini-INS's, if you 
will. These employers are then charged with the responsibility of 
navigating a complex new electronic verification system in an effort to 
root illegal immigrants out from a massive American work force.

  I find it shortsighted and untenable to suggest that we cannot combat 
illegal immigration without requiring every person in America to have 
his or her identity checked by a Federal data base each time each 
person in this country applies for a job or for Government assistance. 
Despite good-faith efforts by the proponents of this provision to try 
to build in adequate privacy protections, the fact remains that every 
time an American applies for a job he or she will be stepping into a 
civil liberties minefield, if this system develops as I am concerned 
the authors intend.
  Who in our society will be required to have their identities 
verified? Potentially everyone. It could be the 40-year-old father of 
four, applying for an executive position with a Fortune 500 company. It 
could be a 20-year-old college student applying for student aid. If I 
am reading this bill correctly, even a 12-year-old paper boy could have 
to have his identity verified by a Washington official before he could 
be hired to deliver newspapers. That, I am afraid, is the practical 
effect of a national worker verification system. It is light-years away 
from a targeted approach. And it is based on the proposition that it is 
perfectly appropriate to have ID checks potentially required from 98 
percent of our population, that which consists of U.S. citizens and 
legal immigrants, in order to root out the 2 percent of our population 
that is here illegally.
  During judiciary hearing consideration of this bill, the junior 
Senator from Michigan and I offered a bipartisan amendment to strike 
the worker verification concept from this legislation and replace it 
with stronger enforcement and penalties for those who break the law by 
overstaying their legal visas. Although the committee accepted these 
new provisions relating to visa overstayers, our amendment to strike 
worker verification proposals lost on a tie 9 to 9 vote.
  The original nationwide system was later replaced by the so-called 
demonstration projects. But make no mistake, Mr. President, the 
fundamental flaws contained in the original proposal remain. Only now 
we will go through a somewhat longer process before it is actually 
imposed nationwide on all Americans.
  Senator Abraham and I will offer an amendment later on during this 
debate to strike those demonstration projects and programs and will 
speak more on this at another time. But it is strangely ironic, Mr. 
President, that some of the same Senators who stood here on the Senate 
floor a year ago and cried

[[Page S4035]]

out for meaningful regulatory reform legislation now are some of the 
strongest advocates for a massive national worker verification system 
and that somehow that is an appropriate solution for our illegal 
immigration problems.
  Another provision of this legislation that is troubling to me relates 
to birth certificates and driver's licenses. The bill currently 
requires all Government agencies to begin issuing uniform Federal birth 
certificates based on standards developed here in Washington, DC. 
Moreover, no Government agency may accept for official purposes a birth 
certificate or driver's license that does not meet the Federal 
guidelines established in this and presumably future legislation.
  Originally, this provision required agencies to collect fingerprints 
or other biometric data. The Department of Justice referred to these 
fingerprinted birth certificates as ``de facto national identification 
documents.''
  Thankfully, we were able to delete the fingerprinting requirement in 
the Judiciary Committee, but I think it demonstrates the steps that 
some are willing to take in this area. I do not believe for 1 minute 
that we have seen the last of this fingerprinting idea. Even without 
the fingerprints, I think this provision is still distressing. For 
example, the bill language requires every State department of motor 
vehicles to begin issuing driver's licenses with safety features as 
prescribed by a Federal regulatory agency. This language also states 
that anyone applying for a driver's license must present certain 
information as designated by the National Department of Transportation 
to establish their identity.

  So, if the Department of Transportation elects to promulgate a 
regulation next year requiring every State department of motor vehicles 
to begin collecting fingerprints, it would be legal under this 
legislation. So we see the fingerprints very easily coming back in, 
despite our efforts in the committee, through another route. Moreover, 
this section seems to ignore one of the 104th Congress' few bipartisan 
successes so far, the enactment of legislation to stop the Federal 
Government from passing unfunded mandates on to local and State 
government agencies.
  I think the Chair and I both know that one of the most consistent 
themes you hear in our home States is that they did not want new 
unfunded mandates.
  I recently received a letter from the Wisconsin Department of 
Transportation outlining their very justifiable concerns with these 
birth certificate and driver's license provisions. They are concerned, 
of course, with the cost that they will incur as a result of this new 
Federal mandate. The Wisconsin Department of Transportation has 
estimated these provisions could cost my State alone up to $3 million 
to comply with requirements relating to a specific Federal format for 
these documents and antifraud security features, not to mention Federal 
verification of all birth certificates and driver's licenses.
  This letter states that the Wisconsin Department of Transportation 
``views this bill as yet another unfunded Federal mandate. The costs 
associated with it are substantial.''
  The letter also points out that this State agency has had its 
operating budget reduced by 6 percent by the Wisconsin State 
legislature and Governor and would have no means, Mr. President, no way 
by which to pick up these additional costs that this new Federal 
mandate would impose.
  Mr. President, that is why I and the Senator from Ohio, Senator 
DeWine, and others view this provision as completely contrary to the 
letter and the spirit of the unfunded mandates legislation passed by 
this body just over a year ago and signed into law by President 
Clinton.
  There is not a word in this bill, Mr. President, about how the local 
and State agencies are to pay for this costly new procedure of issuing 
uniform Federal birth certificates and driver's licenses, even though 
it is plainly obvious that such a process is going to be an enormous 
financial burden on such entities.
  Mr. President, let me also take this opportunity to express my 
concerns about provisions in the legal immigration bill that are likely 
to surface in the near future. Although the Judiciary Committee, on a 
strong vote, split the two bills, split the legal and illegal 
immigration bills, there may well be another attempt to put these 
provisions back in this bill. I hope not, because these are very 
different issues.

  In committee, Mr. President, I was a cosponsor of the Kennedy-Abraham 
amendment to restore adequate levels of family immigration because I 
consider it to be essential to allow U.S. citizens to reunite with 
their children, their parents, and other loved ones who may be residing 
in other countries.
  There may be some abuse of our current family immigration system, but 
that does not mean we should completely prohibit a U.S. citizen from 
reuniting with their 22-year-old daughter, their 66-year-old parent, or 
their 15-year-old brother. Those were in fact the so-called reforms 
that were included in the original Simpson legislation and later 
expunged from the bill during committee markup.
  Considering the House voted decisively to remove all cutbacks of 
legal immigration from their bill, it is my hope that we have seen the 
last of efforts to further restrict family immigration.
  Mr. President, I also have serious concerns with the provisions in 
the legal immigration bill relating to persons seeking asylum in this 
country.
  Originally the bill required anyone seeking asylum to do so within 30 
days of entering the United States or their claims would be invalid. I 
joined the junior Senator from Ohio and others in fighting this 30-day 
time limit because it was harsh, it was arbitrary, and would have 
likely had disastrous consequences for thousands of persons who have, 
in most cases, fled their homelands to escape persecution, torture or 
worse for expressing thoughts and opinions counter to those held by 
those governments in other lands.
  We have had, no doubt, serious problems and abuses with our past 
asylum process. Previously, a large number of nonmeritorious claims 
were filed in an effort to obtain certain benefits that asylum 
claimants are entitled to, such as automatic work authorization. This 
practice did result in a mammoth backlog of pending applications that 
have prevented or delayed some very legitimate claims from being 
processed in a timely fashion.
  Unfortunately, though, Mr. President, lost in all the hyperbole about 
this problem is the fact that the Clinton administration has made 
tremendous progress in clamping down on asylum fraud and abuse. As a 
result of these new administration reforms, in the past year alone, new 
asylum claims have been cut in half, and INS has more than doubled 
their productivity in terms of processing pending claims.

  Mr. President, these promising reforms by the Clinton administration 
are in their infancy, and we should not mandate such a harsh and 
arbitrary deadline that is likely to not only be disastrous for 
legitimate asylum seekers, but also completely unnecessary. During 
committee markup, an amendment was adopted that extended the 30-day 
deadline to 1 year and also provided an exception to this time limit if 
the applicant had good cause to wait for more than 1 year. I found this 
acceptable because it provided legitimate asylum seekers a waiver if 
they had justifiable reasons for waiting beyond the 1-year period.
  Unfortunately, the committee report language is more restrictive with 
respect to this waiver process than I had anticipated and hoped.
  Mr. President, America has a proud history of representing a safe 
haven for those who believe in democracy and who have been tormented 
for embracing particular political and religious viewpoints. We should 
continue to do so. I intend to work with the Senator from Ohio, Senator 
DeWine, and others in restoring and guaranteeing a fair and suitable 
waiver process.
  Mr. President, as we debate this issue over the next few days, we 
must be mindful of the inherent dangers that this immigration issue 
encompasses. We find ourselves today in the heart of an election year. 
History has shown that it is not uncommon for politicians, not only 
here, but in many countries, to use the issue of immigration to further 
divide people, in this country to divide Americans along racial, 
ethnic, and cultural lines.

[[Page S4036]]

  Playing to the fears of the American people on this issue may only 
provide further ammunition to those who seek to exploit those fears and 
coax the American people into believing that immigrants come to the 
United States only to commit crimes, to collect welfare benefits, and 
to steal jobs away from working Americans. That is an injustice, not 
only to the immigrants who currently reside in the United States, but 
an injustice as well to the historical legacy of immigrants who came 
here with purpose and promise and, as we must acknowledge, built this 
great Nation.
  Let me say this at this point. I do not doubt for a minute the 
intentions of the Senator from Wyoming in this regard. In many ways he 
has been a very important source of not only expertise but moderation 
and thoughtfulness on this issue. I believe he has made a good-faith 
effort to reform a system that is clearly in need of some repair. I do 
regret that I have some fundamental disagreements with respect to how 
we should address those flaws in the current immigration system.
  I look forward to working with other Senators in attempts to improve 
this legislation and passing reforms that truly differentiate between 
those who play by the rules and those who choose to break them.
  Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, I want to join, first of all, in the 
comments that Senator Feingold made about Senator Simpson.
  Our title here is ``United States,'' not Senator from Wyoming, 
Senator from Colorado, Senator from Illinois, Senator from California 
or Wisconsin. Alan Simpson has served the people of Wyoming well. But 
he has also been a U.S. Senator who has looked at the broad scope of 
things and has been a real legislator and has contributed immensely.
  I will differ with him on this particular amendment. Let me add, I 
will differ with my friend from Wisconsin, Senator Feingold, with whom 
I rarely differ, on this matter of pilot verification that he was just 
talking about.
  Senator Simpson has reminded us over and over again on the floor that 
we have to stop the magnet that is the economic pull to people to come 
into this country illegally. So we passed, a few years ago, employer 
sanctions. It was a matter of controversy. I ended up being a minority 
on this side, joining the Senator from Wyoming and voting for that.
  Employer sanctions have not worked as well as we had hoped. I think 
the key is verification. Unless we are willing to try a pilot 
verification program, and here is where I differ with my friend from 
Wisconsin, I do not think you will have any meaningful way of stopping 
a steady flow of people who come up here for economic reasons. To say 
we are going to just have a slight tap on the wrist to employers and 
tell people who are desperate, ``We are going to be tougher on you if 
you come up here and try to work,'' they will still come up here and 
try to work.
  I point out one other reason on the verification, and that is the GAO 
report that says there is discrimination. If you appear to be Hispanic 
or Polish or Asian, and particularly if you speak with a bit of an 
accent, it is inevitable, unless we have some system of verification, 
that there is going to be discrimination. I think it is important, and 
I think we will have a close vote on this, but I think it is important 
that we have a pilot verification program.
  The question on this immediate amendment is, is it worthwhile to give 
up some basic liberties in order to have this amendment, and are we 
going to accomplish that much? I think we will not accomplish very, 
very much at all in terms of discouraging the employment of illegal 
workers here. I think it is one more step in taking away basic civil 
liberties.

  The reason this passed originally, we had a lot of problems with 
people who would be driving down the highway, and all of a sudden they 
look at a field and it looks like there are a bunch of ``foreign-
looking workers there.'' They stop, go out, and make a raid.
  We have a tradition in our country with the fourth amendment you have 
to go into court in order to have a search. We ought to abide by that. 
Now, the argument is made, well, you can have that search. You can go 
into court. How many farmers are going to go into court? It just is not 
going to happen. It makes it very costly.
  Second, whenever you give people in any field arbitrary power, 
whether it is law enforcement or anything else, there is an invitation 
to corruption. I think we have to recognize that. This can be a 
shakedown kind of thing.
  My staff has given me two examples of the kind of abuses that take 
place when you do not go in to court. As far as I know, and the Senator 
from Wyoming can correct me, as far as I know, there have been no 
denials for any Immigration Service requests to have a search of the 
field by the courts. Maybe they have existed--I do not know. In Pasco, 
WA, INS agents entered a field for 29 straight days searching for 
undocumented workers. On some occasions the agents drove their trucks 
across the bean fields, causing substantial damage to the bean crop. 
The latter part of that is not that significant, but if you want to go 
29 straight days to search somebody's field, you ought to go into court 
29 straight days to get a court OK for doing that.
  In Othello, WA, INS agents entered a farm four times in 1 month 
looking for undocumented workers. Their last three trips were without a 
warrant, and they found no undocumented workers. They arrested two 
workers who were Japanese, but it turned out they were exchange 
students who had a lawful right to be in this country.
  Finally, Mr. President, I have been here, now, 22 years in the House 
and the Senate. We always find some excuse for giving up basic civil 
liberties. I think we ought to be very, very careful on this. If there 
is an overwhelming reason to have an infringement on the fourth 
amendment that is kind of gray, maybe we should consider it. It ought 
to be an overwhelming reason. This is not an overwhelming reason to 
violate that basic constitutional protection.
  My hope is the amendment will be defeated. My vote, with all due 
respect to my friend from Wyoming, will be in opposition to his 
amendment.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I 
join with those in thanking the distinguished chairman of the 
Immigration Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee, the Senator from 
Wyoming, for what is extraordinarily thankless on a subject that 
perhaps has more controversy than almost any other I have seen since I 
have been in the U.S. Senate.
  I will give my views on the bill that is now before us, the 
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1996. I come, obviously, along with 
my colleague, Senator Boxer, from the State most heavily impacted by 
illegal immigration in the Nation. The presentation of the Immigration 
and Naturalization Service to the Judiciary Committee showed that 
California is on a tier all by itself. The estimates on numbers vary, 
but they go anywhere from 1.6 million to 2 million, 3 million, and even 
4 million people in our State illegally, depending upon whom one 
chooses to believe. Most authorities agree that the right number is in 
the vicinity of 2 million people in California illegally right now.
  One concern is overriding--that illegal immigration is a serious 
problem. Additionally, it is the responsibility of the Federal 
Government, not the States, to prevent it. Californians went to the 
ballot and overwhelmingly approved the most stringent of propositions, 
proposition 187.
  One part of proposition 187 provided that if a youngster is in this 
country illegally, he or she could not go to a public school. A teacher 
would have to act as an INS agent and ferret out that youngster and 
remove him or her from school. Even more strongly, the people said that 
if the parents are here illegally, that youngster would still be denied 
the right to a basic elementary school education.
  The people of California overwhelmingly approved it. I believe one of 
the reasons they did was out of frustration, because the Federal 
Government has not responded to what is an increasing and growing 
problem.
  The bill before us today tackles illegal immigration at the border, 
mainly by adding strength to our Border Patrol and border facilities. 
In the past 3 years, the administration and the Congress, both Houses 
and both parties, have come together, recognizing the

[[Page S4037]]

need and beginning to improve border infrastructure, such as lights and 
infrared-seeing devices, and manpower. And the Border Patrol has, for 3 
years in a row, had additions of about 700 agents a year.
  This legislation would add an additional 700 Border Patrol agents in 
the current fiscal year, and 1,000 more for the next 4 years, bringing 
the total number of agents to 4,700 by the year 1999. That is more than 
double the entire force that was in place when I came to the U.S. 
Senate 3 years ago. It would establish a 2-year pilot program for 
interior repatriation. The reason for that is, people come across, they 
are picked up, they are held for an hour, they are sent back right 
across the border to Tijuana. Three hours later, they try again, the 
same thing happens, and they try again and again. The pilot project 
would try to determine whether people who are repatriated into the 
interior of the country are less inclined or less able to cross that 
border again illegally than those not repatriated to the interior of 
the country.
  The bill would add 300 full-time INS investigators for the next 3 
fiscal years to enforce laws against alien smuggling, something that, 
today in America, is a $3 billion industry.
  As a matter of fact, last week, the Justice Department made 23 
arrests in California, which showed that organized gangs from New York 
to California were all participating in the alien smuggling of illegals 
from China to the United States in boats, transferring them to fishing 
boats, landing them, providing drop houses, and moving them back to New 
York.
  The bill would add alien smuggling and document fraud offenses to the 
list of predicate acts under our Nation's racketeering laws, something 
many Federal prosecutors have told me is extremely important.
  The bill would increase the maximum penalty for involuntary servitude 
to discourage cases like the one we saw recently, where scores of 
illegal workers from Thailand were smuggled into our country, then put 
in an apartment building with a fence around it and forced to work in 
subhuman conditions against their will in southern California.
  This bill would strengthen staffing and infrastructure at the border, 
and it would provide for facilities for incarcerating illegal aliens. 
It would require all land border crossings to be fully staffed to 
facilitate legal crossing.
  I can tell you that in San Diego, CA, at the border crossing gates, 
there are hours of waiting. There are 24 crossing gates at this one 
station. Only one-half of them are manned. Consequently, people engaged 
in legal, normal commerce sit at that gate and wait, sometimes for many 
hours, backed up in traffic.
  This bill would increase space at Federal detention facilities to at 
least 9,000 beds. That is a 66-percent increase in detention capacity 
for the incarceration of criminal aliens. I can tell you, Mr. 
President, out of 120,000 inmates in the California Department of 
Corrections, between 15,000 and 20,000 of them are illegal immigrants, 
serving felony time in California. The cost to the State is literally 
hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
  The bill would create a demonstration project in Anaheim, CA, to use 
INS personnel to identify illegal immigrants in prison, so that they 
can be more rapidly deported.
  Historically, the way Congress has handled illegal immigration is 
through what are called employer sanctions. I think the intent--
although I was not here, and the Senator from Wyoming knows far better 
than I--was that the reason most illegals--and I say ``most''--come 
here illegally is because of the lure of jobs. That is the magnet. 
Therefore, if you remove this magnet and prevent people from working 
illegally, you will deter illegal immigration.
  In order to work, though, employer sanctions need an accurate method 
of verifying whether an applicant for a job is legally entitled to 
work. Up to this point, relying primarily on employer sanctions, the 
basis on which all illegal immigration is handled in the United States, 
has been a colossal failure. The reason for the failure is that 
employers have no reliable way to determine if a prospective employee 
is legally entitled to work.
  Let me explain why. Presently, if an employer is interviewing someone 
for a job, he or she might say, ``Can you show me that you are legally 
entitled to work?'' They can present to the employer 29 different 
documents, under present law. Under present law, no prospective 
employer can say, ``May I see your green card?'' That is a violation of 
law. So they must take one, two, three or four of the 29 different 
methods of identification offered.
  If somebody came in to me and I said, ``Do you have an identification 
to show that you are a resident of California?'' They would say, ``Oh, 
yes,'' and hold up this card. I would see that it is a California 
identification card, and its address is Interlock, CA, and it has a 
State seal on it. It is encased in plastic, and it looks very legal to 
me. Wrong. This very card is a forgery. Or they might hand me a Social 
Security card, and I would look at it and see all the traditional 
signs. The paper looks right, the color looks right. There is a number 
on it and a signature, just like on my own Social Security card. Could 
I trust it? No. This is a forgery.
  The fact of the matter is that on the streets of Los Angeles, CA, you 
can buy both of these cards for under $50, and you can get them in 20 
minutes, and they can have your photograph printed on them. You can 
purchase documents there anywhere from----
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I object to this procedure. This is 
totally out of order.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coverdell). The Senator has a right to--
  Mr. SIMPSON. It is a crude exercise, a truly crude exercise.


                             CLOTURE MOTION

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  Mr. SIMPSON. What is the status of the present situation?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. A cloture motion has been sent to the desk.
  The clerk will report.
  Mr. SIMPSON. What is the correct procedure? Is that motion 
appropriate in the midst of a singular address, at the time of an 
opening statement with regard to a piece of legislation?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Allow the Chair to consult with the 
Parliamentarian.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator does not have the floor.
  The clerk will report.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I believe I had the floor, Mr. President.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, the Senator from California has the 
floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the Dorgan 
     amendment No. 3667 regarding Social Security:
         Byron L. Dorgan, Max Baucus, Daniel P. Moynihan, Barbara 
           A. Mikulski, Tom Daschle, J.J. Exon, Joe Biden, Paul 
           Simon, Joe Lieberman, John F. Kerry, Paul Sarbanes, 
           Fritz Hollings, D.K. Inouye, Wendell Ford, Claiborne 
           Pell, John Glenn, Russell D. Feingold.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California has the floor.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, before I was interrupted, the point I was trying to 
make is that no matter how well intended an employer is, it is 
extraordinarily difficult to tell the difference between real documents 
and counterfeit documents, and that is what enables illegal immigrants 
to obtain welfare. They are ineligible for cash welfare programs under 
Federal law now. However, if they have false documents, they can obtain 
the very things that they are prohibited from obtaining--whether it is 
Social Security, whether it is SSI, or whether it is AFDC.
  An entire industry of counterfeit documents has grown up in 
California. The most frequently counterfeited document is a birth 
certificate. You can pay anything from $25 for a Social Security card 
to $1,000 or more for a passport, as well as personal identification 
documents.
  These documents are so authentic-looking that employers cannot tell 
the difference. In fact, it is estimated that tens of thousands of 
illegal immigrants today receive welfare benefits in California by 
using counterfeit documents.

[[Page S4038]]

 This bill makes a major effort to reduce this problem. It reduces the 
number of acceptable employment verification documents from the current 
29 to 6 so that employers are better able to determine which documents 
are valid. Employers will only have to review 6, not 29.
  Also, the bill doubles the maximum penalties against employers who 
knowingly hire illegal aliens, increasing them from $2,000 to $4,000 
for a first offense with graduated penalties for subsequent offenses. 
Therefore, the bill adds substantial teeth to the employer-sanction 
laws. It establishes a pilot program to test the verification system 
under so that employers can readily and accurately determine an 
applicant's eligibility to work.
  The system could also be used to determine an applicant's eligibility 
for public benefits, therefore, avoiding welfare fraud. It also attacks 
the serious problem of document fraud by setting Federal standards for 
making key identification documents, birth certificates, and drivers' 
licenses tamperproof and counterfeit resistant. The result is that the 
most counterfeited document, a birth certificate, would be 
counterfeitproof, as would drivers' licenses.
  The bill before us would increase the criminal penalties for document 
fraud, including raising the maximum fine for fraudulent use of the 
Government's seal to $500,000, and increasing the fine for lying on 
immigration documents to $250,000 and 5 years in prison. The bill also 
denies the earned-income tax credit to persons here illegally.
  You might say, is this a strong, tough bill? I would have to say, 
yes. It is a strong, tough bill. Former Congresswoman Barbara Jordan 
and the immigration commission which she chaired said this eloquently. 
``We are a Nation of laws.'' We are also a Nation that has the most 
liberal immigration quotas in the world today. No country absorbs more 
foreign-born people than does the United States of America in the 
course of a year.
  So there is more opportunity for an individual to come to the United 
States than virtually any other place on Earth. Therefore, because we 
are a Nation of laws and because we have a liberal immigration system, 
it is not unjust, unfair, or unwise to require that we follow our laws 
and make sure that we enforce the prohibition against illegal entry 
into our country.
  The largest source of illegal immigration, next to visa overstays, 
comes from people who slip across our borders. That is what this bill 
addresses. The bill also addresses visa overstays. As many as 700,000 
people a year overstay their visas. This bill would require that 
immigrants who overstay their visas either be deported or be denied 
future visas. So there is some visa enforcement in this legislation.
  The need for the legislation has been and will be explained at length 
over the course of this debate. From the point of view of my State, the 
problem of illegal immigration is severe. Forty-five percent of the 
Nation's illegal immigrants now reside in California. That is between 
1.6 million and 2.3 million, as I mentioned earlier. Fifteen percent of 
illegal aliens are in our State prisons. Forty-five percent, or 
150,000, of all pending asylum applications come from people in 
California, and 35 percent, or 40,000, of the 113,000 refugees entering 
the U.S. claimed residency in California in 1993.
  Our county governments are being forced to absorb more and more of 
the costs of medical care, social services, and incarceration for 
illegal immigrants, and those costs are going up--not down. In the 
1996-1997 fiscal year, California will spend $454 million in 
incarceration costs for criminal aliens.
  So it is fair to say that the State most affected by this bill is the 
State of California. This U.S. Senator strongly supports this 
legislation. The need is very clear.
  Mr. President, at a later time, I would like to complete this 
statement, and also at the appropriate time to present a series of 
amendments that deal with certain unresolved issues.
  I have some major concerns about the triple fence in the bill, about 
the fact that cases brought under the bill be tried in Federal court 
rather than in State court, and that the deportation documents be 
written in Spanish as well as in English. I hope I can offer these 
amendments at a later time.
  I thank the Chair.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who seeks recognition?
  Mr. SIMPSON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues for their patience 
in the procedure intervening there. Without question, I see why you are 
all gathered at the desk for some reason. Yes. Is there something 
sinister going on?
  Nevertheless, we have a cloture petition which was quite 
surreptitiously slid to the desk, which was remarkable to watch. I have 
never seen that in 18 years of my presence here. I have found in my 
time here that those who remain obsessed about certain aspects of 
legislation almost always find that that obsessive behavior is often 
visited subsequently on the perpetrator.
  That is not my idea. That is just the way that works. It is always a 
more genial approach. I visited with Senator Dorgan this morning, told 
him exactly what the lay of the land was and why. I did not receive 
that same courtesy.
  Enough of that. We can debate that at any time in the future. It 
seems to me the present status of the issue is with regard to this 
amendment on the current ban on open-field searches. That is the 
amendment at hand. I would just add one dimension to that, and then I 
think we are ready to go to a rollcall vote on that, unless there is 
further debate. I ask any of those who wish to further debate this 
issue to present themselves.
  Senator Simon asked a valid question, and I cannot tell you how much 
I have enjoyed working with that gentleman through the years. We met 
when we were State legislators in 1971. We kept close ties and worked 
together here in a very steady, bipartisan fashion.
  He asked a question. He wondered if there were denials when INS 
agents sought warrants to search open fields and inquired if I knew of 
any.
  I do not know of any denials either, but I do know this, that the 
requiring of agents to prepare an affidavit, find a judge, and get a 
search warrant has resulted in a great reduction in immigration 
enforcement in agriculture. That I do know. In fact, it has practically 
eliminated employer sanctions enforcement in agriculture. Of course, 
that was the purpose of it. As I say, it was a rather unholy alliance 
at the time, still perhaps defined as that, when you have the ACLU 
joining with the agricultural growers, who I found to be absolutely 
insatitable with regard to everything I ever proposed. It is estimated 
now that 40 percent or more of the field workers in west coast 
agriculture are illegal.
  Some of my colleagues in the debate have pointed out that although 
probable cause requires more than mere appearance, immigration officers 
will search on that basis anyway. I would say, in response to that 
argument, if immigration officers would be willing to ignore the legal 
requirements for warrantless searches, why do my colleagues believe 
that these officers follow the current requirements for a warrant? I 
believe that we should assume that immigration officers, like other law 
enforcement officers, generally follow the law. Of course, there are 
exceptions. We should try to minimize the number of such exceptions by 
vigorous oversight of INS and disciplinary action against the INS 
officers who do violate the law.
  Mr. President, I remind my colleagues the reason the present ban was 
added to the law in 1986 was that there was no constitutional right at 
all of the type that my friend from Illinois, Senator Simon, had 
described. That is why only--only--INS officers are required to have a 
warrant to enter and to search open agricultural fields even when they 
have probable cause to believe that unlawful activity is taking place, 
which is the present constitutional standard and the one applied to law 
enforcement officials in every other Federal or State agency.
  Why--and this is the purpose of my amendment--should only the INS 
officers need a warrant? Of all Federal law enforcement personnel, why 
should the INS alone and their officers need a warrant even when they 
have probable cause, and only for agricultural fields? It makes no 
sense.

[[Page S4039]]

  That is a phrase that has been used in the debate from time to time, 
that something may make no sense, and in this event I think this is a 
classic case of that. Why should every single other law enforcement 
agency of the Federal Government have this power to do warrantless 
searches except the INS? The reason: to take care of growers who use 
blatantly so many illegal agricultural workers and say they are 
dependent upon them, and if they did not have them, they would go 
broke.
  I have heard that argument now for 17 years. In the course of 
responding to some of the arguments in the opening statements or 
comments, let me assure my colleagues that all of this effort here is 
not the creation of Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming. Every single thing 
that has been presented to the body has not been possibly more 
considered, more debated, more crafted--I do not know what it could 
be--than this issue because we have had it through the years with the 
Select Commission on Immigration Refugee Policy.
  That is where the ideas came from. That was the Commission in 1980. 
Some say, where do these things come from? Where does this evil spirit 
come from?
  There is no evil spirit. Everything I have been trying to do with 
regard to legal immigration is a direct result of the work of the 
Barbara Jordan Commission. I hope that that will be heard. I notice 
that sometimes detractors of the legislation will say, ``How could it 
possibly be that we are turning our back?''
  ``How can it possibly be that we are so treating these people who 
play by the rules?''
  ``How can it possibly be that we could turn our back on the Statue of 
Liberty?''
  Ladies and gentlemen, we are not doing that. Does anyone here believe 
that former Congresswoman Barbara Jordan would be involved in such an 
effort? That is absurd and bizarre.
  When someone says, ``Well, do you realize this is going to apply to 
everyone?'' the answer is, yes, it will apply to everyone. When we do 
this final procedure, whether it is this year or in 6 years or in 10 
years, and when we have a more secure and verifiable document and when 
we have a more secure system, whether it is the call system or whether 
it is documentation or whatever it may be, of course, it will apply to 
everyone. If it did not, then it would be truly discriminatory.
  If it is some document, are we going to ask it only of people who 
look foreign? Of course not. It is for people who look foreign and bald 
Anglo-Saxons like me, too. That is how it works. It happens only twice 
in a lifetime. You use it when you are seeking funds from a State or 
Federal Government on welfare or public assistance; you present or go 
through this verification procedure. That is one. The other one is 
simply at the time of seeking employment. That is two. That is it. 
There is no third strike and you are out. That is it.
  We hear of the great burden placed on American citizens. Ladies and 
gentlemen, why do you think proposition 187 came about? It came about 
because of the great burden on the people of California who are tired 
of that burden. The greatest burden on the people of the United States 
is people who are gimmicking and using our systems. That is a lot 
greater gimmick, a lot greater burden than somebody asking when they go 
to work--and remember you already do that when you go to work. There is 
a form called the I-9. It is one page. I hear the argument, what will 
employers think when they have to go through this exercise? I tell you 
what they will probably think: ``Thank Heaven somebody came to change 
the law so we wouldn't have to go through 29 documents. Thank Heaven 
somebody changed the law so that if I ask a person for a different or 
additional document, I am not charged with discrimination. Thank Heaven 
they are going to start working out something where I do not need the 
I-9.'' That is in this bill. That is what we have. All of these so-
called reforms that are sometimes rather negatively portrayed, all came 
from either the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy, 
chaired by Ted Hesburgh, or the Commission on Immigration Reform 
chaired by former Congresswoman Barbara Jordan. They were not ripped 
from the air to vex American employers, nor were they ripped from the 
air to turn our back on our heritage of legal immigration. That is not 
where they came from. They have a fine-founded, deep-rooted source in 
the realistic work of two very splendid commissions. I hope that will 
be recalled in the course of the activities.

  I call the question on the amendment with regard to open field 
searches.
  Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kempthorne). The Chair recognizes the 
Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, this issue, although a fresh one for 
Congress, is an issue that has been out there and around for a number 
of years. It was debated on the floor of the U.S. Senate in 1983 and 
1986. I will make some brief comments. I know there have been some 
excellent comments made by Senator Simon, Senator DeWine, and others, 
but I will just very briefly mention my concerns about what this 
proposal would do and what it would not do.
  It is important to point out exactly what the statutory prohibition 
against open field searches is about. It does not prevent law 
enforcement authorities from engaging in searches if they observe 
criminal conduct such as drug activity taking place. So, if they 
observe criminal conduct, they can move towards the presence in the 
field in pursuit of the illegal activity which has been observed.
  All this does is it simply prevents INS officials from walking onto a 
field without a warrant and demanding that workers produce immigration 
documents. If the INS conducts a search, for example, in the front 
office, they need a warrant. If they conduct a search in the barn, they 
need a search warrant. In 1986, provisions simply stated if they do it 
in the fields, they have to get a warrant as well.
  The prohibition against warrantless open-field searches ensures that 
foreign-looking agricultural workers are not subjected to harassment or 
unfair treatment simply because of the color of their skin. We know 
now, by and large, those who are working out in the fields are American 
citizens, ever since we freed ourselves from the bracero program. There 
are a number of illegals out there as well. It is difficult to estimate 
the percentage, to be sure. But, by most observations, the great 
majority of the individuals who are working out in those fields are 
American citizens. So we are talking about protecting American 
citizens.
  If, as we said, the search is going to be in the front office or out 
in the barn, there has to be a warrant. Why? Because we are concerned 
about the rights and liberties of American citizens. The American 
citizens working out in the field, if there are observations about 
activities, there is every legitimate reason and authority to pursue 
those. But, nonetheless, what we have to do is look at what the 
conditions were prior to 1986. We see the abuses that were rampant in 
many parts of the country by the INS, just for the very reasons we are 
outlining our opposition to the amendment which has been identified 
today.
  This is not just an issue of protection for the individuals. It is 
also an issue of safety. I will not take the time to read into the 
Record about what has happened when there is a sudden INS raid in some 
of these agricultural areas in the fields, about trucks moving across 
the open fields, sometimes in the evening time, and the great distress 
and the panic that anyone would feel when they are confronted with 
significant numbers of police authority chasing them through the fields 
in search of various identity cards.
  That happened. That was more the case than not during that period of 
time. Then, in 1986, we insisted on getting a warrant in order to try 
to address that issue. I find there has been very little, other than 
general observations, that would justify going back to the law prior to 
1986.

  The prohibition against the warrant- less open-field searches ensures 
that foreign-looking agricultural workers are not subjected to 
harassment or unfair treatment simply because of the color of their 
skin. Those who support the repeal of the statutory ban contend that 
the fourth amendment provides sufficient protection against the 
unreasonable searches of agricultural workers. This is simply not the 
case. Nor is the fact that INS officers, without this provision, would 
be able to enter open fields with impunity and be able to ask

[[Page S4040]]

anyone for identification. The fourth amendment was around prior to 
1986, and this is when all these abuses occurred.
  The reason for this warrant has been well documented in the abuses 
that took place prior to 1986. If anyone goes back and reads the record 
during that period, there is page after page about what was happening 
out in the fields and the real issues of safety for many American 
citizens who were working in the fields at that time as a result of 
these kinds of raids.
  Since then, we have had the warrant. I do not believe the case has 
really been made in the course of the hearings that that has really 
impeded the effectiveness in trying to deal with the fundamental issues 
of jobs in the workplace. We are working on that issue. We have 
provided very important, I think, additional steps, both in trying to 
reach documents in terms of the antifraud provisions that have been 
built into this legislation, including the pilot programs that will be 
initiated to find out what is effective, and in protecting American 
workers from displacement or as a result of foreign workers. The 
prohibition against the warrantless open-field searches is working 
well. It is a necessary safeguard against the abuses of individual 
rights. We should retain it.
  I have a more extensive comment upon that measure, which I will 
perhaps get into later on, or include it as part of the Record.
  Mr. President, it is now 2:30, 20 minutes of 3. We have been on this 
legislation since 10:30 this morning. We have taken a number of the 
amendments, half a dozen amendments that might have been found to be 
not germane if we moved toward cloture. I know there are others as 
well, and those are important, extremely important, measures. I think 
the Senate should address them at some time on the basis of their 
merits. But we are in the situation now where we have a cloture motion 
that has been entered on the Dorgan amendment that will ripen, based 
upon the Senate schedule, probably an hour after we go into business on 
Friday or at a time when the majority leader effectively chooses, based 
upon his ability to move toward this measure.
  We are faced, again, with the situation that if we move toward a 
cloture motion--for example, say, we were able to move it on the 
underlying amendment--that would have to be done prior to a cloture 
motion on the bill. Because if we put a cloture motion on the bill, all 
that we have done today would effectively be discarded. So we would 
need to have a cloture motion on the underlying amendments in order to 
have them acceptable, so that we would have them irrelevant. Then you 
would need a cloture motion, and if that was not taken, or if we did 
get it, there would still be 30 hours on that proposal and then you 
would get a cloture motion on the underlying legislation on which there 
would be some 30 hours.
  So we have ourselves now wrapped into a situation in which, I must 
say, in terms of the overall progress on this legislation, even though 
we have spent the full day on it, is difficult really to perceive what 
is being accomplished. Even if we continue to go on to additional 
amendments that would be offered, we would, by necessity, have to 
address the Dorgan amendment first. Or there is the possibility of 
possible disposition of the Dorgan amendment prior to the time that we 
would move toward other action.
  That is really a question and issue up to the majority leader. But I 
am reminded now as we come to a quarter of 3 in the afternoon, that we 
are going to be voting cloture on the Dorgan amendment. Even if they 
get cloture, we would still have some period of time before we would be 
able to move to these other issues. If we get cloture on the underlying 
amendment, which has been amended today, there still would be a period 
of time for Senators to comment on that before we ever got a cloture 
motion on the bill itself, and all because we have not had the ability 
to get a limited period of time to vote on the minimum wage, 
effectively, and Senator Dorgan's as well. We will have spent all of 
this time, whichever amount of time that we have that is now going to 
be required for Senate action--and I am prepared on these matters to 
vote. I would like to speak and address the Senate briefly. But I 
think, as we see during the course of the day, we have not trespassed 
on the Senate's time.
  Basically, on the earlier amendments, we were making brief comments 
in support of them. These are measures which we have debated and 
discussed during the course of our own deliberations. As a matter of 
fact, this amendment, I think, was rejected in the Judiciary Committee 
when it was addressed by the members of the committee. So these are not 
really new issues for many of us on the Judiciary Committee, very 
important measures for all of the members. But many of us have--all of 
us, I think, on the committee have--taken positions on it.
  So, we are quite prepared to justify those positions, raise some of 
our concerns, and move forward. But because we are denying at least a 
1-hour consideration--we could cut that even further on this 
legislation--or giving us a time definite on a clear bill on the 
minimum wage with time allocated, we have effectively spun the wheels 
of the Senate during the course of the day. We will be coming back to 
revisit these measures, as well as the underlying measure, as well as 
the Dorgan amendment because of the cloture motion, in the next several 
days.
  So it gets back to the question whether we are going to do this 
nicely or not do it nicely. We are quite ready to try to work out a 
time definite for a vote on the minimum wage and to do it with a short 
timeframe. I know the Senator from North Dakota is prepared to do that, 
to move ahead in terms of all the different amendments on this 
legislation and consider those. I certainly would support that way of 
proceeding.
  But, effectively, all of our interests and all of our rights are 
being shaved because of the unwillingness of the majority leader, in 
this case, to give us a chance to vote on this measure. Here we are at 
a quarter of 3, having thought we were really making progress, and 
finding ourselves tied up on an issue which is of enormous importance 
and in which the Senator from Wyoming and the Senator from California 
and other Members have spent a long time and understand how important 
it is as an issue for this country.
  So we are caught in this particular dilemma. We are caught in the 
dilemma where we want to see action or resolution on the illegal 
immigration, but we also feel that we ought to be able to have a short 
time period set aside to speak to the issues which are of fundamental 
economic importance to 13 million American families. We think their 
interests are important, too. We think their interests should at least 
demand a half hour or an hour of the Senate's time this afternoon. We 
think their interests should be addressed in a reasonable way or an 
agreement made that, if not upon this bill, that we will be at least 
afforded an opportunity to do it as a clean bill so as not to interfere 
with the ordinary deliberations of the Senate.

  We have had brief discussions and comments earlier today about why we 
did not bring this up before. We have explained about those major 
issues that we were addressing in the last Congress, the comprehensive 
health program that would have made about a 40- or 50-cents-an-hour 
additional benefit to workers. The workers themselves and working 
families have said they would prefer that measure to just the increase 
in the minimum wage. After we had disposed of that, unfortunately, the 
workers themselves were left further behind, and now it gives an 
additional sense of urgency for the increase in the minimum wage.
  A number of us over a year ago began the process of raising this 
issue in sense-of-the-Senate resolutions, as amendments, or wherever we 
possibly could. Each and every time, even though a large number of the 
Members of the Senate supported the Senate addressing this issue--and 
on the last vote that we had, we had Republican and Democrat Senators 
alike; a majority, including unanimity among the Democrats and a very 
strong group of Republicans who indicated that they supported it. 
Raising the minimum wage is the majority will of the Senate.
  We are just asking for the Senate to be able to make a statement, 
make a judgment. We may be successful; we may not be. But I do believe 
that we are entitled to a determination of what the will of the Senate 
is on that particular issue. So, we are caught in this

[[Page S4041]]

situation where we effectively are being denied that. But we are still 
asked to go ahead and consider some of the measures on the immigration 
bill.
  On the one hand, they are saying, look, why are we not just going 
ahead on the immigration bill and trying to move ahead? And on the 
other hand, we are asking, at least--we are quite prepared to move 
ahead on immigration, but at some time, somewhere, somehow, we ought to 
be permitted to get a time where we can address this question of the 
minimum wage.
  None of us were denied the opportunity to make some progress this 
morning on some of these measures. But at some time we have to ask 
ourselves, when and who is going to speak for those Americans and 
American families that are on the bottom rung of the economic ladder 
and speak for them to make sure that their economic interests are 
attended to? We continue every single day--every single day--to read 
more about corporate profits and corporate salaries. We read about the 
increasing accumulation of wealth in the top 1 percent, 5 percent. We 
have come to understand the continued loss of those working families 
that are on the bottom rung of these matters.
  We have seen in the last 20 years a 25-percent increase in 
productivity and about a 25-percent reduction in terms of purchasing 
power for workers earning the minimum wage, which is completely 
incongruous.
  What is most troublesome of all, Mr. President, is when we have had 
this issue that has been before us and where we have had statements, 
``Well, we're trying to work out a process to be able to address it,'' 
we have the majority leader in the House of Representatives coming up 
today--and it is printed in newspapers all over this country--who says, 
``Well, we've got a new way of addressing the economic problems of the 
needy in our society. What we are going to do is abolish the earned-
income tax credit,'' which President Reagan had indicated was the best 
program to address the problems of poverty in this country--strong 
support by a Republican President.
  We have the statements that were made by Mr. Armey that we are going 
to phase that down and collect $15 billion in the next 5 years, 5 to 7 
years--$15 billion. We know where that is going to be collected from 
with the elimination of the earned-income tax credit. That is going to 
come from these same working families that are eligible for the 
increase in the minimum wage. Then what we will do is we will still 
keep the minimum wage where it is, but we will develop a massive new 
subsidy entitlement program that will be run by the Internal Revenue 
Service that will provide the difference between the $4.25 and the $7 
or $8 an hour depending upon how many children the particular worker 
had, which would be basically a subsidy to these industries--a taxpayer 
subsidy to the industries. It would cost the taxpayers a great deal 
more because they would have to provide for the funding and the 
resources to be able to pay that subsidy, and at the same time instead 
of letting these families rise out of poverty, which effectively would 
reduce their ability to draw upon the various safety net programs, 
because their incomes would move up to be too high. If we raise the 
minimum wage, on the other hand, they would go out of those safety net 
programs and thereby be less of a drag on the American taxpayers 
because they would then no longer be eligible for these programs. So we 
would save tax revenues there.

  That is an important part of this whole proposal. By providing the 
increase in the minimum wage, we would be cutting some in those safety 
net programs by moving people above the eligibility thresholds. They 
would be making more than they had been, so they would not be eligible 
for support systems. That saves funds and resources that would have to 
be paid in by American taxpayers.
  But, no, our Republican friends say, no, we will leave it at $4.25. 
We will draw down some $15 billion from these same families. We will 
put in place a new entitlement program run by the Internal Revenue 
Service. When I heard that I was so surprised that the leaders of the 
Republican House who have been spending all of their time castigating 
the IRS, now believe they can run a complicated program that will pay 
so much an hour to someone that has one child, so much an hour to 
someone that has two children, if they are married, so much, so much if 
they are separated, and follow this monthly, evidently, across the 
landscape wherever these needy people are going to be--imagine the 
bureaucracy that will be needed, imagine what the costs will be for 
that bureaucracy, and what it would mean for these people.
  Mr. President, this is a wonderful, wonderful program because as Mr. 
Armey pointed out, they would save $15 billion out of the earned-income 
tax credit. The value of the increase in the minimum wage is $3.7 
billion in one year. For those people that say that this is an 
inflationary kind of impact, $3.7 billion in 1 year when the total GDP 
is about $7 trillion, and our budget, $1.65 or $1.7 trillion we are 
talking about--of course it is not inflationary. We are talking about 
$3.7 billion that will be added to the value of good work, for working 
families in this country.
  There is another reason that I believe it was urgent to bring this 
measure up on the floor today. We do not see, really, any interest by 
the leadership, the opposition leadership, in trying to work out, at 
least, some important and responsible alternative.
  I am basically opposed to trying to compromise this measure any 
longer, because quite frankly, when my initial proposal was advanced, 
it was for three 50-cent increases with an inflator to correspond to 
the increased cost of living.
  What did we do in terms of compromising that effort to try and bring 
people together on it? We said, ``All right, we will drop the third 
year even though by that time it will be justified merely to maintain 
the cost of living. We will put that aside, and beyond that we will put 
aside the cost of living inflator as well. We will put those two 
aside.'' Mr. President, that was a painful decision in terms of trying 
to protect the purchasing power of working families.
  Now we are being asked to say, ``All right. Just wait around a little 
while. Sometime when we get ready to do it, we are going to do 
something. You will get a vote on something that will deal with wages, 
something that will deal with some other matters that you might not 
like.'' That is generally the way it is put. ``You might not like the 
combination of things we put together but you will get your vote.''
  We reject that out of hand. Working families ought to reject it 
because that is failing to provide the kind of respect for those 
families that they deserve. You are toying with the lives of those 
families that are at such high risk today. So many of those, 
Mr. President, are women that are out there, working, and working hard, 
and the impact of the increase in the minimum wage is very, very 
important in terms of their children.

  This is basically a women's issue and basically a children's issue. 
There will be 7 million females that will be affected; 5 million of 
those are adult women. Four million of those women are 25 years of age 
or older. Of the 12 to 13 million that will be affected, 4 million will 
be women 25 years of age or older. We find when we study this measure, 
when we look at those that are heads of households and those that are 
being affected or impacted by this, we find that, once again, it is the 
great majority of women that are the ones that are affected.
  Mr. President, 60 percent of all the women who are working to earn 
the minimum wage are married and 23 percent are single heads of 
household. That represents 2 million women who are the heads of 
household with children. It is almost unbelievable that any person in 
this country who is a head of a household, single, woman, dependent on 
the minimum wage at $4.25 an hour is going to be able to make it for 
herself and for her children. And this is at a time when we have seen 
our own earnings here in the Senate increase three times since the last 
increase in the minimum wage. We see where corporate income has gone up 
23 percent in this last year alone.
  Mr. President, in all of the reports that we have seen, even as of 
this morning from the Council of Economic Advisers, all of them 
describe how well this economy is basically doing, how sound it is 
today. We did not have nearly the strength in the American economy in 
1989 that we have at the present time. At that time we had

[[Page S4042]]

President Bush supporting this measure and a majority of the 
Republicans, including Senator Dole, Congressman Gingrich, supporting 
the increase of the minimum wage. What has changed? We have the real 
purchasing power now for those workers being as low as it was in 1989, 
when the economy was not as strong and when we still took action on the 
minimum wage. Why not now?
  One of the arguments, of course, is that we will lose jobs. This is 
very interesting, Mr. President, because sometime in the future we will 
talk about the various studies, 12 in all, that show just the opposite. 
I will not take the time this afternoon to get into them, but if you 
look at the various studies that have been done with regard to the 
minimum wage, you cannot make that case about losing the jobs. You can 
take a more important relevant factor, and that is what is happening in 
the States recently.
  My State of Massachusetts, over the objection and over the veto of 
our Republican Governor, increased the minimum wage by 50 cents. What 
has happened since the increase took effect in January of this year? 
What has happened is unemployment has gone down in Massachusetts, and 
unemployment in our neighboring State of New Hampshire, which did not 
raise it, has gone up.
  I hope we will have a chance to debate those issues about loss of 
jobs. It is always interesting to hear those who are opposed to an 
increase in the minimum wage saying, ``I am concerned about those young 
minorities and all those Americans that are needy. We want to protect 
them.'' All you have to do is look at the studies that are out there, 
about what they want--94 percent of them want an increase. They are 
prepared to see an increase in the minimum wage because they do not 
believe, as I do not believe, that it will threaten their job.
  Imagine you had over 120 million Americans working.
  If you took 100 people that were making the minimum wage today and 
said it will be a 1-percent loss of jobs, but you can have a 25-percent 
increase in your pay, what do you think their reaction is going to be? 
``We want to get that increase, and we will take our chances.'' We 
believe that job loss is a myth, as has been demonstrated in study 
after study. Job growth is happening in my own State of Massachusetts, 
and in other States, and nationally we will be able to see an expansion 
of the job market, which has been true in many cases.
  So, Mr. President, we find that the case is compelling. We have the 
various studies about the minimum wage, about what has happened 
historically on this minimum wage, going back to the year 1949, on the 
issues of job growth or job loss. We went, in 1949, from 40 cents to 75 
cents. The national economy improved from 5.9 unemployment to 5.3 
percent. In 1955, it went from 75 cents to $1. In 1961, from $1 to 
$1.15. Unemployment decreased from 6.7 to 5.5 percent. It went from 
$1.25 to $1.40 in 1967. In 1974, it went from $1.60 to $2. Despite a 
recession, retail employment increased from 1978 to 1981. Employment 
increased by 8.3 million jobs and 1.4 million retail jobs. From 1990 to 
1991, a recession that was underway quickly leveled off.
  Mr. President, I do not believe that those statements and studies 
that proclaim the dangers of job loss can really be justified. They 
certainly cannot in terms of the history of the increase in the minimum 
wage. Mr. President, all you have to do is look at this chart here, 
which demonstrates the increase in the total number of jobs, up to 
about 118 million jobs from 108 million in 1991.
  Since we had the increase in 1991, we have seen the steady increase 
in the total employment numbers. And look at what has happened in the 
most recent times, in my own State of Massachusetts, and look at what 
happened the last time we increased the minimum wage.
  Mr. President, this chart is another indication about what has been 
happening. This is from 1979 to 1993. ``Growing apart. Real family 
income.'' This is what happened in terms of America's working families. 
From 1959 to 1970, each of these groups, the bottom 20, second 20, and 
mid 20, all across the top all moved up together. From 1980 to 1993, we 
have seen a growing apart in America. Those on the bottom rungs have 
been falling further and further behind.
  Mr. President, you can see on this chart here about what has been 
happening to the purchasing power of the minimum wage. In constant 
dollars, you go as high as $6.45 in 1966, and $5.95 in 1976. It went up 
a small amount in 1990-91 as the increase in the minimum wage took 
effect--some 90 cents, and since that time, it has been dropping. It 
would, today, be right down there at the lowest level in 40 years. That 
is measuring the real purchasing power.
  At the same time, Mr. President, here we have the difference between 
what has been happening to the Dow Jones Industrial Average, somewhat 
below 2,000 here, and up over above 5,000 now. This is between 1979 and 
1995. This is good. This is an indication of economic strength and 
growth. We are glad these are the circumstances. But, on the other 
hand, look at what has been happening, in purchasing power, to the 
minimum wage. As the Dow Jones has been going up in that very steep 
rise, we see the real minimum wage going lower and lower.
  Mr. President, this chart here shows what is happening to the real 
pay of workers, and in terms of the CEOs' pay. ``Green Tree is a Money 
Tree.'' ``$65.6 Million Package Angers Compensation Critics.'' These 
are newspaper articles. We find these extraordinary increases.
  Mr. President, compare CEO pay with what happens in a minimum wage 
family. Three weeks of earnings. This chart indicates the $510 a 
minimum wage family would have earned compared with the tens of 
thousands of dollars a CEO of a major company would have earned and the 
dramatic disparity that has taken place.
  Here are the final two charts, Mr. President. Wage earners from $4.25 
to $5.14. Who are these individuals? What you see here is 31 percent 
are 16 to 19 years old. Over 20 years of age, almost 70 percent.
  Mr. President, if you take the total value of earnings of the 90-cent 
increase in the minimum wage, 76 percent of that money will go to a 
family that is below the average income for the Nation. That is, 76 
percent will accrue to families in the lower half of incomes.
  That is an important figure. I do not believe it is as dramatic as 
the 2 million American women that are single heads of households with 
children, trying to make a go of it, but it is dramatic.
  This chart shows 60 percent are women and for men, some 40 percent. 
Again, it is an issue for women, an issue for children, and it is an 
issue of fundamental economic justice. This Senate is familiar with 
this issue. It is uncomplicated. We have debated it and discussed it. 
It is time that the majority leader gives us a time to vote on a clean 
bill with time limits.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I will inquire of my friend from 
Massachusetts, Senator Kerry. How much time do you require?
  Mr. KERRY. I ask my friend for maybe 10 minutes. I do not think I 
will use it all.
  Mr. SIMPSON. I am trying to get a unanimous-consent request to a time 
certain for the vote on this amendment. So if I might get Senator 
Kennedy's attention. I am trying to obtain a unanimous-consent 
agreement that a vote occur on or in relation to the pending amendment 
at the hour of 3:40, or at a time when the group returns from the White 
House with regard to the activities in the signing of the antiterrorist 
bill. Would that be appropriate at 3:40 so our Members might be 
apprised of this?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Well, Mr. President, I will consult with the leadership 
to find out what the disposition is. At that time, I will report 
immediately to the Senator. They will not be returning until 3:30 or 
3:45, Republicans and Democrats alike. So we are in a situation where 
we are not in a position to make the judgment at this time. As soon as 
the leaders return, we will consult with them to find out what their 
disposition would be in terms of this issue.
  Mr. SIMPSON. The pending business is the amendment. Let me respond 
briefly to the remarks of Senator Kennedy. I am fully aware--I think 
all of us are aware--of what this is. It is, again, an attempt to drive 
the issue of minimum wage into the work of the

[[Page S4043]]

U.S. Senate. There is nothing else to this. I referred to it earlier in 
the day as somewhat like theater, with myself in the role of Puck and 
Senator Kennedy in the role of King Lear. It is about class warfare.
  It is about the rich versus the poor. It is about poor women and poor 
children. Ladies and gentleman, if we cannot grasp the issue of what we 
are talking about--we are talking about an issue which on one side the 
economists tell us that, if it passes, employers will quit hiring 
anybody.
  I love the debate about human rights. It is a touching thing. But the 
best human right is a job. You do not get a job if the employer is not 
hiring people.
  It is always stunning to me that some--I do not attribute to a person 
in any sense--but some who have this strange feeling that they love 
employees and hate employers. Employers employ employees.
  I heard one part of the debate several days ago that the taxpayers 
are not going to pay this--that the employers are going to pay it. 
Well, who are employers? Employers are taxpayers.
  It is the most remarkable flight of phantasmagoria, whether it is 
spun--whatever way you spin it--or whether we do it nicely, or whether 
we have to do it harshly, or whether we just watch a continual 
obsessive activity with two amendments that everybody knows are good 
stuff. It is pretty molten right now--dealing, mix them while they are 
hot. And they are molten, and everybody is watching. But that is really 
not the way it is.
  What we ought to do is just get right with it because if we do not 
America will stop, and we will be dealing with illegal immigration in a 
separate matter.
  I am not obsessed with illegal immigration. Let me say that. If you 
want to bury the dead right now on that, that is fine with me. I do not 
think the issue will go away. But I want the Record to be very clear 
where the sponsor of the legislation is. And the sponsor of this 
legislation is saying you can do anything you want with this. I have 
plenty of work to do. I am missing a hearing today on veterans that I 
was to chair as chairman of that committee.
  I am stunned at the essence of the debate and the class warfare 
aspects about it.
  So I just want to throw into the mix so we all chomp around on it. It 
is like bear meat. The more you chew it, the bigger it gets.
  I know this is shocking. We should not really ever do this. But the 
Congressional Budget Office reports. Guess who pays the taxes in 
America? Who pays the most taxes? The rich. I know that is a shocking 
thing. I wish I had not said it.
  So let us just put it in. The top 1 percent of all tax, the top 1 
percent of the people in America, pay 15.8 percent of all taxes. The 
top 5 percent of all the rich in America pay 31 percent of all taxes. 
The top 10 percent of all the ugly rich in America pay 42.7 percent of 
the taxes. And the top 20 percent pay 59.2 percent of the taxes that 
fuel the Government of the United States. And most of them are called 
``employers.'' I guess the rest of them are called ``rich.''

  But I have always had a philosophy that we should not talk about the 
rich versus the poor. We should not talk about hitting them a little 
more. What we should do is confiscate every cent of those on the 
Forbe's list and the Fortune 500--take it all, every stock certificate, 
every Treasury bill, every yacht, every ranch--and guess what? It would 
be about $349 billion, and would run the country for 83 days.
  It is absolutely bizarre to hear exercises of that nature with regard 
to the rich versus the poor while the real issue is how do you get a 
job and how do you keep a job? If we are talking about the women, the 
children, and all the rest of it in theater, then let us let the 
American people know. No wonder they look at both sides and all of us 
in these types of debates and say, ``I mean, I cannot believe it.''
  Does anybody here think that those--some of us--over here care less 
about children, or less about women, or less about men, or the poor? 
Bizarre, absurd, and offensive, best described as absolutely offensive 
that somehow those of us on the other side of an issue are simply 
uncaring, and do not have any compassion. That is balderdash of the 
first order.
  And I guess, as someone said, ``minimum wages'' mean minimum jobs. As 
one person said, they say there are 8 million new jobs. I know. I have 
three of them.
  So that is where we are. But where we really are is dealing with 
illegal immigration and that is going to be difficult enough.
  I just have been advised of a remarkable thing which I will put in 
the Record--a news release that the INS has given us phony figures on 
legal immigration. Instead of 800,000, it would be closer to 1 million, 
and here they were--their minions were giving us a press conference the 
day we are debating this bill on March 28 so that everybody could read 
up and see how we are diddling America. We do not need to do anything 
up here because the report released that day said ``widely 
circulated.'' Oh, indeed it was. They said, ``Well, we reported what it 
was. We just did not spin the future.''
  So they have left us now with a situation under any scenario where 
legal immigration is going to go up a million a year, and that they 
have lied to us and given us phony figures that there are at least 
100,000 to 150,000 persons a year off.

  So now we are going to have that debate. Somewhere along the line we 
are going to have an honest debate about honest numbers. I think the 
people of America will demand that. I would like to know how anyone is 
going to get around addressing that issue with this kind of Jim 
Crackry, and it is extraordinary. It is hard to imagine.
  I cannot imagine my friend, Doris Meissner, being part of that. I am 
sure she will have an opportunity to explain her position because there 
will certainly be hearings that will be joined in a bipartisan way on 
that particular bizarre and false information which was to prevent us 
from doing anything in the law to lower legal immigration because they, 
bless them, were doing it themselves, and they lied. That is another 
one in this line of work that goes with our particular conduct.
  So now I ask unanimous consent that the vote occur on or in relation 
to the pending amendment 3730 at the hour of 3:30, and, further, that 
time be divided as follows: Senator Kerry, 10 minutes; and Senator 
DeWine, 5 minutes.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.
  Mr. KERRY. Reserving the right to object, those times go beyond 3:30. 
It is contradictory. If you have 5 minutes and 10 minutes, it goes 
beyond 3:30. Therefore, if the order is set for 3:30, to fill the time 
we do not vote at 3:30. The unanimous consent request asked for a total 
of 15 minutes and it is now almost 20 after. I am trying to reconcile.
  Mr. SIMPSON. I amend my request to the time of 3:40.
  Mr. KERRY. Thank you.
  Mr. CRAIG. Reserving the right to object, Mr. President, I must tell 
the chairman that I am opposed to this amendment. I need the time to 
express that opposition, and I would ask for 5 minutes to do so.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, that is perfectly appropriate. We have 
been holding the amendment open and asking for those who wished to 
debate it, and Senator DeWine has been good and vigorous in that. I 
appreciate having the participation.
  I would expand the unanimous-consent request to 3:45 for an extra 5 
minutes for the Senator from Idaho.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I appreciate the chairman for accommodating 
me. I have been chairing the Veterans' Committee in his behalf. I thank 
him very much.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Now wait. That deserves a little added comment, Mr. 
President. He indeed can have any time he wants.
  Mr. CRAIG. I thank the manager.
  Mr. SIMPSON. I was required to chair a hearing and could not do that, 
and my friend from Idaho graciously agreed to do that with the 
Secretary of Veterans Affairs. I deeply appreciate that. Here I am 
urging him to come forth and he was doing my work. My abject apologies. 
I appreciate what he did do for me today in every respect.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the request by the 
Senator from Wyoming? The Chair hears none, and it is so ordered.
  Mr. KERRY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts is recognized 
for up to 10 minutes.

[[Page S4044]]

  Mr. KERRY. I thank the Chair, and I thank the Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. President, let me respond, if I may, to a couple of comments made 
by the Senator from Wyoming. I am pleased to support the efforts of my 
senior colleague from Massachusetts, Senator Kennedy, and I thank him 
for his persistent efforts to try to push this on the agenda. I regret 
that the reaction of my colleague from Wyoming is to suggest that 
raising the minimum wage is somehow not an appropriate effort in the 
Senate; that it is intruding on business of the Senate.
  Raising the minimum wage is the business of the Senate. It is the 
business of the Senate particularly when you consider the fact that all 
four of the amendments approved for debate are amendments of the 
Republican Party. In effect, what is happening here is that the 
legitimate process of the Senate under the rules by which amendments 
are permitted, are part of the business of the Senate, the minimum wage 
is being closed out by parliamentary tactics of the Republican Party 
that does not want a vote on it.
  I would suggest respectfully to my friend that this is not an issue 
of class warfare. There are countless rich people in America who 
support raising the minimum wage. There are countless people at the 
middle, at the upper, and at the very top level of our economy, all of 
whom believe that it is fair to raise the minimum wage.
  I ask unanimous consent that an article which appeared in the Wall 
Street Journal, which one might have thought would not have articulated 
such an opinion, on April 19, last week, be printed in the Record. It 
is an article which says, ``Minimal Impact From Minimum Wage. Increase 
Won't Have Much Effect on Economy.''
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

             [From the Wall Street Journal, Apr. 19, 1996]

                    Minimal Impact From Minimum Wage


               increase won't have much effect on economy

                           (By Jackie Calmes)

       Washington.--Here's an economic prediction should Congress, 
     as suddenly seems likely, raise the minimum wage: The costs 
     will be smaller than opponents suggest, just as the benefits 
     will fall short of supporters' claims.
       While nearly all economists agree a minimum-wage increase 
     can theoretically cost jobs and spike inflation if some 
     employers cut payrolls or raise prices in response, they add 
     hastily that actual effects depend on the specific proposal 
     at hand. And President Clinton's relatively modest call for a 
     90-cent increase over two years, to $5.15 an hour, would have 
     little negative impact, most agree. The same would be true if 
     a liberal Republican proposal for a $1 increase became law.
       But even if such increases wouldn't hurt the economy, they 
     likewise would do little to help average workers even though 
     Democrats have made the issue a fundamental part of their 
     response to the problem of continued wage stagnation. Labor 
     economist Gary Burtless of the Brookings Institution, a 
     proponent of the minimum-wage increase, says flatly, ``It's 
     not going to help the middle-class worker.''
       Whenever an increase is the issue, some conservative 
     economists and lawmakers always are tempted to refight the 
     original Depression-era battle over whether there should be 
     such a law in the first place. ``I find it hard to support an 
     increase in the minimum wage at all,'' says economist Marvin 
     Kosters at the American Enterprise Institute.
       But on the narrower question of the increase now proposed, 
     a broad range of economists generally come together. That is 
     illustrated by the endorsement from 101 of them, including 
     several Nobel laureates, of the president's initiative. They 
     concluded the overall impact on workers and the economy would 
     be positive.
       Likewise, Chairman Joseph Stiglitz of Mr. Clinton's Council 
     of Economic Advisers cites the modest level of the proposed 
     increase and the declining value of the current $4.25-an-hour 
     rate, now at a 40-year low in buying power. He says this 
     explains why his current support for an increase doesn't 
     contradict the negative things that, as a university 
     professor, he once wrote about the minimum wage in an 
     economics textbook.
       Yesterday, at a meeting with House Democrats, Treasury 
     Secretary Robert Rubin said a moderate increase would have 
     ``no statistical effect on the economy.'' He called the 
     proposal ``without question . . . the right thing to do four 
     our economy.''
       Still, there are costs; the question is how much.
       Lawrence Lindsey, a governor at the Federal Reserve Board, 
     says internal staff studies suggest a 90-cent increase would 
     reduce employment by about 400,000 jobs over the long term. 
     And that could have implications for inflation, he said. 
     Assuming roughly half of those who lose jobs join the ranks 
     of the structurally unemployed, the ``natural rate'' of 
     unemployment--that is, the rate below which inflation begins 
     to accelerate--would rise somewhat. And Fed Chairman Alan 
     Greenspan recently told a House subcommittee, ``I think the 
     evidence is persuasive'' that a boost in the wage floor 
     increases unemployment.
       John Taylor, an economics professor at Stanford University 
     who was a member of President George Bush's Council of 
     Economic Advisers, says of a minimum-wage increase, ``I'm 
     pretty much of the view, having looked at it and written 
     about it, that it costs jobs of low-skilled and minority 
     workers.'' Of the specific proposals on the table, he says, 
     ``This is not as bad as raising it to $6, but it's still 
     going to cost jobs.''
       And just last month, House Majority Leader Dick Armey of 
     Texas dismissed the idea that Congress would vote to increase 
     the minimum wage, snapping, ``I'm not interested in 
     increasing the number of nonworking poor.''
       But Mr. Burtless argues, ``When the minimum wage is as low 
     in relationship to average wages as $4.25 is now to average 
     wages in the United States, then even a rise of $1 an hour is 
     not going to dis-employ that many people.'' Moreover, he says 
     the effect on inflation would be small because, he has 
     calculated, the pay of minimum-wage employees equals less 
     than 1% of all compensation paid to U.S. workers.
       At Harvard University, economics professor Lawrence Katz 
     says ``there are no ways of improving the conditions of poor 
     or low-wage working people that don't have some costs or some 
     distortions.'' But he says the current low minimum wage 
     argues for ``a modest increase,'' adding that ``the evidence 
     suggests that the gains to low-income working people outweigh 
     the employment costs.''
       Meanwhile, the current debate has heightened attention to a 
     recent study of Princeton professors Alan Krueger and David 
     Card, who found no drop in employment among New Jersey's 
     fast-food restaurants after the state raised its minimum wage 
     in 1992 by 80 cents, to $5.05 an hour. (New Jersey is one of 
     10 states that have set minimum-wage levels above the federal 
     standard.) Critics have challenged their methodology but, Mr. 
     Krueger says, ``most academic studies find very little or no 
     job loss. Indeed, about two dozen impartial academic studies 
     have found insignificant evidence of job loss.''
       So who benefits? Last year just over 5% of workers were 
     paid the minimum wage. Economists generally agree those 
     making just above the minimum wage, up to $6 an hour, could 
     see a bump in pay as an indirect consequence of a minimum-
     wage increase. The liberal Economic Policy Institute 
     estimates that 11.7% of the work force, of about 12.2 million 
     people, make between $4.25 and $5.15.

                           *   *   *   *   *

  Mr. KERRY. In fact, 101 economists have all signed a letter, three of 
them Nobel laureates, suggesting this would have absolutely minimal 
impact just as it has since 1938.
  It is not as if we are suddenly coming to the floor and debating some 
new concept in America. This was passed in 1938, and it has been passed 
again and again and again, that we have increased the minimum wage. On 
some occasions we have increased the minimum wage when it has been 
worth more than it is today. It is now worth 27 percent of what it was 
in 1979. If we let it go to the end of this year, it will be at a 
record 40-year low.
  Leaving aside rhetoric about rich and poor, let us consider the 
rhetoric of work, the rhetoric of getting off welfare, the rhetoric of 
the values of our society. If you are going to value work, you have to 
pay people a fair wage for the day's work. What we are effectively 
saying, if we are going to ask people to vote below the level of 
poverty, is that we do not believe that a day's work in the United 
States is what it has been worth since 1938 or at those periods where 
we have raised the minimum wage to reflect what we thought it ought to 
be with respect to that day's work.
  Someone in my office was walking down to Union Station for lunch 
today and on the way back bumped into a panhandler and had a 
conversation with the panhandler, and asked him, ``How much do you 
manage to collect out here during lunch hour?'' He said, ``I usually 
make about six bucks out here during lunch hour.''
  So what the Republican Party is suggesting is that people ought to go 
to work for a wage that is worth less than a panhandler can make in 1 
hour during lunch hour near the Nation's Capitol.
  Is that a value of work? It seems to me, Mr. President, that if we 
are going to tell people you ought to get off of welfare and you ought 
to go to work, we ought to reflect the reality of who is working for 
what in this country. The fact is that, of those people on the

[[Page S4045]]

minimum wage, 62 percent of the people on the minimum wage now live in 
a household in which someone else is also working. The vast majority, 
46 percent, of those people in the work force in America are women; 60-
plus percent of those working for the minimum wage are women. They are 
not teenagers; they are people out there struggling to try to work to 
break out of poverty.
  The fact is that you can work at the minimum wage in the United 
States today for the full 40-hour week without health care, without a 
pension benefit, without any of the kinds of benefits that most workers 
get, and you are working at three-quarters the rate of poverty. The 
maximum salary you take home is $8,500 a year. Our Republican friends 
seem to suggest it is OK for people to work for $8,500 a year and it is 
OK for them simultaneously to suggest taking away $32 billion of the 
earned-income tax credit over a 7-year period.

  So they want to have it both ways. They want to suggest that they can 
give a $245 billion tax break, most of which--these are not our words; 
this is the result of their construction--most of which goes to people 
who already have money. It is just a fact. If you are earning $300,000 
a year, in the Republican tax break, you get about $12,000 a year. But 
if you are working at $30,000 a year or less and you are getting the 
earned-income tax credit, your taxes go up.
  That is not class warfare. That is just a fundamental question of 
fairness. Is it fair to give somebody who earns $300,000 a year $12,000 
more and take away money from somebody earning $30,000 a year? The 
theory of that is that if you do make a lot of money and you work 
harder, you ought to make a lot more, but if you do not make a lot of 
money and you work harder, you ought to earn less. It is the most 
incredible equation I have ever heard of in my life.
  We are going to raise the minimum wage sometime around here. We are 
going to do it. We are going to do it because this issue is not going 
away. It is just like in the past. In 1989, we finally raised the 
minimum wage. Eighty-six Senators joined together to raise the minimum 
wage. All we are trying to do is get it back to that level when 86 of 
us were able to agree that it was the right thing to do. We will raise 
the minimum wage, but it will be after an extraordinary amount of 
expended political capital and energy and, frankly, wasted time. 
Ultimately, we are going to come to some kind of agreement around here 
because that is ultimately what I think most people will agree is fair.
  The last time we raised the minimum wage--it is very interesting--
Senator Dole, the majority leader, said and I quote:

       This is not an issue where we ought to be standing and 
     holding up anybody's getting 30 to 40 cents an hour pay 
     increase at the same time that we are talking about capital 
     gains.
       I never thought the Republican Party should stand for 
     squeezing every last nickel from the minimum wage.

  But here we are in 1996; it is worth less, and yet we are not just 
squeezing every nickel from it; we are squeezing every penny out of it 
at the very same time Republicans are talking about a tax break for a 
whole lot of people who make a lot more money than people on the 
minimum wage.

  Mr. President, I do not think we ought to be talking about rich 
versus poor. We ought to be talking about basic economics and what is 
good for the Nation. Every decade we have debated this you hear the 
same arguments. People come back and say: ``Oh, you can't do this 
because we are going to lose jobs.'' But in fact we do not lose jobs. 
America keeps growing. America gets stronger. America is creating more 
jobs.
  The fact is that studies have shown, for instance, in New Jersey, 
when New Jersey raised the minimum wage, measured against Pennsylvania, 
the argument was, ``Oh, don't do this because Pennsylvania will have an 
unfair advantage, and all the jobs are going to go across the border to 
Pennsylvania.''
  Well, lo and behold, Messrs. Card and Krueger did a study, Princeton 
University did a study, Rutgers University did a study, and it showed 
that jobs increased. We have had testimony from chief executive 
officers of businesses who not only pay the minimum wage but they also 
give full health care to their workers, and they find that their 
business grows, they prosper, and they are able to actually hold on to 
people because they treat them decently.
  So I think this is an issue, the time of which has come, because the 
minimum wage is simply worth less than it was worth a few years ago. If 
we do not raise the minimum wage, we will have reached the 
unconscionable fact in this country that it is at the lowest it has 
been in 40 years at the very time that people are making the most 
political hay out of the rhetoric of going to work, getting off 
welfare, and living out American values. American values also require 
fairness. I hope we are going to have that fairness in this debate 
somewhere in the next days.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho is recognized for up to 
5 minutes.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I come to the floor in opposition to the 
amendment that we will soon be voting on, that the chairman of the 
committee has brought to the floor. I say that because I believe that 
America, out of fairness and justness, wants to stay with current law. 
Current law, now known as the McClure amendment, treats agricultural 
growers the same as all other businesses and business owners. I think 
it is important that we maintain the balance of fair play and property 
rights as recognized by current law.
  The Simpson amendment in effect says if a farmer could put walls 
around or a roof over his or her fields, then the INS could not conduct 
an open-field warrantless search. But since this farmer cannot do that 
in a 10-acre, 50-acre, 100-acre, 500-acre field, since he cannot build 
a roof over his or her field, that workplace does not enjoy the same 
private property rights as all other workplaces. The McClure amendment, 
now current law, is applying the same INS search warrant procedures to 
all employers.
  In this instance, I would argue the Senate ought to maintain the kind 
of fairness of the current law. If you want to search for illegal 
aliens, then you get the employer's permission, or if you have probable 
cause, then you get a search warrant. That is called fairness and 
equity in this society. I think that is what we have to strive for.
  The McClure amendment applies only to unjustified searches and only 
to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. It does not apply to any 
other law enforcement agency such as DEA or State or local law 
enforcement officers. I think that is important to specify. INS agents 
in hot pursuit of illegal aliens or others who are violating the law 
could still enter the field. In other words, we have not created a wall 
here; we have created a protection of property rights.

  The McClure amendment was originally passed because of evidence that 
the INS was abusing open-field searches. In my State of Idaho, prior to 
this law being in place, we had numerous occasions when, without 
notification, INS agents, with drawn guns, were running through 
orchards in the State of Idaho. That, to me, is a formula for disaster. 
Innocent people could accidentally become hurt as a result of this. And 
it did nothing, absolutely nothing, to enforce the laws as they 
currently were at that time.
  The McClure amendment was originally passed for a lot of these 
reasons. The unlawful detaining of American citizens I have already 
mentioned. If current law protects property rights, then apparently 
there was a violation of property rights. I believe the Simpson 
amendment--not intending to do so--could see us fall backwards into 
that circumstance that I think would be very dangerous to do. It could 
result in the injuring of agricultural workers, causing damage to crops 
and property that is already well documented, that has occurred in the 
past.
  Here is what is interesting. The Judiciary Committee voted 12 to 5 to 
reject a similar Simpson amendment and retain basically current law. 
They were right to do so. I cannot understand for the life of me, if 
that was the vote of the committee, that we are back here on the floor 
with this amendment.
  I ask unanimous consent a letter from the National Council of 
Agricultural Employers and also a letter from Dean R. Kleckner, 
president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, be printed in the 
Record.

[[Page S4046]]

  There being no objection, the letters were ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

         National Council of Agricultural Employers,
                                   Washington, DC, April 16, 1996.
       Dear Senator: The Senate will begin voting on amendments to 
     the Simpson Immigration Reform bills tomorrow. Two of those 
     amendments are detrimental to agricultural employers:
       1. Simpson Amendment to repeal the agricultural search 
     warrant provisions of the Immigration Reform and Control Act 
     of 1986.
       2. Kennedy Amendment to strike the intent standard for 
     document abuse discrimination.
       The search warrant provision under current law requires the 
     Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to obtain 
     permission from the property owner prior to entering the 
     property to search for illegal aliens, or to obtain a search 
     warrant. This provision affords growers the same protection 
     from warrantless searches and unreasonable disruption of 
     business activity enjoyed by any other business. By a vote of 
     12 to 5 in the Judiciary Committee mark-up, Senator DeWine 
     successfully struck from the immigration reform bill earlier 
     language to repeal the search warrant provision. Please 
     uphold this decision and vote against Senator Simpson's 
     amendment.
       Also during Judiciary Committee mark-up, an intent standard 
     for document abuse discrimination was added to the 
     legislation. Under current law, employers are held strictly 
     liable for document abuse discrimination if they ask a job 
     applicant to provide a specific employment authorization 
     document or request more documents than are required under 
     the law. Even though applicants are not denied a job and 
     alternative documents are accepted by the employer, the 
     Office of Special Counsel at the Department of Justice has 
     taken the position that the mere requesting (as opposed to 
     requiring) of particular documents is an automatic violation 
     of the law. This position is held regardless of the 
     employer's intent and whether or not anyone was denied 
     employment. Senator Kennedy's amendment would delete the 
     intent standard from the reform legislation and replace it 
     with language that essentially restates current law. Please 
     vote against the Kennedy amendment.
       Thank you for your consideration on these issues.
           Sincerely,
                                                 Sharon M. Hughes,
     Executive Vice President.
                                                                    ____



                                      A Farm Bureau Speedline,

                                   Washington, DC, April 16, 1996.
       Dear Senator: The American Farm Bureau has two concerns 
     with regard to the illegal immigration reform bill under 
     consideration by the Senate today. First, Sen. Alan Simpson 
     (R-WY) will offer an amendment to his illegal immigration 
     reform bill, S. 1664, to repeal the current-law requirement 
     that INS agents obtain either a property owner's permission 
     or a search warrant prior to entering agricultural fields in 
     search of illegal aliens.
       This requirement was enacted as part of the Immigration 
     Reform and Control Act of 1986. The amendment to accomplish 
     this, offered by then-Sen. James McClure (R-ID), attracted 
     bi-partisan support. An amendment to strike a similar 
     proposal originally included in the predecessor bill to S. 
     1664 was stricken by the Senate Judiciary Committee on a 
     bipartisan 12-5 vote, approving a motion offered by Sen. Mike 
     DeWine (R-OH).
       The Administration has indicated neutrality on this issue, 
     and has further indicated that the Department of Justice will 
     not change its enforcement practices even if the open-field 
     search warrant requirement is repealed.
       Second, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) will offer an amendment 
     to strike the intent standard provision of S. 1664. This 
     provision of S. 1664 would create a new intent standard for 
     discrimination allegations based on employer requests for 
     more or different employment eligibility documents to prove 
     work authorization. Farm Bureau supports this provision, and 
     we oppose Sen. Kennedy's amendment to strike it.
       The American Farm Bureau Federation urges you to oppose the 
     Simpson and Kennedy amendments.
                                                 Dean R. Kleckner,
                                                        President,

  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I urge my colleagues, when this vote occurs 
in a few moments, to abide by current law and private property rights 
and the protection of the security of individuals. Consider the risks 
that could result as a result of us voting for the Simpson amendment 
and returning to law what this Congress rejected by substantial margin 
several years ago and has retained as the right position to hold when 
it comes to open-field searches and agriculture employers.
  I yield the remainder of any time that I have.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio is recognized for up to 
5 minutes.
  Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I want to speak again in opposition to the 
Simpson amendment. I commend my colleague from Idaho for his very 
eloquent statement.
  I urge my colleagues to retain current law, to retain the compromise 
that was made in 1986, and to vote the same way as the Judiciary 
Committee did, by an overwhelming vote of 12 to 5.
  This bill does represent, as it is written today, the status quo. I 
think it would be a mistake to change that. It is interesting to note 
that the INS says there is no reason to change current law.
  What is the history of this? Go back to 1984. You had a Supreme Court 
decision that said, in fact, you did not need a search warrant to go 
into an open field. But the court, in essence, invited Congress to 
speak on the issue.
  Two years later, with the Simpson-Mazzoli bill, Congress did speak on 
the issue and said that an open field, when used for agriculture 
employment, should have the same basic protection, that the employees 
and employers should have the same basic protection that they had if 
that business had been conducted within a building, if we had been in a 
restaurant or another form of business. So, what the status quo does is 
keep a level playing field and keep both types of businesses being 
dealt with by the INS the same way.
  We look at this many times from the point of view of the employer and 
say it would be unfair to ranchers, unfair to farmers, because of the 
time-sensitive nature of agriculture, to allow these searches without a 
search warrant. That is true. I think we also have to look at it from 
the point of view of the employee, because the reality is that before 
the law was passed, even though agriculture represented only 15 percent 
of the problem of illegal workers in the work force, 75 percent of the 
raids occurred in agriculture. I do not think you have to stretch your 
imagination too far to understand one reason why. It is easier. It is 
easier.
  The other reason is, however good, however well intentioned the 
employees of the INS are and the agents are, when they look into a 
field and see brown faces, they think that may be a place we need to 
go. That is a problem. It is a problem that we do not need to return 
to.
  My friend has just pointed out we need to talk about what the current 
status of the law is and what it is not. It says you have to have a 
search warrant. But many cases are resolved, obviously, by consent. If 
you have consent, the INS can go onto the property. Current law also 
provides that if INS is in hot pursuit, they can go onto the open 
field. Finally, current law also says if you are within 25 miles of the 
border, this provision does not apply; INS can go onto the property.
  So I urge my colleagues--we are just a few minutes away from the 
scheduled vote--I urge them to support the position of the Judiciary 
Committee, a 12 to 5 vote. Support current law. Support the employees 
and employers. Keep in mind the position of the INS who sees no reason 
for any change in law.

  I would also ask my colleagues to keep in mind the position of the 
American Farm Bureau. I also talked about this issue. I already read 
the names on the other letter that I talked about, a letter dated March 
13, 1996, to all the members of the Judiciary Committee--American Farm 
Bureau, Agricultural Affiliates, American Association of Nurserymen. It 
goes on and on and on with basically a page of names. Their position is 
to keep the current State of the law and to oppose the Simpson 
amendment. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. SIMPSON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, it has been a good debate. I think I know 
where it is going with the vote, that all the votes are not there for 
my particular activity. But let us be very clear. I say to Senator 
DeWine and Senator Craig--let me tell you, the law before 1986 was that 
the INS could go do a warrantless search, ladies and gentlemen. Before 
we changed the law, with this linkage of the ACLU and the agricultural 
workers and the growers, the law of the United States was just like 
this for everybody else.
  The FBI could go into a field in plain view for a body or drugs, and 
with a warrantless search go forward. The INS could do that, the FBI 
could do that, the DEA. In 1986 we changed it. So the requirement that 
we have now is the special law. That is what is fascinating in this 
debate, I must say. I just think

[[Page S4047]]

I have been here too long. This was on the books.
  There is not a single other law enforcement agency in the United 
States, when they come upon an open field and in plain view see 
something that gives them probable cause to believe there is a 
violation of the law--they go and do it. The only agency of the Federal 
Government that cannot is the INS. That is where we are. At least let 
us be realistic about what we have done. We retain it. That is the way 
it is. Move on to the next item of business.
  But let us be totally candid. And let us not have anybody with their 
own opinion; let us all have our own facts. That was the law before 
1986.
  But I just want to add--since we were talking, I think, about the 
minimum wage for a moment--here is the one you want to keep in mind 
with the minimum wage and all you have heard all day long. This is from 
the New York Times of April 19, 1996. It is called ``Minimum Wage: A 
Portrait.'' Here is the portrait as compiled by the New York Times. 
There are three little items of interest.

       Number of times in 1993 and 1994, when Democrats controlled 
     Congress, that President Clinton mentioned in public his 
     advocacy of a minimum wage increase: 0.

  Next little item:

       Number of times the President has done so in 1995 and 
     1996--through March 11--when Republicans have controlled 
     Congress: 47.

  Since March 11 there have probably been 47 more. Then finally:

       Number of Congressional hearings Democrats held on the 
     minimum wage in 1993 and 1994: 0.

  Pure theater.
  Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the pending amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There appears to 
be a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question now occurs on agreeing to 
amendment No. 3730 offered by the Senator from Wyoming. The yeas and 
nays have been ordered. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Alabama [Mr. Heflin] is 
necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Thompson). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 20, nays 79, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 80 Leg.]

                                YEAS--20

     Bryan
     Byrd
     Chafee
     Glenn
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hollings
     Johnston
     Lautenberg
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Murkowski
     Nunn
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Simpson
     Stevens
     Thomas
     Thompson
     Thurmond

                                NAYS--79

     Abraham
     Akaka
     Ashcroft
     Baucus
     Bennett
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Boxer
     Bradley
     Breaux
     Brown
     Bumpers
     Burns
     Campbell
     Coats
     Cochran
     Cohen
     Conrad
     Coverdell
     Craig
     D'Amato
     Daschle
     DeWine
     Dodd
     Dole
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Exon
     Faircloth
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Ford
     Frist
     Gorton
     Graham
     Gramm
     Grams
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Hatfield
     Helms
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Inouye
     Jeffords
     Kassebaum
     Kempthorne
     Kennedy
     Kerrey
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Leahy
     Lott
     Lugar
     Mack
     McCain
     McConnell
     Mikulski
     Moseley-Braun
     Moynihan
     Murray
     Nickles
     Pell
     Pressler
     Pryor
     Robb
     Roth
     Santorum
     Sarbanes
     Shelby
     Simon
     Smith
     Snowe
     Specter
     Warner
     Wellstone
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--1

       
     Heflin
       
  The amendment (No. 3730) was rejected.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which 
the amendment was rejected.
  Mr. LOTT. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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