[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 124 (Wednesday, September 11, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H10189-H10195]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            IMMIGRATION IN THE NATIONAL INTEREST ACT OF 1996

  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause 1 of rule XX, and 
by direction of the Committee on the Judiciary, I move to take from the 
Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 2202) to amend the Immigration and 
Nationality Act to improve deterrence of illegal immigration to the 
United States by increasing border patrol and investigative personnel, 
by increasing penalties for alien smuggling and for document fraud, by 
reforming exclusion and deportation law and procedures, by improving 
the verification system for eligibility for employment, and through 
other measures, to reform the legal immigration system and facilitate 
legal entries into the United States, and for other purposes, with a 
Senate amendment thereto, disagree to the Senate amendment, and agree 
to the conference asked by the Senate.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Does the gentleman from Texas wish to debate 
the motion to go to conference?
  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, this is the customary request which 
will enable us to go to conference on this important bill.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the 
previous question on the motion.
  The previous question was ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentleman from Texas [Mr. Smith].
  The motion was agreed to.


               motion to instruct offered by mr. conyers

  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct conferees.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Mr. Conyers moves that the managers on the part of the 
     House at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two 
     Houses on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 2202 be 
     instructed to recede to the provisions contained in section 
     105 (relating to increased personnel levels for the Labor 
     Department).

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Conyers] 
will be recognzied for 30 minutes, and the gentleman from Texas [Mr. 
Smith] will be recognized for 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Conyers].
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  (Mr. CONYERS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, the motion I am offering would instruct 
conferees to retain the provisions in the Senate-passed bill that 
provides for 350 additional Department of Labor wage and hour 
inspectors and staff to enforce violations of the Federal wage and hour 
laws. It is no more complicated and no less simple than that.
  The reason is that the cornerstone of our efforts to control 
immigration must be to shut off the job magnet that draws so many 
undocumented aliens into the country. Increasing border patrols is of 
course important, but that can be done through the appropriations 
process, as we have been doing for the last 2 years. But it is 
imperative that we enhance the authority to prosecute those employers 
who knowingly hire illegal workers instead of American workers.
  For example, we know that each year more than 100,000 foreign workers 
enter the work force by overstaying their visas. No amount of border 
enforcement will deter this, since they enter legally with passports 
and visas. No amount of border enforcement will deter the desire, the 
magnet that draws people into this country, and that is to seek jobs. 
The only way to deter this form of illegal immigration is in the 
workplace, by denying them jobs.
  Case in point: In the 14-month-old Detroit newspaper dispute we have 
reports of illegal immigrants, not replacement workers from within the 
United States, but people without a valid passport, no right in this 
country, are coming in and they have been investigated, INS is 
conducting investigations on them. It is a serious incursion and a 
serious charge and it is being investigated by INS now, but this gives 
reason for the instruction motion that I would urge that we adopt in as 
large a number as possible.
  We must enhance the authority to prosecute employers who knowingly 
hire illegal workers instead of American workers, and there can be no 
doubt that an increased number of Labor Department inspectors will 
reduce the possibility that employers will hire illegal workers. The 
Jordan Commission, remembering the late Barbara Jordan, recommended 
this increase, since studies show that most employers who hire illegal 
workers also violate labor standards.
  This goes together. We want to deal with this problem and the only 
way is to move to the Senate-passed version that authorizes 350 
additional inspectors to enforce these violations or alleged violations 
of Federal Wage and hour laws.
  The report of the Jordan Commission concluded with this statement: 
The commission believes that an effective work site strategy for 
deterring illegal immigration requires enhancement of

[[Page H10190]]

labor standards enforcement. Now, I expect that the 350 additional 
inspectors would be used to enhance enforcement of labor standards in 
those areas where high concentrations of illegals are employed.
  In fiscal years 1993 through 1995, the Department of Labor recovered 
nearly $60 million in unpaid minimum wages for more than a quarter of a 
million workers and another $300 million in unpaid overtime for more 
than a half million additional workers.
  More can be accomplished with these additional personnel. And just as 
importantly, increased enforcement will help level the playing field 
for those honest employers who play by the rules and hire American 
workers and pay them a fair wage.
  So all of the Members who like to talk about preventing illegal 
immigration, please, let us all repair to this motion to instruct. It 
is an important one, it is critical for maintaining good labor 
standards in this country, and I ask my colleagues to join with me in 
voting yes on a more tough and effective workplace enforcement.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume, and I rise in opposition to the motion to instruct conferees.
  The appointment of House conferees for H.R. 2202 marks another 
important juncture on the road to immigration reform. Hopefully it also 
means that the final destination is very close.
  The Immigration in the National Interest Act is just what it says, an 
effort to fundamentally reorient national immigration policy so that it 
protects first and foremost the needs of American workers, taxpayers, 
and families.
  We worked long and hard within the Committee on the Judiciary to 
bring this bill to the House floor where it passed by a margin of 333 
to 87. Other Senate colleagues also labored intensely to bring forth a 
slightly different version of this legislation, passed by a vote of 97 
to 3. These lopsided majorities clearly reflect the will of the 
American people, that Congress get serious about immigration reform. 
Not tomorrow. Not next session. But now.
  Illegal immigration has reached a crisis. One million permanent 
illegal aliens enter the country every 2.5 years. Half of these illegal 
aliens use fraudulent documents to wrongly obtain jobs and government 
benefits, and one quarter of all Federal prisoners are illegal aliens.
  Think of the human cost in pain and suffering to innocent victims. 
Think of the financial cost to taxpayers of incarceration in the 
criminal justice system.
  H.R. 2202 will better secure our borders by doubling the number of 
border patrol agents and cracking down on repeat illegal border 
crossings. It will increase interior enforcement and make it more 
difficult for illegal aliens to take jobs away from American citizens.

                              {time}  1400

  And it will reduce the number of criminal aliens and the flow of 
illegal drugs into our country.
  The bill adopts the most comprehensive overhaul of our deportation 
system in this century. Deportation procedures are streamlined, and 
opportunities for illegal aliens and criminal aliens to ``game the 
system'' in order to stay in the United States disappear. Aliens who 
show up with no documents to legitimately enter the United States will 
be quickly turned back, rather than be given lengthy immigration 
hearings to which a vast majority new show up.
  H.R. 2202 also tackles the pressing problem of immigration and 
welfare. Our official national policy for almost a century has been 
that aliens should not be admitted to or remain in the United States if 
they become a ``public charge''--dependent on welfare.
  Today, that presumption is turned upside down. Noncitizens receive a 
disproportionate share of welfare benefits in large States such as 
California. When all types of benefits are included, immigrants receive 
$25 billion more in benefits than they pay in taxes. The number of 
immigrants on Supplemental Security Income increases by 50 percent each 
year. We cannot continue down this road.
  America's generosity towards those immigrants who want to work and 
produce and contribute will continue. But we should not admit 
immigrants who will live off the American taxpayers.
  H.R. 2202 ensures that sponsors of immigrants will be legally 
responsible for those they bring into the country. The bill also 
ensures that sponsors first have the means to meet this financial 
commitment. It makes no sense, as current law allows, for sponsor who 
are themselves on welfare to promise that they will keep the new 
immigrants they sponsor off of welfare. Obviously, this is a promise 
that cannot be kept, and the taxpayer foots the bill.
  This is truly landmark legislation. And it is long overdue. It's time 
to put the interests of American workers, taxpayers, and families 
first. It's time to push through to the finish, and complete passage of 
the Immigration in the National Interest Act.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from Texas [Mr. Bryant], ranking member on the Subcommittee 
on Immigration, who more than any other member on the committee fought 
to protect American workers, who started out with the Smith-Bryant 
bill, got cut out by the leadership and we now meet here at this 
juncture before we go to conference.
  Mr. BRYANT of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding 
me the time and for his kind words.
  Mr. Speaker, a bill that began as a bipartisan effort to address a 
very difficult problem for our country, the problem being immigration 
and illegal immigration, has at this stage, I think it is fair to say, 
degenerated into a bill that is now going to be a partisan contrivance 
designed to somehow isolate certain Members and make them subject to 
political attacks and maybe try to do the same thing to the President.
  I heard the comments of the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Smith] a moment 
ago about the difficulties this country faces with immigration. I agree 
with every one of the things he said. But the problem is that the bill, 
apparently, the conference committee proposal that will be taken up 
tomorrow, the provisions within it do not address the problems. It is 
just that simple.
  Consider this: Much has been made of the Jordan commission report 
because of the enormous credibility Barbara Jordan has in this country 
and in this institution. This bill was advertised over and over, both 
by me back when I was proud to cosponsor it because at that time I 
think it was a constructive action, Mr. Smith and others, as a bill 
designed to implement the bipartisan recommendations of the Jordan 
commission. Yet on point after point after point, the bill has 
abandoned those important provisions and yet kept the name and the 
implied sponsorship of a great woman who led a commission that did a 
very good job.
  The most recent apparent abandonment of those provisions is the fact 
that the Jordan commission observed that studies show that most 
employers hiring illegal workers also violate labor standards. 
Accordingly, the Jordan commission recommended that we increase the 
number of Labor Department wage and hour inspectors to help us stop 
that and directly help us stop illegal immigration. What happened?
  We came out of the committee with 150 additional inspectors, just as 
the Jordan commission reported, but before it came to the floor, the 
Speaker, Mr. Gingrich, the gentleman from new York, Mr. Solomon, the 
chairman of the Committee on Rules, the powers that be, while listening 
to the whisperings in their ears of lobbyists for employers, said we 
are not going to let that stay in the bill.
  So by the time the bill got to the floor, the 150 new inspectors 
designed to help us deal with the problem Mr. Smith was talking about 
were gone. The U.S. Senate passed the bill. When the U.S. Senate passed 
the bill, there were 350 additional Labor Department wage and hour 
inspectors. But we saw the draft of the Republican conference committee 
proposal that will be taken up tomorrow. What does it have? Zero.
  The question is whether we are going to legislate here in the 
interest of the American people, write legislation that really deals 
with the problem that we are facing, and it is a big problem, with 
regard to illegal immigration and the displacement of American workers 
or whether we are going to do what the lobbyists tell us to do.

[[Page H10191]]

  I urge the Members of the House to come to this floor and vote in 
favor of the Conyers motion to instruct and to tell whoever it is that 
is calling the shots behind the scenes, we want 350 wage and hour 
workers back in this bill. We want them to be able to augment the 
efforts of our other Government agencies in trying to fight illegal 
immigration. We want a bill that does what the advertisers and the 
sponsors of this bill say they are trying to do. And that is stop 
people who do not live in this country, who are not supposed to be in 
this country from taking the jobs of working Americans. Vote for the 
motion to instruct.
  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman 
from California [Mr. Gallegly], chairman of the House task force on 
illegal immigration.
  Mr. GALLEGLY. Mr. Speaker, one of the most critical challenges facing 
the 104th Congress is the passage of comprehensive and effective 
immigration reform legislation. For many years the American people have 
expressed frustration that its leaders in Congress have failed to enact 
policies to eliminate the unacceptable high levels of illegal entry 
into our country.
  Under the able leadership of the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Lamar 
Smith, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims, 
the House of Representatives will soon consider a conference report 
which finally addresses the public concern over this problem in a 
serious and comprehensive manner.
  One of the most important elements of this conference report is the 
so-called Gallegly amendment. This provision is really quite 
straightforward. It simply eliminates the ability of the Federal 
Government to force States to provide a free public education to 
illegal immigrants.
  This unfunded mandate is especially disturbing considering that 95 
percent of the cost of providing a public education is born by State 
taxpayers. In addition, my amendment has been modified to make 
absolutely sure that illegal immigrant children who are already 
enrolled in public schools will not be removed from those schools. This 
compromise provides that illegal immigrants who are currently enrolled 
in a public school will continue to receive a free public education 
through the highest grade either in elementary or secondary school.
  For example, an illegal immigrant student in 2d grade could get a 
free education until the 6th grade or an illegal student in the 7th 
grade could continue through the 12th grade, provided they remained 
within the same school district.
  It is important to keep in mind that all these provisions dealing 
with illegal immigrants currently enrolled in public schools apply only 
to the States that choose to deny illegal immigrants a free public 
education. If a State, be it New York, Oregon, or any other State, 
wants to continue to provide a free public education to illegal 
immigrants as they currently do, they would be perfectly entitled to 
continue that policy.
  Mr. Speaker, California alone spends over $2 billion per year to 
educate illegal immigrants, and our Nation spends over $4 billion in 
this unfunded mandate. It is time that we at least give the States this 
important tool for reducing incentives for illegal immigrants to stay 
in our country.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Frank], ranking member of the 
Committee on the Judiciary, a member of the Subcommittee on 
Immigration.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I agree that this is a very 
important subject. I agree that we should be acting to try to diminish 
illegal immigration. It is for that reason that I deplore as seriously 
as I can both the method by which this bill has been considered and the 
substances.
  I am a member of the Subcommittee on Immigration as I have been since 
coming to Congress. I am very proud of the bipartisan efforts in which 
I participated in 1986 and in 1990 and at other times to deal with 
immigration legislation. For the first time in the 16 years I have been 
a Member of Congress, gross partisanship has run this process. Those of 
us who participated in good faith have assurances from the chairman of 
the subcommittee that this would be done in a bipartisan way in the 
deliberations at the committee stage. Those of us who were Democrats 
were completely excluded from the process to the point where, despite 
our repeated requests, we could not even see a copy of this complex 
legislation until 9:30 last night.
  My colleagues will remember that the Republican leadership was ready 
to push this bill through before the recess, and only our objection 
stopped it. They were going to put it through without our having 
a chance to see it. Then, despite the fact that it was ready to be 
passed in August, they withheld it from us, despite our requests to be 
able to look at it until last night.

  This substitution of partisan exclusion for a bipartisan process is 
the reason why we may very well not have a bill. The fault will lie at 
the feet of those who changed a tradition of bipartisanship. I believe 
the chairman of the subcommittee when he said, do not worry, we are 
just talking among ourselves. We will have a participatory process.
  That apparently consists of us seeing the bill last night and then 
trying to run it through conference tomorrow. That is their 
participatory process. Now, I understand why they did it that way. 
There are in this bill several provisions which do not deal with 
illegal immigration, they deal with discrimination. They make it easier 
for people to discriminate against American citizens of Hispanic or 
Asian origin in particular.
  In 1986, back in the bipartisan days, now long over with us, we 
adopted legislation that said, if you hire people who are here 
illegally, you will be punished. We feared that that would lead to 
discrimination. People would say, I better not hire anybody who is 
Hispanic or Asian who might be foreign because they might be here 
illegally. We had a variety of safeguards in there including 
antidiscrimination provisions which were unanimously agreed to finally 
by the conference.
  We put provisions in there that said, if you are denied work by 
someone who is motivated by fear of sanctions, despite your having done 
the right things, we are going to protect you. And we said to 
businesses, you cannot use the rules against hiring people illegally as 
a justification for saying, Mexicans are too much trouble, Asians are 
too much trouble.
  This bill weakens that. This bill deliberately, clearly and 
intentionally, to use the word this bill likes, weakens those 
protections for Hispanics. By the way, we had a study by the General 
Accounting Office. They said the provisions were not strong enough. The 
General Accounting Office said, yes, the sanctions have led to 
discrimination. Understand, we are not here talking about keeping out 
people who are here illegally. We are talking about Mexican-American 
citizens, Asian-American citizens. And some employers say, I do not 
want to mess with you guys because you might be here illegally. We 
said, you cannot do that. You cannot simply refuse. You have to give 
them a chance to prove that they are here legally.

  We had provisions there that protected people. They now changed that 
law. Those provisions are not before us. This sanction proposal, we are 
not dealing with that. What they did in this bill is gratuitously go 
back to the 1986 law and weaken the antidiscrimination provisions by 
saying that you will be found guilty to discriminating only if the 
Government proves intent. In other words, if you are by now dumb enough 
to use bigoted words, we can do it. but if it is overwhelmingly clear 
from the way you have behaved, from your work force, et cetera, that 
you are discriminating, we will not be able to protect you.
  We also have problems from people who apply and are illegally turned 
down because the Government makes a mistake. We said, what if somebody 
said, I will hire you if you are here legally and the Government makes 
a mistake. My friends on the other side talk frequently of the fact 
that the Government makes mistakes. We know the Government makes 
mistakes. So we said, if you are in fact someone who is here legally 
and you are refused a job because the Government made an error, we will 
allow you to recover damages from the Government.
  Do my colleagues know what they did? They knocked that out. What does

[[Page H10192]]

that have to do with illegal immigration? We put provisions in there to 
protect people who are lawfully here, American citizens, people who may 
have been born here. We put in provisions to protect them from harmful 
error. My colleagues knocked it out.

                              {time}  1415

  No wonder they did not want to let us see it until last night. They 
weakened anti-discrimination provisions that have been in the law for 
10 years, that the GAO said should have been strengthened. They 
weakened out ability to have Americans get money back from the 
Government.
  We passed the Taxpayers Bill of Rights for the IRS. But if the IRS 
and the Social Security Administration, somebody else, makes a mistake 
about one's eligibility to work, and they lose a job because of it, 
they do not get any help, and do my colleagues know what the Republican 
answer was? ``Oh, well, there's a reciprocal problem there because you, 
if you were illegally turned down for the job, you lost the job, but 
the employer has also been hurt because the employer didn't get to hire 
you.'' That is the kind of equivalence we get here.
  We have legislation that addresses an important subject, and up until 
the committee process we dealt with it in a bipartisan way, and once it 
got out of committee somebody made a decision, and I do not know; we 
could not find out who. Everybody I talked to thought it was a terrible 
decision. Apparently the decision was made by the ether. But the 
decision was to withhold from the Democratic members of this 
subcommittee and full committee and others in the House, and I am told 
this happened on the other side as well, any chance to look at this 
complicated bill.
  We got it at 9:30 last night, and they plan to pass it tomorrow, 
quite contrary to the assurances I received from the chairman of the 
subcommittee and others, and they also, having let us play games, 
having apparently made us feel good, pretending they were paying 
attention to us, it seems to me, during the committee process, they 
then systematically weakened or took out of that bill everything that 
would protect American citizens against discrimination, American 
citizens against government error.
  Mr. Speaker, we do not stop illegal immigration by diminishing the 
rights of Americans citizens, but that is what this bill does. I do not 
like the amendment offered by the gentleman from California regarding 
education. The right of children to go to school the second to the 
sixth grade does not seem to me a great right, and if my colleagues 
believe that education stops at the sixth grade, I guess it does to my 
colleagues, too.
  But I want to say that that is not the only provision of this bill 
that bothers me and there are provisions of the bill that 
systematically reduce rights that are now available to American 
citizens who, if they happen to be Hispanic or Asian, might get caught 
up in the web. I am very disappointed that the Republican leadership 
choose a partisan method and choose to give in to these kinds of fears 
because they will be responsible for the likely result: no legislation.
  We pass immigration legislation when we do it in a bipartisan and 
cooperative way. We defeat it when we use these kinds of partisan 
methods, particularly when they are used to diminish rights that 
already exist among American citizens.
  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Berman] who has been a member of the 
Committee on the Judiciary for a considerable period of time and is 
widely reputed to be an expert on immigration.
  Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member of our Committee 
on the Judiciary for yielding me this time.
  I rise in support of the motion to instruct the conferees. It is a 
funny situation when we deal with a provision in the bill that is the 
critical increase in the number of wage and hour inspectors in order to 
make immigration reform meaningful by giving us the resources to go to 
the work site where the big problem is, and the Senate bill provided, I 
believe, 200, 300. The House bill provided 150. It was taken out by a 
floor amendment that had nothing to do with the issue of wage and hour 
inspectors. It dealt with collapsing from a meaningful verification 
program to a weak verification program, and that was taken out, and now 
we come back with a proposed draft, the rumors are, and it is more than 
rumors. The proposed conference committee document that has very kindly 
been shown to out side of the aisle before the conference indicates 
there will be no increase in wage and hour inspectors.
  If my colleagues want to get a handle on the issue of illegal 
immigration, putting all of the rhetoric aside, there are some key 
steps. At the border, meaningful verification; right now employer 
sanctions are a joke, and a systematic effort to take those industries 
and employers who systematically recruit and hire illegal immigrants 
because of their desire to violate wage and hour standards and take a 
very exploitable work force and utilize them in order to produce their 
product at below average scale and capture the market in that fashion.

  This bill goes along with the Clinton administration's effort to 
increase the border patrol, does a whole bunch of other things which in 
some cases are very incendiary, dilutes its initial attempts to provide 
meaningful verification, thereby rendering fairly ineffective, to my 
way of thinking, all of the efforts to deal with denial of employment 
or public benefits to illegal immigrants and strips away any serious 
increase in wage and hour supporters, wage and hour division 
inspectors, which could provide the kind of policing of those employers 
who want to hire illegal immigrants in order to exploit them in callous 
disregard of Federal law knowing that those people will never utilize 
the remedies available to them.
  So the motion to instruct is a very important one.
  The other larger question which I think the majority has to consider 
is do they want the bill? They are insisting. The Governor from 
California came out yesterday and joined the Speaker of the House in a 
press conference, insisting on including a provision in this bill, an 
amended form of the Gallegly amendment that all law enforcement tells 
us is crazy, that all educators tell us is bad, which requires that the 
children of people who came here illegally at one point or another be 
refused admission or kicked out of the public schools.
  The President has made it quite clear that that will result in a 
veto.
  When I read that the Governor of California came back to Washington, 
came back to Washington to insist on a provision which he knows will 
require a veto, I tried to think why, since he ballyhoos himself as 
somebody who is trying to do something about illegal immigration. I 
think Ron Prince, who was the chairman; he was the chairman of the 
committee to pass proposition 187, probably put it most accurately when 
he indicated that there are some Republicans in this House and in the 
Senate and in the Republican campaign who want to veto a bill. They do 
not want to do anything about illegal immigration. They want an issue. 
So they take the one provision that has drawn a clear statement of a 
veto and insist that that provision be kept in the bill even though it 
is bad public policy, even though all of law enforcement says that it 
will make their job much more difficult. All educators, nearly all 
educators oppose the provision. I wonder what the agenda is of the 
people who would make that the condition for this conference report.
  Mr. GALLEGLY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. BERMAN. I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. GALLEGLY. Mr. Speaker, I cannot let the statement pass, and I 
thank the gentleman for yielding, that all law enforcement opposes it 
when I know my good friend, the gentleman from California [Mr. Berman], 
knows that not to be true. In fact, just 3 days ago one of the largest 
law enforcement agencies in the country, the California Sheriffs 
Association, strongly endorsed it. The National Alliance endorsed it. A 
large portion of the rank and file of the Fraternal Order of Police 
endorsed it. So I would say to the gentleman the cops on the street 
support it.
  Mr. BERMAN. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, I should amend my 
statement. The vast majority of leadership

[[Page H10193]]

and individual chiefs of police of jurisdictions most affected by this 
provision think it would be a terrible idea.
  Now I am trying to understand what the motivation is for someone like 
Governor Wilson to come to Washington, hold a press conference, urge 
passage of a bill with a provision that he knows will draw a veto. 
There is two cynical, but perhaps accurate, interpretations of the 
motivations for this action.
  One is again to have an issue rather than a law. All the time and 
effort spent by the chairman of the subcommittee and Senator Simpson to 
try and improve our ability to deal with illegal immigration will be a 
waste of time if this bill is vetoed. Those people want an issue.
  The other even more cynical interpretation of the motivations of the 
Governor is what happened on both the House and Senate floors. Actually 
the Senate did not even take it up. The large growers in California 
hate anything which makes efforts to enforce our laws against illegal 
immigration tougher because they have historically relied on bringing 
in undocumented workers to pick the crops. They came in with a rather 
brazen effort on the House floor to try and create a new 500,000 farm 
worker-guest worker amendment to bring in these people. That amendment 
got trounced on a bipartisan basis. My view is that those same growers 
do not want to see this bill pass, but no one can be against this kind 
of a bill from that community. So instead they and the Governor, as 
their representative, comes here and insists on a provision he knows 
will result in a veto.
  It is a pretty cynical story. It is a pretty sad story. It means a 
lot of important provisions in this bill, provisions providing for 
reimbursement for health care institutions, provisions that at least go 
down the road toward some meaningful verification, hopefully all of 
those will go down the drain because of an insistence on this one 
provision.
  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman 
from California [Mr. Gallegly].
  Mr. GALLEGLY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me the 
time.
  With all due respect to my friend, the gentleman from California [Mr. 
Berman], I just could not let some of these statements stand without 
some form of rebuttal, as he referred to the element of farm worker 
issue being drowned.
  I have to remind the gentleman that it was only 3 months ago that 
this very body passed the bill that we are discussing, only a much 
tougher bill, 333 to 87, including the education issue, and in fact on 
a stand-alone vote, whether we should give the States the rights to 
make the decision for themselves, it passed by almost a hundred votes, 
stand-alone.
  The people of California have been crying for this support, and the 
issue, the issue of where we were 3 months ago with a 333 to 87 vote; 
how many votes do we have in this body that we get that many folks to 
agree on? Just let me finish this, and I will be happy to yield. Three 
hundred thirty-three to eighty-seven this body voted to support this 
immigration bill including a provision, unmodified provision, that 
would allow the States to deny a free public education to those that 
have no legal right to be in this country. Since that time we have 
modified it to the point of giving a grandfather clause to all of those 
in K through 6 and those in 7 through 12, watered it down considerably, 
and now even with a much more modified version the President of the 
United States is saying he would veto something that almost a 4 to 1 
margin in the House supported, a strong bipartisan vote, and the people 
of California in an initiative 2 years ago voted by almost a 2 to 1 
margin. It appears to me the President of the United States, if in fact 
he really is talking seriously about a veto, is not listening to the 
people of California.
  And further I would just like to add that with all the due respect 
that I have for our President, he has talked about vetoes in the past. 
Sometimes he does what he says; sometimes he does not. I am just saying 
that I do not believe that he would veto this bill, I do not think that 
it is the right thing for him to do, he knows it is not what the people 
of California want.
  Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GALLEGLY. I am happy to yield to my friend, the gentleman from 
California.

                              {time}  1430

  Mr. BERMAN. The gentleman misunderstood me. First of all, the 333 
votes the gentleman referred to included a number of us who made it 
very clear that we want a great part of what is in this bill, we do not 
want, with all due respect, the gentleman's amendment in the bill, and 
that we would move it on to conference in the hope that a conference 
committee would convene and decide to pull that amendment out, since it 
was not in the Senate.
  The second point I wanted to make was my point about the growers had 
nothing to do with the 333 vote. It was why would the Governor of 
California do that, with a chance to get meaningful provisions.
  Mr. GALLEGLY. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, I would say to the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Berman], this issue is very clearly I 
think an issue that the gentleman, my good friend, would agree is 
something that I have worked on for many years.
  I have 20-some provisions in this bill that I strongly believe in. We 
have modified, we have cut back. We have made compromises that quite 
frankly I do not think we should have made, but for the sake of moving 
the bill ahead, I have supported it. I think we have come to the point 
where we cannot continue to chisel away and have a real bill.
  The people of California can no longer afford to provide a free 
public education to everyone. It has a denigrating effect on the 
citizens of our States in providing an education to the children of 
legal residents and citizens. I think that issue has been sorely missed 
in this debate.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from 
California [Mr. Berman].
  Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to 
me.
  Mr. Speaker, I in no way question the sincerity of the gentleman's 
commitment to his amendment. I think he is wrong, but I think he is 
sincere. He has always had this position. He has pushed for it for a 
long time.
  I just wish that, given that he had two strong efforts in this bill, 
major efforts, one for a meaningful verification system that could give 
some meaning to employer sanctions, and what I think is a somewhat 
crazy scheme on how to try and help deal with the problem of illegal 
immigration by kicking kids out of schools, he had been able to prevail 
on the first and yielded on the second, rather than yielding on 
meaningful verification and insisting on his provision.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute and 30 
seconds to the gentlewoman from Texas, Ms. Sheila Jackson-Lee.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member for 
this leadership, and the leadership of the members of the Subcommittee 
on Immigration and Claims of the Committee on the Judiciary. I 
certainly want to acknowledge the bipartisan approach of my colleague, 
the gentleman from Texas, in the effort to distinguish and separate 
illegal immigration from legal immigration.
  However, it is important to note that we still have an open question. 
Even now there is just a GAO study about taking rights away from 
citizen children. It is a study with the intent, of course, that we 
ultimately may deny the children born in the United States their 
rights.
  Then I might say, as I rise to support the motion to instruct of my 
ranking member, the gentleman from Michigan, [Mr. Conyers], how can we 
eliminate the Labor Department inspectors that would in fact be able to 
eliminate some of the very problems that the Honorable Barbara Jordan 
from Texas, as leader of the President's commission, indicated we had 
to do to protect workers, and to avoid the paying of wages below the 
minimum wage and unsafe working conditions?
  We have already determined that the Labor Department and its 
inspector division has found some millions of dollars of situations 
where minimum wages were not paid, or unsafe conditions. It seems if we 
are truly sincere about reform in immigration that we will have those 
inspectors.

[[Page H10194]]

  Last, let me say how unfortunate it is that if some of our citizens 
who have to be verified, particularly Hispanic citizens with Hispanic 
surnames, find out that they are legal and then they have no remedy, no 
way to address their grievances, I would say we need to look at making 
this a better reform and do a better job. I rise to support the motion 
to instruct.
  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to my friend, the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Goodling], chairman of the Committee 
on Economic and Educational Opportunities.
  (Mr. GOODLING asked and was give permission to revise and extent his 
remarks.)
  Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to 
me.
  Mr. Speaker, when we get carried away in this body, we really get 
carried away. If ever I heard overkill, we are talking about overkill 
today.
  In the conference agreement you have agreed to 900 new people in INS 
over a 3-year period, 900. I know what the Members are going to say, 
but they do no check on wage and hour. No, but if they do their job, 
there is no necessity for anybody to be checking on wage and hour. We 
are giving them 900 new people over a 3-year period.
  Second, in the conference agreement you have agreed to the new 
workplace verification rule. Let us give them a chance. Let us give the 
900 a chance, and let us give the new workplace verification system an 
opportunity to work. Then we can determine whether we need anything 
else.
  I do not know how much experience you have with wage and hour people, 
but I have had a lot of experience in the school business. In fact, I 
had to threaten them, to tell them never, ever to step in again to my 
business manager's office, that they will come through the 
superintendent. Why? Because he was very, very valuable to me and to 
that school system. I could not have him have a stroke over the 
insensitivity of the gentleman who appeared there and said, do not tell 
me you are not doing anything wrong. I will stay here until I find it. 
He went all over my district doing the same, until I got him 
transferred to the district of the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. 
McDade]. I figured he would have a tougher time up there.

  Now, let us get back again to the point: 900 new people in INS. If 
they do their job, and we are giving them the opportunity by giving 
them more people, then we are getting to the root of the problem we are 
talking about, and we have eliminated that problem. That is what we 
have done. Also you have done it if our new verification system works 
the way we hope it will work.
  So let us not get carried away and add 350 more here and another 
thousand some other place. Let us, as a matter of fact, see whether we 
have not gotten to the root of the problem, and solved the problem with 
the 900 and with the new verification system.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 15 seconds to the gentleman from 
Massachusetts [Mr. Frank].
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania is understandably confused, because he thought we were 
using regular procedures. He kept saying, you have agreed in the 
conference report. No, there is not any conference report. There was an 
internal Republican discussion, and they produced something that they 
intend to ram through the conference in a day. But in fact the 
gentleman mistook the current situation for regular legislative 
procedure.
  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
distinguished gentleman from California, Mr. Xavier Becerra, who I have 
asked to conclude this discussion by saving him for last to use the 
remaining time on our side.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. the gentleman from California [Mr. Becerra] 
is recognized for 2 minutes and 45 seconds.
  Mr. BECERRA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to 
me.
  Mr. Speaker, there are a number of problems with this so-called 
conference report, not least of which is the backroom deals that 
occurred on the majority side of the aisle in both Houses which did not 
allow anyone from the Democratic side of the aisle to participate in 
any of the negotiations that took place over the last 3 to 4 months.
  Now we are going to try to pass out a bill in about 48 hours, never 
having seen or had a chance to discuss any of these so-called changes. 
It is upsetting to see that the Republicans have decided to weaken 
protections against discrimination for U.S. citizens. They are gutting 
even a compromise that was reached in the light of day in committee, 
and the backrooms deals were cut, and that language that protected 
people from discrimination was removed.
  It is sad to see that this Congress has now reached the stage where 
it is going to blame children and punish children for the acts of 
adults. I have never seen that happen in a court of law, but here we 
go, not punishing adults for the acts of children, but punishing 
children for the acts of adults. That is what this Congress wishes to 
do by denying kids the access to education.
  By the way, talking about unfunded mandates, doing what they want to 
do in this bill will cost hundreds of millions of dollars to the 
schools throughout this Nation. That is not my statement, that is the 
statement of the California School Board Association, which is opposing 
the Gallegly amendment.
  What is worst about all of this is jobs. The reason people come into 
this country, whether with or without documents, is to get a better 
paying job for their family. This bill, unfortunately, does little, if 
anything, to try to preserve and protect American jobs. We had a 
provision in the Senate bill that said, let us provide 350 
investigators to make sure we inspect the workplaces in this country to 
make sure jobs are held for American citizens.
  We have right now a total of 750 investigators nationwide to cover 6 
million places of employment. That is about 8,000 places of employment 
per investigator, to investigate to find out if someone is hired with 
the authorization to work in this country.
  The Senate, including the Republicans in the Senate, said let us give 
the Department of Labor the opportunity to do a better job of 
investigating. Why? Because we have found we have been able to recoup 
money for a lot of American citizens that would have otherwise not been 
employed, and those people who are not employed and are in jobs that 
are not authorized, to get them out and leave the jobs for the American 
citizens.
  What we find is that that was all gutted. This so-called conference 
report that Democrats have never even seen until today does not include 
any funding for that. Why? If we are really out to protect jobs for 
Americans, if we are really out to reform our immigration laws, then 
let us do the thing that most Americans wish to see most, jobs, jobs 
for Americans, or those entitled to work in this country. This bill 
does not provide that type of protection.
  I am amazed, we found somehow the capacity in this Congress to give 
moneys, funds for 300 additional border patrol agents more than even 
what the administration, the Clinton administration, requested. The 
President requested about 700 new border patrol officers. This Congress 
said, we are going to give you 1,000. When the administration said we 
need more investigators to make sure people are employed because they 
are authorized to work, this Congress said no, you cannot do it. So 
there we have.
  We are going to find a situation, unlike what the chairman of the 
Committee on Economic and Educational Opportunities said, that you can 
stop them all at the border. I wish it was true but it is not, because 
almost half of the people undocumented in this country come legally 
through a visa, a student visa or a work visa. Then they overstay and 
become illegal after that. They are the ones you will never catch. Half 
of the people, they will continue to be employed and you will not have 
the investigators to spot them. Bad bill. Vote against this.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. All time has expired.
  Without objection, the previous question is ordered on the motion to 
instruct.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to instruct 
offered by the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Conyers].

[[Page H10195]]

  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore (Mr. Dreier) 
announced that the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a 
quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not 
present.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Evidently a quorum is not present.
  The Sergeant at Arms will notify absent members.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 181, 
nays 236, not voting 16, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 408]

                               YEAS--181

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Allard
     Andrews
     Baldacci
     Barcia
     Barrett (WI)
     Becerra
     Beilenson
     Berman
     Bevill
     Blumenauer
     Bonior
     Borski
     Boucher
     Brown (CA)
     Brown (OH)
     Bryant (TX)
     Campbell
     Cardin
     Chapman
     Clay
     Clayton
     Clement
     Clyburn
     Coleman
     Collins (MI)
     Conyers
     Costello
     Coyne
     Cummings
     Danner
     DeFazio
     DeLauro
     Dellums
     Deutsch
     Diaz-Balart
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Dixon
     Doggett
     Doyle
     Durbin
     Edwards
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Evans
     Farr
     Fattah
     Fazio
     Fields (LA)
     Filner
     Flake
     Foglietta
     Ford
     Frank (MA)
     Frost
     Furse
     Gejdenson
     Gephardt
     Gibbons
     Gilman
     Gonzalez
     Gordon
     Green (TX)
     Gutierrez
     Hall (OH)
     Hamilton
     Harman
     Hastings (FL)
     Hefner
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Holden
     Horn
     Hoyer
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     Johnson (SD)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Johnston
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kennedy (MA)
     Kennedy (RI)
     Kennelly
     Kildee
     Kleczka
     Klink
     LaFalce
     Lantos
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lipinski
     Lofgren
     Longley
     Lowey
     Luther
     Maloney
     Manton
     Markey
     Mascara
     Matsui
     McCarthy
     McDade
     McDermott
     McHale
     McInnis
     McKinney
     Meehan
     Meek
     Menendez
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller (CA)
     Minge
     Mink
     Moakley
     Moran
     Murtha
     Nadler
     Neal
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Owens
     Pallone
     Payne (NJ)
     Payne (VA)
     Pelosi
     Peterson (FL)
     Pomeroy
     Poshard
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Reed
     Richardson
     Rivers
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Rose
     Roth
     Roybal-Allard
     Rush
     Sabo
     Sanders
     Sawyer
     Schroeder
     Schumer
     Serrano
     Skaggs
     Slaughter
     Smith (NJ)
     Spratt
     Stark
     Stokes
     Studds
     Stupak
     Tejeda
     Thompson
     Thornton
     Thurman
     Torres
     Torricelli
     Towns
     Traficant
     Velazquez
     Vento
     Visclosky
     Volkmer
     Ward
     Waters
     Watt (NC)
     Waxman
     Weller
     Williams
     Wilson
     Wise
     Woolsey
     Wynn
     Yates

                               NAYS--236

     Archer
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baesler
     Baker (CA)
     Baker (LA)
     Ballenger
     Barr
     Barrett (NE)
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bass
     Bateman
     Bentsen
     Bereuter
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bishop
     Bliley
     Blute
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bono
     Brewster
     Browder
     Brownback
     Bryant (TN)
     Bunn
     Bunning
     Burr
     Burton
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Canady
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Chenoweth
     Christensen
     Chrysler
     Clinger
     Coble
     Coburn
     Collins (GA)
     Combest
     Condit
     Cooley
     Cox
     Cramer
     Crane
     Crapo
     Cremeans
     Cubin
     Cunningham
     Davis
     Deal
     DeLay
     Dickey
     Dooley
     Doolittle
     Dornan
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     English
     Ensign
     Everett
     Ewing
     Fawell
     Fields (TX)
     Flanagan
     Foley
     Forbes
     Fowler
     Fox
     Franks (CT)
     Franks (NJ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Frisa
     Funderburk
     Gallegly
     Gekas
     Geren
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Goodlatte
     Goodling
     Goss
     Graham
     Greene (UT)
     Greenwood
     Gunderson
     Gutknecht
     Hall (TX)
     Hancock
     Hansen
     Hastert
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Herger
     Hilleary
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Hoke
     Hostettler
     Houghton
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Hyde
     Inglis
     Istook
     Jacobs
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones
     Kasich
     Kelly
     Kim
     King
     Kingston
     Klug
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     LaHood
     Largent
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Laughlin
     Lazio
     Leach
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Lightfoot
     Lincoln
     Linder
     Livingston
     LoBiondo
     Lucas
     Manzullo
     Martinez
     Martini
     McCollum
     McCrery
     McHugh
     McIntosh
     McKeon
     Metcalf
     Meyers
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Molinari
     Montgomery
     Moorhead
     Morella
     Myers
     Myrick
     Nethercutt
     Neumann
     Ney
     Nussle
     Orton
     Oxley
     Packard
     Parker
     Paxon
     Peterson (MN)
     Petri
     Pickett
     Pombo
     Porter
     Pryce
     Quillen
     Quinn
     Radanovich
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Roberts
     Roemer
     Rogers
     Rohrabacher
     Roukema
     Royce
     Salmon
     Sanford
     Saxton
     Scarborough
     Schaefer
     Schiff
     Seastrand
     Sensenbrenner
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shays
     Shuster
     Sisisky
     Skeen
     Skelton
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (TX)
     Smith (WA)
     Solomon
     Souder
     Spence
     Stearns
     Stenholm
     Stockman
     Stump
     Talent
     Tanner
     Tate
     Tauzin
     Taylor (MS)
     Taylor (NC)
     Thomas
     Thornberry
     Tiahrt
     Upton
     Vucanovich
     Walker
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Watts (OK)
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     White
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wolf
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)
     Zimmer

                             NOT VOTING--16

     Brown (FL)
     Buyer
     Collins (IL)
     de la Garza
     Ganske
     Hayes
     Heineman
     McNulty
     Mollohan
     Norwood
     Pastor
     Portman
     Riggs
     Scott
     Torkildsen
     Zeliff

                              {time}  1503

  Mr. TANNER, Mr. BAESLER, and Mrs. MORELLA changed their vote from 
``yea'' to ``nay.''
  Messrs. ALLARD, McINNIS, and LUTHER changed their vote from ``nay'' 
to ``yea.''
  So the motion was rejected.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Dreier). Without objection, the Chair 
appoints the following conferees:
  Messrs. Hyde, Smith of Texas, Gallegly, McCollum, Goodlatte, Bryant 
of Tennessee, Bono, Conyers, Frank of Massachusetts, Berman, Bryant of 
Texas, Becerra, Goodling, Cunningham, McKeon, Martinez, Gene Green of 
Texas, Shaw, and Jacobs.
  There was no objection.

                          ____________________