[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 138 (Monday, September 30, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11860-S11864]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             OMNIBUS CONSOLIDATED APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 1997

  The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.


                           Age Discrimination

  Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, it will take weeks before we find out 
everything that has been included in the omnibus appropriations bill, 
but already we know it contains provisions that were not included in 
the appropriations bills of either body.
  One of these provisions is section 119 of the Department of Defense 
Appropriations conference report, which contains amendments to the Age 
Discrimination in Employment Act.
  This section would reinstate and substantially broaden a temporary 
exemption from the provisions of the ADEA given to public safety 
departments from 1986 through 1993.
  Proponents of this language argue, and would probably like to 
believe, that this section does not amount to codification of 
discrimination. But here's how Webster's defines discrimination:
  ``To make a difference in treatment or favor on a class or 
categorical basis in disregard of individual merit.''
  That is a pretty clear statement. It is also a pretty good summary of 
the section in question. It says, in essence, that no one who is older 
than 55 can effectively serve as a police officer or firefighter, 
regardless of whether they are fit or unfit.

[[Page S11861]]

  But you don't need to take my word for it, and you don't need to take 
Webster's. The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, this country's 
preeminent civil rights organization, opposes this legislation as 
discriminatory.
  Let me read from the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights' letter on 
the bill that formed the basis of section 119:

       This bill sanctions--indeed encourages--state and local 
     governments to discriminate against their older workers. . . 
     . Such conduct, which denies an individual a job based upon 
     stereotypical and unproven assumptions about a class of 
     workers, is precisely what Congress has prohibited in federal 
     laws protecting employees' civil rights, e.g., Title VII of 
     the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans with Disabilities 
     Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and other 
     statutes.

  This is the same view held by the Equal Employment Opportunity 
Commission, which is charged with enforcing the ADEA. In its comment on 
this bill in an earlier Congress, the EEOC stated that:

       ``If signed into law, [the bill] would undercut years of 
     EEOC litigation in which we routinely challenged the use of 
     arbitrary age limitations by police and fire departments. 
     Further, the proposed amendment to permit state and local 
     governments to require the retirement of firefighters and law 
     enforcement officers as early as age 55 is inconsistent with 
     a substantial body of case law under the ADEA that prohibited 
     mandatory retirement of law enforcement officers and 
     firefighters on the basis of an arbitrary age cut-off.
  The EEOC is of course not the final word in adjudicating these 
matters. But the courts have generally agreed. In fact, the Supreme 
Court in 1985 rejected a mandatory retirement age for firefighters in 
the case Johnson versus Baltimore because Baltimore had failed to 
establish age as a bona fide occupational qualification, or BFOQ.
  This brings up the point that employers can use a mandatory 
retirement age under the law today if they can prove it is a BFOQ, that 
is, the employer is compelled to rely upon age because all or 
substantially all of the class would be unable to perform the work 
safely or because it is highly impractical to deal with employees 
individually.
  So we are left with two possibilities. Either public employers can 
prove age is a necessary proxy under the law and the Supreme Court 
precedents, in which case this bill is unnecessary, or they cannot, in 
which case the argument for this bill, that age is a necessary proxy, 
is unfounded.
  Civil rights are messy. Look at all the voting rights cases still 
being played out across the country today, some 6 years after the last 
census. The EEOC and the courts are swamped with cases of all kinds.
  From time to time there has been debate on the exact standards we 
should use in judging these cases, or what kind of damages should be 
available to plaintiffs.
  But today marks the first time in my two decades in Congress that we 
have stood on the verge of turning back the clock and rolling back 
civil rights protections for an entire class of individuals.
  Yes, individuals. Because our civil rights laws are not supposed to 
be about codifying group characteristics but about preserving 
individual liberties. Since Asian-Americans have a lesser risk of heart 
attacks than whites or blacks, should they be given preference in 
hiring as police or firefighters? Since women have a lower risk than 
men, should they be preferred?
  Of course not, since doing so would be rank discrimination. But by 
what leap of logic can we conclude that applying this same approach to 
age is not discriminatory? Of course there is none.
  Proponents of this bill claim that they don't want to discriminate, 
but that, in effect, the devil makes them do it. The devil in this case 
is allegedly a lack of tests that can determine individual fitness for 
duty.
  That would be a powerful and attractive argument but for one fact. It 
isn't true.
  This bill itself speaks to why it is not true. Unlike the temporary 
exemption enacted in 1986, which merely grand fathered the retirement 
policies in effect 3 years earlier, this bill would permit any police 
or fire department in the country to put in place mandatory retirement, 
whether or not it has even had such a policy over the last decade.
  The fact is, a lot of departments have not relied on mandatory 
retirement. Researchers from the EEOC study sent out a survey to over 
400 departments across the country. It was not a scientific sample, but 
did produce a wide cross-section of respondents. Of the hundreds of 
departments that responded, 55 percent had maximum age entry limits or 
forced retirement policies, but more importantly, 45 percent did not. 
Some of these departments face challenges every bit as rigorous as any 
other. The Los Angeles County Fire Department, for example, does not 
have a mandatory retirement age, but relies on fitness testing to 
determine whether individuals can still do the work. That testing has 
survived judicial scrutiny and can be replicated or modified and put in 
place in every other city in the country. Reno, NV, a smaller city, has 
made the transition and is quite happy with it. Its system is based on 
the testing put together by the Cooper Institute for Aerobics Research, 
the same company that designed testing for Boston, New York, and 
jurisdictions across the country. The Massachusetts Police Association, 
with 17,000 members, also supports performance based retirement, as 
does the Police Executives Research Forum.
  The fact that this testing exists should not come as a great shock. 
Testing is used to screen applicants in virtually every department in 
the country. It is used widely to certify individuals as ready for 
return from disability. And as I have mentioned, it is used to certify 
continued fitness for duty as well. It is simply untrue that testing 
does not exist.
  This testing has both costs as well as benefits. Obviously setting up 
such a system, and requiring periodic screening, takes some time and 
money. And it cannot be easy to confront a longtime colleague with the 
news that he is no longer fit to serve.
  But these costs are minimal compared to the benefits of avoiding a 
patently discriminatory approach. And if the real purpose behind this 
legislation were the safety of officers and the public, there is little 
doubt we should engage in health screening rather than arbitrary 
retirement.
  Why? Well, let's look at the facts. Proponents of this legislation 
make a lot of arguments about the potential for catastrophic health 
accidents amongst older firefighters or police. That sounds reasonable, 
as we know firefighters and police work in very hazardous environments.
  But as it turns out, the rate of fatal injuries is as much as 6 times 
greater in industries such as logging, fishing and construction. A 
taxicab driver is twice as likely to be killed on the job as a 
firefighter. Yet all those industries operate without mandatory 
retirement.
  Firefighting is a high risk occupation, with a fatality rate 4 times 
the national average. But what is the best way to combat this risk?
  In 1994, the last year for which data are available, there were 42 
deaths for all reasons among career firefighters, while the total 
number of these paid, permanent positions was 265,000. Thus, the 
total death rate for all reasons was .0001, or 1/100 of 1 per cent. Of 
these deaths, a little more than half, or 26, were at the fire scene.

  Most of the deaths have nothing to do with this debate. They are the 
result of suffocation or trauma, accidents that happen without regard 
to age. At the same time, there were 13 heart attacks, and 1 stroke. 
But contrary to the claims of proponents of this bill, none of these 
heart attacks occurred in firefighters over the age of 60, and the 
incidence for firefighters in the age 56 to 60 cohort was the same as 
in the 31 to 35 age cohort. In fact, the heart attacks were spread 
fairly evenly over all age cohorts.
  Out of the thousands of firefighters over the age of 55, there were 
two deaths due to heart attack. This is less than the death rate for 
heart disease in the population as a whole, which is 357 per 100,000 
for Americans aged 55 to 64.
  But most importantly, most of the heart attacks among firefighters 
occurred in people with known heart conditions. According to the 
National Fire Protection Association, which gathered and studied the 
data:

       . . . a large proportion of the heart attack victims 
     (approximately 8 of 13 paid firefighters) were known to have 
     had heart conditions that should have precluded them from 
     engaging in active firefighting duties.


[[Page S11862]]


  If this bill were designed to improve public and occupational safety, 
it would attack the biggest problem, people with heart conditions that 
continue to fight fires. It does absolutely nothing to combat this 
problem. In fact, it probably makes it worse.
  Fire departments now lack the authority to rely on mandatory 
retirement as a bad proxy for fitness. If they are going to act 
responsibly, they have instituted or will institute screening that 
should prevent people with known heart conditions from staying on the 
job. Such screening could have prevented 60 percent of the firefighter 
heart attacks in the last year for which we have data.
  This bill, on the other hand, would make matters worse. Those 
departments that now monitor health would lose a major reason for 
maintaining their fitness programs, and other departments would have 
less reason to institute them.
  This is exactly what happened in departments after the 1986 
amendments, and it will happen again if section 119 is adopted.
  If we want to prevent heart attacks and strokes, the effective 
avenues are not mysterious and do not include age discrimination. We 
should set up fitness programs and attack known risk factors like 
smoking and obesity and cardiovascular fitness.
  We should reward individuals who maintain their fitness for duty 
rather sending them the message that it does not matter what kind of 
shape they are in, that they can just limp along until their mandatory 
retirement age.
  I wish my colleagues could have heard the testimony we did in the 
Labor Committee from one of those individuals, Detective Bill Smith. 
Detective Smith is 55 going on 40. He weighs almost exactly what he did 
when he entered the Indiana State Police years ago, and when he 
testified that he remains physically and mentally fit, there was not a 
doubter in the audience.
  Detective Smith is the State's senior hostage negotiator, and has 
years of training and experience that we will lose if we pass this 
bill.
  In fact, one of the witnesses on the other side of the debate made 
clear that he would be proud to serve with Detective Smith, and that he 
didn't think that this legislation was about exceptional individuals 
such as the detective.
  That is not an uncommon sentiment. But of course it goes to the very 
heart of this debate, whether we are interested in protecting the 
rights of those few officers who want to continue to work and are fit 
enough to do so.
  Proponents of this legislation seem unconcerned about the individual 
rights at stake in this debate. Instead, they want to fire Detective 
Smith and thousands of other dedicated officers across the country in 
the interest of administrative convenience.
  But it gets worse. Since 1986, state and local police and fire 
departments knew that mandatory retirement would become unlawful at the 
end of 1993. Apparently some jurisdictions maintained mandatory 
retirement policies, because this bill would reach back and extinguish 
the legal claims of individuals who were unlawfully fired over the past 
3 years.
  This is an extraordinary step. Under the ADEA, an individual is 
entitled to recover double back wages where the violation is willful, 
which I should think would be the case here for anyone terminated after 
the exemption expired.
  Thus, we could be denying tens or even hundreds of thousands of 
dollars in back wages rightfully owed to individuals by jurisdictions 
that have flouted the law over the past 3 years.
  We struggled mightily with the issue of retroactivity when Congress 
considered the Civil Rights Restoration Act a few years ago. There, the 
issues were fairly subtle, the courts narrowly divided, the changes by 
degree. Here, there is no subtlety whatsoever, there is no room for 
interpretation. Mandatory retirement became illegal in January, 1994--
period. For any of my Republican colleagues concerned about retroactive 
taxation, this provision amounts to as much as a 200-percent 
retroactive tax on the wages due American workers.
  And as for my Democratic colleagues, I would draw their attention to 
the Senate Democratic Action Agenda they unveiled with much fanfare 
some time ago. It promised action on three fronts: paycheck security, 
health security, and retirement security. Any of my colleagues who are 
truly concerned about that agenda will oppose this legislation, because 
it represents a retreat on all three fronts. Paycheck security. This 
bill is a legislative pink slip for thousands of hard working, 
dedicated and able Americans. No security there.

  Health security. Public police and fire departments have almost 
universal coverage. What kind of jobs 55-year-olds will land, if any, 
is anybody's guess. Health coverage goes from a sure thing to a roll of 
the dice. Not much security there.
  Retirement security. Detective Smith, if he could work a few more 
years, would add more than $6,000 a year to his pension. He doesn't 
need more laws from Washington to promote his security, he just needs 
us to let him do his job. Little security there.
  As a footnote, one of the things the Democrats want to do is pass a 
tax deduction for education costs. That's great. One of the reasons 
Detective Smith wants to stay on the job is to help pay for his 
daughter's college education.
  Proponents of this legislation argue that Detective Smith is simply 
an unfortunate casualty for the greater good, collateral damage in the 
words of the military.
  But the tragedy is that the greater good does not require putting 
Detective Smith out on the street. The greatest good comes from 
treating him as an individual, from strengthening our public safety 
departments through a rational rather than an expedient personnel 
process.
  I think the adoption of this provision is shameful. Mandatory 
retirement is age discrimination. If public employers could not 
convince the EEOC or the courts otherwise, they should not convince us.
  But apparently they have. It is a sad day in the history of civil 
rights in this country. We have turned the clock backward.
  Mr. PELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Frist). The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. PELL.
  Mr. President, last Saturday afternoon, I joined some 15,000 of my 
fellow Rhode Islanders in a huge rally to welcome President Clinton to 
Providence. It was in Providence that the President announced his 
support for the omnibus appropriations bill that will soon be 
considered by this body. And it was in Providence that we heard the 
best news for education funding that we have heard in almost 2 years.
  Approval of the legislation before us will increase Federal education 
funding by more than 12 percent over last year. Because of the 
President's leadership and particularly because of his commitment to 
education, this increase stands in stark contrast to the dire 
predictions of drastic cuts in education programs that marked the 
beginning of this Congress. It is a dramatic and encouraging end to 
this session of Congress.
  Next year we will have the largest Pell grant in history. The maximum 
grant will be $2,700, an increase of $230 in one year. The number of 
low and middle income students receiving Pell grants will increase by 
150,000. And the total number of students receiving Pell grants next 
year will reach 3.8 million.
  We have also strengthened our commitment to education reform by 
increasing appropriations for the Goals 2000 program by almost 29 
percent and upping funds for professional development by more than 11 
percent.
  We have provided a 16 percent increase in funding for Safe and Drug 
Free Schools. Less than 2 years ago we were fighting to keep this 
program from suffering a 40 percent cut.
  The title I program will be increased by some $470 million next year, 
and two-thirds of that increase will go to our most needy and deserving 
schools.
  Mr. President, in area after area in education we have good news and 
solid progress. This is an education budget we can cheer. It deserves 
our strong support.
  We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to President Clinton and his 
administration for the strong leadership they have shown on behalf of 
education. And, we owe an equally enormous debt of gratitude to those 
from

[[Page S11863]]

this body who played such an important part in helping fashion this 
agreement and bring forth such an encouraging education budget. In 
particular, I personally want to thank Senator Hatfield, Senator Byrd, 
Senator Specter, and Senator Harkin for the vital role they have played 
in this dramatic achievement.
  Mr. President, I hope the Senate will act with dispatch in approving 
this legislation
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I again express great appreciation for 
the statement that was made by our friend and colleague, Senator Pell, 
who reviewed for the Senate the various provisions in this agreement 
related to education. I think all of us are once again enormously 
impressed, as I know the people that he represents are, by his 
extraordinary commitment to enhancing the quality of education for 
young people all across this country. He diminishes his own strength by 
not mentioning his own very important participation and involvement 
over the period of recent years in maintaining a strong priority in 
education which is really reflected in this budget.
  As a member of that committee, I commend him for all he has done over 
a very long and distinguished career in the area of education, and I 
think his tireless desire to ensure that we have a bipartisan effort in 
the area of education has been always a trademark of his leadership as 
well. So I think all of us who will read the history of this discussion 
about development of the continuing resolution know full well that in 
the area of education he played a very significant and major role, and 
I know everybody in the Senate understands it and appreciates it.
  Mr. President, exactly 2 years ago, the late Barbara Jordan, Chair of 
the Commission on Immigration Reform, submitted to Congress a 
comprehensive set of recommendations to address the illegal immigration 
crisis in America. At that time, Barbara Jordan said, ``Our message is 
simple. The United States must have a more credible immigration policy 
that deters unlawful immigration while supporting our national interest 
in legal immigration.''
  The bill that the Republican leadership tried to ram hastily through 
the Congress was weak in addressing illegal immigration and reflected 
the antiworker, antifamily, anti-immigrant, antirefugee, and anti-
environment agenda of the Republican right wing and was an extreme 
Republican assault on the American worker and on working families. It 
did more harm to the country than good.
  But after extraordinary negotiation last week involving the White 
House, the Republican leadership, key Members of Congress, those 
features of the Republican bill that came out of their conference that 
assaulted legal immigrants and made it impossible for working Americans 
to reunite their families here are now gone. Gone, too, is the 
unacceptable Gallegly amendment which would have allowed States to 
expel immigrant children from public schools and dump them on the 
streets. This unwise amendment would do nothing to stem the tide of 
immigration. It was vigorously opposed by police groups and educators 
because of the harm it would do to our communities. Congress is right 
to reject this provision.
  Although the worst provisions in this bill on legal immigrants are 
gone, it is still not the hard-hitting crackdown on illegal immigration 
it ought to be. Republicans rejected our efforts to include strong 
provisions to punish unscrupulous employers who hire illegal immigrant 
workers and then exploit them with cheap labor and unsafe workplace 
conditions knowing they will not protest such conditions.
  This bill winks at this shameful sweatshop practice. Americans will 
continue to lose their jobs as long as unscrupulous employers can get 
away with hiring and abusing illegal workers. Clearly, stronger 
legislation is needed if we are serious about dealing effectively with 
illegal immigration. And I intend to renew this battle again next year.

  In addition, the provisions in this bill related to refugees and due 
process of law represent an improvement over the recently enacted 
antiterrorism law. But they still do not go far enough in restoring 
judicial revue and giving persecuted refugees a fair opportunity to 
seek asylum in America.
  Most of the credit for what is before us today as part of this 
continuing resolution goes to our respected friend and colleague, 
Senator Al Simpson. We will miss his able leadership, vision and 
courage on the complex and challenging issues of immigration.
  As I have said on many different occasions, immigration is not a 
high-profile issue in the State of Wyoming. They are not inundated with 
illegal immigration. There are important historical strains of legal 
migration in Wyoming, but certainly it is not a State that is 
confronted with these types of issues. But the fact that Senator 
Simpson over a very long and distinguished career in the Senate was 
willing to take the time, make the effort and had the energy to master 
the very complex policies that are affected by immigration and refugee 
policies and asylum reflects great national service. He was always 
there to make sure that no matter where the political winds were 
blowing, we kept our eye on the ball on matters of immigration, illegal 
immigration, and refugees. He and I did not always agree, but we found 
common ground, and everyone on that committee always found that Senator 
Simpson was willing to listen and to find the broadest of coalitions in 
the best interests of our country. And again the provisions that are 
included in this legislation to a great extent reflect the long effort 
on his part to make sure that we were addressing these matters in a 
responsible way.
  I know there are provisions that were excluded that he would have 
favored to have included but nonetheless I would like to think that the 
more positive aspects of the provisions that we have included can be 
traced in origin back over a long period of time to the work of Senator 
Simpson, the Jordan Commission, the Hesburgh Commission, and other 
efforts of the committee.
  Senator Simpson took the Jordan Commission's recommendations, 
conducted extensive hearings on them in our subcommittee, visited each 
Senator individually to obtain their views on what needs to be done, 
and conducted a fair and open process of debate on the bill in the 
subcommittee. When the full Judiciary Committee considered the bill 
last spring, he and Senator Hatch gave all members a full opportunity 
to present their views. Over 150 amendments were debated over 8 days 
and all members of the committee feel that the result was a much better 
bill.
  In a similar spirit of bipartisanship, the Senate debated the bill 
for 2 weeks in April and May and after full and fair debate and votes 
on numerous amendments the result was an outstanding tribute to the 
leadership of Senator Simpson. The bill passed 97 to 3, a remarkable 
capstone to the commitment of this extraordinary Senator over almost 2 
decades to ensure that our immigrant heritage is carried forward. As a 
result of his efforts, the Nation will look ahead to the next century 
better able to draw on the positive contributions of immigration to our 
country, while equipped with more effective tools to combat the 
unlawful immigration that is so harmful to our country.

  The subsequent course of this legislation was less satisfactory for 
those of us who care so deeply about preserving our immigrant heritage 
while cracking down on illegal immigration. After extraordinary 
bipartisanship in passing the legislation in both the House and Senate, 
Democrats were suddenly shut out. Republicans sought to convert the 
legislation into a partisan political document to aid the Dole 
Presidential campaign in California.
  As a result, unusual steps were necessary to reinject bipartisanship 
in this important legislation. The events of the past few days and the 
agreement achieved early Saturday morning have produced a far better 
bill for the Nation than the Republican conference report on which the 
Senate was scheduled to vote today.
  President Clinton provided the strong leadership needed to persuade 
Republican leaders to back away from their extreme positions and come 
to the table to work out genuine bipartisan legislation for the good of 
the country.

[[Page S11864]]

  The agreement addresses illegal immigrant head on. It reverses the 
serious mistakes by the Republican leadership to use illegal 
immigration as a pretext to attack legal immigrants.
  Entirely different considerations apply to legal immigrants. They 
come in under our laws, serve in our Armed Forces, pay taxes, raise 
their families, enhance our democracy, and contribute to our 
communities. The original Senate bill had rightly rejected harsh 
attacks on legal immigrants, and so does this agreement. That is a 
major victory.
  First, this agreement drops harmful provisions that would have made 
the recent welfare reforms even harsher for legal immigrants. Having 
banned SSI, food stamps, Medicaid, cash assistance, and other services 
for legal immigrants in the welfare bill, the Republican immigration 
bill would have expanded the restrictions to include Head Start, job 
training, and English classes. This was wrong, and this agreement 
corrects this grave mistake.
  The Republican bill would have shifted the rules in midstream for 
legal immigrants already in America and their sponsors. The bipartisan 
compromise, on the other hand, retains the formulation in the new 
welfare law, which applies primarily to future immigrants. Without this 
compromise, the Nation's hospitals, clinics, and community based 
organizations would have been overwhelmed, and would have lost millions 
of dollars in Federal help.
  Second, the comprehensive welfare reforms made legal immigrants 
ineligible for many types of assistance. The Republican bill penalized 
the few legal immigrants who still qualify for assistance by 
threatening them with deportation if they actually used the assistance.
  If there are immigrants who abuse welfare--or use it illegally--they 
should be deported. In fact, current laws permit this step, and we 
should enforce them.
  But it is wrong to add to the harsh new welfare reforms by saying to 
legal immigrants who qualify for child care assistance that if they 
actually use it, they can be deported. No parent should face that 
choice--of leaving their children home alone while the parent works or 
risking deportation by obtaining child care. It was right to eliminate 
these deportation provisions under the new bipartisan agreement.
  Finally, it was wrong for Republicans to insist on putting family 
sponsorship off limits to lower income working American families. Under 
the Republican bill, 40 percent of American citizens would have been 
denied the right to bring in their families. The Republicans try to 
claim that their party is the party of family values, but this bill was 
a flagrant denial of such values. Under the Republican proposal, for 
the first time in the Nation's long immigrant history, low-income 
working American citizens would have been denied the opportunity to 
have this spouses and young children join them in America.

  Republicans argue that most Americans who sponsor family members are, 
in fact, former immigrants, who knew when they immigrated that they 
would be leaving families behind. The fact is, according to the General 
Accounting Office, 64 percent of those sponsoring their families in any 
given year are native-born American citizens who were never immigrants 
themselves.
  Republicans also argue that if we do not set high income standards 
for sponsors, then low-income sponsors will be pushed onto welfare 
because they have to support themselves and the sponsored immigrant as 
well.
  To guard against this possibility, the bipartisan agreement 
establishes an income test for sponsorship at 125 percent of the 
poverty level. The agreement requires sponsors to sign an enforceable 
sponsorship contract that requires sponsors to care for those they 
bring in. And it requires sponsors to prove they can meet the 
requirement by submitting their tax returns for the past 3 years.
  This is the approach which the Senate adopted in May and which was 
actively supported by many Republicans, including Senator Abraham, 
Senator DeWine and others. In fact, in June, Jack Kemp urged 
congressional leaders to adopt this sponsorship formula. He wrote, 
``The Senate bill reasonably requires that sponsors have income equal 
to 125 percent of the Federal poverty level,'' and he called on 
Congress to oppose sponsorship formulas that imposed stiffer burdens on 
sponsorship.
  The 125 percent requirement ensures that very few sponsors will be 
pushed onto welfare. Virtually all welfare programs require 100 percent 
of poverty or less in order for applicants to qualify. Those with 
incomes above 125 percent of the poverty level qualify for very few 
programs. And where they do, they normally qualify for only a few 
dollars of help.
  The price tag that the Republican bill placed on family unity was 
unnecessary, harsh, and punitive. It was intended as a backdoor 
reduction in legal, family immigration. The Republican wealth test for 
sponsorship was 140 percent of the poverty level for those sponsoring 
their spouses or young children and 200 percent for those sponsoring 
their parents, adult children, or brothers and sisters. The Republican 
plan was anti-family. It said to working Americans that their jobs were 
not good enough to qualify them for sponsorship. This draconian, class-
based proposal would have caused unfair hardship for working American 
families, and was rightly rejected as part of this bipartisan 
agreement.
  In addition, this agreement contains three other worthwhile 
improvements. It provides assistance to immigrants who are victims of 
domestic violence. It continues assistance under the Ryan White Act for 
immigrants with HIV infection or battling AIDS. It allows non-profit 
organizations, such as Catholic Charities, church social service 
programs, or community-based organizations to continue to assist 
communities with Government funds, without having to check the 
citizenship and green cards of everyone who walks in their doors.
  Rather than making harsh welfare reforms even harsher for legal 
immigrants, this bipartisan agreement provides modest but needed 
improvements over those reforms for battered immigrants and for 
charities and other non-profit organizations that are a lifeline to 
immigrant communities.
  As President Kennedy wrote in his book, ``A Nation of Immigrants'':

       Immigration policy should be generous; it should be fair, 
     it should be flexible. With such a policy we can turn to the 
     world, and to our own past, with clean hands and a clear 
     conscience. Such a policy would be but a reaffirmation of old 
     principles. It would be an expression of our agreement with 
     George Washington that ``The bosom of America is open to 
     receive not only the opulent and respectable stranger, but 
     the oppressed and persecuted of all nations and religions; 
     whom we shall welcome to a participation of all our rights 
     and privileges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they 
     appear to merit the enjoyment.''

  This bipartisan agreement is largely consistent with that goal. It 
takes a number of worthwhile steps to deal with the problems of illegal 
immigration, although much more significant steps could have been taken 
and should have been taken to deal with this serious problem. Equally 
important, this bill keeps the Nation's doors open, with reasonable 
limitation, for those who come here as legal immigrants and contribute 
to a stronger and better America, as they have done throughout the two 
centuries of our history. I commend all of those who have helped to 
develop this proposal and have it included in the underlying document.

  I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from 
South Dakota and 5 minutes to the Senator from Vermont.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota is recognized.

                          ____________________