[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 37 (Thursday, March 20, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2639-S2640]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     SPONSORSHIP STUDY SHOWS DEVASTATING EFFECTS OF IMMIGRATION LAW

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, a soon-to-be-released study commissioned 
by the Immigration and Naturalization Service shows that the 
immigration law Congress passed last year will have a devastating 
impact on family reunification--especially for working families.
  Members of Congress may think they voted last year to put aside 
proposals to reduce legal immigration. But in fact, as this new study 
shows, last year's bill may have accomplished back door cuts that could 
not have been achieved through the front door. The onerous new 
sponsorship requirements are likely to cause a one-third reduction in 
the number of immigrants entering the United States to join close 
family members here.
  The new law requires immigrants and US citizens seeking to bring 
immigrant relatives to the US to meet strict income requirements. 
Anyone sponsoring an immigrant relative for admission to the US must 
earn at least 125% of the poverty level. For a family of four, 125% of 
the poverty level is more than $20,000 per year.
  The INS study examined sponsorship patterns under the old law, and 
found that 29% of family sponsors had incomes below 125% of poverty. 
That means 3 out of every 10 families who came here in recent years 
probably could not have been reunited with family members under the new 
125% rule. In addition, 52% of immigrants who sponsored their spouses 
did not meet the 125% income threshold. In other words, over half of 
all immigrants who brought in husbands or wives--the closest of all 
family members--would be disqualified if they tried to bring them in 
today.
  In addition, according to the study, 29% of American citizens who 
sponsored their spouses earn below the 125% level. That's 3 out of 
every 10 American citizen sponsors who could not be reunited with their 
spouses under the new law.
  The new requirement hurts both working American families and legal 
immigrants. As a result, large numbers of them cannot reunite with 
their loved ones. The new threshold means that the average construction 
workers with two children could not sponsor their immigrant spouse.
  We are talking about hard-working Americans and legal immigrants--
people who have played by the rules. I doubt that anyone in this 
Congress wants to deny American citizens the opportunity to bring their 
spouse to America or watch their children grow up here. But, that is 
what the 125% requirement does. It denies hard-working Americans these 
opportunities because the full time job they hold doesn't pay enough.
  Supporters of the new requirement claim that the income requirement 
is intended to keep immigrants off welfare. But in reality, after last 
year's sweeping welfare reforms, there is very little public assistance 
for which legal immigrants qualify. They are banned from receiving SSI 
and Food Stamps until they have worked and paid taxes for 10 years--or 
until they become citizens. They are banned from Medicaid and other 
needs-based programs for their first five years in the United States, 
after which they receive assistance only if their sponsors are unable 
to provide for them. So even if their sponsors have only modest 
incomes, the immigrants they sponsor are ineligible for public aid.

  I supported measure to make sponsors more responsible for the care of 
the immigrants they bring in. But these requirements should not be so 
burdensome that they prevent American citizens from having their wives 
or husbands or children join them in the United States.
  We expect sponsors to be responsible--far more responsible than we 
expect ordinary Americans to be. We expect sponsors to do it all--
pursue the American dream, hold a good job, and under the new law, hold 
a better job than almost a third of American citizens. The 125% 
requirement contained in the new immigration law puts family 
reunification out of reach for many hard-working Americans and the 
majority of legal immigrants.
  In addition, the study found that the 125% requirement 
disproportionately affects minority communities. Half of the immigrants 
coming from Mexico and El Salvador had sponsors who earned less than 
125% of the poverty level. The same was true for a third of immigrants 
coming from Korea and the Dominican Republic, and a fourth of 
immigrants coming from China and Jamaica. So, future immigrants from 
these countries will have unfair difficulty reuniting with their 
families in the United States.
  Supporters of the 125% requirement often point out that the new law 
allows low income sponsors to overcome the 125% hurdle by lining up 
backup sponsors. What they fail to say, however, is that low-income, 
working class sponsors usually have low-income, working class friends. 
As a result, it is extremely difficult to find back up sponsors with 
income sufficient to meet the 125% requirement.
  In addition, because the new law makes sponsorship agreements legally 
binding contracts, non-family members are unlikely to agree to 
sponsorship. Friends and family know that if they agree to sponsor an 
immigrant, they can be sued by the federal, state, or local government 
if the immigrant needs public assistance. If the immigrant they sponsor 
is injured on the job and needs medical care, the back-up sponsor may 
have to pay thousands of dollars in medical bills. Many families are 
not willing to ask their friends and other relatives to shoulder such a 
heavy burden.
  I hope that all of us in this Congress who are concerned about 
families in the immigration laws will work together to revise these 
harsh provisions. There is no justification for this blatant kind of 
bias in the immigration laws, and Congress has an obligation to end it.
  I ask unanimous consent that a recent article from the New York Times 
on this new study be printed at this point in the Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the New York Times, Mar. 16, 1997]

           Immigrant Study Finds Many Below New Income Limit

                          (By Celia W. Dugger)

       A new Federal analysis has found that an immigration law 
     adopted last fall will make it much more difficult for poor 
     and working-class immigrants to bring family members to the 
     United States legally, especially Mexicans and Salvadorans, 
     whose incomes

[[Page S2640]]

     are generally lower than those of other immigrant groups.
       But Congressional sponsors of the legislation say their 
     intent was not to impose unfair burdens on immigrant families 
     but simply to prevent them from becoming dependent on public 
     aid.
       The law requires immigrants seeking to bring relatives here 
     to meet income requirements and to make legally enforceable 
     promises to support the newcomers.
       Advocates for immigrants say these restrictions are a 
     backdoor way to slash legal immigration in a year when 
     Republicans in Congress failed to reduce immigration levels 
     directly. They say it will needlessly divide hard-working 
     husbands and wives from each other and their children.
       The law, which is to go into effect later this year after 
     regulations are finalized, requires immigrants sponsoring 
     family members for admission to the United States to make at 
     least 125 percent of the poverty level, or $19,500 for a 
     family of four.
       Under the old law, there was no income test for sponsors, 
     just a requirement that incoming immigrants show they would 
     not need public aid. In deciding whether to issue visas, 
     consular officers at United States embassies overseas could 
     consider whether prospective immigrants had jobs waiting, 
     marketable skills, enough savings to support themselves or a 
     sponsor.
       Preliminary research, sponsored by the United States 
     Immigration and Naturalization Service and based on a random 
     survey of 2,160 statements signed by sponsors of family 
     immigrants in 1994, found that about 3 in 10 of those 
     sponsors had incomes below the new standard.
       Another study conducted last year by the Urban Institute, a 
     nonprofit research group in Washington, reached similar 
     conclusions. Its examination of 1993 Census Bureau income 
     data found that 40 percent of immigrant families in the 
     United States and 26 percent of Americans born in the United 
     States would not make enough to sponsor an immigrant under 
     the new standard.
       Federal immigration officials refused to discuss their new 
     research, which had not yet been released, or to say whether 
     the preliminary findings had changed. But several people 
     familiar with the research--three who opposed the new law and 
     two who favored it--described the findings on condition that 
     their names not be used.
       Based on the survey of statements signed by sponsors, 
     immigration officials estimated that roughly half of the 
     Mexicans and Salvadorans, one-third of the Dominicans and 
     Koreans, one-fourth of the Chinese and Jamaicans and one-
     fifth of the Filipinos, Indians and Vietnamese would not have 
     met the new income requirements.
       One opponent of the new laws who spoke on condition of 
     anonymity said the study showed that half of the legal 
     permanent residents and about 3 in 10 of the citizens who 
     sponsored their wives in 1994 would not have met the income 
     standard.
       The cases surveyed included both immigrants seeking to join 
     their families here and those already in the United States, 
     who may have entered on student visas or illegally, trying to 
     become legal permanent residents.
       In 1994, 461,725 immigrants came to the United States to 
     join their families here, according to Federal statistics. 
     Demographers with the New York City Planning Department 
     estimate that about 1 in 6 of those immigrants came to the 
     city.
       But the new research comes with these cautions: the income 
     reported on each statement was not verified, and the size of 
     the families and the incomes they would need to meet the new 
     standard were difficult to determine in a substantial portion 
     of the cases.
       Representative Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican who is 
     chairman of the House Immigration Subcommittee and a sponsor 
     of the law, said in a statement on Friday that he had been 
     advised that the methodology of the immigration service's 
     research was ``fatally flawed.''
       New studies of the impact of last year's immigration law 
     are being scrutinized because the issue of immigration is so 
     politically charged and because legal changes so often have 
     unanticipated consequences.
       Complicating this debate is the disagreement among experts 
     about just how much legal immigrants rely on public 
     assistance. The Urban Institute says that 94 percent of 
     immigrants do not receive welfare. George J. Borjas, a 
     professor of public policy at the John F. Kennedy School of 
     Government at Harvard University, using a broader definition 
     of welfare benefits, says that 21 percent of all immigrant 
     households receive some type of public assistance, compared 
     with 14 percent of native households.
       Even with the data on the income requirements, it is 
     difficult to predict exactly what impact the new law will 
     have on immigration levels. For one thing, people who cannot 
     immigrate legally may come anyway.
       ``The perverse effect of the law will be to encourage 
     illegal immigration,'' said Cecilia Munoz, a deputy vice 
     president of the National Council of La Raza, a nonprofit 
     Hispanic civil rights organization. ``The ties between 
     families are probably stronger than our laws.''
       All immigrants seeking to join their families will need a 
     sponsor when the law takes effect; the old law did not 
     require a sponsor for those who convinced officials that they 
     could support themselves. About one-quarter of the immigrants 
     who joined their families in 1994 had no sponsor, according 
     to the new research, and it is not possible to determine how 
     they would have fared under the new law.
       In addition, under the new law, sponsors who do not meet 
     the new income standards will be allowed to recruit a friend 
     or other relative who does earn enough to sign a statement in 
     their stead, promising to support the new immigrant if 
     necessary.
       That may enable more people to bring in relatives, although 
     another provision of the law is already discouraging some 
     close family members, not to mention friends, from signing 
     such legally binding statements, immigration lawyers say.
       In the past, such promises have generally been found 
     unenforceable in the courts, but the new law specifically 
     empowers Federal, state and local governments to sue sponsors 
     of immigrants who wind up on public assistance. It also 
     allows immigrants to sue their sponsors for support. The 
     sponsor is responsible until the immigrant becomes a citizen 
     or has been working and paying taxes for 10 years.
       Ana C. Zigal, an immigration lawyer in Baltimore, said she 
     represents a young college student married to an illegal 
     Mexican immigrant who installs air-conditioners for a living. 
     The student, who works as a sales clerk in a department 
     store, does not make enough to sponsor her husband and her 
     father is ``very scared'' about signing a statement promising 
     to support his son-in-law if necessary, Mr. Zigal said.
       ``What if that kid has a car accident that leaves him a 
     paraplegic?'' Ms. Zigal said. ``The father is weighing his 
     daughter's happiness against these future unknowns.''
       The new requirements continue to stir debate about the 
     purpose of immigration to the United States. Groups that 
     favor more restrictive policies, like the Federation for 
     American Immigration Reform, contend the law will help keep 
     out those who cannot support themselves.
       ``We don't need to import a poverty class into this 
     country,'' John L. Martin, special projects director at the 
     federation, said.
       But advocates for immigrants say the new law runs counter 
     to America's commitment to encouraging immigrants to 
     reconstruct their close families here.
       ``The new law will mean that literally thousands of U.S. 
     citizens and lawful permanent residents won't be able to 
     reunite with their spouses, children and other family 
     members,'' said Jeanne A. Butterfield, executive director of 
     the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

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