[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 17 (Wednesday, February 23, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S710-S711]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            MIGRANT WORKERS

  Mr. SMITH of Oregon. Mr. President, every time we have a recess and 
there is an occasion to go home, invariably we all learn something of 
significance that helps us in our service in the Senate. I thought I 
would take to the floor of the Senate today and speak about something I 
learned, something I experienced which I wanted to highlight. Right 
now, it is an issue that is sort of a low light in this body.
  Earlier in this Congress, Senator Bob Graham of Florida and I 
introduced a bill to fix our H-2A guest worker program that affects 
agriculture. Preceding that, Senators Graham and Wyden and I met with 
the Secretary of Labor and pleaded for the administration to come 
forward with some sort of fix to relieve the pressure on the farm labor 
system. There are enough workers, but you have to settle for an illegal 
system to conclude that there are enough workers. The Secretary assured

[[Page S711]]

us that something would be forthcoming, but nothing has been.
  In the meantime, I have gone forward with this fix of our farm guest 
worker program in the hopes of getting something through in this 
Congress that could win the support of the administration and begin to 
relieve a problem I have now seen in a very human way.
  I had scheduled two meetings last Thursday, one in Woodburn, OR, and 
the other in Gresham, OR. The subject was farm labor. I invited people 
to come and talk about my bill. I was overwhelmed by what occurred. We 
met first in an armory in Woodburn. When I arrived, it was already 
filled to capacity. There were 1,200 people, most of them illegal, in 
the armory waiting for me to come. They had been there, I was told, for 
an hour or more ahead of time, hoping to get a seat to hear what was 
going to be shared. There were so many people in the armory, they had 
to put a speaker on the outside grounds so that those who could not get 
in could hear. Some in the media estimated there were 2,000 people in 
total.
  I looked into their faces and saw those who live in our society, 
those who live in the shadows of our society, those who fill jobs in 
our society, those who keep our shelves full at home and in our grocery 
stores, but those who are victimized in the most inhumane way because 
we have an unworkable law.
  I heard all kinds of opinions about my bill. I granted to them that 
it probably wasn't a perfect bill, but at least I was trying--one of 
the few who are--to resolve this situation. I thank Senator Graham of 
Florida for his willingness to step into this issue. One gets lots of 
arrows in the back when they try to tackle an immigration issue.
  What motivates me to do this is almost weekly reports of migrant 
workers dying in the American deserts of the Southwest, trying to make 
their way to jobs. These are people who are victimized by human 
coyotes. They are raped. They are robbed. They are bribed. They are 
pillaged in ways that are unthinkable, and ought to be unthinkable, in 
this country. It happens because they have no safe and legal way to 
come here and to go home, to work a job, to earn their way, and to 
share the American dream, which is really just a human dream. That was 
the motive upon which I tackled this issue.
  The law we have regarding our guest worker system doesn't work. There 
are estimates of 2 million illegal aliens in this country working in 
agriculture. There are estimates of 6 million illegal aliens in the 
United States. I was trying to focus on agriculture. Let me tell you 
why this system doesn't work.
  First of all, it is economically beyond the pale of most of those in 
the farm communities who would like to hire them. This is the 
application. There are hundreds of pages a farmer has to comply with to 
hire one worker. Conversely, I applied for a job in the Senate, I had 
to fill out a two-page document. This is what a farmer has to fill out 
just to get a worker in a system that is untimely as the crops go 
unharvested.
  We have a broken system. I believe it is estimated about 30,000 in 
total in this country use this system out of probably 2 million illegal 
aliens in agriculture. I think it is a given, a manifest failure. We 
need to make our guest worker law workable. That is a long-term 
solution. I think we need to do this.
  What made my meetings, frankly, more productive and very helpful was 
a press release from the AFL-CIO, in which they called not for help to 
farmers and farm workers alone, they called for a general amnesty of 
all illegal aliens in this country. A general amnesty is something we 
have done in this country periodically; every few decades we seem to do 
this. The question now is whether it is appropriate to do that now.

  There have been lots of editorial comments about this recently in the 
Washington Post. There was a very interesting article on this whole 
issue of farm labor and illegality. The Post said:

       Congress has responded sympathetically to the pleas of the 
     high-tech industry to hire more skilled workers from abroad, 
     but it has yet to do anything for employers of those at the 
     bottom end of the labor market--the end where U.S. citizens 
     don't want to work. Now, with a record number of illegal 
     immigrants living in the United States, an estimated 6 
     million, with most of them working, some even paying taxes 
     and joining unions, it is time to bring our immigration 
     policies in line with what is actually happening in the labor 
     market. It is time to recognize that we need the immigrants 
     as much as they need us.

  See, I know in Congress there are a lot of people who make an 
academic argument that we don't want to reward illegal behavior with a 
legal document. I understand that, but it doesn't fix the problem. It 
doesn't deal with reality. These people aren't coming; they are here 
and they live among us. They live in our shadows and they are 
victimized on a daily basis in a whole range of ways--bureaucratically, 
even criminally. It is a shame upon this country that we don't resolve 
this--short-term and long-term.
  I was pleased that in the recent testimony of Federal Reserve 
Chairman Alan Greenspan he gave support to what I am talking about. 
Said the Chairman:

       It is clear that under existing circumstances, not only in 
     the high-tech and in the farm area, but indeed throughout the 
     country, aggregate demand is putting very significant 
     pressures on an ever-decreasing available supply of 
     unemployed labor. The one obvious means that one can use to 
     offset that is expanding the number of people we allow in, 
     either generally or in specifically focused areas. And I do 
     not think that an appraisal of our immigration policies in 
     this regard is really clearly on the table.

  I think we need to put it clearly on the table as a priority of this 
Congress to do something about it. It need not be partisan. Regarding 
the position the AFL-CIO has just taken, I hope they will let me help 
them. I would like to help them to get a general amnesty. But I think 
that we also need to fix our broken farm labor system.
  For those who say we should not do anything, I don't know what their 
motive is. I fear too often, though, that it is just anti-immigrant. We 
rightfully criticize, for example, Joerg Haider, of Austria for his 
anti-immigrant statement, which recalls a bygone era and a great 
tragedy. But what is the difference when we have politicians among us 
who make comments not unlike that about even legal immigration? They 
don't want anymore of it.
  We have the Chairman of the Federal Reserve saying we need workers 
because we have good employment, but it is predicated on an illegal 
system. We need these jobs to be filled and we need crops harvested. 
Right now, we are victimizing farm workers and farmers because farm 
workers have to live like fugitives among us, and farmers are made out 
to be felons. We owe the United States something better. But, more, we 
owe the people at the bottom rung something better. They contribute to 
our society and they are victimized too often by our society when they 
make a significant contribution to the abundance that we enjoy as 
Americans.
  So I call on our congressional leadership to bring us together, to 
fix our H-2A program, but also to pursue the amnesty that has been 
suggested by the AFL-CIO in this two-pronged approach. We can find a 
solution and we can treat these people more fairly, like human beings, 
with the dignity of law and the protection of law and a process that is 
safe and humane.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hutchinson). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative assistant proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, let me inquire of the parliamentary 
situation. Are we in a period of morning business?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. We are until 12:30.

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