[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 73 (Friday, May 21, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E958]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           REFORM OUR OUTDATED IMMIGRATION LAWS AND POLICIES

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. BRAD CARSON

                              of oklahoma

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 20, 2004

  Mr. CARSON of Oklahoma. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge that 
Congress make it a top priority to reform our outdated immigration laws 
and policies.
  The tragic events of September 11th awakened most Americans to the 
fact that our immigration system is seriously flawed and overwhelmed by 
the massive numbers of foreign visitors and immigrants flowing through 
it into our country. We all saw then that immigration policy has 
serious national security impacts and weaknesses. Since that time, 
Congress and the Executive Branch have made a number of statutory, 
regulatory and policy changes that have addressed from a homeland 
security perspective some of the many systemic flaws in thus 
immigration process. Of course, a great deal remains to be done to 
ensure appropriate levels of safety for America.
  We still have 12 to 15 million, or even more, foreign immigrants 
living and working here illegally. Fortunately, most are not security 
threats and are simply seeking to improve their economic status by 
working here where they can make much more than in their home 
countries. But, undoubtedly some number are here to do us harm either 
as terrorists, or, more likely, by engaging in criminal activities. We 
must continue working to identify and expel those who pose such public 
safety threats.
  We also must address the fundamental issue of reducing the 
extraordinary immigration numbers that we are experiencing year after 
year. I believe that immigration is a good thing, and most immigrants 
are good people, here seeking the American Dream. However, I have no 
doubt that the extremely high numbers of legal and illegal immigrants 
we have been allowing to come here in recent years represent ``too much 
of a good thing''--numbers matter, and simply put, our immigration 
numbers, two-thirds of which are due to legal admissions, are 
excessive. This is especially so given the changing nature of America's 
labor markets, where low-skilled workers find their jobs disappearing 
or wages stagnating. Our labor market clearly does not need the roughly 
1\1/2\ million new immigrants who move to the United States every year. 
Inordinately high numbers of immigrants, most of whom are less educated 
and relatively low skilled are having real, and often adverse, impacts 
on American life.

  Citizens and earlier immigrants, who often remain lower skilled and 
less educated, are suffering serious job and wage losses due to the 
continuing massive cheap foreign labor inflows. Such problems would be 
greatly lessened if we reduce both legal and illegal immigration to 
more moderate and sustainable levels. Congress today has the power to 
do so, by reviewing legal immigration policy and by genuinely enforcing 
a policy against illegal immigration.
  We have been experiencing such a large immigrant inflow now for 
several decades due both to lax enforcement and more importantly to 
statutory changes made in the 1980s and 1990s that opened the 
immigration floodgates to an unprecedented degree. Congress essentially 
reset the immigration thermostat and forgot about it, despite the 
increasingly obvious and serious impacts this has been having.
  Congress can no longer ignore the immigration numbers issue. In 
addition to ensuring better enforcement of our laws so as to radically 
curtail illegal inflows, we must readjust legal admission policies to 
ensure that legal immigration fits the reality of America's 21st 
century labor market. It has been recognized for years by those who 
have bothered to examine how our current system works that statutory 
changes are needed to eliminate a number of unnecessary admission 
categories. For example, the Immigration Reform Commission, chaired by 
the late Rep. Barbara Jordan, recommended repealing the visa lottery, 
which allows thousands of people to come here merely because their name 
was drawn in a lottery, and the extended family visa categories which 
spawn literally endless chain migration.
  For starters, I believe that we need to reduce legal admission 
numbers by ending the visa lottery and the so-called extended family 
categories that fuel foreign worker inflow by chain migration. A 
positive first step at reforming our outdated immigration laws would be 
to pass H.R. 775, the Goodlatte bill that repeals the visa lottery. As 
a cosponsor of that bill, I urge the House Leadership and the Judiciary 
Committee to act to bring the bill before the full House for action, 
and to advance other legislation to ensure that our legal immigration 
policy, coupled with our blind eye toward illegal immigration, are 
reviewed.

                          ____________________