[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 45 (Friday, April 15, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3765-S3766]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             AgJOBS AMNESTY

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, today, I oppose the AgJOBS amnesty. I oppose 
it. I oppose it unequivocally. I oppose it absolutely.
  The Senate has already heard a great number of euphemisms about the 
AgJOBS bill, but let's be clear from the start about what we are 
discussing. AgJOBS is an amnesty for 3 million illegal aliens. It is 
amnesty for aliens employed unlawfully in the agricultural sector, and 
it is amnesty for the businesses that hire and exploit them as cheap 
labor.

[[Page S3766]]

  AgJOBS is legislation that embodies the darkest and most disturbing 
elements of our immigration system; namely, illegal aliens being 
smuggled across our borders; unscrupulous employers taking advantage of 
undocumented workers; uncontrolled migration, black markets, and 
fraudulent documents used by terrorists to circumvent our border 
security.
  The AgJOBS bill tarnishes the magnanimous promise of a better life 
enshrined on the base of the Statue of Liberty. It cheapens the 
struggle of those immigrants who arrived on Ellis Island 100 years ago, 
and all of those who have come to this country and followed the rules 
to earn citizenship in this great Republic.
  Amnesties beget more illegal immigration--hurtful, destructive, 
illegal immigration. Look at the statistics. After President Ronald 
Reagan signed his amnesty into law in 1986, 2.5 million illegal 
immigrants flooded into this country. Since the 1986 amnesty, the 
Congress has passed 6 additional amnesties, resulting in an explosion 
in the illegal immigrant population, with an estimated 900,000 new 
illegal aliens settling in the United States each year, hoping to be 
similarly rewarded. The last thing we need is another amnesty 
masquerading as immigration reform. Amnesties cheat--amnesties cheat--
immigrants and U.S. citizens alike.
  Our immigration system is already plagued with funding and staffing 
problems. It is overwhelmed on the borders, in the interior, and in its 
processing of immigration applications.
  Senators need only go to the emergency rooms of the hospitals in this 
city and in the environs of this city. Go, see for yourselves. The 
infrastructure is already greatly overburdened. The infrastructure 
cannot handle the problems that are coming upon us.
  I go to the emergency rooms. I have been to them many times, taking 
my own wife of almost 68 years of marriage, taking her. I see the 
emergency rooms. I see how they are overcrowded. I see how there are 
people waiting. I see how there are people out in the corridors, in the 
halls, lying on cots awaiting attention. The schools are overburdened. 
Health services, health facilities, just take a look at what is 
happening. It is too much for the infrastructure.
  Now we are going to increase the problem. If the AgJOBS amnesty is 
enacted into law, it is going to get worse. My forebears were 
immigrants, too. They came to this country a long time ago. It is going 
to get worse for employers, worse for immigrants, worse for the 
security of the American people.
  Following the passage of the 1986 amnesty for 2.7 million illegal 
aliens, the INS had to open temporary offices, hire new workers, divert 
resources from enforcement areas. The result was chaos that produced 
rampant fraud, with many aliens, almost 20 years later, still disputing 
their amnesty claims in the courts. Today's backlog of immigration 
applications is even larger, with the stack of pending applications at 
4 million and rising. The AgJOBS amnesty would dump countless more 
applications on an already overtasked immigration system. With 
resources so scarce, the process would literally break down, background 
checks would be missed, document verification would be ignored, and 
backlogs would grow, encouraging more and more fraud.
  It only took 19 temporary visa holders to slip through the system to 
unleash the horror of the September 11 attacks. The AgJOBS proposal 
would shove 3 million illegal aliens, many of whom have never gone 
through a background check, through our border security system, in 
effect flooding a bureaucracy that is already drowning. It is a recipe 
for disaster.
  It is not mere speculation to suggest that a terrorist would exploit 
an amnesty. It has already happened. Mahmud Abouhalima, a leader of the 
1993 World Trade Center bombing, was legalized--legalized, I say--under 
the 1986 amnesty. Only after he was legalized was he able to travel 
outside of the country to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border where he 
received the terrorist training he used in the bombing.
  A closer look at the details of the AgJOBS amnesty raises even more 
concern. The only way to secure amnesty under the AgJOBS proposal is to 
seek U.S. employment. That puts U.S. citizens in direct competition 
with illegal aliens. Even if U.S. workers are not displaced, illegal 
immigration depresses wages. It depresses benefits for American jobs.
  Under the AgJOBS amnesty, an illegal alien, once achieving temporary 
status, becomes eligible to apply for permanent residency or even 
citizenship, which puts that alien ahead of every immigrant waiting to 
immigrate legally to the United States. That is not fair. When amnesty 
advocates evoke the image of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, 
imagine those law-abiding immigrants being told to get back on the ship 
because an illegal alien had taken their spot. Is that right? Is that 
fair?
  I hope Senators will take a close look at this proposal. I want to 
aid hard-working immigrants, but this is amnesty for illegal aliens. It 
is amnesty for the unscrupulous employers who exploit them. It is 
amnesty for potential terrorists seeking to circumvent our border 
defenses.
  The AgJOBS bill is a sweeping, extreme proposal that will undermine 
our immigration system. It has no place on this wartime supplemental 
appropriations bill, and the Senate ought to reject it.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank Senator Byrd for his thoughtful 
remarks. As I have been doing some research on this AgJOBS bill myself, 
and have become increasingly concerned with it, I came upon a report in 
the early 1990s that reviewed the success of the 1986 amnesty, or lack 
of success. I wondered--the Senator was here during that time--whether 
the same arguments were made in favor of the bill in 1986 that are 
being made today; and further, whether he would agree with the official 
Commission's report that the 1986 amnesty was a failure?
  Mr. BYRD. Well, I thank the distinguished Senator for his statement. 
I thank him for his attention to my remarks. I was here then. I am here 
now. I am concerned about the amnesty we are talking about, the AgJOBS 
amnesty. I have stated my feelings about it. I am going to leave it at 
that. I thank the distinguished Senator.

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