[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 159 (Tuesday, December 13, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S13467-S13468]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
IMMIGRATION
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, the majority leader has said that after
the first of the year we would turn our attention to immigration, and
well we should. Some estimates show that 10 to 20 million people living
in the United States may be here illegally. Whatever one may think
about immigration, one has to start with the idea that our Nation is
based on a few principles, and one of the most important of those
principles is the rule of law. This is a problem we need to address and
the American people have a right to demand we address. The buck stops
here. This is not something Governors can deal with or school districts
can deal with. It stops here.
Not long ago in Nashville I gave a speech in which I attempted to say
I believe there are three parts to a comprehensive solution to
immigration, the kind of comprehensive solution President Bush has
talked about. Part No. 1 is border security. I had no more said the
words ``border security'' than the whole room rose and began to
applaud; they were not interested in the rest of the story. I would
like to say a word today about the rest of the story, what our
immigration debate needs to include in addition to border security.
Let me turn to a lesson we are learning from across the ocean, from
Great Britain and France. Last month, the British Government instituted
a citizenship test that immigrants to Britain must pass before becoming
British citizens. When he announced a number of related measures
regarding British citizenship last August, Prime Minister Tony Blair
said:
People who want to be British citizens should share our
values and our way of life.
These new rules were spurred by the terrorist attack in London last
July in which four young men, three of whom were British-born children
of Pakistani immigrants and the fourth who was a Jamaican immigrant,
bombed the London subway system. In addition to taking new security
precautions, the British Government recognized the need to ensure that
immigrants to their country, and especially those who become citizens,
integrate into British society and demonstrate loyalty to their newly
adopted homeland.
France is similarly facing a period of self-examination on
integrating immigrants and the children of immigrants following the 2-
week violent civil unrest that spread across many of France's poor
suburbs last month. That violence resulted in 126 policemen being
injured, 9,000 cars burned, and $250 million in damages, according to
the French Government.
Like their British neighbors across the English Channel, the French
are trying to figure out how to integrate this dissatisfied
population--the children of Muslim immigrants--into French society.
According to the French Ambassador:
[T]hese teenagers feel alienated and discriminated against
both socially and economically. They don't want to assert
their differences. They want to be considered 100-percent
French.
We should learn a lesson from our friends across the ocean. As we in
the Senate begin to debate our immigration policy next month in the
Senate, we would be wise to consider their quandary. Too often
discussions on immigration reform begin and end with securing our
borders. Securing our borders is step No. 1, but there are two
additional, essential steps to any comprehensive solution to our
immigration problems.
Step No. 2, once we have secured our borders, is to create a lawful
status for those whom we welcome to work here and those we welcome to
study here. We should remember who we are. This is a nation of
immigrants. President Franklin D. Roosevelt began one of his addresses,
``My fellow immigrants.'' Once we secure the borders, once we deal with
the rule of law problem, we need then to remember step No. 2, which is
that we have millions of people whom we welcome to work here in all
aspects of our society. They need a legal status that respects our rule
of law. We welcome the 572,000 foreign students who come here to study.
We hope many of them stay here. They are helping to create a higher
standard of living for us. If they go home they become ambassadors for
American values. Recently, Dr. Steven Chu, an American who was the
cowinner of the 1997 Nobel prize in physics, pointed out to me that 60
percent of Americans
[[Page S13468]]
who have won the Nobel Prize in physics are immigrants or the children
of immigrants.
That is a second point--a lawful status for workers, and a lawful
status for students and researchers, whom we want to come here. We want
them here because their being here helps raise our standard of living.
The third part that is essential to comprehensive immigration reform
is an examination of how we help new immigrants to this country become
American.
In short, we need to have a discussion about fulfilling the promise
to the national motto that is right above the head of the Presiding
Officer: E pluribus unum; from many, one. How do we do that? We do that
by reminding ourselves that while we have all of this magnificent
diversity in this country, that is not our greatest accomplishment. Our
greater accomplishment is that we have turned that magnificent
diversity into one nation; that while we are proud of where we came
from, we are prouder of where we are. We are united by principles, not
race. We are united by a common language, English, and by our history
of constantly struggling to reach high ideals which our Founders set
for us as a nation.
We welcome new immigrants to join in that struggle toward becoming
Americans. We have an advantage, therefore, over our European friends.
We have been doing this through our whole history. We are unique in our
world in our attitude toward welcoming others. We are different because
under our Constitution, becoming an American can have nothing to do
with ancestry. America is an idea, not a race.
One can see that in the various naturalization ceremonies which occur
in courthouses all around this country, as new citizens raise their
hands and take an oath that George Washington first administered to his
officers at Valley Forge when he declared that he had no allegiance or
obedience to King George III, and he renounced, refused, and abjured
any allegiance or obedience to him, and swore he would support,
maintain, and defend the United States. That is what George Washington
and his officers said. That is the standard for every American citizen
who comes to this country.
Once we secure our borders, once we establish a lawful status for
workers and for students we welcome here, then we should set about
helping prospective citizens become American.
Senator Cornyn and I have introduced a bill that we hope will be
included as part of comprehensive immigration reform legislation. Our
bill, the Strengthening American Citizenship Act, would do the
following: provide $500 grants for English courses; allow prospective
citizens who become fluent in English to apply for citizenship 1 year
early; provides for grants to organizations for courses in American
history and civics, and authorize the creation of a foundation to
assist in those efforts; codify the oath of allegiance that George
Washington gave to his officers and took himself, and which is
substantially administered to every new citizen today; direct the
Department of Homeland Security to carry out a strategy to highlight
the moving ceremonies in which immigrants become American citizens; and
establish an award to recognize the contributions of new citizens to
our great Nation.
Real immigration reform must encompass all three important steps:
First, securing our borders. Second, a legal status for guest workers
and guest students. Third, I hope I have reminded us of the importance
today of remembering that motto we see when we are here in the Senate
chamber that indispensable to immigration reform is helping prospective
citizens become American.
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