[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 66 (Wednesday, May 24, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5107-S5108]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           IMMIGRATION REFORM

  Mr. TALENT. Mr. President, I rise to speak against the bill. I want 
to begin by saying that America has a proud history of immigration. 
When we say that America is a nation of immigrants, we mean that deep 
in our national consciousness is the image of America as a haven and a 
place of opportunity for people from all over the world.
  Our policies have reflected that image. America has always had more 
open immigration policies than any other country. But those policies 
have been the result of choices the American people have made.
  We are a nation of immigrants, but we are also a nation of laws. Like 
all sovereign nations, America has the right to determine who may enter 
our country and who may not. The American people have chosen to strike 
a legal balance between their desire to provide opportunities to new 
residents of diverse backgrounds and the economic reality that too much 
immigration too fast will depress the wages and diminish the hopes of 
millions of our own citizens.
  I say with the utmost respect that the bill before us completely 
abandons that traditional balance. It provides an amnesty to those who, 
however understandable their motives, have chosen to trespass on our 
hospitality and violate our laws and does so under conditions that 
history has shown will increase rather than decrease illegal 
immigration in the future. It allows a vast new immigration for decades 
to come, with no regard whatsoever for the impact on the lives and 
hopes of our own citizens who have the first claim to the American 
dream, and it does little or nothing to repair the existing system of 
legal immigration which regularly confounds the expectations of 
millions around the world who claim a legal right to enter the United 
States.
  Moreover, the Senate has regrettably and inexplicably rejected 
commonsense amendments which were designed to restore the balance 
Americans want and have the right to expect. For those reasons, I could 
not support voting to end debate on the bill, and I will not now 
support its final passage.
  I should say at the outset that I do support the border security 
provisions in the bill. Border security is a national security issue 
rather than an immigration issue. For that reason, I recently sponsored 
bipartisan legislation, the Border Security and Modernization Act, in 
order to help secure America's border with additional manpower, new 
barriers, and high-tech surveillance equipment.
  The bill I cosponsored authorizes new funds for technology to assist 
our Border Patrol, to construct roads, fences, and barriers along the 
border and to purchase air assets such as helicopters. In addition, the 
Border Security and Modernization Act will increase resources for 
border detention centers and enact stricter criminal penalties for 
human smuggling, falsifying work entry documents, and drug trafficking.
  The immigration bill before the Senate contains many provisions 
similar to those in the bill which I cosponsored, and I am pleased the 
Senate approved an amendment which I also cosponsored to strengthen 
those provisions providing for the construction of at least 370 miles 
of triple-layered fence and 500 miles of vehicle barriers at strategic 
locations along the southwest border. But the good done in the 
immigration bill by these provisions could largely be accomplished by 
the President without new statutory authorization and is, in any case, 
far outweighed by the negatives in the bill.
  I oppose the bill first because it grants a broad-based amnesty--the 
right to legal residence and even citizenship--to 10 to 12 million 
people who violated our laws. Permanent residence in the United States, 
not to mention American citizenship, is a valuable and important 
privilege.
  Granting these privileges under these circumstances rewards and 
therefore encourages unlawful immigration. It demoralizes and punishes 
the millions of people around the world who have respected our rules 
and who are trying patiently to immigrate legally into the United 
States, and it makes a mockery of the policy that is supposed to form 
our immigration laws--the desire to balance our need for workers and 
vision of America as a place of opportunity against the importance of 
protecting jobs and wages at home.
  If Congress grants an amnesty under these circumstances, what will be 
the argument against granting another amnesty 5, 10, or 20 years from 
now if millions more people, in response to the incentives created by 
this bill, manage to enter the United States illegally?
  To those who say this will not happen, I say that it has already 
happened. Congress granted an amnesty 20 years ago for largely the same 
reasons under the same conditions and with the same assurances being 
offered in support of this bill before us today. Far from preventing 
illegal immigration, that amnesty has magnified the problem by four- or 
fivefold. What reason do we have to believe the same thing will not 
happen if we pass this bill, especially since the amnesty procedure in 
this bill is certain and takes effect immediately, while the border 
security provisions may not work at all and will, in any event, take 
years to implement? I suspect the pressure on our borders is increasing 
even now simply because the Senate is seriously debating an amnesty.

  I also oppose the bill because it authorizes a vast and unvalidated 
increase in immigration. The bill allows 70 to 90 million immigrants to 
enter the country over the next 20 years--not, by and large, 
scientists, doctors, or engineers, but people who will compete directly 
against Americans for

[[Page S5108]]

jobs in the hospitality industry or for craft work in construction or 
manufacturing.
  I begrudge no one the desire to come to the United States to make a 
better life for themselves. My grandparents did that, and so did my 
wife's mother. I certainly hope the economy will grow fast enough that 
we will need additional workers, but our first responsibility is to our 
own people. We cannot sustain the American dream if we do not provide 
opportunity for all Americans, including those who do not or cannot go 
to college. I can think of nothing more likely to cause conflict and 
division, and raise the ugly specter of ethnic prejudice than making 
millions of Americans compete against foreign workers, sometimes in 
economic recessions, for the jobs their families need to make ends 
meet.
  Congress should be willing to increase legal immigration where our 
employers have proven needs that our own workers cannot meet. I believe 
such shortage exists today in certain parts of the economy, such as 
agriculture, and I would be willing to consider increases in the 
current limits in those areas. But that decision should be made on the 
basis of evidence, not speculation, and Congress should make it 
carefully and for short periods of time rather than guessing what the 
labor situation will be 10 or 20 years from now.
  These decisions we are considering today matter. They affect the 
lives of millions of our people who rightly expect that we will look 
out for their interests, not make them feel guilty about their 
legitimate concerns for themselves and their loved ones. Moreover, the 
legal immigration provisions in the bill will cost our taxpayers $54 
billion over the next 10 years. That fact is not disputed, even by the 
sponsors of the bill. Because of the deficit, our health care programs 
are under pressure. Congress is begrudging disaster relief to our 
farmers. The Nation's transportation infrastructure is underfunded, and 
some are proposing to reduce the defense budget or increase taxes. I 
simply cannot understand why, at a time like this, Congress would 
undertake an additional budgetary commitment of this magnitude to 
foreign workers our economy may not even need.

  Finally, I oppose the bill because it does very little to fix the 
current legal immigration system. The great irony of this whole debate 
is that it has focused largely on the wrong problem. If we want to help 
the economy and provide justice to immigrants, we should concentrate 
first on making our current programs at least minimally workable.
  As Senators are probably aware, there are significant backlogs in our 
current system due to the sheer volume of aliens eligible to legally 
immigrate to the United States. As of December 31, 2003, the U.S. 
Customs and Immigration Service, that is the USCIS, reported 5.3 
million immigrant petitions pending. USCIS decreased the number of 
immigrant petitions by 24 percent by the end of fiscal year 2004--that 
is a pretty good job--but they still had 4.1 million petitions pending. 
Every new applicant who is not an immediate relative of a U.S. citizen 
must go to the end of lines that vary in length according to country, 
the prospective immigrant's relationship to their American sponsor, and 
profession.
  According to the State Department, experienced laborers from India 
face a 5-year wait for a visa, while Filipino siblings of Americans 
wait more than 22 years.
  In my office, we live with this problem with the current immigration 
system every day. I have five caseworkers who spend parts of each day 
in response to constituent requests, assisting those who actually claim 
a legal right to enter our country. These prospective immigrants have 
respected our laws. They and their Missouri sponsors spend large 
amounts of time and money trying to navigate the existing system. We 
have almost 200 pending cases in our office alone.
  They include Missourians who want to adopt children from abroad, 
foreign doctors who want to work in rural areas where they are 
desperately needed, and world renowned researchers who want to bring 
their knowledge to the United States. These people have a right to 
immigrate under the current laws. Yet the bill does nothing for them. 
In fact, the bill makes their situation worse because it puts them at 
the back of the line. The bill inevitably means that the time and 
attention of the Immigration Service will be spent processing the 
applications of undocumented workers and administering a vague new 
guest worker program for 70 million to 90 million people, rather than 
on the cases of legal immigrants which, in some cases, have been 
pending for years.
  What I have just said is the answer to those who claim this bill is 
necessary because it is the only practical solution to our current 
situation. Mr. President, anybody even marginally familiar with our 
current legal immigration system knows that it is in disarray. I honor 
the work of our border agents, but the reality is that our existing 
border security system is in every respect inadequate. I recognize that 
many diligent government workers are trying to process the claims of 
legal immigrants, but here again, they and the system are overwhelmed, 
even in trying to administer the current complicated visa system. The 
idea that our current immigration infrastructure can take on the real 
job of border security, process a multitiered amnesty program for 10 
million to 12 million illegal aliens, and administer the claims of 70 
million to 90 million new immigrants, in addition to its current 
responsibilities, is sheer fantasy. And to argue in favor of this bill 
on the grounds that it is a practical solution to anything shows how 
far from reality the proponents of this legislation have really 
traveled.
  Mr. President, I suppose there are many in Missouri who support this 
bill, and I know many Senators have worked hard to come up with this 
legislation. But in the last month, I have received over 4,000 calls, 
e-mails, and letters urgently in opposition to this measure before us, 
and I think a word should be spoken on behalf of the concerns of those 
constituents. They are not paranoid because, in a world of terrorism, 
they want the border under control. They are not ungenerous because 
they worry about jobs for themselves and their children. And they are 
not less progressive than Washington opinionmakers because they believe 
in the sovereign right of a democratic people who decide who and who 
shouldn't become a resident of this country.
  The Senate had a chance to pass a good bill, a bill that secured the 
border, that fixed the system of legal immigration, that developed the 
biometrics our border security and immigration agents need to enforce 
the law that stops the coyotes and the fly-by-night employers from 
circumventing the law and paying cash to unlawful workers. The Senate 
has fumbled that chance. I suppose this bill will pass, based on the 
votes we have had in the last week or so. My hope is that in conference 
with the House, the Senate will agree to a commonsense bill that I can 
support, one that respects the balance which the American people want, 
are waiting for, and have the right to expect.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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