[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 74 (Monday, May 7, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5670-S5673]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           IMMIGRATION REFORM

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I hope we are not moving forward with a 
plan that would introduce the immigration bill we considered in the 
Senate last year. That is what I am hearing. I believe there are talks 
ongoing today--bipartisan talks--talks in which the White House and 
other members of the President's Cabinet are participating where they 
are at least talking about a framework of a comprehensive immigration 
reform of which we could be proud.
  The bill that was introduced last year was fatally flawed. It was not 
the kind of legislation we should have passed. If it had been passed, 
it would never have worked and would have been an embarrassment to the 
Senate. I cannot say how strongly I believe that to be true. There was 
no way we could repair that bill by amendment. I talked about that last 
year. It was important that we start over with a new piece of 
legislation. We worked on it, and a majority of the Republicans in the 
Senate, last year, voted against the bill. The House refused to even 
consider it. They would not take it up. Four Democrats voted against 
the bill last year.
  So the only way to enact comprehensive immigration legislation is to 
start over and write a new bill on which both the Democrats and a 
majority of Republicans can agree. Until this week, I had hopes that 
was ongoing. I have not been in the detailed negotiations, but I have 
been briefed on some of the framework for reform that, to me, is very 
consistent with what I pleaded with my colleagues last year to do.
  Now, over the past several weeks, up to 10 Members of the Senate have 
been actively meeting to write a new bill. They started with the 
principles laid out by the White House in a 23-page Powerpoint that 
promptly got leaked. Maybe they wanted it leaked. I don't know. Those 
Powerpoints just have one or two lines. They do not have fine print. 
But they do set fourth agenda items and principles.
  The principles laid out in that Powerpoint are much closer to a bill 
I could support and I think the American people would be willing to 
support.
  This is what they included in that presentation. Although I am not 
involved in the details, I think it is what Members are discussing at 
this moment--have been discussing, at least. Apparently, people 
periodically walk away from the discussions, and they say this isn't 
good enough or I don't like this, but that is negotiation, hopefully, 
and we can work forward with it. Let me just tell you some of the 
things that are in this bill that were not in last year's legislation.
  There is an enforcement trigger. Before any new immigration programs 
or green card adjustments could begin, the principles in the Powerpoint 
would require an ``enforcement trigger'' to be met. Senator Isakson 
from Georgia offered that. He basically said: We are not going to trust 
you this time--the American people are not. We want to see that you 
follow through on the things that are critical to a lawful immigration 
system before we pass the green card adjustments and deal with those 
other issues.
  It also requires that the Border Patrol be increased to the numbers 
agreed upon--with a total of 18,300. It is one thing to say we are 
going to authorize 18,000 Border Patrol agents, which I think is a 
minimum, really not sufficient to cover the border--but it is an 
increase of significance. We are not going to go forward with the bill 
until you actually hire them and put them on the payroll and train them 
and they are out there.
  Also, 200 miles of vehicle barriers and 370 miles of fencing must be 
constructed. We talked about that, and I offered the amendment. It 
passed several times and eventually was passed last year.
  The catch and release at the border must be ended. This idea of 
catching people at the border who have violated our immigration laws 
and have come into the country illegally--they are being taken inland, 
taken before some administrative officer or judge and released on bail 
and asked to come back. Well, 95 percent are not showing up. That is 
what they wanted to do: to be brought into America. They were released 
on bail. Nobody ever went out and found them or looked for them. It is 
just a broken system. It is not working. Those are things that are part 
of the trigger as to what has to be fixed before we go forward with the 
legislation. That would be in the principles.
  The future flow of temporary workers is critical. As to the future 
flow temporary worker program, the so-called Y visas--the principles 
outline a new program for truly temporary workers. The White House plan 
would admit new workers for 2 years and could be renewed three times, 
for a total of 6 years.
  Between each 2-year period, workers would be required to return to 
their home countries for 6 months. Workers could not bring their 
spouses or their children but could return home to visit them if they 
choose. They would be able to go back and forth as often as they liked. 
There is no cap specified in the White House plan, but the plan 
envisions an annual cap set by the Secretary of Homeland Security in 
consultation with the Secretaries of Labor and Commerce, depending on 
American needs.
  Workers would be eligible to apply for green cards through regular 
channels. Regular channels are adjusted to a more merit-based system. 
It would include a merit-based system. I think this is a great 
improvement over last year's legislation. But I have to tell you, I am 
concerned about people coming to stay more than 1 year because I think 
it becomes more and more difficult for them to leave. They are less 
likely to leave. Many of them are more likely to violate the law and 
just embed and stay. I think a 1-year plan would be far better. But 
those are things that are being talked about which would be 
substantially better than last year's legislation.
  There is a seasonal worker program that makes much more sense than 
what was in last year's bill. The principles also contain a ``new and 
improved'' seasonal worker program that would combine the current 
agricultural--the H-2A plan--and unskilled--H-2B--seasonal worker 
programs. We combine those two programs, as they should be combined, 
because they are each for temporary workers.
  Workers could remain in this country for 9 months at a time, under 
this proposal, and would be required to return to their home countries 
for 3 months in between. This is a temporary worker program that 
appears to be actually temporary, unlike last year's legislation, in 
which the temporary guest worker program in last year's immigration 
bill said an individual could come to this country temporarily, but 
they could bring their wife and children. They could come for 3 years. 
That 3 years could be extended again and again and again. And they 
could apply for citizenship within the first year they got here. That 
was the temporary worker program last year. How broken was that? It 
would never have worked. People bring their children, they get settled 
in the country, a decade goes by. Who is going to be able to ask them 
to leave? What kind of painful scene would that be? Teachers, 
preachers, family members, neighbors--they have gotten to know people. 
They have a whole new mindset, an incorrect mindset.

  The bill, last year, said ``temporary guest worker program,'' and 
this is what it was. It was really a permanent entry into the country 
for very extended periods of time where it could be difficult for 
people to leave.
  Under this plan, the outline that is being discussed, they could 
actually work--and it is what I suggested last year--and spouses and 
children would remain in the worker's home country.
  Renewals under the seasonal program would be unlimited, which may be 
problematic. We would need to discuss that some.
  But these workers would also be eligible to apply for green cards 
under regular channels, if they are willing to compete against others 
on a merit-

[[Page S5671]]

based basis to see whether or not they could come.
  Then the principles focus on a more merit-based entry policy into the 
United States. The principles I hear being discussed would eliminate 
the Diversity Visa Lottery and some chain migration categories, such as 
brothers and sisters and adult siblings of U.S. citizens.
  Green cards that have been given out for those individuals would be 
transferred over to a point system which selects legal permanent 
resident applicants based on merit. So I am concerned that the White 
House plan also appears to increase the total number of green cards 
available each year. Page 21 of the Powerpoint indicates that 1.4 
million green cards would be available each year. We are at about 1 
million now. That would be a 40-percent increase. I want to look at 
that carefully. But I like the idea of the entry being based on a more 
meritorious program.
  They have a plan to clear the current backlog of green card 
applications, which also has dangers in that it could substantially 
increase the number of people who would come. I am not sure 
comprehensive immigration reform is designed to increase--at least the 
American people have an idea that it is designed to increase 
dramatically the number of people who come legally today. I don't think 
that is what most people have in mind when they think about immigration 
reform.
  What about the population that is here today illegally? This plan 
that is being discussed would have given legal status to illegal aliens 
currently in the country through a new ``Z'' visa, which would be 
renewable indefinitely. Those holding Z visas will be eligible to apply 
for green cards through regular channels after they go back, 
``touchback,'' across the border. But regular channels are adjusted to 
a more merit-based system. So they would have to compete with people 
who have other qualities and merits that may make them less likely to 
be admitted.
  If these principles are the ones that form the framework for a newly 
drafted, bipartisan bill, then I think it is possible that we could 
successfully enact immigration reform this year.
  Now, I cannot tell you that I am going to be able to vote for this 
plan in the end because I intend to read the fine print. That is what I 
learned last year. The rubric, the caption in the bill last year was 
``temporary guest worker program'' in big print right in the middle of 
the bill. Then, when you read it, what did you find? We found that the 
individuals came here for 3 years, with their family, and they could 
reup, reup for 3 years, time and time again, and, frankly were never 
going to leave this country.
  It was not a temporary guest worker program at all. It was a scheme 
to confuse the American people about the real meaning of it. In fact, I 
think it confused Senators. I think they thought it was a temporary 
worker program, and it absolutely was not. It would never have worked. 
But the people who wrote it--I think that was their plan. They never 
wanted it to work to begin with. That is the true fact about it. So the 
fine print could contain things that will not work.
  So I think the framework, the outline, if we are honest and serious, 
could be the basis for a historic reform of immigration that could 
actually work, that we could actually be proud of. It is possible. But 
there are forces, special interests that are driving this process, and 
they do not respect the views of the American people. They want to ram 
it through on their terms, and they want to have it say what they want 
it to say.
  This is what the news reports are saying, and I am getting very 
concerned about it. It is now being reported that instead of being 
patient and waiting for this new bipartisan bill to be completed and 
actually written up so people can read it, the majority leader, Senator 
Reid, is forcing the immigration bill to this floor Wednesday, May 9, 
the day after tomorrow. According to Roll Call, this morning:

       According to an aide to Reid, the Majority leader is 
     expected to bring up the . . . package passed by the 
     Judiciary Committee last year . . . if negotiations produce a 
     deal he will allow lawmakers to propose it as a substitute 
     amendment. . . .

  Now, this plan is not a wise approach. Why do we want to bring up a 
piece of legislation that is fatally flawed, that should never, ever 
become law? I see no reason. I have one idea, though, or one suspicion 
I am going to discuss.
  It puts undue pressure, an artificial timeline, on those who are 
trying to work through this extremely complex and important piece of 
legislation we do not need. We don't have to set that kind of deadline. 
What we need them to do is to spend the necessary time to produce a 
strong, thoughtful, bipartisan product that will actually work. That is 
what we need to do. Then we can vote for it with pride instead of 
trying to sneak it through this Senate without anybody knowing what is 
actually in it. As I said last week when I heard about this plan, the 
Democratic leadership acts as if this is another piece of everyday 
legislation, but it is not. The immigration bill is one of the most 
important to come through the Senate in the decade I have been here. I 
believe that. I think the American people understand that. So this 
option is not new.
  In April, we heard news reports that the Democratic majority would be 
abandoning efforts to write a new bill and would be starting with the 
fatally flawed bill produced by the Judiciary Committee last Congress.
  ``Immigration Daily,'' an online immigration law publication, 
reported:

       There is good reason to believe that the CIR--that is the 
     Comprehensive Immigration Reform--
       Language will finally be introduced on the Senate floor 
     within 2 weeks or less. What will the CIR language look like? 
     CIR begins with S. 2611, the McCain-Kennedy bill which 
     cleared the Senate last year.

  The New York Times reported a similar story:

       Senator Edward M. Kennedy has abandoned efforts to produce 
     a new immigration bill and is proposing using legislation 
     produced last March by the Senate Judiciary Committee as the 
     starting point for negotiations this year. Mr. Kennedy 
     dismissed the notion that his efforts to produce a new 
     immigration bill had failed. He said he had decided that the 
     committee report was the best starting point.
       We have had extensive hearings on the essential aspects of 
     this bill,

  Mr. Kennedy said.

       We are effectively ready to mark up and for going to the 
     floor.

  I am very disappointed--beyond disappointed--to hear those news 
reports. I have been pleased, I guess, today that so far these plans 
haven't come to fruition, that the majority has begun to engage or has 
continued to engage Republican Senators and the White House in a real 
effort to write a good bill. I hope that is what the majority will 
continue to do.
  I hope the majority will abandon last year's fatally flawed bill, not 
start with it. It cannot be amended and an effective bill created. It 
means this cannot be the starting point to come to the floor with a new 
bill this Congress. I implore our leadership to continue trying to 
write a bill that a majority of Republicans could support, that is 
possible if we follow through on the real principles people are talking 
about and saying they can agree to.
  It is not a question of the principles we are dealing with. The 
question is: Will we write the bill in such a way that the principles 
are carried out? That is the key thing. It was not done last year. In 
1986, it was to be the amnesty to end all amnesties. They had 3 million 
people--I think they thought there were 2 million people--here 
illegally. They created amnesty for them and they promised we would 
pass a new law and that this new law would be such that we wouldn't 
have to do amnesty again. That was in 1986, 20 years ago. We had, it 
turned out, 3 million people who claimed the amnesty.
  What has happened since? Now we have 12 million people here 
illegally--maybe 20 million--who knows for sure. So why wouldn't we 
learn from that? Why wouldn't we understand this is not a political 
football to be kicked down the field? This is important legislation 
that ought to be passed and written correctly, so 5 years from now, we 
can go to our constituents and say: We did something good. It is 
working as we promised you it would work. Why not?
  Well, I will tell my colleagues what appears to me to be happening. 
By bringing up the old bill, last year's bill, which many people in 
this Senate voted for and probably still believe is good legislation, 
though it certainly is not, they can start it--they can start it and go 
forward with this bill that perhaps they never intend to be offered as 
the final legislation. You burn the time

[[Page S5672]]

on the motion to proceed to the bill for the bill to be discussed, and 
they can go past that and move to proceed to the bill, and then file 
for cloture on the bill, and then offer a substitute, 700, 800 pages. 
That is how many pages it was last year--over 600. If they write this 
one well this year, it should be more than that. They drop a 700, 800-
page bill and substitute the old bill, and there is no time to 
debate it, and they slide it right through, railroad time. I am telling 
my colleagues, that appears to me to be what it is about. That would be 
an abrogation of our responsibility.

  The American people care about this legislation. The American people 
are not unengaged. They know something compassionate is going to have 
to be done about the 12 million people, but I think most people agree 
with me that someone who came here illegally should not be given every 
single benefit we give to somebody who comes here legally. We need to 
set a principle that we are not going to reward illegal behavior in the 
future. So you work something out on that, and you work something out 
on these other complex issues, and we set up a policy of immigration 
for the future that reflects some of the principles Canada has: its 
point system, its merit-based system. That was never discussed last 
year. Not one hint of it is in the bill Senator Reid is apparently 
intending to bring up on Wednesday.
  How can we possibly talk about comprehensive immigration reform and 
never consider a merit-based immigration system? Isn't America based on 
merit? Don't we know far more people want to come here than can be 
accepted? Don't we know Australia does that, New Zealand does that, the 
United Kingdom is looking at that--all developed and highly 
sophisticated nations committed to humanity and civil rights, world 
leaders in that regard. Are their proposals somehow immoral and unfit? 
Of course not. Those ideas were not even discussed in last year's bill. 
So they say we might have something such as that in this legislation. 
Well, let's see it. Let's see what the words say. What is it going to 
say? Is it going to be like last year when it said ``temporary guest 
worker,'' and that was nothing but a sham when you read the fine print 
under it? Is that what we are going to get this year, a bill they ram 
through at the last minute, burning the time for debate so we have only 
the most minimal time to debate? Is that the plan? I hope the American 
people are keeping their eye on this one. They deserve more. The 
American people are concerned about immigration. It is an important 
issue. It is a very important issue to us.
  We had a group from Ireland testify at the Judiciary Committee last 
year and they told us only 2,000 people got into our country from 
Ireland last year. We had over 1 million come in legally. What is this? 
How do we create a system that does not give people throughout the 
world an equal chance, an opportunity to apply to come to America? We 
need to work on that. We can do it. There is a framework here that, if 
fleshed out with good legislation, good language, enforceability, we 
can be proud of.
  I am afraid that is not what we are doing. I am afraid there is an 
attempt here to move a fast one. I am afraid the masters of the 
universe who run this place, some on both sides of the aisle, don't 
want the American people to know what is in the bill. They don't trust 
them to be in on the negotiations. They want to do it and slide it 
through.
  I remember last year we offered--someone offered a good amendment, I 
think it was the Isakson amendment, on a trigger, and one of the 
Senators said: Oh, we can't accept that amendment. Why not? We can't 
accept it because it would upset that delicate balance of negotiations 
with the parties who put this bill together. So I asked: Who were they? 
Who are these parties who put the bill together? Where did they meet? 
Did they have votes? Did people elect them to go in this caucus to 
write this piece of junk that was the bill last year? Who was that? Oh, 
they wouldn't talk about who actually wrote the bill. They wanted to 
ram it through, and nobody could amend it because it would upset their 
delicate compromise. Well, phooey on that. We need to do this in the 
light of day. We need to stand up and explain to our constituents and 
ask them to support a good bill, and we need to stand up and oppose a 
bill that is a bad bill. We are going to live with it, as we have lived 
for over 20 years now with 1986, that failed piece of legislation that 
had so much promise and people were so happy about when it passed, and 
it never worked.
  There are several reasons we need to be cautious. You can put in a 
piece of legislation an authorization to add a bunch of Border Patrol 
officers or workplace enforcement rules, or you can put in an 
authorization to spend money to create a computer system that will 
actually work, and it can. We can create a system that will work, but 
authorizing doesn't mean anything. That doesn't mean anything. You have 
to come up with money, and the money comes up in the years to come. If 
this Congress isn't serious about what it is doing and we pass a bill 
that authorizes a bunch of provisions that could actually help and be 
worthwhile and we never come up with the money to do it, the system is 
going to collapse as badly as it is right now.
  We need a national debate, a national consensus on a good piece of 
legislation. The President needs to be committed to leading instead of 
undermining the enforcement of laws. They are getting a little better 
in the White House now, but Presidents in the past have had no interest 
whatsoever in seeing immigration laws passed. If they did, they would 
have come to Congress and said: We need more border enforcement, we 
need fencing, we need more Border Patrol, we need an end catch and 
release. They never came to Congress and said the law was not being 
enforced. American constituents talk to Members of Congress and the 
Members of the Senate and explain about the plain as day illegality 
that is going on, and the Congress is trying to make the system be 
enforced. My colleague, the Presiding Officer, is a former U.S. 
attorney. The President, the executive branch has the responsibility to 
enforce the law, not the Congress. What do we know about how to catch 
all these people. They ought to be asking us for the laws. They should 
be telling us what is needed. But no, no, because nobody, not any 
President since 1986, has ever taken his responsibility to enforce the 
laws of the United States seriously as they apply to immigration. So 
that is what we have.
  I have points I will not go into tonight that detail the incredible 
flaws that existed in last year's bill.
  Senator Specter offered a bill that I didn't favor, but it was 
better--he was chairman of the Judiciary Committee last year--it was 
better than the other two that arose. After he offered it in Judiciary 
Committee, we went on in a day or so, or two or three, and we had this 
deadline. Like Senator Reid, Senator Frist said: I have to have the 
bill out Monday. If you don't bring it out Monday, I am going to 
introduce another bill--a pretty good bill, actually, which was an 
enforcement-oriented bill. Also, the Judiciary Committee got in a 
flutter, and we ran around, and Senator Kennedy offered the 
substitute--Kennedy-McCain. The Specter bill was gone, and an entirely 
new Kennedy-McCain bill was on the floor. Then the controversial AgJOBS 
portion of immigration that had been floating around here and had been 
blocked over the years was offered up as an amendment to Kennedy-
McCain, and it was added with no debate. We voted this out and it was 
on the floor, and the next day we were debating this 600-page bill.
  That is not the way to do business in the Senate. My chief counsel 
here studied this legislation, and we read the fine print, that 600 
pages, and when we looked at it, we were shocked at the loopholes it 
contained. We identified--and I spoke here several hours on it--17 
loopholes in that legislation. It began to lose steam. We found out 
just, for example--mind you, Senator Reid, I understand from the New 
York Times and others, is talking about introducing the Judiciary 
Committee bill. This is what the Judiciary Committee bill would have 
done last year, the one that passed out of the Committee, the so-called 
McCain-Kennedy bill. Under current law, over the next 20 years, this 
Nation would issue 18.9 million green cards--quite a substantial 
number. Under the Kennedy-McCain bill passed out of committee last 
year--hold your hat--it would have been, at a minimum, 78 million over 
20 years to

[[Page S5673]]

as many as 200 million. That is two-thirds of the current population of 
the United States of America. They tried to move that bill without 
amendments. I cannot recall the gymnastics they went through, but they 
were even denying Senators Kyl and Cornyn amendments they wanted to 
have, and Senator Reid wanted no amendments.
  Finally, we began to have amendments. Senator Bingaman offered two 
amendments, eventually, as time went by. It was brought back the third 
time. They brought those numbers down from 78 million and 200 million 
to 53 million, almost 3 times the current rate of immigration.
  So Senator Reid, as I understand it, according to a news report, is 
talking about bringing up the Judiciary Committee bill. This is not the 
53 million people being brought in here permanently with a green card--
permanent residents--but we would go back to the 78 million to 200 
million. How amazing is that?
  So I am just flabbergasted by the way this matter is being treated. 
There is only one way to do it; that is, we stand up like real Senators 
and we write a bill and work out a bill, and we give the Members of the 
Senate the time to read it, time for the American people to understand 
what is in it, and see if it can be amended and made better, and make 
sure it will actually work, not just be a political show--not some 
political sham but a piece of legislation that would actually work, and 
then we would pass it. We would be responsible to our constituents for 
a ``yes'' or ``no'' vote because we do need to pass comprehensive 
reform. I said that many times last year. Of course, we need that.
  The whole system is broken. Nothing about it works. Of course, we 
need to reform it from the ground up. But the legislation last year is 
no place to start. We don't need to be using some gimmick to get the 
bill up, with last year's language, and then substitute new language 
that nobody has read and ram it through the Senate. The American people 
should not be happy with that.
  Mr. President, I thank the Chair for his patience and those who 
listened to my remarks. I believe we can do something better. I support 
real and genuine reform of immigration in America. I will support 
legislation that provides a compassionate solution to the people who 
have been here for years and have been dutiful, law-abiding people 
except for their illegal presence. We can work through those things.
  We need a future flow system, much more like Canada's, much more like 
New Zealand's. We need a temporary worker program that is really 
temporary. We need a workplace enforcement system that the average 
employer will have no problem in following. We need a biometric, 
identifying cards for immigrant workers so they cannot be illegally 
forged. That is all possible to do if we want to do it--unless the 
people who are driving this bill, the architects of this, just want to 
go through the motions of creating an immigration system that would 
work, unless that is their plan, to just go through the motions and 
pass a bill that has no chance of being successful, just like we did in 
1986, and 8 or 10 years later, they can say: We are heartbroken; we 
thought it was going to work.
  I think we can do it, and I think we ought to do it. I hope the 
majority leader will not bring up the last year's bills--any one of 
them--and that he will bring up the bill that was drafted through this 
compromise process because I think it at least has some possibility to 
be a bill we could support, unlike the one last year, and then we can 
study it and debate it. The American people could be engaged in it, and 
we ought to stand up and vote and do the right thing for America.
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________