[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 87 (Friday, May 25, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6928-S6945]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


              COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM ACT OF 2007

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 
Senate will resume consideration of S. 1348, which the clerk will 
report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 1348) to provide for comprehensive immigration 
     reform, and for other purposes.

  Pending:

       Reid (for Kennedy/Specter) amendment No. 1150, in the 
     nature of a substitute.
       Grassley/DeMint amendment No. 1166 (to amendment No. 1150), 
     to clarify that the revocation of an alien's visa or other 
     documentation is not subject to judicial review.
       Cornyn modified amendment No. 1184 (to amendment No. 1150), 
     to establish a permanent bar for gang members, terrorists, 
     and other criminals.
       Dodd/Menendez amendment No. 1199 (to amendment No. 1150), 
     to increase the number of green cards for parents of United 
     States citizens, to extend the duration of the new parent 
     visitor visa, and to make penalties imposed on individuals 
     who overstay such visas applicable only to such individuals.
       Menendez amendment No. 1194 (to amendment No. 1150), to 
     modify the deadline for the family backlog reduction.
       McConnell amendment No. 1170 (to amendment No. 1150), to 
     amend the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to require 
     individuals voting in person to present photo identification.
       Feingold amendment No. 1176 (to amendment No. 1150), to 
     establish commissions to review the facts and circumstances 
     surrounding injustices suffered by European Americans, 
     European Latin Americans, and Jewish refugees during World 
     War II.
       Durbin/Grassley amendment No. 1231 (to amendment No. 1150), 
     to ensure that employers make efforts to recruit American 
     workers.
       Sessions amendment No. 1234 (to amendment No. 1150), to 
     save American taxpayers up to $24 billion in the 10 years 
     after passage of this act, by preventing the earned income 
     tax credit, which is, according to the Congressional Research 
     Service, the largest anti-poverty entitlement program of the 
     Federal Government, from being claimed by Y temporary workers 
     or illegal aliens given status by this act until they adjust 
     to legal permanent resident status.
       Sessions amendment No. 1235 (to amendment No. 1150), to 
     save American taxpayers up to $24 billion in the 10 years 
     after passage of this act, by preventing the earned income 
     tax credit, which is, according to the Congressional Research 
     Service, the largest anti-poverty entitlement program of the 
     Federal Government, from being claimed by Y temporary workers 
     or illegal aliens given status by this act until they adjust 
     to legal permanent resident status.
       Lieberman amendment No. 1191 (to amendment No. 1150), to 
     provide safeguards against faulty asylum procedures and to 
     improve conditions of detention.

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Colorado is 
recognized.
  Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, as this bill has progressed through the 
week, there has been, in my view, significant progress made. It has 
truly been a tribute to the leadership on both sides, and I acknowledge 
the leadership of the majority leader, Harry Reid, in terms of holding 
people's feet to the fire to get us moving forward with immigration.
  We hope to be able to bring this to a conclusion the week after we 
get back from the Memorial Day break. I understand that this morning we 
will have about four amendments, two on the Republican side, and two on 
the Democratic side.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Texas is 
recognized.


                Amendment No. 1189 to Amendment No. 1150

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, on behalf of the Senator from Colorado, 
Senator Allard, I believe there is an amendment at the desk, No. 1189.
  I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendments be set aside and 
ask for the immediate consideration of that amendment, No. 1189.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Texas [Mr. Cornyn], for Mr. Allard, 
     proposes an amendment numbered 1189 to amendment No. 1150.

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

 (Purpose: To eliminate the preference given to people who entered the 
   United States illegally over people seeking to enter the country 
        legally in the merit-based evaluation system for visas)

       In section 203(b)(1)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality 
     Act (8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(1)(A)), as amended by section 502, in 
     the table in that section, strike the items relating to the 
     Supplemental schedule for Zs.

                amendment no. 1250 to amendment no. 1150

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, at this time, I ask unanimous consent to 
set aside the pending amendment, No. 1189, and ask for the immediate 
consideration of my amendment No. 1250, which I believe is at the desk.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered. The clerk will report.
  The Senator from Texas (Mr. Cornyn) proposes an amendment numbered 
1250 to amendment No. 1150.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

    (Purpose: To address documentation of employment and to make an 
     amendment with respect to mandatory disclosure of information)

       In section 601(i)(2)(C) (relating to other documents)--
       (1) strike clause (VI) (relating to sworn affidavits);
       (2) in clause (V), strike the semicolon at the end and 
     insert a period; and
       (3) in clause (IV), add ``and'' at the end.
       Strike section 604 (relating to mandatory disclosure of 
     information) and insert the following:

     SEC. 604. MANDATORY DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION.

       (a) In General.--Except as otherwise provided in this 
     section, no Federal agency or bureau, or any officer or 
     employee of such agency or bureau, may--
       (1) use the information furnished by the applicant pursuant 
     to an application filed under section 601 and 602, for any 
     purpose, other than to make a determination on the 
     application;
       (2) make any publication through which the information 
     furnished by any particular applicant can be identified; or
       (3) permit anyone other than the sworn officers, employees 
     or contractors of such agency, bureau, or approved entity, as 
     approved by the Secretary of Homeland Security, to examine 
     individual applications that have been filed.
       (b) Required Disclosures.--The Secretary of Homeland 
     Security and the Secretary of State shall provide the 
     information furnished pursuant to an application filed under 
     section 601 and 602, and any other information derived from 
     such furnished information, to--
       (1) a law enforcement entity, intelligence agency, national 
     security agency, component of the Department of Homeland 
     Security, court, or grand jury in connection with a criminal 
     investigation or prosecution or a national security 
     investigation or prosecution, in each instance about an 
     individual suspect or group of suspects, when such 
     information is requested by such entity;
       (2) a law enforcement entity, intelligence agency, national 
     security agency, or component of the Department of Homeland 
     Security in connection with a duly authorized investigation 
     of a civil violation, in each instance about an individual 
     suspect or group of suspects, when such information is 
     requested by such entity; or
       (3) an official coroner for purposes of affirmatively 
     identifying a deceased individual, whether or not the death 
     of such individual resulted from a crime.
       (c) Inapplicability After Denial.--The limitations under 
     subsection (a)--
       (1) shall apply only until an application filed under 
     section 601 and 602 is denied and all opportunities for 
     administrative appeal of the denial have been exhausted; and
       (2) shall not apply to the use of the information furnished 
     pursuant to such application in any removal proceeding or 
     other criminal or civil case or action relating to an alien 
     whose application has been granted that is based upon any 
     violation of law committed or discovered after such grant.
       (d) Criminal Convictions.--Notwithstanding any other 
     provision of this section, information concerning whether the 
     applicant has at any time been convicted of a crime may be 
     used or released for immigration enforcement and law 
     enforcement purposes.
       (e) Auditing and Evaluation of Information.--The Secretary 
     may audit and evaluate information furnished as part of any 
     application filed under sections 601 and 602, any application 
     to extend such status under section 601(k), or any 
     application to adjust status to that of an alien lawfully 
     admitted for permanent residence under section 602, for 
     purposes of identifying fraud or fraud schemes, and may use 
     any evidence detected by means of audits and evaluations for 
     purposes of investigating, prosecuting or referring for 
     prosecution, denying, or terminating immigration benefits.
       (f) Use of Information in Petitions and Applications 
     Subsequent to Adjustment of Status.--If the Secretary has 
     adjusted an alien's status to that of an alien lawfully 
     admitted for permanent residence pursuant to section 602, 
     then at any time thereafter the Secretary may use the 
     information furnished by the alien in the application for 
     adjustment of status or in the applications for status 
     pursuant to sections 601 or 602 to make a

[[Page S6929]]

     determination on any petition or application.
       (g) Criminal Penalty.--Whoever knowingly uses, publishes, 
     or permits information to be examined in violation of this 
     section shall be fined not more than $10,000.
       (h) Construction.--Nothing in this section shall be 
     construed to limit the use, or release, for immigration 
     enforcement purposes of information contained in files or 
     records of the Secretary or Attorney General pertaining to an 
     applications filed under sections 601 or 602, other than 
     information furnished by an applicant pursuant to the 
     application, or any other information derived from the 
     application, that is not available from any other source.
       (i) References.--References in this section to section 601 
     or 602 are references to sections 601 and 602 of this Act and 
     the amendments made by those sections.

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, we have been on this immigration bill now, 
by some accounts, for 5 days. I will note that we started with a vote 
on cloture on the motion to proceed at, I believe, 5:30 Monday 
afternoon. We had Tuesday on the bill, we had Wednesday on the bill, we 
had Thursday on the bill; here we are on Friday.
  My understanding is that the agreement between the parties is that I 
will be only allowed to offer one additional amendment, in addition to 
the one currently pending. I understand that limitation, but I want to 
make clear that I think it sends a bad signal in terms of where this 
bill is headed in the long run because, all along, while I applaud the 
majority leader and the minority leader for their willingness to give 
us an additional week on this bill after the recess, I am worried that 
because of the slow progress we are making on these amendments, 
particularly on getting an opportunity to vote on amendments--for 
example, the one I laid down early on this week--we are going to find 
ourselves in for a train wreck the week after the recess, when the 
amendments that have been filed will need to be considered. I am afraid 
there will be an effort to try to prevent important amendments from 
being considered.
  Let me give you a little context for my concerns. As we all know, 
this bill was negotiated largely behind closed doors by a bipartisan 
group of Senators. I have to say that, in many respects, the product we 
have before us is better than the bill that passed last year, although 
I could not support it in the end because I have amendments I think are 
needed to improve it. To give you some context about the need for a 
robust debate and the freedom to offer amendments and to consider 
various points of view other than those reflected behind those closed 
doors, I went back to look at the Judiciary Committee last year, which 
considered the original McCain-Kennedy bill. There were 62 amendments 
filed in the Judiciary Committee. The present occupant of the chair 
knows, as a member of that Committee, it is a very hard-working 
Committee that considers a lot of important and contentious issues. 
That committee was bypassed through the process by which this bill has 
come to the floor this year.
  Just an observation. Last year, there were 62 amendments filed in the 
Judiciary Committee alone that went through a process that was not 
observed this year. So far, by my current count, there have been 107 
amendments filed to the present bill. We have had seven--count them--
rollcall votes on amendments so far this week. I don't see any way, 
short of an attempt to try to cut off debate and to cut off the 
offering of amendments the week we return, we are going to be able to 
get through 107 filed amendments.
  I think it is important, for a variety of reasons, that we continue 
to have a robust debate and the freedom to offer amendments because, 
for the reasons I mentioned a moment ago, this product was largely 
negotiated behind closed doors by a bipartisan group of Senators. Most 
of the Members of the Senate have not had a chance to study this bill 
in great detail, until the final legislative text was prepared by 
legislative counsel a couple of days ago.
  This is an enormously complex issue. The bill has a lot of different 
moving parts. We bypassed the committee process. My hope is--and this 
is my plea to our leadership--that we continue to see the kind of 
expansive opportunities that have been provided so far, with 2 weeks 
set aside for the debate and to have an opportunity to offer amendments 
and to have votes on those amendments.
  I will point out that on the last bill, which ended up being the 
Hagel-Martinez compromise, there were 30 rollcall votes, according to 
my notes. We have had seven so far on this bill, and here we find 
ourselves on Friday and we have one more week scheduled by the majority 
leader. I am very concerned that we will not be able to get due 
consideration of all of the various points of view, and an opportunity 
to freely offer amendments and get rollcall votes on those amendments 
that I believe are very important. It is even more important, if it is 
possible, in this particular legislation.
  As my colleague from Colorado knows, he and I were both present 
during many of the negotiations that have led up to this bill, even 
though ultimately he agreed to the product, but I could not. That this 
is an enormously emotional and contentious issue. I bet Senators have 
gotten more phone calls, e-mails, and correspondence about this issue 
than virtually anything else that has come before the Senate. It is 
extraordinarily important to the democratic process and the legislative 
process to allow people to present their points of view.
  We are here as 100 people representing 300 million people. We need to 
make sure that not only the opinions and points of view of the elites 
and people who can hire high-priced lobbyists are considered; we need 
to make sure the views of the American people are considered, given an 
opportunity for airing and, ultimately, we all respect the process by 
which these matters are put to votes, and then we respect the right of 
the majority to make the decision and we move forward.
  Anything that would even hint of cutting off the opportunity for the 
American people to have a full airing of their views, and limiting it 
to a handful of amendments that have been advocated by lobbyists and 
other people representing the elites in Washington, DC, I think would 
be a terrible mistake.
  Mr. President, I want to advise my colleague from Colorado of this. 
There has been a previous agreement that we would be allowed to offer 
two amendments, and that other amendments would not be allowed to be 
pending.
  At this time, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending 
amendment and send amendment No. 1238 to the desk, and ask for its 
immediate consideration.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
  Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, and I will 
object, there was an agreement reached between the Republican leader 
and the majority leader that there would be two amendments offered on 
each side today. The Senator from Texas has offered one amendment on 
behalf of Senator Allard, and he has offered a second amendment on his 
behalf. If I may further comment in responding to some of his 
suggestions----
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I reclaim my time.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator is recognized.
  Mr. SALAZAR. I want to place this in context. The fact is that there 
has been a tremendous amount of work that has already been going on in 
this Chamber during this last week. I inquire, without losing my place 
at the podium, of the parliamentary situation.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Texas has the 
floor on his unanimous consent request.
  Mr. SALAZAR. I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I expected the distinguished Senator from 
Colorado to lodge an objection to my amendment.
  Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I did object to a third amendment that 
the Senator from Texas wanted to submit.
  Mr. CORNYN. Reclaiming my right to the floor, that is my 
understanding. I wish to make clear that he has objected, and I wish to 
make clear that I was not a party to any agreement that would limit us 
to the number of amendments we would offer today, but I respect that. I 
offer the amendment to make this point: There are at least 107 
amendments that remain to be brought forward and considered. Here we 
are on Friday completing the first

[[Page S6930]]

week of what has been set aside as 2 weeks for the consideration of 
perhaps the most important domestic issue confronting our country 
today. There will be no votes today. Colleagues are returning either 
home or off on various travels around the world, and we are here with 
the most important domestic issue confronting our country today and 
really not proceeding at a pace that would give us any realistic 
expectation of getting this matter completed in the way I think this 
matter needs to be treated.
  I understand and I respect the Senator from Colorado making an 
objection to my offering further amendments, but we all can see what is 
going on here, and I think it portends some very disconcerting things 
when we are not proceeding at a pace we need to in order to actually 
get the business of the American people taken care of on this important 
issue.
  I expect if I offer other amendments that there likewise will be an 
objection, so I will not at this time make further offerings of 
amendments, but I do have in my hand further amendments--amendment No. 
1208, which is an amendment I would offer if possible. I also have 
another amendment, amendment No. 1247, which deals with State impact 
assistance fees.
  One of the reasons people are so upset about the Federal Government's 
complete failure to deal with border security and enforce our 
immigration laws is that most of the consequences fall on local 
taxpayers. In my State of Texas, the Federal Government has issued a 
mandate that says no matter who shows up in your schools, your 
communities, or in your hospitals, you have to treat them, you have to 
provide services to them, but the Federal Government doesn't pay for 
it. The Federal Government needs to pay for these unfunded mandates, 
and this State impact assistance fee amendment will provide that kind 
of relief to local taxpayers.
  I understand where we are, and I respect there has been this 
agreement between the leaders, and I understand the Senator needs to 
object, but I reiterate, we need to get moving. We need to have more 
amendments offered. We need to have more votes and less time off 
without votes, as we are obviously having today.
  I will now return to the amendment that I offered this morning and 
that was allowed. Let me return now to my amendment No. 1250 and 
explain what this amendment does provide. My hope is that we can, when 
we return on Monday--actually, I guess it will be Tuesday, June 5--that 
we will have an opportunity for an early vote on this amendment as well 
as the pending amendment I have that will prevent rewarding those who 
have abused our laws and who have really thumbed their nose at our 
legal system, who have been ordered deported and who have simply gone 
on the lam, melted into the American landscape and defied the lawful 
orders of our courts. These are people who have been ordered deported, 
have actually been deported, but then they returned to the United 
States in violation of our immigration laws, both of which constitute 
felonies. It is my hope that I can get a vote on that amendment, which 
has been pending now for several days, soon after we return.
  It is my understanding our colleagues are working on some side-by-
side agreement to provide some cover for those who don't vote for my 
amendment, but I think we will have to evaluate that when we see it. I 
regret the fact that we have not been able to get votes on our 
amendments because of objections primarily on the other side.
  There is a major flaw in this legislation, and that flaw is that it 
will, unless corrected, repeat a fundamental mistake that was made by 
Congress when Congress last passed massive legalization of undocumented 
immigrants in 1986. The American people do not expect too much of us, 
but they do expect that we will not repeat past mistakes.
  I remember the definition of ``insanity'' once offered was that you 
do the same thing over and over again expecting a different outcome. 
That is the definition of ``insanity.'' This would be a terrible 
mistake if we pass this legislation without correcting a major flaw in 
the 1986 amnesty bill that was passed by Congress, after having learned 
from experience what the consequences of that flaw are.
  Under this bill, anyone in the United States in violation of our 
immigration laws can come forward and apply for legal status with 
impunity. Quite simply, the Department of Homeland Security is 
prohibited from using internally all of the information from the Z 
applications as well as sharing information with relevant law 
enforcement authorities. For example, if an applicant comes forward and 
is denied legalization because of some disqualifying feature, this 
legislation, as currently written without my amendment, will prevent 
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the immigration enforcement 
authorities, from using the information from that application to 
apprehend that person.
  What we learned from the 1986 amnesty was what the New York Times 
said--that it created the largest immigration fraud in the history of 
the United States. That is the mistake my amendment will attempt to 
correct. As we know from the general counsel of the Immigration and 
Naturalization Service under President Clinton, the statutory 
restrictions on sharing information and providing confidentiality of 
the applications of those who apply for amnesty contributed enormously 
to that fraud.

  The population that will benefit from this legislation should be 
treated with no more confidentiality than any other classes of 
immigrants. We don't afford this robust confidentiality protection to 
other immigrant classes, such as asylees or battered women or those 
applying for temporary protected status, so I ask: Why the double 
standard?
  When an asylum seeker applies for legal status, that asylum seeker 
must submit an application and return at a later date for a decision. 
If that asylum seeker is denied, he or she is taken into custody or 
provided a notice to appear on the spot based on the information 
provided by the applicant.
  The proponents of this legislation will tell us that without these 
guarantees of confidentiality, those who are already in the United 
States in violation of our immigration laws will not come forward and 
seek legal status. But I must ask: Are we not granting the biggest 
benefit that can ever be conferred to an immigrant population; that is, 
legal status after they have violated our immigration laws? And to be 
clear, we are talking about those who cannot even establish that they 
meet the minimum requirements to get this valuable benefit and, even 
worse, have flouted our immigration and criminal laws. Why should we 
treat individuals who are denied a Z visa with broad privacy 
protections by the mere filing of an application for that status? Why 
should they be treated differently from everybody else?
  The proponents will say they do exempt from confidentiality those 
individuals who commit fraud or who are part of some other scheme in 
connection with their application. Of course, this is the very least we 
should be doing. But this bill does not go nearly far enough to 
effectively enforce our immigration laws and protect the American 
people from criminals and others who might do us harm. For example, at 
page 311 of this bill, in section 604(b) labeled ``Exceptions to 
Confidentiality,'' the drafters of the compromise have chosen to 
protect aliens who are criminal absconders who have not been removed 
from the United States. You may be asking: What is an absconder? Quite 
simply, an absconder is someone who has ignored a final court-ordered 
deportation and can be prosecuted for a separate felony offense which 
is punishable by up to 4 years in prison. So the drafters of this 
underlying bill have chosen to protect that class of people who have 
not been removed from the United States.
  We all know that hundreds of thousands of immigrants come across our 
borders each year, many legally, a lot more illegally. But what most 
Americans would be shocked to hear is that according to recent 
estimates, almost 700,000 of those who have been ordered deported have 
simply failed to comply with that court order. How many Americans think 
it is OK to ignore the lawful order of one of our courts? How many 
Americans, after receiving a subpoena from a court, ignore it and 
simply skip the court date?
  As my colleagues know, I have offered a separate amendment that would

[[Page S6931]]

categorically bar fugitive aliens from receiving amnesty. I believe 
this is an issue of fundamental fairness and the integrity of the rule 
of law.
  In exchange for the largest legalization program in our Nation's 
history, we should be able to say without any doubt that for any person 
who applies for and is denied a Z visa on any grounds, we will 
authorize Immigration and Customs Enforcement to take that application, 
arrest that individual, and to deport them as not qualifying under the 
laws of the land. But the bill the Senate is considering would turn a 
blind eye to those who would apply for this amnesty and are denied. 
This bill would allow them to slide back into the shadows--the very 
problem we are trying to solve by this bill.
  Ask a random citizen on the street today to answer this simple 
question: Someone who has violated our immigration laws comes forward 
to apply for legal status under this bill. Because the applicant does 
not satisfy one of the criteria for being awarded legal status, the 
applicant is denied a Z visa. What happens to that individual under the 
present bill if my amendment is not adopted? I don't think we could 
find 1 out of 100 who would say something other than: Well, they should 
go home. And I suspect the majority would say they should be arrested 
on the spot and be deported. Yet the so-called confidentiality 
provisions in this bill will prevent law enforcement officials from 
using information on the application to locate and remove a significant 
population of those who cannot qualify for a Z visa because they are 
simply disqualified by law.
  This is, in essence, providing an opportunity to significant 
categories of individuals whose applications are considered and 
rejected to slide back into the shadows and to defy our laws. This is 
the very problem we have been told this legislation was designed to 
fix. Yet it is designed in reality for failure unless this amendment is 
accepted.
  The whole point of this exercise, we continue to be told, is to 
enhance U.S. security by bringing people out of the shadows and into 
the open, to allow people who want to cooperate with the law to do so, 
while allowing our law enforcement officials to focus their efforts on 
drug traffickers, on criminals, and others who may come here to do us 
harm. But this bill would draw those who have entered our country in 
violation of our immigration laws or who have overstayed in violation 
of those laws to do so and to slide back into the shadows without 
allowing the law to be enforced.
  I would like to remind my colleagues of our Nation's recent history 
with a massive legalization program and the consequences of 
prohibitions of Federal agencies on information sharing. As I have 
stated, reasonable observers have concluded that the 1986 amnesty was 
rife with fraud. There was an article written in the New York Times, I 
believe it was 1989, and it called this one of the most massive frauds 
in American history.
  We know, for example, from the 9/11 Commission staff statements that 
Mohammed and Abouhalima, conspirators in the 1993 World Trade Center 
bombing, were granted green cards, or legal permanent resident status, 
under the special agricultural worker program, which was an amnesty 
program created by the 1986 bill. Under this special agricultural 
worker program, a key component of that 1986 amnesty bill, applicants 
had to provide evidence that they had worked on perishable crops for at 
least 90 days between May 1, 1985, and May 1, 1986. Their residence did 
not have to be continuous or unlawful. Nearly 1 million of these 
individuals who applied received legal permanent resident status under 
this amnesty, twice the number of foreigners normally employed in 
agriculture at that time according to the 9/11 Commission and staff.
  I would like to make one last significant point about the ill-
conceived confidentiality protections contained in this compromise 
bill. Under this bill we are considering, Congress would even prohibit 
the use of information from the sworn third-party affidavits that are 
one of the documents that can prove eligibility. Let me say that again. 
Under this bill, you can get some third party--there is no requirement 
of who they might be: a friend, a family member, anybody--to sign an 
affidavit attesting that you were lawfully present--or that you were 
present, not lawfully but you were present--in the United States as of 
a certain date in order to qualify for benefits under this bill.
  We already know from well-documented prosecutions of document vendors 
and other legalization cases that the type of documents submitted, 
especially these kinds of sworn affidavits, without limitation, were 
used to further fraud. At the very least, we should not repeat the 
mistakes of 1986 by allowing the continued use of sworn affidavits by 
those who have already shown their willingness to violate our laws in 
order to gain the benefits under this bill.
  My amendment takes care of that concern because it will allow those 
sort of false documents to be investigated and, where necessary, 
prosecuted. Those who engage in cottage industries of massive fraud on 
a huge scale can be investigated by our authorities and prosecuted 
where warranted. My amendment takes care of that concern.
  We know one thing, criminals and terrorists have abused and will 
continue to seek ways to abuse our immigration system in order to enter 
and remain in our country. I regret to say that the bill we are 
debating today fails to give law enforcement the commonsense tools that 
would prevent terrorists and others who seek to do us harm from 
exploiting the vulnerabilities inherent in any massive legalization 
program. My colleagues may say there is a confidentiality exception for 
national security and for fraud, but to rely solely on these narrow 
exceptions is to engage in wishful thinking and, as far as I am 
concerned, ignores history and hard experience and the terrorist and 
criminal threats that we face.
  Why would we leave any of this to chance? Why would we turn a blind 
eye to the type of abuses that we have seen happen in the past and risk 
it happening again in this bill? I submit that any rejected application 
not only will provide valuable information to assist in deporting a 
person that is not entitled under our own laws to the benefits under 
this bill but may provide law enforcement with a valuable lead that 
they were previously unaware of, a lead that could--and this is not too 
much of a stretch--potentially save lives and, at the very least, 
improve public safety.
  Failure to allow law enforcement to connect the dots is a deadly 
mistake. I have heard many of my colleagues promise never would that 
happen again. So I urge those who are truly serious about their 
commitment to make sure the mistakes of the past don't occur again, and 
that we don't expose the American people to an unnecessary risk and 
ultimately lose their confidence by enacting a law that cannot be 
enforced. If we do that, I think we will not have done our job. So I 
urge all of us who are serious about this commitment to support my 
amendment to make this crucial improvement to this legislation.
  Mr. President, I have to make one correction. Apparently, affidavits 
are not allowed from relatives but are from nonrelatives. So you can't 
get your brother-in-law, I guess, to sign an affidavit saying when you 
were in the United States, but you can get a stranger on the street or 
someone else to sign an affidavit saying, yes, John Cornyn was present 
in the United States as of this date. What we want to do is bring a 
little sunshine to this process to allow our law enforcement officials 
to do what they have sworn to do, and which they do so nobly and so 
valiantly day in and day out, and that is investigate crime, bring 
those who break our laws to justice, to root out fraud, and to make 
sure our laws do work.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. CORNYN. I will be glad to yield.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank Senator Cornyn for his tireless 
effort and his great knowledge of the complexities of the issues 
involved in any comprehensive immigration reform. I know he has worked 
hard to try to craft a comprehensive bill but one that will actually 
work. That is the question.
  I know the Senator has developed great concerns about that and has 
offered a number of amendments, some

[[Page S6932]]

excellent law enforcement amendments, drawn, I know, from his 
experience as a former attorney general in Texas and a member of the 
supreme court in Texas. I believe, as a former Federal prosecutor, 
those amendments are essential to having a successful immigration 
program.
  I would like to hear why it is that now 3 days into this bill he has 
not been able to get a vote on those amendments and about other 
amendments that he has offered this morning, whether he has been 
successful in even calling them up for consideration.
  Mr. CORNYN. Well, Mr. President, I appreciate the question from the 
distinguished Senator from Alabama, who was a former U.S. attorney, 
former attorney general of his State, as the occupant of the chair was 
of his State, as was, as a matter of fact, Senator Salazar. It seems as 
if we have a former attorneys general convention right here on the 
floor of the Senate, all of us engaged in law enforcement actions most 
of our professional lives.
  To answer the Senator's question, I am simply at a loss to understand 
why, on the single most important domestic issue facing our country 
today--our broken borders and our immigration system. This is designed 
to fail because of these barriers of information sharing that have been 
erected and because of the confidentiality provisions that have been 
slapped on affidavits and other evidence of fraud that might help us 
root out and investigate wrongdoers and bring them to justice. I think 
this is the main reason people are so profoundly skeptical of what we 
are doing today.

  I don't think any of us should be under any illusion that if we erect 
this nice, pretty superstructure that we talk about, that the elements 
of the bill that are meritorious--things such as triggers, things such 
as enhanced border security, effective worksite verification--if we 
undermine it, if we simply cut the legs out from under the ability of 
law enforcement officials to enforce this law in a way that will see it 
collapse again, like the 1986 amnesty bill did, and we don't learn from 
that hard experience and improve this bill and eliminate those errors 
and those flaws, I think we will have failed the essential purpose for 
which we were sent here--to represent the American people, to see that 
the laws are respected, to see that law and order are reestablished.
  I really do believe the reason people are so upset about this issue 
is because they see rampant lawlessness and disregard for the law in 
our immigration system. They recognize that in a post-9/11 world that 
our broken borders can allow economic migrants to come across.
  We all understand why people want to come to America. It is the same 
reason they always have: they want a better life. We understand that. 
But we have to know who is coming into our country and the reasons they 
come here. We have offered generous temporary worker programs under 
this bill so they could come legally, so they could be screened, so law 
enforcement could focus on the criminals, potential terrorists, and 
others who want to do us harm. But why in the world, I would ask my 
colleagues, would we want to leave these flaws in the bill which 
prohibit our law enforcement officials from doing their job, from 
investigating and rooting out fraud and criminality and bringing 
wrongdoers to justice?
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for another 
question?
  Mr. CORNYN. I will.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I would just ask this question, through the Chair. Is 
it similar to the bill last year? Did they not improve the language 
that basically said if you file a false document for a benefit under 
this bill, that is really not subject to being examined and 
investigated and prosecuted?
  If an American filed a false claim for hurricane relief or any 
government benefit, that is a violation of title XVIII, section 1001. I 
have prosecuted it many times. But persons who are here illegally, 
noncitizens, can file false statements and then there is a mechanism 
that blocks that from being actually investigated and perhaps 
prosecuted?
  Mr. CORNYN. I would answer the distinguished Senator by saying there 
have been some modest steps in improving the flaws in last year's bill. 
As we have discussed privately and on the Senate floor, I think we 
ought to give some credit where credit is due to see this bill 
strengthened over the flawed bill that passed the Senate last year.
  But to answer his question, there are still confidentiality 
provisions in this bill which would allow fraud to go undetected, 
uninvestigated, and not prosecuted. I don't know why in the world we 
would possibly stand silently and allow that to happen. I am not going 
to, and that is the reason I have offered this amendment.
  I see on the Senate floor the other distinguished Senator from 
Colorado, my friend Mr. Allard, who has also offered other important 
legislation to allow information sharing between law enforcement 
personnel. It was as a result of the Swift meatpacking plant raids that 
Senator Allard held meetings on, which I attended, that we learned the 
very tool that our Federal Government has given employers to confirm 
eligibility to work is flawed, and Social Security information cannot 
be shared with the Department of Homeland Security.
  So we find people, such as the Swift meatpacking plant operators, 
using the Basic Pilot to check whether a person shows up and says: My 
name is John Cornyn, and here is John Cornyn's Social Security number. 
They run it through Basic Pilot. It says, yes, that is John Cornyn's 
Social Security number, but the fact is, it is Ken Salazar using John 
Cornyn's Social Security number, or somebody else, and it doesn't root 
out that kind of fraud.
  What we need to do is make sure all manner of fraud and illegality 
are capable of being fully investigated, fully prosecuted, where 
warranted, and that our laws are enforced. That is the flaw that my 
amendment seeks to correct. And I continue to believe other amendments 
that have so far not been allowed to be called up, some 107 that have 
been filed, when we actually had votes on 30 amendments in last year's 
bill, and we have only had 7 so far, that we are really not going at 
the kind of pace at which I would hope we would proceed to be able to 
amend and improve this bill in a way that we could be proud of and that 
we would know would actually work.
  That, to me, is one of the key pillars upon which this legislation 
ought to be built: Will it work? Can it be enforced? If it can't, we 
will have failed.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments from my good 
friend from Texas. I wish to respond to the notion that this Chamber is 
not taking sufficient time in order to consider the issue of 
immigration and immigration reform. We have, indeed, been on a very 
long journey to try to grapple with this issue which, at the base of 
it, is the fundamental question of national security.
  It was last year, for most of the month of May, where this Senate 
debated a comprehensive immigration reform package. It was an 
immigration reform package that had gone through the Senate Judiciary 
Committee and was amended multiple times on the floor of the Senate. 
Now, for the last many months, perhaps as many as 4 to 5 months, there 
have been a group of Senators, Republicans and Democrats, working with 
Secretary Chertoff and Secretary Gutierrez and President Bush to try to 
come up with a comprehensive immigration reform package, which is now 
the package that is before this Chamber.
  I submit, in response to my good friend from Texas, that there has 
been ample opportunity for us to deal with the issue of immigration 
reform and to come up with a system that is, in fact, workable.
  On this specific issue, what we have done during this past week is--
there have been 23 amendments that have been offered. There have been 
13 of those amendments that have been disposed of--7 of those have been 
disposed of with rollcall votes, 6 of them with voice votes. There were 
10 amendments pending as of yesterday; there will be 4 more amendments 
pending as of today.
  At the request of many Republican colleagues, Senator Reid agreed it 
was important for us to take an additional week to be able to fully 
debate this very complicated and very difficult and very emotional 
issue on how we move forward with immigration reform. We did not get to 
a conclusion of this debate this week because Senator Reid

[[Page S6933]]

thought it important to take another week to fully consider the 
legislation before us.
  Indeed, during the week that Members of the Senate are working back 
in their districts or doing what they may be doing during this next 
week, it is going to be another opportunity for Members of the Senate 
to continue to study the provisions of this legislation. But this 
legislation was not pulled out of the darkness one day and placed on 
the floor of the Senate. This legislation was crafted with significant 
input from both Republican and Democratic Senators and with the 
guidance of Secretary Chertoff. While it may not be perfect, and while 
the efforts on the floor of the Senate this week and the week after we 
return from the Memorial Day break will improve upon the bill, there 
has been a huge amount of energy that has gone into creating an 
immigration reform package that will, in fact, work.
  At the end of the day, I remind all our colleagues and those who are 
watching, what is at stake is moving from a system of a broken border 
and lawlessness that relates to immigration in this country to a system 
that works. We need to find a solution that will fix those broken 
borders. We need to find solutions that will, in fact, make sure the 
laws of the Nation on immigration are enforced.
  For 20 years, this country has looked the other way. We are a Nation 
of laws. We ought to be enforcing the laws as this legislation moves 
forward, making sure we are going to have the laws and the capacity to 
enforce those laws in our interior, and we need to have a realistic 
solution to deal with the 12 million undocumented workers here in 
America. To those who would be part of the ``round them up and deport 
them'' crowd, I remind them that is an unrealistic solution. As the 
President of the United States said during the last week: To round up 
12 million people, to put them on buses and railroads and whatever 
other way one would want to round up those 12 million people and send 
them elsewhere is not a realistic solution.
  This proposal that is now before the Senate, which was carefully 
crafted with significant input from the administration and the 
leadership of the President, is a good way for us to move forward. I 
hope, as we go on into the week after the Memorial Day work period, at 
that point in time there will be ample opportunity to have a robust and 
orderly debate on amendments that my colleagues will bring forth to try 
to further improve the bill.


                Amendment No. 1183 to Amendment No. 1150

  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the pending amendments be laid 
aside, that the Senate turn to consideration of an amendment by Senator 
Clinton, amendment No. 1183.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Colorado [Mr. Salazar], for Mrs. Clinton, 
     for herself, Mr. Hagel and Mr. Menendez, proposes an 
     amendment numbered 1183 to amendment No. 1150.

  Mr. SALAZAR. I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be 
dispensed with.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

   (Purpose: To reclassify the spouses and minor children of lawful 
              permanent residents as immediate relatives)

       On page 238, line 13, strike ``567,000'' and insert 
     ``480,000''.
       On page 238, line 19, strike ``127,000'' and insert 
     ``40,000''.
       On page 247, line 1, insert ``or the child or spouse of an 
     alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence'' after 
     ``United States''.
       On page 247, line 5, insert ``or lawful permanent 
     resident'' after ``citizen''.
       On page 247, line 6, insert ``or lawful permanent 
     resident'' after ``citizen''.
       On page 247, line 6, insert ``or lawful permanent 
     resident's'' after ``citizen's''.
       On page 247, line 7, insert ``or lawful permanent 
     resident'' after ``citizen''.
       On page 247, line 8, insert ``or lawful permanent 
     resident's'' after ``citizen's''.
       On page 247, line 9, insert ``or lawful permanent 
     resident's'' after ``citizen's''.
       On page 247, line 15, insert ``or lawful permanent 
     resident's'' after ``citizen's''.
       On page 247, line 24, insert ``or lawful permanent 
     resident'' after ``citizen''.
       On page 248, strike lines 2 through 11.
       On page 248, line 13, strike the first ``(3)'' and insert 
     ``(2)''.
       On page 249, line 1, strike ``(4)'' and insert ``(3)''.
       On page 250, between lines 42 and 43, insert the following:
       (5) Rules for determining whether certain aliens are 
     immediate relatives.--Section 201(f) of the Immigration and 
     Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1151(f)) is amended--
       (A) in paragraph (1)--
       (i) by striking ``paragraphs (2) and (3),'' and inserting 
     ``paragraph (2),''; and
       (ii) by striking ``(b)(2)(A)(i)'' and inserting ``(b)(2)'';
       (B) by striking paragraph (2);
       (C) by redesignating paragraph (3) as paragraph (2); and
       (D) in paragraph (2), as so redesignated, by striking 
     ``(b)(2)(A)'' and inserting ``(b)(2)''.
       (6) Numerical limitation to any single foreign state.--
     Section 202 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 
     1152) is amended--
       (A) by striking paragraph (4); and
       (B) by redesignating paragraph (5) as paragraph (4).
       (7) Allocation of immigration visas.--Section 203(h) of the 
     Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1153(h)) is 
     amended--
       (A) in paragraph (1)--
       (i) in the matter preceding subparagraph (A), by striking 
     ``subsections (a)(2)(A) and (d)'' and inserting ``subsection 
     (d)'';
       (ii) in subparagraph (A), by striking ``becomes available 
     for such alien (or, in the case of subsection (d), the date 
     on which an immigrant visa number became available for the 
     alien's parent)'', and inserting ``became available for the 
     alien's parent,''; and
       (iii) in subparagraph (B), by striking ``applicable'';
       (B) in paragraph (2), by striking ``The petition'' and all 
     that follows through the period and inserting ``The petition 
     described in this paragraph is a petition filed under section 
     204 for classification of the alien parent under subsection 
     (a) or (b).''; and
       (C) in paragraph (3), by striking ``subsections (a)(2)(A) 
     and (d)'' and inserting ``subsection (d)''.
       (8) Procedure for granting immigrant status.--Section 204 
     of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1154) is 
     amended--
       (A) in subsection (a)(1)--
       (i) in subparagraph (A)--

       (I) in clause (iii)--

       (aa) by inserting ``or legal permanent resident'' after 
     ``citizen'' each place that term appears; and
       (bb) in subclause (II)(aa)(CC)(bbb), by inserting ``or 
     legal permanent resident'' after ``citizenship'';

       (II) in clause (iv)--

       (aa) by inserting ``or legal permanent resident'' after 
     ``citizen'' each place that term appears; and
       (bb) by inserting ``or legal permanent resident'' after 
     ``citizenship'';

       (III) in clause (v)(I), by inserting ``or legal permanent 
     resident'' after ``citizen''; and
       (IV) in clause (vi)--

       (aa) by inserting ``or legal permanent resident status'' 
     after ``renunciation of citizenship''; and
       (bb) by inserting ``or legal permanent resident'' after 
     ``abuser's citizenship'';
       (ii) by striking subparagraph (B);
       (iii) by redesignating subparagraphs (C) through (J) as 
     subparagraphs (B) through (I), respectively;
       (iv) in subparagraph (B), as so redesignated, by striking 
     ``subparagraph (A)(iii), (A)(iv), (B)(ii), or (B)(iii)'' and 
     inserting ``clause (iii) or (iv) of subparagraph (A)''; and
       (v) in subparagraph (I), as so redesignated--

       (I) by striking ``or clause (ii) or (iii) of subparagraph 
     (B)''; and
       (II) by striking ``under subparagraphs (C) and (D)'' and 
     inserting ``under subparagraphs (B) and (C)'';

       (B) by striking subsection (a)(2);
       (C) in subsection (h), by striking ``or a petition filed 
     under subsection (a)(1)(B)(ii)''; and
       (D) in subsection (j), by striking ``subsection (a)(1)(D)'' 
     and inserting ``subsection (a)(1)(C)''.


                Amendment No. 1202 to Amendment No. 1150

  Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I now ask the pending amendment be set 
aside and the Senate proceed to the consideration of the amendment of 
Senator Obama, amendment No. 1202.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Colorado [Mr. Salazar], for Mr. Obama, for 
     himself and Mr. Menendez, proposes amendment numbered 1202 to 
     amendment No. 1150.

  Mr. SALAZAR. I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be 
dispensed with.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

   (Purpose: To provide a date on which the authority of the section 
relating to the increasing of American competitiveness through a merit-
      based evaluation system for immigrants shall be terminated)

       At the end of title V, insert the following:

     SEC. 509. TERMINATION.

       (a) In General.--The amendments described in subsection (b) 
     shall be effective

[[Page S6934]]

     during the 5-year period ending on September 30 of the fifth 
     fiscal year following the fiscal year in which this Act is 
     enacted.
       (b) Provisions.--The amendments described in this 
     subsection are the following:
       (1) The amendments made by subsections (a) and (b) of 
     section 501.
       (2) The amendments made by subsections (b), (c), and (e) of 
     section 502.
       (3) The amendments made by subsections (a), (b), (c), (d), 
     and (g) of section 503.
       (4) The amendments made by subsection (a) of section 504.
       (c) Worldwide Level of Employment-Based Immigrants.--
       (1) Temporary supplemental allocation.--Section 201(d) (8 
     U.S.C. 1151(d)) is amended by adding at the end the follows 
     new paragraphs:
       ``(3) Temporary supplemental allocation.--Notwithstanding 
     paragraphs (1) and (2), there shall be a temporary 
     supplemental allocation of visas as follows:
       ``(A) For the first 5 fiscal years in which aliens 
     described in section 101(a)(15)(Z) are eligible for an 
     immigrant visa, the number calculated pursuant to section 
     503(f)(2) of the Secure Borders, Economic Opportunity, and 
     Immigration Reform Act of 2007.
       ``(B) In the sixth fiscal year in which aliens described in 
     section 101(a)(15)(Z) are eligible for an immigrant visa, the 
     number calculated pursuant to section 503(f)(3) of Secure 
     Borders, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Reform Act of 
     2007.
       ``(C) Starting in the seventh fiscal year in which aliens 
     described in section 101(a)(15)(Z) are eligible for an 
     immigrant visa, the number equal to the number of aliens 
     described in section 101(a)(15)(Z) who became aliens admitted 
     for permanent residence based on the merit-based evaluation 
     system in the prior fiscal year until no further aliens 
     described in section 101(a)(15)(Z) adjust status.
       ``(4) Termination of temporary supplemental allocation.--
     The temporary supplemental allocation of visas described in 
     paragraph (3) shall terminate when the number of visas 
     calculated pursuant to paragraph (3)(C) is zero.
       ``(5) Limitation.--The temporary supplemental visas 
     described in paragraph (3) shall not be awarded to any 
     individual other than an individual described in section 
     101(a)(15)(Z).''.
       (2) Effective date.--The amendment made by paragraph (1) 
     shall be effective on October 1 of the sixth fiscal year 
     following the fiscal year in which this Act is enacted.

  Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I see my colleague and friend from 
Colorado, Senator Allard, on the floor to speak to his amendment.
  I yield the floor to Senator Allard.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I am certainly going to yield to Senator 
Allard, if I may make a brief--about 1-minute--response to my friend, 
Senator Salazar.
  I have in my hand the bill that was actually laid down by the 
majority leader and others. It is 789 pages. This is not actually the 
bill we are on. As you know, and as my colleagues know, there has been 
a substitute bill that was not put in final legislative language until 
Tuesday. Those who did not participate in the closed-door meetings that 
produced what has been sometimes called the ``grand bargain''--while I 
have been clear to give them credit where credit is due--I think they 
would appreciate the fact that not everybody has had access to the same 
information. Certainly not all Members of the Senate and our staffs 
have had access to the legislative text we are actually voting on and 
to which we are actually offering amendments.
  As the Senator from Colorado acknowledged, we all know how 
complicated this subject is. It is enormously detailed. We are doing 
our best to try to keep up. My hope is we can continue to work together 
to try to work our way through this. I think that is the spirit in 
which we are all trying to work.
  Nobody wants to blow this up. We all want to find a solution. We have 
some differences on what those solutions might be, but this is where 
those differences are debated, where the process allows amendments, 
suggested changes and improvements to be offered, and then in the end 
we will vote. But I wished to express my concerns that we be given the 
opportunity to do a good, conscientious job on behalf of our 
constituents, on behalf of the American people, in what I believe is 
the single most important domestic issue confronting our country today. 
That is the sum and substance of my part.
  I am glad to yield to the distinguished Senator from Colorado, 
Senator Allard.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The senior Senator from Colorado is 
recognized.
  Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues who have worked on 
the compromise committee. Senator Cornyn from Texas has done yeoman's 
work on this issue of immigration. He has a good understanding of the 
bill. I appreciate it. My colleague from Colorado, Senator Salazar, has 
also worked hard on this particular piece of legislation.
  I wish to say before Senator Cornyn leaves the floor, how much I 
appreciate his efforts and appreciate the fact that he did put forward, 
this morning, my amendment dealing with the supplemental schedule for 
Zs, that is the Z visas, because I think this is an important issue to 
debate. I appreciate him doing it for me on my behalf.
  I am very disappointed the leadership has limited us to only two 
amendments that we can call up today. I have a total of about five that 
I am working on. I have four ready to be called up. I was not a member 
of the compromise committee. I know Senator Cornyn is a very honorable 
Senator. Whenever I inquired of him as to what was going on in the 
conference committee, the bipartisan committee, he didn't believe he 
could share that information with me because he believed he was working 
within the committee.
  The vast majority of us are looking at some of these issues for the 
first time. Some of them are issues that have been coming up before the 
Senate from the previous debate and they are old hat. But the fact is, 
this is a new bill. In my office on Saturday morning, I got a rough 
draft with things penciled in, in the margins. That is what comes out 
of the committee. Then, as mentioned, on Monday night the substitute 
amendment was finally filed in the Senate. It wasn't until Tuesday that 
we got a final print of the bill. I don't know how many pages are in 
the final bill--I think it would be close to 1,000 pages in standard 
format. I do not believe I have had an adequate opportunity to have 
input. I was assured by the leadership that there is going to be plenty 
of opportunity for amendments--don't worry. But here we are on Friday 
and we are limited to two that we can call up.
  I have four here at the desk that I have filed, but I think the 
people need to understand, because you file them doesn't mean you get 
to bring them up and have a vote on them. They have to be made pending. 
That is what Senator Cornyn has done to help me out on one of my 
amendments. I thank him for that effort.
  First, let me comment a little bit about the general direction of 
this legislation. In current law we have what we call chain migration. 
What happens with chain migration is you come into the United States, 
and once you become legally here in the United States, that allows 
members of your extended family to follow you in.
  We are moving more toward a merit-based system, which is a direction 
in which we need to move. We cannot absolutely go all merit based, but 
I do think it is moving us in the right direction because we do have 
real needs out there. We need to identify those needs in the workplace. 
If we need to fill those with immigrants, we need to give business an 
opportunity to do that. On the other hand, probably more important than 
anything is we must make sure we have accountability in the system so 
we know who is coming into the country and for what purpose; that is, 
they want to have jobs or they want to be Americans. We don't want 
people coming into this country because they are terrorists and they 
want to destroy our society. We don't want people coming into this 
country because they are part of a drug cartel or they are smuggling 
weapons--in or out. We do need to secure our borders. I think that is 
the primary thing we need to accomplish. There are provisions in this 
bill that make me believe our borders will be more secure than as a 
result of the previous legislation--certainly more secure than what we 
are seeing today on our borders.
  I do, however, have a number of concerns with the bill. To address 
one of those concerns, I introduced amendment No. 1189, which is my 
amendment that Senator Cornyn called up, and that refers to the 
supplemental schedule for Zs. This section, in my point of view, is a 
great inequity in the bill because it rewards lawbreakers over law 
abiders.

  Ironically, this inequity is in the same section of the bill that 
rewards would-be immigrants based on merit. The only thing that 
breaking the law should merit, in my view, is jail time.

[[Page S6935]]

  To be clear, I strongly support curbing chain migration and moving 
our system to one based on merit. However, I believe all applicants 
under the merit-based system should be on a level playing field.
  By now, most of us are familiar with the bill's merit-based system 
that awards points to immigrants based on criteria such as employment, 
education, and knowledge of English.
  What many may not know is the enormous advantage the bill's point 
system gives to people who have violated our immigration laws relative 
to people who are seeking to enter this country legally. I am referring 
to the so-called supplemental schedule for Zs. This separate schedule 
awards up to 50 bonus points, points that are not available to people 
who have never broken our immigration laws, to holders of Z visas 
seeking permanent status.
  Holders of Z visas are, by definition, lawbreakers. In fact, this 
bill specifically requires that an alien prove he or she broke the law 
in order to even be eligible for the Z visas. In effect, this 
supplemental schedule rewards people who entered this country 
illegally. Worse yet, it disadvantages other qualified people who seek 
to enter this country legally.
  The bill's stated purpose of adopting a merit-based system is that 
the United States benefits from a workforce that has diverse skills, 
experience, and training. I happen to agree. I have stated that before. 
I am simply not convinced that a history of breaking the law 
contributes to this goal more than education and experience. My 
amendment simply strikes the special schedule that makes people who 
have violated our immigration laws eligible for points that others are 
not eligible for. I strike that provision.
  I just strike that provision so it puts everyone on a level playing 
field. Visa holders would, however, still be eligible, up to their 100 
points we provided in there under the regular schedule--the exact same 
number as anybody else.
  We should not reward those who have broken the law, and we certainly 
should not punish those who have abided by the law. I urge my 
colleagues to support that amendment when it comes up for a vote.
  Now, I have other amendments I very much would like to put forth. I 
understand that if I were to call them up at this particular point in 
time, I would put my colleague from Colorado in a terrible position, 
that he would have to object to my amendment when I ask unanimous 
consent to call it up. I don't want to do that. But what I do want to 
do is I want to talk about these particular amendments for a moment. 
Even though they have been introduced, I am not going to have an 
opportunity to call them up. I think these amendments are important 
provisions that would add to the bill in a positive way.
  One amendment I have is number 1187. Obviously I am not going to have 
a chance to call it up today. This particular amendment addresses the 
issue of identity theft and tries to improve the legislation at hand by 
protecting the identity of hard-working Americans, which is of the 
utmost importance to me.
  By way of background, this identity theft issue was called to my 
attention when we had some identity thefts that were pretty rampant in 
northern Colorado, close to where I live in Greeley, and I have 
discovered it is a rampant problem throughout the country.
  Now, again, I commend the drafters of the bill for including my 
proposal to allow for information sharing between the Social Security 
Administration and the Department of Homeland Security in the current 
bill. I had an opportunity to meet with the Secretary of Homeland 
Security, Secretary Chertoff, I had an opportunity to meet with the 
Secretary of Commerce, Secretary Gutierrez, and I had an opportunity to 
meet with my colleagues, including my colleague from Colorado, on this 
most important issue. I think that including that provision in there 
where we have now information sharing between Social Security and 
Homeland Security in the bill is going to be very helpful for us to 
identify identity theft. If anything else, the real victims in this are 
people who get their ID stolen, and it is a price they pay for the rest 
of their lives. It tracks with them all the way until they are 
receiving their Social Security benefits. So it was a critical first 
step to get this provision in the bill so that we can address the issue 
of identity theft and help many innocent victims.
  Contributing to the problem is the fact that under current law, 
Government agencies are prevented from sharing information with other 
Government agencies. After 9/11, one of our stated purposes was to 
break down the walls between the various agencies. Well, here we are. 
We find there is one that is remaining, between Social Security and 
Homeland Security. The bill addresses this issue. Going forward, when 
we find two names on the same Social Security number, Social Security 
can contact Homeland Security and say: Look, this is a number which has 
come to us, and we suspect fraud because we have two names on the same 
number. Then when the employer now calls in to check with Homeland 
Security about a Social Security number, they can say: Well, we have 
problems with this particular number. We think this could be an illegal 
immigrant, and we think you need to further check it out, and we will 
help you check it out.
  Now, this is sort of the program which was in place when we had the 
raids on Swift & Company in Greeley, CO. But I will talk a little bit 
more about that later.
  According to the Federal Trade Commission 2006 database, victims' 
identification has been misused to obtain credit cards, bank accounts, 
loans, and a long list of other things, including employment fraud. The 
current national average of employment fraud is 14 percent of all 
reported identity theft occurrences. Nationally, my home State of 
Colorado ranks sixth in overall identity theft. Seventeen percent of 
reported cases involve employment fraud, by the way. Massachusetts 
ranks 22nd, Pennsylvania 19th, and the FTC designated Arizona as the 
No. 1 State for identity theft. An estimated 39 percent--almost 40--of 
those reports involve employment fraud.
  That is why it is very important that we address this problem which 
came up when we had the raid on Swift & Company because what was 
happening with Swift & Company is they were working with Homeland 
Security to do what they call a basic pilot. So whenever anybody came 
in to Swift & Company and asked for a job, their employment application 
information was sent to Homeland Security. Homeland Security reviewed 
it and said: That is fine, go ahead and hire them, Swift & Company. 
Then Swift & Company goes and hires them. Then those very same people 
they were supposed to have cleared as legal immigrants, they arrested 
them for being here illegally. Now, if the Federal agencies cannot 
enforce our immigration laws, how can we expect the employers to comply 
with the current law? That is why my proposal is so very important. It 
is important to put sound measures in place now to uncover this 
identity theft and to prevent further damage to these innocent victims.
  Getting back to my amendment at issue today, Amendment 1187--I have 
not called it up, just introduced it, and I am not sure I am going to 
get a vote on it. It adds to the list of credentials needed to obtain a 
Z visa. It is an additive to what is already in this bill.
  The underlying bill requires applicants for Z visas to submit a 
variety of personal information, such as their name and date of birth. 
My amendment will add one more piece of information that will offer 
peace of mind to all who have fallen victim to identify theft. It 
requires the Z visa applicant to disclose all past names and Social 
Security numbers they have used in their work in the United States.

  This will create a documented record of compromised identities. 
Failure to provide this information will jeopardize the applicant's 
ability to obtain a Z visa. My amendment would permit Government 
agencies to share information with other agencies. These agencies may 
then notify the rightful assignee, alerting the victim that their 
identity was compromised, allowing the victim to repair their standing 
with Government agencies and finance and credit, and finally returning 
a sense of personal security and integrity.
  So I think it is important that we address this issue. We must do 
everything possible to end identity theft. I look

[[Page S6936]]

forward to working with my colleagues. I hope I will have an 
opportunity to call up this amendment so we can vote on it, so we can 
make it a part of this particular bill, because it is an important 
aspect of identity theft that is simply not addressed in the bill. I 
think it adds to what we are trying to do in the bill. I am 
disappointed that I am not going to be able to move forward on this.


                           Amendment No. 1188

  Now, Mr. President, I also have another amendment, 1188. Again, that 
has been introduced. This is an amendment which I have put at the desk 
which would help prevent further accrual of Social Security benefits by 
unauthorized workers. Currently, the Social Security Administration 
does not have real-time information relating to the eligibility of an 
alien to engage in employment in the United States. Consequently, 
someone working in the United States on an expired visa continues to 
accrue Social Security benefits for their unauthorized work.
  My amendment, 1188, would require the Secretary of Homeland Security 
to notify the Commissioner of Social Security when he or she grants, 
renews, or revokes authority to engage in employment. It then prohibits 
the Social Security Administration from counting work during that time 
if an individual, if not a citizen or a national, is unauthorized to 
work in the United States.
  In summary, this amendment simply facilitates the sharing of existing 
information among Government agencies, again to prevent fraud. It is 
forward-looking in nature. It does not look back. It does nothing to 
upset the bill's delicate balance. It is simply a better way of doing 
things moving forward.
  So those are some of the issues I have concern about. I am 
disappointed again that we have put a limit on amendments. They are 
meaningful amendments and would add to what would be viewed, I think by 
most Members of the Senate, as positive in nature in trying to help 
secure this country's borders, to help protect individuals from 
identity theft and break down the barriers we have or the firewalls we 
have between various agencies.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The junior Senator from Colorado is 
recognized.
  Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I will take a look at the amendment my 
colleague from Colorado has pending, amendment No. 1189.
  I do wish to say this about my colleague from Colorado: He has been a 
champion for agriculture all his life. He is a fifth-generation 
Coloradan. He understands what it is like out in the country, coming 
from a place in Jackson County, Walden, CO, for now five generations.
  A concern I have with his amendment, and I will take a further look 
at it, is that it seems to strike at the heart of the AgJOBS provision 
of this legislation. The AgJOBS provision of this legislation is an 
essential part of the agreement here that we need to move forward and 
create a system that will provide the labor we need to work on our 
farms and ranches across America.
  In my own State of Colorado, we have approximately 31,000 farms that 
encompass more than 31 million acres. According to the agribusiness 
statistics we have, they contribute over $16 billion to the State's 
economy. We need to make sure we have the labor that is necessary to 
work out in those fields so that we do not have the destruction we have 
seen in Colorado and California and in almost every State that is an 
agriculturally dependent State.
  So one of the concerns I have, and I will take a further look at my 
colleague's amendment, 1189, but I do voice a preliminary concern, and 
I do wish to make sure that at the end of the day, when we have 
comprehensive immigration reform adopted here in this country, that the 
provisions of AgJOBS--we have had as many as 67 cosponsors on that 
legislation--that AgJOBS in fact does remain a part of this 
legislation. That is legislation which has been worked on for a very 
long time in a bipartisan fashion, led by Senator Dianne Feinstein as 
well as Senator Larry Craig. It is a good piece of legislation that we 
need to deal with in order to make sure we have the labor requirements 
met for farmers and ranchers across America.
  Mr. President, I know our colleague from Alabama is waiting to speak, 
and then in the wings I see waiting Senator McCain.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I wish to just take a moment, and I see 
my colleague, Senator McCain, is here and prepared to speak, and I will 
be pleased to yield the floor and allow him an opportunity to speak.
  One of the problems we have with this legislation is we have gotten 
out of sync about our normal process on how legislation becomes law, 
how it should become law, what should be a part of it, particularly 
when it is such a massively important, broad, comprehensive bill that 
purports to be moving through the Senate.
  My colleague used a phrase that has been used frequently, that he was 
concerned about perhaps this amendment because it might affect an 
essential part of the agreement. Who made an agreement? I have not made 
an agreement. The American people haven't been in on an agreement. We 
have not gone through the normal process of moving an immigration bill 
through committee to the floor with hearings. We had some hearings last 
year and produced a quite different bill from the one that is on the 
floor today. This one was cooked up by a hard-working, good group of 
Senators who thought they could just speak for everybody--self-
appointed, I suppose.
  Let me display this chart. When this bill was announced, it was said: 
This is democracy in action. This is what you learn in ninth grade 
civics. This is good business. But how about our old buddy Mr. Bill who 
wants to become a law. You have heard him say it. Old Bill has a bunch 
of holes in him. He has a lot of loopholes in him. I am going to talk 
about that in a few minutes.
  Senator Specter, former chairman of the Judiciary Committee, ranking 
Republican on the committee, part of this effort that worked hard to 
try to create a bill they thought would be effective, said the other 
day that in retrospect, it would have been better had it gone to 
committee. Old Bill, ask him how a bill becomes law. He says: It is an 
idea somewhere. Then it gets written up. Then it goes to the floor. 
Then it goes to committee. The committee has hearings on it and calls 
witnesses and considers all the details and ramifications and lets the 
American people know what occurred.
  The way this bill purports to become law is a group of Senators got 
together. I affectionately call them ``masters of the universe.'' They 
got together and wrote up a historic piece of legislation that, if 
placed in normal bill language, would probably push 1,000 pages, 
probably the longest piece of legislation ever brought here. It was not 
sent to committee. It was filed at the desk, and the majority leader, 
Senator Reid, called it up without any committee hearing. They had the 
old bill on the floor. They filed cloture this Monday on the old bill. 
Then Monday night, for the first time of record, they plopped down this 
historic and incredibly complex, long piece of legislation. It has a 
lot of problems with it. It should not become law. That is what this is 
all about.
  Now we have gone a week, and we haven't had many amendments voted on. 
Thirteen is about all we have voted on by voice, unanimous consent, and 
roll call. Senator Cornyn, who has been engaged in this deeply and 
worked hard on it, former attorney general, Supreme Court Justice of 
Texas, offered some amendments this morning. They were objected to. I 
was told last night if I put up some amendments to the other side, they 
would evaluate them, and we would be able to call up one of those 
amendments this morning. In truth, both have been objected to. I am not 
able to offer a new amendment this morning. So the first week is gone. 
In fact, Senator Harry Reid, our esteemed Democratic leader, a person I 
like and enjoy working with, wanted to complete the bill this week and 
had it set up to try to complete the bill this week. There was so much 
push back and objection, he said: We will carry it over for another 
week.
  I don't believe 1 more week is nearly enough for this legislation, 
frankly. We need to spend a lot more time on it. I can feel the train 
moving. There is a method in the way the majority is handling 
amendments; that is, you can

[[Page S6937]]

only bring up one amendment at a time. It has to be approved by the 
other side before you can call it up. If you can't call it up, it 
ceases to be an amendment that can be voted on postcloture, even if it 
is germane. So the result is, we could proceed with this process in a 
way that does not allow it to be improved in a significant way.
  I am worried about my friend, Mr. Bill. I don't believe his teachers 
back there in the civics class would be pleased with how he has been 
bumped around. They would not be pleased that he had not gone through 
the normal process. I will point out some of the loopholes in poor, old 
Mr. Bill, as we go along today. Those loopholes will indicate this bill 
should not be passed in its present form.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Arizona is 
recognized.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I thank my friend, the Senator from 
Alabama, because I know he has a great deal more to say about the 
pending legislation this morning. I appreciate his allowing me a few 
minutes to discuss my view. I thank him for his courtesy.
  I thank my friend from Colorado, Senator Salazar, for his leadership, 
for his involvement and his integrity. What a great honor it has been 
for me to work with him on this and a number of other issues over 
several years. I thank him.
  Immigration reform is long overdue. I am proud to support this 
historic overhaul of our immigration system. This bill represents 
weeks, months and, in some cases, years of work by the proponents of 
this bill. The President has shown tremendous leadership on this issue 
and has dedicated countless hours to the process. While I may not be in 
agreement--and most of us are not in agreement--with each and every 
provision of the bill, it offers a good starting point for debate and a 
good framework. The proponents of this bill have come together to try 
to fix one of the most serious issues facing our country. We have put 
partisan politics aside in order to forge a consensual proposal to 
allow us to start a full floor debate on immigration reform. Others 
need to do the same.
  Those of us from border States witness every day the impact illegal 
immigration is having on our friends and neighbors, our county and city 
services, our economy, and our environment. We deal with the 
degradation of our lands and the demands imposed on our hospitals and 
other public resources. However, I have learned over the last several 
years this is not only a border State problem; this is a national 
problem. It affects the dairy farmers in Vermont and the cattlemen in 
Colorado. It also affects the poultry processors in Georgia, the 
construction worker in Nevada, and the housewife in Maine. Our current 
system doesn't protect us from people who want to harm us. It doesn't 
meet the needs of our economy, and it leaves too many people vulnerable 
to exploitation and abuse.

  Throughout this debate, we will be reminded that immigration is a 
national security issue, and it is. It is also a matter of life and 
death. We have hundreds of people trying to cross our borders every 
day, an estimated 12 million people living in the shadows of our 
country. While we believe the majority are hard-working people 
contributing to our economy and society, we can also assume there are 
some people who want to do us harm hiding among the millions who have 
come here only in search of better lives for themselves and their 
families. We need new policies that will allow us to concentrate our 
resources on finding those who have come here for purposes more 
dangerous than finding a job.
  Last year the Senate passed a comprehensive immigration bill, but it 
never even got to conference. This year we realized we had to take a 
different approach if we wanted to enact real reforms. New ideas and 
concepts were incorporated into the bill that helped to enhance the 
comprehensive nature of the bill and ensure the strongest tools were in 
place to enforce our laws and secure our border. First and foremost 
among our priorities was to ensure this bill included strong border 
security and enforcement provisions. We need to ensure that the 
Department of Homeland Security has the resources it needs to secure 
our borders to the greatest extent possible. These include manpower, 
vehicles, and detention facilities for those apprehended. But we also 
need to take a 21st century approach to this 21st century problem. We 
need to create virtual barriers as well through the use of unmanned 
aerial systems, ground sensors, cameras, vehicle barriers, advanced 
communications systems, and the most up-to-date security technologies 
available.
  This legislation mandates that before we can move forward with a 
program to address the undocumented workers currently in the United 
States or future workers wishing to enter, we must meet certain 
enforcement and security benchmarks that will let everyone know we are 
enforcing our laws and that we are not going to repeat the 1986 
amnesty. These triggers include the hiring of 20,000 Border Patrol 
agents, the construction of 300 miles of vehicle barriers and 370 miles 
of fencing, the establishment of 105 ground-based radar and camera 
towers along the southern border, and the deployment of 4 unmanned 
aerial vehicles and supporting systems. It also includes the end of 
catch and release, the ability to detain up to 31,500 aliens per day on 
an annual basis, the use of secure and effective identification tools 
to prevent unauthorized workers, and the receiving, processing, and 
adjudication of applications for the undocumented workers applying for 
legal status.
  Every one of these items must be in place and fully funded before a 
single temporary worker enters our country or a single undocumented 
immigrant receives a permanent legal status in the United States. I 
believe these requirements are a substantial improvement over previous 
measures. Not only will this legislation finally accomplish the 
extraordinary goal of securing our borders, it will also greatly 
improve interior enforcement and put employers on notice that the 
practice of hiring illegal workers simply will not be tolerated. 
Business as usual is no longer acceptable, and neither is a de facto 
amnesty. This legislation would put in place an effective and practical 
employment verification system to replace the outdated I-9 system that 
all employers use. In the 21st century, it is unacceptable that 
employers are still recording important employment eligibility 
information with a pen and pad. We need real-time answers that will 
tell employers if the person sitting in front of them is not only 
eligible to work here but the person they actually claim to be. 
Employers will no longer be put in a position of judging documents 
presented to them at face value.
  The employment verification system in this bill will allow employers 
to electronically verify identity and work eligibility through both DHS 
and the Social Security Administration, while also protecting the 
personal information of all U.S. workers. If we cannot adequately 
enforce our immigration laws at the worksite, employers will be able to 
continue to employ undocumented workers. That is not a scenario we will 
allow under this legislation.
  We need the ability to have additional legal workers in this country. 
There are certain jobs Americans are simply not willing to do. For 
example, today in California, fruit is rotting on the vine and lettuce 
is dying in the fields, because farmers can't find workers to harvest 
their crops. At the same time resorts in my own State of Arizona can't 
open to capacity, because there aren't enough workers to clean the 
rooms. Restaurants are locking their doors because there is no one to 
serve the food or clear the dishes. We are facing a situation whereby 
the U.S. population does not provide the workers that businesses 
desperately need. Yet the demand for their services and product 
continues.
  At the same time we have seen, time and time again under the current 
law, that as long as jobs are available in this country for people who 
live in poverty and hopelessness in other countries, those people will 
risk their lives to cross our borders. Our reforms need to reflect that 
reality and help us separate economic immigrants from security risks. 
This legislation does just that.
  The most effective border protection tool we have is establishing a 
legal channel for workers to enter the United States after they have 
passed background checks and have secured employment. We need to 
establish a temporary worker program that permits workers from other 
countries to

[[Page S6938]]

come here and find work and employment and to make sure those people 
are here on a legal basis.
  Recently, David Brooks wrote in his column:
       The United States is the Harvard of the world. Millions 
     long to get in. Yet has this country set up an admissions 
     system that encourages hard work, responsibility and 
     competition? No. Under our current immigration system, most 
     people get into the U.S. through criminality, nepotism or 
     luck. The current system does almost nothing to encourage 
     good behavior or maximize the nation's supply of human 
     capital.
       Let's look at how this bill would improve incentives almost 
     every step of the way.
       First, consider the 10 to 12 million illegal immigrants who 
     are already here. They now have an incentive to think only in 
     the short term. They have little reason to invest for the 
     future because their presence here could be taken away.
       This bill would encourage them to think in the long term. 
     To stay, they would have to embark on a long, 13-year 
     process. They'd have to obey the law, learn English and save 
     money (to pay the stiff fines). Suddenly, these people would 
     be lifted from an underclass environment--semi-separate from 
     mainstream society--and shifted into a middle-class 
     environment, enmeshed within the normal rules and laws that 
     the rest of us live by. This would be the biggest values-
     shift since welfare reform.
       Second, consider the millions living abroad who dream of 
     coming to the United States. Currently, they have an 
     incentive to find someone who can smuggle them in, and if 
     they get caught, they have an incentive to try and try again.
       The Senate bill reduces that incentive for lawlessness. If 
     you think it is light on enforcement, read the thing. It 
     would not only beef up enforcement on the border, but would 
     also create an electronic worker registry. People who 
     overstay their welcome could forfeit their chance of being 
     regularized forever.

  I would remind my colleagues the six people arrested who wanted to 
attack Fort Dix, NJ, and to kill Americans--three of them came across 
our southern border illegally; three of them came on valid visas and 
overstayed them.

       Moreover, aspiring immigrants would learn, from an early 
     age, what sort of person the United States is looking for. In 
     a break from the current system, this bill awards visas on a 
     merit-based points system that rewards education, and English 
     proficiency, agricultural work experience, home ownership and 
     other traits. Potential immigrants would understand that the 
     United States is looking for people who can be self-
     sufficient from the start, and they'd mold themselves to 
     demonstrate that ability.

  In essence, we are rewarding people for working hard and showing 
potential. These are not all high-skilled workers, but they are the 
kind of workers and people we should want to become citizens of our 
country. By combining family ties with economic realities, we can build 
a stronger immigration system that will help to build a stronger, more 
competitive economy and Nation.
  In addition to future immigrant and nonimmigrant workers, we have to 
address the fact that 12 million people are living in the United States 
illegally, most of them employed--all of them contributing to our 
country. Our economy has come to depend on people whose existence in 
our country is furtive, whose whereabouts and activities in many cases 
are unknown. I have listened to and understand the concerns of those 
who simply advocate sealing our borders and making life so terrible for 
people here that they will self-deport. But that is easier said than 
done.
  I fundamentally believe our Judeo-Christian society would not 
tolerate this type of treatment of people within our own country, 
whether here legally or not. We need to come up with a humane, moral 
way to deal with those people who are here, most of whom are not going 
anywhere. No matter how much we improve border security, no matter the 
penalties we impose on their employers, no matter how seriously they 
are threatened with punishment, we will not find most of them, and we 
will not find most of their employers.
  The opponents of our proposal to address undocumented workers in this 
country decry as amnesty our proposal to bring them out from their 
shadows and into compliance with our laws. No, it is not. Amnesty is, 
as I observe, for all practical purposes, what exists today. We can 
pretend otherwise, but that does not make it so. Amnesty is simply 
declaring people who entered the country illegally citizens of the 
United States and imposing no other requirements on them. That is not 
what we do in this legislation.
  Under the provisions of this legislation, undocumented workers will 
have incentives to declare their existence and comply with our laws. 
They may apply for a worker visa. They would be subjected to background 
checks. They must pay substantial fines and fees, totaling 
approximately $7,000, learn English, enroll in civic education, remain 
employed and, if they choose to get a green card, go to the end of the 
line behind those who waited legally outside of the country to come in.
  I believe most undocumented workers will accept these requirements in 
order to escape the fear, uncertainty, and vulnerability to 
exploitation they currently endure. While those who have come here to 
do us harm will not come out of hiding to accept those conditions, we 
will at least be spared the Herculean task of finding and sorting 
through millions of people who came here simply to earn a living.
  We are aware of the burdens illegal immigrants impose on our cities 
and counties and States. Those burdens which are a Federal 
responsibility must be addressed. We need also to face honestly the 
moral consequences of our current failed immigration system.
  I am hopeful at the end of this debate we can show the American 
people that we addressed a serious and urgent problem with sound 
judgment, honesty, common sense, and compassion. I hope we can show 
that we reached across the aisle to try to solve a serious problem in a 
serious way.
  It seems almost trite at this point to once again state that our 
Nation's immigration system is broken and in bad need of repair. But 
without comprehensive immigration reform, it is a fact that our 
Nation's security will remain vulnerable. We must act immediately or 
face the consequences of another summer of people dying in our deserts, 
businesses shutting their doors because they do not have the manpower 
to stay open, and criminals hiding in the shadows of our society mixed 
in with hard-working people who are the backbone of our economy.
  The Senate must have the courage and will to solve this crisis facing 
our Nation. The American people are demanding action. I say the time is 
overdue, and we are failing the citizens of the United States if we do 
not pass this important piece of legislation and ultimately achieve its 
enactment and implementation. If we do fail, what then?
  Mr. President, I thank my colleagues, and I thank my friend from 
Colorado.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Arizona, Senator 
McCain, for his comments and for his support of this legislation. I 
also want to say that Senator McCain has always spoken to the highest 
moral values of this Nation. His history in terms of his contributions 
to this country are unequaled. His involvement in trying to deal with 
this issue, including addressing it from a moral perspective, is 
something I will always admire.
  I remember well, I say to Senator McCain, when I went to your office, 
probably 2 years ago, as a freshman Senator. When I was sitting in your 
office, you pulled out a copy of the Arizona Republic, and I think the 
headline was: ``300 People Died in the Desert.'' The Senator spoke 
about the moral basis for us to move forward with comprehensive 
immigration reform.
  The Senator certainly has been a leader in that effort. I thank him 
for that. I thank him for his integrity, and I thank him for all his 
contributions to this country.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I see my friend from Alabama is 
in the Chamber
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, the failed immigration policies we have 
now are in need of reform, in need of comprehensive reform. I said that 
last year. Some of my colleagues said borders first; and I had sympathy 
with that and it actually would probably have been a healthy process if 
we started a year or two ago and established border security and gained 
the respect and confidence of the American people. We could then have 
been bringing forward a comprehensive immigration bill with more 
credibility than we have today.
  There is a lot of debate going on, and a lot of posturing going on. 
You see

[[Page S6939]]

things, such as my good friend, the Secretary of Homeland Security, 
Mike Chertoff who is doing a great job--he frames the issue this way: 
It is a choice between Republican conservatives who want to block the 
bill by insisting on mass deportations or insisting on deportations 
that are just not going to happen.
  Well, I am not aware of anybody on our side of the aisle calling for 
mass deportations. That is not so. That is a false setup. That is a 
triangulation, if you will, good friend, Mr. Chertoff, former U.S. 
attorney. We served together in the Department of Justice. He is one of 
the best members of the Cabinet. I do not appreciate it, Mike. You tell 
me who on this side said we want to have a mass deportation--zero. That 
is not the question.
  The question is whether we will have a decent bill that will actually 
work. I know you have made recommendations that are critical, Mr. 
Chertoff, to the passage of the bill that were not included in it. In 
fact, I have to give him credit. He did criticize the liberal 
immigration rights advocates by suggesting they will prolong the 
anguish by holding off the bill also. But I do not think that is the 
right issue here.
  All of us want a compassionate, legitimate piece of legislation that 
can work and will serve our long-term interests and will be consistent 
with the principles that are set forth by the people who worked on the 
legislation. But I am not given confidence. I will repeat again: I am 
not feeling confident at all there will be a legitimate, full, vigorous 
debate and a lot of amendments that go to some of the weaknesses in the 
legislation. I am afraid they are not going to be considered.
  I say that because I see the tactics moving along. We have gone a 
week with only three, four votes. That is not enough time on a bill of 
this size and complexity. I think we had 40 or 50 votes on the 
bankruptcy bill. It was nothing more than an updating of bankruptcy 
law. It went on for weeks and months. It came through the Senate three 
or four times actually before it finally became law.
  There were other bills that had far more extensive debate and 
discussion than this one. But none of those bills come close to having 
the impact on America or come close to having the attention of the 
American people to the degree this issue does.
  The reason the American people are angry and upset is simple. They 
are not angry, they are not upset with immigrants. That is not what I 
read people to be saying. What I think they are angry and upset with is 
Congress and the President for absolutely refusing to listen to their 
natural and proper concerns about immigration. What I am hearing is 
they do not want to be taken to the cleaners once again.
  They do not want to be victims of a bait and switch in which we 
promise we are going to create a system that will work for lawful 
immigration, that will allow us to have an immigration policy that 
serves the national interest, that allows millions of people to come to 
our country in immigration status--but it would be a number we can have 
jobs for, without pulling down the wages of hard-working American 
workers. It would bring in numbers sufficient to make sure we do not 
cause problems in schools and other areas that we cannot quite handle.
  The number ought to be correct, and that they ought to be, insofar as 
possible, persons who are going to flourish in our economy, people who 
have the skills, language, and education levels that indicate they will 
likely be very successful here, like Canada does. That is what they do. 
We have a touch of that in this bill--far better than last year, I have 
to say--but I have been so disappointed to read the fine print and to 
see that movement to follow the philosophy that Canada does has not 
nearly been strong enough. It is discouraging to see it has not been.
  So the individuals who thought they would meet and reach an agreement 
and plop it on the floor of the Senate--for which all the rest of us 
folks would just dutifully comply with and ratify and say: Thank you, 
my elite colleagues. We are glad you have worked out this immigration 
problem. Thank you so much. We know something had to be done--and it 
does have to be done--we are just overjoyed you got Senator Kennedy and 
Senator Kyl and everybody has agreed, and we are going to plop this 
bill down, and you guys will just ratify it. You can have a lot of 
little amendments if you want to, but, remember, if anything touches 
the core principles we have decided on, why, that would be something we 
just couldn't accept, and every one of us is going to stick together, 
and we are going to vote against it, even if we might agree with your 
amendment. We had to compromise that to get this agreement. Yes, Jeff, 
we like that amendment. I know you like that amendment. I really think 
you are right on that amendment, but I cannot vote with you because I 
have agreed with this group over here in this secret session which the 
public was not involved in. We made a commitment to one another, and we 
are going to stick together and vote you down.
  Now, this is not the way old Bill was taught law was supposed to 
occur in America. It is unbelievable that you would have a piece of 
legislation of this historic nature not even go to committee and that 
this group just met. How quick did we have it? Oh, well, we were going 
to have the bill last Thursday so people could read it, and then it was 
going to be Friday. We promise we will have the bill Friday. Then it 
turned out to be Saturday morning, at 2 a.m., they emailed it and tried 
to say they put it out Friday. It was Saturday, at best, when the bill 
was out. They claim it is 300 and some pages. I believe this is it. 
They say it is 300 pages or whatever the number of pages it is in this 
stack of bills, but they didn't print it in the normal language. I have 
never seen a piece of legislation of any size go through here and not 
be in bill language. This is fine print. If you put this bill in bill 
language, it would probably be 1,000 pages. A good immigration bill 
needs to be 1,000 pages. There are thousands of issues involved that 
need to be clarified, hundreds and hundreds of complex situations that, 
if not properly addressed, will never work if we don't do it right.
  That is all I would say to my colleagues and friends. I love you. I 
appreciate all your efforts to try to solve the American people's 
problems. I know you didn't want to bother with them while you met and 
had your discussions, except I guess the Chamber of Commerce and this 
special interest group and that special interest group and maybe some 
pollsters telling this and that; I don't know how that came out. But I 
don't appreciate the fact that we are not being able to have a full 
debate on it, and we are not going to be able to have very many 
amendments. We could probably, without--well, you say: You are trying 
to file amendments to delay. You want to slow down the process. Well, 
as Senator Specter said, in retrospect, we would have done better had 
the bill gone through committee, the Judiciary Committee. At least they 
did last year. It was rammed through the committee last year because I 
saw it when I was on the committee. This is what happened last year: 
They waited until the last minute. Senator Frist, the majority leader, 
says we are going to bring an immigration bill up next Monday. On the 
Judiciary Committee, we are working hard. We go to the Judiciary 
Committee, and Senator Specter has a bill that had some possibilities. 
It had problems, but it had some attractiveness to it. It wasn't long 
before Senator Kennedy dropped his bill and substituted and the Specter 
bill was gone. We had an entirely new bill. Then they dropped an AgJOBS 
thing on top of that. Then they dropped the DREAM Act, which gives 
instate tuition to illegal aliens and things of that nature that all 
got dropped on, passed, pop, pop, pop.
  Senator Frist says: Well, if you don't have the bill on the floor by 
Monday night, I am going to go with an enforcement only bill. So we 
rush and rush around there and they put the bill down on Monday night 
and here we go. Senator Reid says we don't want any amendments. Senator 
Cornyn and Senator Kyl had some amendments. They got their backs up and 
began to push back and people said: What are we going to do with a bill 
without any amendments? So finally, Senator Frist pulled the bill. He 
said: We are not going to bring it back up until the Democratic leaders 
agree we are going to have some amendments. It came back up for a 
couple of weeks of debate and cleared this body, knowing the House of 
Representatives had no intention whatsoever of ever considering it.

[[Page S6940]]

It was sort of a gesture because it was not an effective piece of 
legislation.
  This year's bill is better than last year's, although I have been 
disappointed to see that it has backed up on some issues of 
significance. I still would say the framework of this year's bill is a 
good bit better than last year's. Last year's bill should never, ever 
have become law. It was fatally flawed.
  So what were the principles that the promoters of this legislation 
said should be occurring here? They said we need a lawful system, that 
we wouldn't have amnesty and that there would be a trigger, which was 
rejected last year, a trigger and a number of other things they cited 
as key component principles of a good immigration bill. All right. I 
agree with that. Many of those principles were sound. But as we read 
the fine print, our concern is--my fine staff, they have worked hard, 
including weekends. They get the bill at 2 a.m. Saturday morning. They 
work Saturday nights and Sunday nights and here we are on the floor of 
the Senate. The thing does not even get introduced until Monday night, 
and nobody has had a chance to read it until then. So it is a big 
problem.
  My fundamental concern then is that the bill does not live up to the 
stated principles that it contains. So what we need in reform are a 
number of things. We need to recognize--unless anyone misinterprets 
this--we need to recognize we are indeed a Nation of immigrants. We 
are. Some people don't believe that, but I don't believe there is a 
Member of Congress who doesn't understand that. We want and will have a 
continuing flow of new people into our country, and it enriches us and 
has proven to be one of our strengths as a Nation. I think we need to 
restate that again and again and that immigration will continue in the 
future and that we are going to treat compassionately, even generously, 
people who have broken our laws and come into our country illegally. 
But we must do it in a way that minimizes the damage that will be done 
to our legal system and our ability to enforce the law in the future.
  My colleagues have been involved in law enforcement and you get busy 
and you start giving people immunity for this and that crime repeatedly 
and people begin to believe you are never going to enforce it. At some 
point in the future, you get to the point where you would not be able 
to enforce it. On the floor, I think maybe yesterday, Senator Grassley 
from Iowa, who is such a great Senator, such a direct speaker, asked 
this question. He said he was here in 1986 when they promised no 
amnesty. He is very concerned because it didn't work and he felt 
responsibility for that. He was not going to be a part of new 
immigration legislation that doesn't work such as the 1986 legislation. 
He said: In 1986, they said we are not ever going to have amnesty 
again, and he asked this question: Have you heard any of the promoters 
of this legislation say we will not have amnesty again? He said: You 
are not going to hear them say that. That is one thing you would not 
hear because after--because if we give amnesty again, what good is it 
to even say we are not going to do it? Because what principle, what 
basis on which to stand will we have 10, 12, 15 years from now when 
several million other people are in our country legally and someone 
says they are here illegally, why don't we enforce the law and ask them 
to go home. Oh, well, you gave amnesty before. You gave amnesty in 
2007, you gave amnesty in 1986. How can you enforce the law now?

  So to not understand as a matter of law and principle that once 
again, taking the easy amnesty step will make it almost impossible in 
the future for us ever to enforce the law is a mistake.
  I read the debate in 1986--a lot of it. It went just like that. 
People said: One-time amnesty. We have to do this. Own-time amnesty. 
The others said: Well, we are not sure about this. We think if you have 
an amnesty and you wipe out the laws that we had here and the 
violations that have occurred, you are liable to increase the threat in 
the future that more people will break into our country illegally on 
the expectations that they, too, after a period of time, will be 
allowed to stay legally. If you read that debate, you will see whose 
predictions were correct. I have to say that. I have to say that.
  So I think the Z visa program that allows people who come here 
illegally to stay here illegally, to come out of the shadows with some 
sort of status, but not, I would suggest, as it is now written giving 
them a guaranteed path to receiving every single benefit that accrues 
to people who come legally, I don't think we should do that. That is my 
principle. If you didn't follow the rules, somehow, it ought to be 
clear that you will never get every single benefit of citizenship and 
participation in America than if you waited in line. If you give up on 
that principle, we have a problem. So I think if we had the courage and 
the firmness and the strength in this Senate and would listen to the 
American people, we would say the principles of 1986 are going to be 
affirmed. OK. We will figure out a way you can stay, your children can 
be citizens, you can have all the protections of the laws of our 
country but not every benefit of citizenship, and we will never, ever 
again do that. If we give away that position, I think we have a 
problem.
  So what I would like to talk about is some of the loopholes in this 
bill. I talked about the loopholes last year in the bill and there were 
quite a number of them. This is not an exhaustive list. You heard 
Senator Allard earlier this morning make comments about the weaknesses 
in the legislation, and you heard Senator Cornyn point out some 
weaknesses in the legislation. I have identified 15. We certainly would 
not be able to talk about all those this morning that I wish to talk 
about, but there are many more. It is troubling that we might not be 
able to have an opportunity to fully amend the bill to fix these 
loopholes.
  Our old buddy, Bill, the ideal way that laws should be written in 
America, well, he has been forgotten in this process. I will tell you 
what could happen in the House of Representatives. I don't think they 
are having any serious hearings over there. This bill could hit the 
House of Representatives if it came out of the Senate--and it may well 
come out of this body--it could hit the House of Representatives. They 
could call it up. They don't have unlimited debate. They don't have a 
very strong ability to cut off debate. They could vote the bill out. It 
could go to conference. The conferees will be chosen and controlled by 
Senator Reid, the Democratic leader, and the Speaker of the House, 
Nancy Pelosi, and they will appoint the people they want to fix any 
differences in the bill, and they can make virtually any changes they 
want to. Then the bill is on the floor, and it is either up or down, 
and it might pass. As one Member of the House said about whether 
President Bush would sign it, he said President Bush would sign a pork 
chop if it had immigration reform on it. We have to be careful what we 
do and what is in this bill.
  It can affect what is actually going to become law. There is no 
passing this off to the House of Representatives, like last year, as if 
that was going to fix many of the problems that were in the 
legislation. The House is liable to make it worse. Well, you have heard 
one of the principles in the bill.
  I am glad to hear Senator McCain say there was a trigger in the 
legislation. He resisted a trigger last year. We had quite a debate on 
it. Those opposing it last year said you cannot have a trigger because 
all of us who met and wrote the bill don't want a trigger; you will 
upset our compromise. I asked then--and I ask today--who was in this 
compromise? Did you have public hearings? Were people allowed to do 
what you were discussing? Did La Raza get to put in their opinion? Did 
the U.S. Chamber of Commerce get to put in their opinion? Who all got 
to put in their opinion? They didn't ask my opinion--well, that is not 
totally so; I did talk to a couple of them, whom I expressed some 
opinions to. Fundamentally, that is just not an open process. Sometimes 
you can do something like that as a tough nut to be cracked, and people 
have to make a decision. But this is too big, too broad, too much 
policy. The American people are too concerned about it, and it is too 
important to be settled that way.
  Let me tell you what the trigger was about. I offered in the 
Judiciary Committee last year--because it dawned on me that in 
Judiciary Committee, I offered an amendment to say: Let's add border 
patrol, and they accepted it. I

[[Page S6941]]

offered an amendment that showed how we don't have enough bed spaces to 
end catch and release, saying you had to have more. They accepted that. 
I offered amendment after amendment, and they accepted them. I thought, 
why is this? So I offered amendments to change the policy to make the 
law actually enforceable, and they got voted down.
  Why would that be so easy? Because the brain trust that was proposing 
that bill last year knew the history of 1986; they knew how Congress 
worked, and they knew they never had any intention of funding all the 
Border Patrol agents and the fencing and the prison beds. We could pass 
an authorization bill to build prisons, and they are never going to get 
built, I am telling you. I will show you examples. It means nothing.
  So I offered a trigger. It finally dawned on me what this was about, 
how the game was going to be played out. I offered an amendment that 
said: You don't get any of this amnesty until the Secretary of Homeland 
Security certifies that he has operational control over our lawless 
border. They voted that down.
  So Senator Isakson, from Georgia, picked that up and wrote it in even 
more detail when the bill came to the floor and offered the amendment. 
We had quite a debate over this because it was important--the trigger 
was important. The cabal who put all of it together said: We cannot do 
that because it would upset our delicate compromise in the groups that 
participated in writing this bill--not the American people--and they 
would oppose it. They voted it down. It was a fairly close vote, but 
they voted down the trigger because they really didn't want that 
trigger because they never intended to do the things that were in the 
bill. The trigger would have said: You have to build a fence, you have 
to build the prison beds, and you have to hire the people. If you don't 
do those things--and actually do them--the other stuff doesn't become 
law, the amnesty. That was the debate last year.
  This year, they say: We got the message, we are going to have a 
trigger. Well, good. I was happy about that. That sounded good. This is 
one of our principles. This time, we are not going to mislead the 
American people. We are really going to do what we promised and have a 
trigger, and you can relax, Sessions, because we are not going to fool 
you this time. It is not going to be like 1986.
  But the problem is that the trigger doesn't get us there. I just have 
to tell you that. The trigger only applies to the guestworker program 
and taking illegal aliens off the probationary Z visa, and all other 
programs in the bill will begin immediately. So if the trigger is never 
met--if the trigger that is supposed to be met is never met, these 
requirements we put in there to ensure that we were going to follow 
through with enforcement, if they are never met, the probationary 
status in the amnesty group never expires.
  After the bill passes, Homeland Security has 180 days to begin 
accepting Z visa applications. They would accept them for 1 year and 
can extend the application filing for another year. When the trigger is 
met, if it ever is, Homeland Security will start approving the 
applications they have been processing and adjudicating. What happens 
if the trigger is never met? Will the probationary amnesty end or 
expire? Those are pretty good questions. If the trigger is never met, I 
can answer it for you: The Z visa probationary status never ends in the 
bill.
  It is explained on page 291, line 17:

       Probationary authorization document does not expire until 
     ``6 months after the date on which the Secretary begins to 
     approve applications for Z visas.''

  So if the trigger is never met, if the Department of Homeland 
Security never starts approving the applications and the 6-month clock 
never starts ticking, therefore, the probationary authorization 
document never expires.
  My staff asked about this in one of the briefings by the group 
promoting the bill. The staffers asked: Does the Z visa probationary 
card ever expire? The answer was: Well, because the triggers are going 
to get met sometime, in fact, it is not going to expire.
  So, in addition, we need to remember that there is no guarantee that 
the additional enforcement items--I talked about that earlier--in title 
I and title II of this legislation that purport to be effective in 
enforcing the law--there are dozens of things there that are not listed 
in the trigger. The question is, Will they ever be funded?

  You should be aware, sophisticated Americans and Members of the 
Senate, that there is no obligation or requirement whatsoever that 
these things ever get funded in the future. The bill itself 
acknowledges that in many different places.
  So with regard to some of the things in the bill that are supposed to 
make enforcement better and make the system work better, they use this 
phrase--they say, ``subject to the availability of appropriations.''
  That phrase is used 18 times in the bill. What does that mean? It 
means we are going to increase our prison beds, increase border patrol, 
and do all these things which are in our law, and we are going to 
enforce the law subject to the availability of appropriations. Well, 
somebody probably wants a bridge in their home State or a highway or a 
university grant in their home district--more money for this or that, 
good programs or bad programs, but that is how these things get lost 
out in the competition for spending. They don't get done. They 
acknowledge that.
  The phrase ``authorized to be appropriated'' is used 20 times. So 
they are saying we are authorizing to be appropriated money to do this, 
that, and the other. They are going to make this bill good. So our 
masters of the universe come out and say: Don't worry, American people, 
I know you think we are not going to enforce the law, but we have new 
Border Patrol officers and prison spaces and fencing, and they add the 
phrase. But all it really says in the legislation is that it is 
authorized to be appropriated. There is no way they can guarantee that 
Congress next year is going to appropriate the money for what they put 
in the bill.
  All of that was key to the trigger effect. I have to tell you that, 
in my view, the trigger is not nearly strong enough. It has been 
undermined, and virtually everything in the trigger has already been 
completed or is soon to be completed. It doesn't have some of the new 
things that have been promised here in the trigger.
  Loophole No. 2. This is very important. The enforcement trigger does 
not require that the U.S. visa exit portion of US-VISIT--the biometric 
border check system that records that you have come into the country--
will be implemented. It was required by Congress in 1996. Over 10 years 
ago, we required that the US-VISIT exit system be in place; that is, if 
you have a visa to the United States for 6 months or 30 days or a year, 
you come in and present your card, it goes into the computer system, 
like at the bank or like your timeclock where you work, it clocks you 
in, and then it clocks you out. If you don't exit when you are supposed 
to, red flags can go up that you didn't exit when you were supposed to. 
You are an ``overstay.'' It is an absolutely critical step in creating 
a lawful immigration system that will work. It was required to be 
completed in 2005. Here we are in 2007, and it is not completed. Did we 
promise to complete it as part of the trigger? No, no, no. There would 
be no way to ascertain whether people exit when they are supposed to.
  Under the bill, it says a certain number of people come seasonably, 
or certain people for 2 years, and sometimes family members can come 
for 30 days, and sometimes family members can come for 2 years--those 
kinds of things. Who is going to find out if they didn't go home when 
they were supposed to? Over a third of the people in our country 
illegally came legally but overstayed their visa, and many have no 
intention of returning to their home country whatsoever. We don't even 
know they didn't return because we have no way to clock out when they 
left. We have no idea who left when they were supposed to leave.
  This is why I say the legislation before us was designed to fail. I 
am not sure the Members all designed it to fail, but the effort, when 
it came down to it, when confronted with things which would actually 
work and which are critical to the success of an effective border 
system, they weren't in there, and that sends you a signal on what is 
really there.

[[Page S6942]]

  In 1996, we required, as I said, this US-VISIT system to have an exit 
component by 2005, and it is still not complete. Do you think that in 
1996, Members of the Congress and Members of the Senate went out and 
told their constituents that we are working on immigration; we passed a 
bill that will have an exit system in 10 years or 9 years, and that 
will help us enforce the law, and I am so proud we passed that? What 
good is it to pass it if it never happens? It hasn't happened yet, and 
it is not required through the trigger, which is the only thing that 
can require it to work.
  According to the Pew Hispanic Center's 2006 report entitled ``Modes 
of Entry for Unauthorized Migrant Population'':

       4 to 5.5 million of the current illegal alien population 
     ``entered legally'' and are non-immigrant visa overstayers.

  Despite what we know about the overstay rates, the US-VISIT exit 
system is not made part of the trigger. That is a very big loophole.
  I don't think we are serious if we don't have an exit system. One 
might say it is hard to do. We have had 10 years. I will say one thing, 
if President Bush wanted the exit system to be in place, he would have 
it in place. If Congress wanted it in place, we would have it in place.
  A separate section of the bill does require the Department of 
Homeland Security to submit to Congress a schedule for developing an 
exit component. That is not good enough.
  Loophole No. 3, one of these little spots in poor old Bill who got 
shot up because he didn't go to committee like he was supposed to learn 
in civics class. He is supposed to go to committee. Maybe some 
loopholes would have been closed if we had an opportunity to talk about 
it publicly before the whole world.
  Loophole No. 3: The bill does not require the Department of Homeland 
Security to have enough bed space to actually end catch and release at 
the border and in the interior. It only requires Homeland Security to 
maintain its current level of bed space and establishes a ``catch, pay, 
and release'' program that benefits illegal aliens from countries other 
than Mexico who are caught at the border and who can post a $5,000 
bond.
  A $5,000 bond is not hard to post if you know how the system works 
and you are prepared. It can be done any number of ways. But let's say 
an individual has a cousin or uncle or someone in the United States and 
they come into the country and are apprehended, and they came from 
Europe or Brazil or someplace other than Mexico. All you have to do is 
post a bond and then you are released pending some hearing on 
deportation.
  We have had this problem for a number of years. Secretary Chertoff 
has made some progress in ending it, and I give him credit for that. 
There was an article in a newspaper that showed that people other than 
Mexicans--you see, it is not easy to deport them. It is easy to take a 
person back to Mexico, but how do you take a person back to Chile, 
Brazil, Indonesia, or Belarus? It takes some effort to do this. So they 
were releasing everyone on bail because they didn't have any bed space, 
and asking them to show up at some given time so they could deport 
them. If a person is willing to break into the country in violation of 
the laws, how many of those people are going to show up after they have 
been apprehended to be flown out of the country? No, not zero; 95 
percent don't show up. That is what the number is. In fact, some of the 
rules smugglers told their people to follow is if you see an 
immigration officer, turn yourself in because they will take you 
further inland, they will process you, and let you out on bail, and you 
never have to come back, which is exactly what 95 percent are doing. It 
is a mockery of the law and, in some areas, we have made progress, but 
that is not a part of the trigger.
  What about the bed space? You have to have a certain amount of bed 
space or you can't hold people. Over the past 2 years, the Senate 
appropriated money for 9,000 new beds, bringing us to a total of 27,500 
beds. This is the current funding level, 27,500 beds. We have already 
funded that amount. Nothing new was added to the requirements of the 
trigger until the Gregg amendment was adopted earlier this week. Now 
the trigger requires Homeland Security to reach a detention bed space 
of 31,500 beds, 4,000 more.
  The 27,500 beds, however, are far less than the 43,000 detention beds 
required under current law to be in place and constructed by the end of 
this year.
  OK, cynics out there, does that provide fuel to your fire? How about 
that? Does that breach cynicism? We require in the Intelligence Reform 
and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 that this country have 43,000 beds 
by the end of this year, but when this bill came up, they only had in 
the trigger portion, the thing that would guarantee we reach that 
level, 27,500 beds. Senator Gregg raised the number to 31,500, but in 
2004, when Senators went out and bragged that they raised our number to 
43,000 detention beds, that was supposed to be met, and we have no 
intention of meeting it, I submit. Because it is in bill language 
doesn't mean it will ever happen.
  This month, a Federal lawyer who used to be with the Bureau of 
Prisons, Joseph Summerill, wrote an op-ed piece--he used to be with the 
Bureau of Prisons, so he knows this issue. As a lawyer, he was a 
counsel for the Bureau of Prisons, and he now practices with the firm 
of Greenberg Traurig.
  He says the following:

       . . . the demand for deportation and removal operation 
     detention space has grown much faster than available bed 
     space has. . . .

  He goes on:

       Despite the fact that high-risk/high-priority immigrants 
     include immigrants who are associated with criminal 
     investigations, have committed fraud, or are likely to 
     abscond, these immigrants are often released because of the 
     lack of detention bed space. . . .
       The lack of detention bed space has resulted in creating a 
     de facto amnesty program for illegal immigrants who are 
     subject to removal, particularly those immigrants from 
     countries ``other than Mexico.''

  From 2002 to 2004, he explains:

       DRO--

  That is the detention and removal operation

       DRO personnel levels grew by only 3 percent and the funding 
     of bed space decreased by 6 percent. According to the 
     inspector general, declining funds, the shortage of DRO 
     personnel, and decreased bed space led to a 38 percent 
     increase of illegal immigrants released by the DRO.

  We are supposed to be fixing this catch-and-release program. I 
thought we were. Here this former lawyer with the Bureau of Prisons 
said we had a 38-percent increase in illegal immigrants being released. 
He concludes:

       DRO has faced annual mandates by Congress, the President, 
     and the American people to increase the number of illegal 
     immigrants who are detained. Unfortunately, Federal funding 
     has not kept pace with these mandates. . . .

  So it is clear we need a lot more beds, and 31,500 beds, as we 
approved in an amendment the other day, is better than 27,500, but it 
is not enough.
  So why are the American people cynical? We passed a law in 2004 
requiring 43,000 beds by the end of this year. We are at 27,500. It is 
not likely to ever happen, and that is why they did not put it in the 
trigger because if they did, those bed spaces would have to be 
completed.
  Mr. President, I see my distinguished colleague Senator Bond from 
Missouri in the Chamber. He is a most capable Senator. I appreciate his 
leadership. I have a number of loopholes I could talk about and will 
talk about in the days to come.
  I am raising these issues to say I can't vote for a bill that is 
likely to clear the House of Representatives and be signed by the 
President with loophole after loophole after loophole. I cannot go to 
my constituents and say I am pleased we have now passed legislation 
that will actually work to create a lawful system, that will treat 
compassionately the people who are here, will create a flow in the 
future based on merit and competition, and will do a lot of other 
things we want done, the sponsors of this bill are saying they want 
done, and asking us to vote for this bill because they say it will 
accomplish that.
  My disagreement is not with their principles and their stated goals, 
but my disagreement is the language in the legislation is dramatically 
ineffective to accomplish that.
  I thank the Chair and I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Missouri.
  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues for allowing me to 
speak

[[Page S6943]]

briefly. I have proposed an amendment which I believe is very important 
to this bill to cut the automatic path to citizenship. It is filed at 
the desk, and I will call it up later.
  Citizenship is the most sacred gift Americans can provide. It should 
not serve as a reward to those who broke the law to enter or remain in 
this country. The path to citizenship is at the heart of the amnesty 
criticism of this bill. Cutting this path cuts out the most severe 
complaint about this bill.
  I supported the Vitter amendment yesterday to strike the entire 
program proposed to deal with 12 million illegal aliens in the country. 
Unfortunately, that amendment was rejected. So today I propose a much 
more targeted, focused amendment to strike the controversial aspect of 
the proposal to give the award of citizenship to those 12 million 
illegal aliens.
  Whatever we end up doing with those 12 million illegal aliens, it 
does not require the further step of giving them a path to citizenship 
ahead of others. Those 12 million illegal aliens came to this country 
to work without the expectation of becoming citizens. More illegal 
aliens will come to this country on a temporary basis to work without 
expectation of citizenship. There is no need to grant these people the 
gift of citizenship.
  Specifically, my amendment will strike the contents of section 602 on 
earned adjustment of Z status aliens, replacing it with a prohibition 
on issuing an immigrant visa to Z nonimmigrants which is currently in 
the bill and a prohibition of adjusting a Z nonimmigrant to legalize 
permanent resident or so-called green card holder.
  In this way, the path to citizenship is cut off. I urge the Senate to 
call up and adopt this amendment. I believe it will enable other goals 
in the bill to be accomplished without giving the amnesty path to 
citizenship.
  I yield the floor and I thank my colleagues.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I wish to make one correction. I think I 
said we had four or five votes, or three or four votes, or something of 
that nature. My staff tells me we have had seven votes this week. I 
think that is better than four, but that would indicate that in 2 weeks 
we will have had about 14 votes. That is not enough, in my view, to fix 
the problems in this legislation.
  I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Alabama for his 
heartfelt statements concerning this very important issue that faces 
our country today.
  I wish to do two things here. First, I wish to remind the Senate how 
far along this road we have come. This debate on immigration reform is 
not one that started on this Monday. It is indeed a debate the Senate 
started over a year and a half ago, and it started in the Judiciary 
Committee. It then went through nearly a month of debate, with many 
amendments and changes, and ultimately a bill that was passed out of 
the Senate, this comprehensive immigration reform, by a vote, as I 
recall, of 64 Senators voting to move that bill forward.
  Now, that was a year ago. We are now a year ahead, and what has 
happened during this past year is that there have been continuing 
conversations about how we might be able to create an immigration 
reform system that works for our country. After many hundreds, perhaps 
thousands, of hours of meetings, which included the White House and 
included the leading members of many of the committees in the Senate, 
there was a bill that was crafted. It may be an imperfect bill, but 
part of what is happening today is that, as amendments have been 
crafted and introduced, there is an effort to make the legislation 
better.
  At the end of the day, I wish to give thanks to all those Members of 
the Senate and members of the President's Cabinet, and the President 
himself, for what they have done in moving this immigration debate 
forward.
  I will also add that our majority leader, Senator Reid, long ago gave 
warning to the Members of the Senate that we were going to move forward 
to immigration. This was not a surprise to the Members of the Senate. 
Months ago, Senator Reid said we have to deal with this most 
fundamental national security problem of our time, and what I will do 
is I will reserve time at the end of May so we can deal with 
immigration reform.
  Well, he did that, and he kept everybody's feet to the fire. At the 
beginning of this week, Senator Reid made the decision he would allow 
another week of debate. So that, at the end of the day, we will have 
had 3 weeks to study and debate the legislation that was put together.
  I will remind my colleagues there has been significant progress made. 
There have been 23 amendments that have been offered. Of those, 13 have 
already been disposed of. Seven of them were disposed of this week with 
rollcall votes, six disposed of with voice votes. As of yesterday, 
there were 10 pending amendments. Today, there have been four more 
amendments that have been offered, and the beginning debate on those 
amendments has taken place. So the majority leader's decision to add 1 
more week to continue the deliberation on this bill is something which 
is needed and something which we all appreciate. Hopefully, what it 
will lead to is the passage of a comprehensive immigration reform bill 
that is good for the American people.
  I wish to take a few minutes to sum up, from my point of view, why 
this legislation is so important. We now know we have a system in 
America for immigration which is broken. It is a system of lawlessness 
and it is a system that victimizes a lot of people, from the people who 
are the workers to the employers of this country. We also know it is a 
system that has been broken for a very long time. Our laws have not 
been enforced on immigration. The United States has chosen, instead of 
enforcing the law, to look the other way. Indeed, over the last 5 or 6 
years, as I understand it, there have been less than four enforcement 
actions taken against employers across the country, on average.
  When we have that kind of chaos and lawlessness and the kind of 
broken borders we have, what does it do to the United States? The first 
thing it does is it compromises our national security. How can we have 
national security in a post-9/11 world when we don't know who is coming 
into our country? We have 400,000 or 600,000 people coming here 
illegally every year. How can we say to the American people that the 
national security interest of the United States is being protected? How 
can we do that? We cannot do that. How can we, as Senators and as 
people who are leading our Government, say to the people of our country 
that in this democracy we are upholding the rule of law, when we look 
the other way instead of enforcing the laws of the country? In my view, 
we need to move forward and we need to develop comprehensive 
immigration reform.
  As I have looked at this legislation and the different aspects of the 
legislation that have been crafted together, it seems to me we need to 
look at the comprehensive approach as though we were looking at a 
tripod. We have to ask ourselves this question: What is the aim of this 
legislation?
  The first aim, in my view--one leg of the tripod--is to fix our 
borders. We have broken borders. We have broken borders today. So we 
have proposed in our legislation an additional number of Border Patrol 
agents to help us secure the border. We started out in this legislation 
with 18,000 additional Border Patrol officers. Through an amendment by 
Senator Gregg, that number is now up to 20,000 Border Patrol agents. 
That is significant additional manpower that is going to go to the 
border.

  We have approved at least 370 miles of fencing. So we will have 
fencing that will go into the strategic places along the border. We 
also have included in the legislation 200 miles of vehicle barriers. We 
have included 70 ground-based radar and camera towers. We have included 
four unmanned aerial vehicles. We have included new checkpoints and 
points of entry.
  So one of our aims is to secure the border, and the legislation we 
have put forward, with the assistance and leadership of Secretary 
Chertoff, will ensure we have a protected border.
  We also need to then ask ourselves: What are our other aims? It 
doesn't do much good to secure our borders but within our country we 
simply continue to ignore the law. So we need to enforce the law within 
the country. That

[[Page S6944]]

ought to be our second aim. That is the second leg of this tripod: how 
we enforce our laws within our country. So we must secure America's 
interior.
  How are we going to do that? Well, our legislation does that in a 
number of ways. First, we will increase the detention capacity of our 
immigration enforcement system to be able to hold those who are here 
unlawfully at the number of 27,500 a day--27,500 beds in detention 
facilities for those who are caught here unlawfully.
  Secondly, we will go ahead and hire an additional 1,000 new ICE 
investigators to help us deal with the investigations of the laws that 
are broken under our immigration system. We will hire 2,500 new Customs 
and Border Protection workers. We will reimburse State and local 
communities, State and local communities that today are having to deal 
with the problems relating to criminal aliens. We will create a new 
employer verification system so that employers know the person they are 
hiring is legal and authorized to work in the United States, and we 
will do it in a way that does not put an unnecessary burden on American 
employers. We will hire an additional 1,000 new worksite compliance 
personnel. We will increase the penalties for gang activity, for fraud, 
and for human smuggling. We will streamline the background check 
process, we will require new fraudproof immigration documents with 
biometric identifiers, and we will encourage partnerships between 
Federal and State and local law enforcement to make sure our laws are, 
in fact, being enforced.
  So the second aim--to secure America's interior--is something we have 
covered amply in this legislation.
  The third aim--the third leg of this tripod--is to secure America's 
economic future. I wish to speak briefly about three aspects of how we 
will secure America's economic future.
  First, the AgJOBS Act. The AgJOBS legislation allows us to maintain 
our current agricultural workforce. It will reform the existing 
agriculture program and make it effective. That legislation has been 
crafted to a point where I think there are 567 organizations that have 
endorsed it, from the Colorado Farm Bureau, to the Farmers Union, to 
every single agricultural organization in America.
  The leaders on AgJOBS in the Senate, Senator Feinstein and Senator 
Craig, have been eloquent in making their statements about the need for 
the agricultural community, farmers and ranchers, to be able to have a 
stable workforce. We need to stop the rotting of the vegetables and the 
fruits in California, in Colorado, and across this country. The only 
way we are going to be able to do that is if we have a stable workforce 
for agriculture.
  We also include in this legislation, as part of securing America's 
future, a new temporary worker program. Yes, it is a program that is 
controversial. It is very controversial on the Democratic side, and 
there are some Members on the Republican side as well who do not like 
that particular piece of legislation. I will say this, however. When we 
crafted the legislation, we included the kinds of worker protections to 
make sure the exploitation of past programs will not occur.
  In the past, there were programs, such as the Brasero program, from 
years ago, in which there was massive exploitation of workers who were 
being brought here for a short period of time. What we have done in 
this legislation is to make sure that massive exploitation will not 
occur because the worker protections have been included in this 
legislation.
  Finally, we will secure America's economic future by providing a 
realistic solution to the 12 million or so American people who are 
working in America, who have come here illegally, and who are in an 
undocumented status. That, at the end of the day, in many ways, has 
been the most contentious item we have debated in immigration reform. 
What do we do with the 12 million people here who are working in our 
factories, who are making our beds, who are fixing our food in our 
restaurants, and who do all the work here in America to make sure 
everybody's daily needs are taken care of? They interface with us in 
our daily lives.
  Some people have said, as all of us have heard, I am sure, every 
Senator here, we ought to round them up and deport them all; we ought 
to have a mass deportation of the 12 million people here in America 
today.
  A mass deportation. Well, there is a fiscal cost associated with 
that. Some people have made an estimate that it would cost multiple 
billions of dollars to be able to round up all these people and to 
deport them.
  Can we actually do it? Can we actually deport 12 million people? If 
we were to deport 12 million people, in my view, No. 1, we would have a 
massive dislocation in the American economy; No. 2, it would be an un-
American thing for us to do as a people because it would be inhumane. 
These 12 million people have brought their hopes and dreams to America, 
and they have contributed significantly to the workforce. It is our 
broken system which has allowed the illegality that has taken place to 
occur over a long period of time. So what we have crafted is a way 
forward that provides a realistic solution to how we deal with these 
people.
  Now, on the other side, and in some places of our country, what we 
hear is a loud cry of amnesty. Well, I join President Bush and my 
colleagues, Senator John Kyl and Senator Kennedy, in saying this is not 
amnesty. What we are doing is saying, first of all, they will have to 
pay a penalty. When someone breaks the law in this country, they have 
to pay for having broken the law. If you do the crime, you have to do 
the time. Well, what we are saying is that the law has been broken, and 
they are going to have to pay very hefty penalties in order to come 
into compliance with the law.
  We also say they have to go to the back of the line. The fact that 
someone came here illegally and crossed the border illegally will not 
give them an advantage against those who are trying to come in through 
our system in a very legal fashion. So all these people, the new Z 
cardholders, will go to the back of the line.
  The next thing we will do is, we will require them to return home 
before they can apply for their green card. They will have to go home 
to a country outside the United States and do a touchback before they 
are able to come back in. We will require them to learn English. We 
will require them to remain crime free. I could go on and on with 
respect to the requirements.

  I have often said to those who claim this is amnesty, this is not 
amnesty, this is purgatory. You are basically taking these 12 million 
people and putting them in a purgatory status for a very long time 
before they would ultimately be eligible for a green card. That is a 
purgatory for a minimum of 8 years and for many as much as 12 years.
  The legislation that has been crafted in a bipartisan way that is 
before this body is legislation which is tough, it is fair, it is 
practical, it is realistic. Our national security requires us to move 
forward with this legislation. Our economic security requires us to get 
to the finish line. The moral values of America that have guided 
America for so long require us to be successful in this mission.
  As we conclude the week's debate on immigration, I would like to read 
a prayer, a prayer that was written by a person who knew a lot about 
immigration because he saw a lot of the victimization that occurred 
when there was a broken system of immigration in this country. That was 
the founder and President of the United Farm Workers of America, Cesar 
Chavez, who passed away in 1993. He was a friend of mine. I knew him, 
and I knew his family. This is what he wrote. He said in his prayer:

     Show me the suffering of the most miserable;
     So I will know my people's plight.
     Free me to pray for others;
     For you are present in every person.
     Help me take responsibility for my own life;
     So that I can be free at last.
     Grant me courage to serve others;
     For in service there is true life.
     Give me honesty and patience;
     So that the spirit will live among us.
     Let the spirit flourish and grow;
     So that we will never tire of the struggle.
     Let us remember those who have died for justice;
     For they have given us life.
     Help us love even those who hate us;
     So that we can change the world.

  That was written by Cesar Chavez, the founder of the United Farm 
Workers. I think his inspiration has appeal today. It is yet another 
way to give us a clarion call to come to a successful conclusion of 
this immigration debate

[[Page S6945]]

which is here on the floor of the Senate.


                    Amendment No. 1183, as Modified

  I ask unanimous consent that the Clinton amendment, No. 1183, be 
modified with the changes at the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Klobuchar). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  The amendment, as modified, is as follows.

       On page 260, line 13, strike ``567,000'' and insert 
     ``480,000''.
       On page 260, line 19, strike ``127,000'' and insert 
     ``40,000''.
       On page 269, line 18, insert ``or the child or spouse of an 
     alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence'' after 
     ``United States''.
       On page 269, line 22, insert ``or lawful permanent 
     resident'' after ``citizen''.
       On page 269, line 23, insert ``or lawful permanent 
     resident'' after ``citizen''.
       On page 269, line 23, insert ``or lawful permanent 
     resident's'' after ``citizen's''.
       On page 269, line 24, insert ``or lawful permanent 
     resident'' after ``citizen''.
       On page 269, line 25, insert ``or lawful permanent 
     resident's'' after ``citizen's''.
       On page 269, line 26, insert ``or lawful permanent 
     resident's'' after ``citizen's''.
       On page 269, line 32, insert ``or lawful permanent 
     resident's'' after ``citizen's''.
       On page 269, line 41, insert ``or lawful permanent 
     resident'' after ``citizen''.
       On page 270, strike lines 18 through 27.
       On page 270, line 29, strike the first ``(3)'' and insert 
     ``(2)''.
       On page 271, line 17, strike ``(4)'' and insert ``(3)''.
       On page 273, between lines 16 and 17, insert the following:
       (5) Rules for determining whether certain aliens are 
     immediate relatives.--Section 201(f) of the Immigration and 
     Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1151(f)) is amended--
       (A) in paragraph (1)--
       (i) by striking ``paragraphs (2) and (3),'' and inserting 
     ``paragraph (2),''; and
       (ii) by striking ``(b)(2)(A)(i)'' and inserting ``(b)(2)'';
       (B) by striking paragraph (2);
       (C) by redesignating paragraph (3) as paragraph (2); and
       (D) in paragraph (2), as so redesignated, by striking 
     ``(b)(2)(A)'' and inserting ``(b)(2)''.
       (6) Numerical limitation to any single foreign state.--
     Section 202 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 
     1152) is amended--
       (A) by striking paragraph (4); and
       (B) by redesignating paragraph (5) as paragraph (4).
       (7) Allocation of immigration visas.--Section 203(h) of the 
     Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1153(h)) is 
     amended--
       (A) in paragraph (1)--
       (i) in the matter preceding subparagraph (A), by striking 
     ``subsections (a)(2)(A) and (d)'' and inserting ``subsection 
     (d)'';
       (ii) in subparagraph (A), by striking ``becomes available 
     for such alien (or, in the case of subsection (d), the date 
     on which an immigrant visa number became available for the 
     alien's parent)'', and inserting ``became available for the 
     alien's parent,''; and
       (iii) in subparagraph (B), by striking ``applicable'';
       (B) in paragraph (2), by striking ``The petition'' and all 
     that follows through the period and inserting ``The petition 
     described in this paragraph is a petition filed under section 
     204 for classification of the alien parent under subsection 
     (a) or (b).''; and
       (C) in paragraph (3), by striking ``subsections (a)(2)(A) 
     and (d)'' and inserting ``subsection (d)''.
       (8) Procedure for granting immigrant status.--Section 204 
     of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1154) is 
     amended--
       (A) in subsection (a)(1)--
       (i) in subparagraph (A)--

       (I) in clause (iii)--

       (aa) by inserting ``or legal permanent resident'' after 
     ``citizen'' each place that term appears; and
       (bb) in subclause (II)(aa)(CC)(bbb), by inserting ``or 
     legal permanent resident'' after ``citizenship'';

       (II) in clause (iv)--

       (aa) by inserting ``or legal permanent resident'' after 
     ``citizen'' each place that term appears; and
       (bb) by inserting ``or legal permanent resident'' after 
     ``citizenship'';

       (III) in clause (v)(I), by inserting ``or legal permanent 
     resident'' after ``citizen''; and
       (IV) in clause (vi)--

       (aa) by inserting ``or legal permanent resident status'' 
     after ``renunciation of citizenship''; and
       (bb) by inserting ``or legal permanent resident'' after 
     ``abuser's citizenship'';
       (ii) by striking subparagraph (B);
       (iii) by redesignating subparagraphs (C) through (J) as 
     subparagraphs (B) through (I), respectively;
       (iv) in subparagraph (B), as so redesignated, by striking 
     ``subparagraph (A)(iii), (A)(iv), (B)(ii), or (B)(iii)'' and 
     inserting ``clause (iii) or (iv) of subparagraph (A)''; and
       (v) in subparagraph (I), as so redesignated--

       (I) by striking ``or clause (ii) or (iii) of subparagraph 
     (B)''; and
       (II) by striking ``under subparagraphs (C) and (D)'' and 
     inserting ``under subparagraphs (B) and (C)'';

       (B) by striking subsection (a)(2);
       (C) in subsection (h), by striking ``or a petition filed 
     under subsection (a)(1)(B)(ii)''; and
       (D) in subsection (j), by striking ``subsection (a)(1)(D)'' 
     and inserting ``subsection (a)(1)(C)''.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island is recognized.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 
10 minutes as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________