[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 93 (Monday, June 11, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7444-S7445]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           IMMIGRATION REFORM

  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, over the last few weeks, the Senate has 
considered an issue that inspires strong feelings all around--the need 
for immigration reform. While the bill we were considering has many 
flaws, I am disappointed that some Members of this body decided to talk 
it to death. I voted to move this bill forward because Congress should 
act on this issue, and because I am hopeful that the bill's flaws can 
be cured during the next stages of the legislative process.
  Despite our differences in approach, all of us in this Chamber agree 
on three core principles that form the bedrock of any comprehensive 
immigration reform. First, we must do something about the estimated 12 
million undocumented immigrants who live and work in the shadows. The 
status quo is simply unacceptable. It harms citizens and noncitizens 
alike and makes us less safe as a nation. Second, we must take the 
necessary steps to prevent illegal immigration in the future so that we 
do not find ourselves back here in the same position 20 years from now. 
And, third, we must establish a system that allows people who can make 
valuable contributions to our society--by, for example, strengthening 
families or performing jobs that cannot be filled by Americans--to 
enter the country legally. These goals must be accomplished in a way 
that is consistent with our values as a nation. The fundamental problem 
with this bill, as it now stands, is that it fails to accomplish these 
objectives; in fact, it contains several provisions that go directly 
against these objectives.
  With respect to the 12 million undocumented immigrants, the bill held 
genuine promise when it came to the floor. As both the President and 
the Secretary of Homeland Security have said, mass deportation is not a 
viable option, nor is amnesty for those who have broken the law. As 
introduced on the Senate floor, this legislation would have required 
those who are here illegally to come forward, pay hefty fines, pay 
taxes, learn English and civics, work, and wait in the back of the 
line--before earning the privilege of permanent resident status. That 
would have been a workable solution.
  Unfortunately, this linchpin of the bill was undercut by the Senate's 
adoption of an amendment offered by Senator Cornyn. The amendment 
removed critical confidentiality provisions that would have protected 
applicants for legalization from being deported if their applications 
were denied. The problem with this approach is that few undocumented 
immigrants will even apply for legalization without this protection. 
They will stay in the shadows, and we will be exactly where we are now. 
If this bill ultimately moves forward, it is vitally important that 
these confidentiality provisions be included in the House bill and 
retained in conference; otherwise, the bill will defeat its own main 
purpose.
  I also hope to see progress on other provisions that threaten to 
undermine the very purpose of the earned legalization program. I am 
particularly concerned about requiring undocumented immigrants to leave 
the United States in order to apply for permanent residence. Although 
the bill guarantees their reentry, this ``touch-back'' requirement 
creates a major practical obstacle for many immigrants, especially 
those who come from far-flung regions of the globe. Moreover, many 
undocumented immigrants--who may be receiving their information about 
the legislation from unreliable sources, or who may face language 
barriers in understanding its provisions--will be unwilling to leave 
the U.S. for fear that they will not be allowed to return. Again, a 
bill that creates a legalization program but discourages immigrants 
from applying for legalization gets us nowhere.
  Another vital component of comprehensive immigration reform is a 
system that allows employers to turn to foreign labor as a last resort 
when they genuinely cannot find American workers to do the job. 
Permitting these workers to enter the country legally furthers the 
second core principle of comprehensive reform: avoiding a future flow 
of undocumented workers who would otherwise create a new underground 
economy. Unlike the bill we passed last year, however, the bill the 
Senate considered this year has no meaningful path to permanent 
residence for immigrants in the temporary worker program. It requires 
workers in that program to interrupt their employment every 2 years and 
leave the U.S. for a period of 1 year, and it prohibits most of these 
workers from bringing their families to the U.S. Taken together, these 
provisions are a recipe for a massive new flow of illegal immigration--
once again defeating the very purpose the program was meant to serve.
  I am also concerned that the temporary worker program contains 
insufficient protections for U.S. and foreign workers. I was pleased at 
the success of the Durbin-Grassley amendment, which strengthened the 
bill's requirement that employers recruit and hire U.S. workers before 
hiring temporary foreign workers. But that protection is simply not 
sufficient. The single best mechanism for enforcement of labor 
protections is a path to permanent residence. Knowing that foreign 
workers cannot simply be used up and thrown away prevents employers 
from exploiting them. That, in turn, takes away the incentive to hire 
foreign workers over U.S. citizens and ensures that working conditions 
for all workers don't sink to a lowest common denominator. It is a 
critical protection that is lacking from this bill.
  Because I believe the temporary worker program as currently drafted 
will foster illegal immigration and will not sufficiently protect U.S. 
and foreign workers, I voted for Senator Bingaman's amendment to limit 
the scope of the program and Senator Dorgan's amendment to sunset the 
program in 5 years. Unless and until the structural problems with the 
program are fixed--and I hope they will be--we should not be putting in 
place a permanent program of the magnitude contemplated by the original 
bill.
  Another serious flaw in the bill is its inclusion of multiple 
``triggers''--enforcement requirements that must be fulfilled before 
other critical reforms could begin. While these provisions are designed 
to further the second core goal of immigration reform--preventing a 
future flow of illegal immigration--they will have exactly the opposite 
effect. History tells us that an ``enforcement-only'' approach simply 
doesn't work: the probability of catching an illegal immigrant has 
fallen over the past two decades from 33 percent to 5 percent, despite 
the fact that

[[Page S7445]]

we have tripled the number of border agents and increased the 
enforcement budget tenfold. True border security requires both 
increased enforcement measures and the creation of adequate legal 
channels for immigration, including programs to bring needed foreign 
workers into the U.S. and to allow undocumented immigrants who pass 
background checks to earn legal status. These measures allow us to 
separate those who are here to work and contribute to our communities 
from terrorists and others who pose a serious threat to this Nation, so 
that our immigration enforcement agents can focus their efforts in the 
right place. Postponing these measures--as this bill does--makes us 
less safe, not more.
  The bill's solution to the third challenge of immigration reform--
shaping the contours of legal immigration--is a radical shift away from 
family reunification. That solution is not consistent with the core 
values of this Nation. In the past, our immigration laws have 
acknowledged that our country and our communities are stronger when 
families are united. But under this bill, it will be much harder for 
U.S. citizens and legal immigrants to be reunited with parents, 
siblings, and adult children. Some of my colleagues argued that this 
shift in policy is a necessary step toward embracing a ``merit-based'' 
system of immigration. But I believe there is a great deal of merit in 
keeping families together. And I don't believe that bringing people 
with useful skills to this country can only be accomplished at the 
expense of family unity.
  We had the opportunity to do something about the bill's antifamily 
provisions. Along with Senators Menendez and Obama, I cosponsored two 
amendments: one that would sunset the so-called ``merit-based'' system 
in 5 years, and one that would reallocate points within the merit-based 
system to place more value on family ties. The first amendment failed, 
while the Senate has not yet had the opportunity to vote on the second. 
Other amendments would have improved this aspect of the bill, but they 
fell victim to points of order, and we were prevented from voting on 
them. So we are left with a system that values 3 years of U.S. 
employment more than the relationship between a brother and sister.
  Beyond these much debated aspects of the bill, I am also deeply 
concerned by a little-discussed provision that would allow the 
Department of Homeland Security to detain several different categories 
of immigrants indefinitely. These immigrants may effectively be given a 
lifetime jail sentence, even though they have committed no crime for 
which such a sentence could be imposed by judge or jury. There is 
already a provision in our existing immigrations laws under which the 
Government may indefinitely detain any immigrant who is suspected of 
terrorism or whose release would threaten national security. The bill 
goes far beyond that, even allowing the Government to detain--forever--
immigrants who have never been suspected, let alone convicted, of any 
crime. That does nothing to make us safer, and it goes against 
everything this country stands for.
  A similar challenge to our core values was presented by an amendment 
offered by Senator Cornyn. The amendment would have allowed the 
Government to deny citizenship to legal immigrants based on secret 
evidence and without any opportunity for review. It would have required 
the mandatory deportation of several new categories of immigrants 
without any individualized determination of whether such deportation 
was appropriate. And it would have doomed the earned legalization 
program with provisions that would make most applicants ineligible. In 
short, the amendment put forward a scattershot approach that would have 
penalized immigrants who pose no threat to us and stripped them of 
crucial due process rights. Fortunately, Senator Kennedy offered us an 
alternative that responsibly and effectively targets the small 
proportion of immigrants who threaten the safety of our communities. 
His amendment will ensure that immigrants who have committed serious 
crimes not fully covered by existing immigration laws, including 
firearms offenses, domestic violence, child abuse, or felony drunk 
driving, cannot come to this country. I joined the majority of the 
Senate in voting for this more sensible and effective approach and 
against Senator Cornyn's amendment.
  Despite my concerns about the bill, it contains several provisions 
that are important and worthy. For example, this bill contains the 
DREAM Act, which provides higher education opportunities for children 
who are long-term U.S. residents and came to this country illegally 
through no fault of their own. It also contains AgJOBS, a bill long in 
the making that will provide much needed assistance to agricultural 
workers. And it contains the Secure and Safe Detention and Asylum Act, 
to ensure that asylum seekers and other vulnerable populations have a 
meaningful opportunity to exercise their rights under law, and to 
provide for humane detention conditions in accordance with the 
recommendations of the U.S. Commission on International Religious 
Freedom.
  I am pleased the Senate approved the addition to the bill of the 
Wartime Treatment Study Act, legislation Senator Grassley and I have 
been trying to enact for years to examine the treatment of German 
Americans, Italian Americans, and other European Americans during World 
War II, as well as Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany. While there 
has been study of the internment and relocation of Japanese Americans 
during World War II, few people know about our Government's failure to 
protect the basic rights of German and Italian Americans. We also must 
understand why, as the United States heroically battled fascism, our 
Government turned away thousands of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi 
Germany, delivering many of them to their deaths at the hands of the 
Nazi regime. I first introduced this legislation in 2001 after hearing 
from a group of German Americans in Wisconsin who were concerned that 
this sad chapter in our Nation's history had gone unnoticed for too 
long. It is only appropriate for a country that prides itself on 
equality and justice to acknowledge and learn from its mistakes. It is 
long past time to enact the Wartime Treatment Study Act, and I will 
continue to push for it to become law.
  I hope the Senate will still have the chance to address the need for 
comprehensive immigration reform. Congress needs to act on this issue, 
which is why I voted to move forward with this bill despite the serious 
flaws I have discussed. I will work with my colleagues to try to make 
sure this happens and to make sure that we end up with a bill that 
represents true immigration reform--one that encourages the 12 million 
undocumented immigrants in this country to come forward out of the 
shadows, takes a comprehensive approach to preventing illegal 
immigration in the future, and strengthens our society by welcoming 
immigrants who can make valuable contributions.

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