[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 102 (Friday, June 22, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8280-S8283]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              IMMIGRATION

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I wish to share some general comments on 
where we are with regard to immigration and, really, American workers. 
I am pleased to see my colleague, Senator Kennedy, here. I know he 
believes strongly in the minimum wage and in union contracts and 
strikes and that kind of thing to get wages up. I will just say to my 
colleague that the real thing which drives wages, which helps working 
Americans be able to get higher wages and better benefits, is when 
their product or their labor becomes more valuable.
  In this debate last year, I raised that question. I see my former 
chairman of the HELP Committee--the Health, Education, Labor and 
Pensions Committee--Senator Enzi. Senator Kennedy now chairs that 
committee. When Senator Enzi chaired it, we had a hearing in September 
of 2006 with economists and experts to discuss the impact on working 
Americans, middle-class workers, the wages they receive as impacted by 
immigration. I don't think there was a single dissent in that 
committee--everyone agreed that large influxes of low skilled immigrant 
labor bring down the wages of the American workers that compete with 
them. And the Judiciary Committee last year also had one hearing on the 
matter in April of 2006. Witnesses at that hearing also agreed 
unanimously that the wages of working class Americans are adversely

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impacted by large flows of immigrants into our country. How could it be 
otherwise? That is a basic economic principle--when supply goes up, the 
price goes down. When demand goes up and supply remains the same, the 
price goes up.
  When I raised this point on the floor, Senator Kennedy, during the 
immigration reform debate last year, responded to me. His solution was 
that we should raise the minimum wage. I responded that it is not my 
goal to have American citizens making $7 an hour; my goal is to create 
a free market economy where their labor is worth $12, $15, $18, or $25 
an hour. These wage levels are being seen by workers in nonunion 
businesses in Alabama right now. We absolutely don't need to go back to 
a system that allows self-interested union organizers to force people 
into unions when they are already making higher wages then they have 
ever made before, as they are in Alabama. I absolutely don't believe 
that unions are the way to see us make progress on wages. But I am 
concerned that the net effect of large flows of immigration is that 
wages are being brought down. It is not responsible to have immigration 
policies that depress the wages of American workers.
  Some of the immigrants are legal, but most are not legal. Together, 
they are pulling down wages of the Americans that compete with them in 
the labor market. We have had expert testimony to that effect. I cite 
to my colleagues a professor at the Kennedy School at Government at 
Harvard University, himself a Cuban refugee, George Borjas. He says 
that working wages for Americans have been pulled down by as much as 8 
percent in the areas where immigration is highest. That is a 
significant amount. Instead of going up in a booming economy, wages 
have gone down. Alan Tonelson, a research fellow from the U.S. Business 
and Industry Council Educational Foundation testified that from 2000 to 
2005, in job categories where competition from illegal immigrants is 
the highest, real wages--those adjusted for inflation--went down, even 
though demand for labor was going up. How could it be otherwise? Don't 
we believe in a free market? Does any farmer doubt that if more cotton 
and corn were brought into this country, the price of their product 
would go down? Certainly we know that. We deal with that issue every 
day in the Senate, and we understand it. Why that base economic free 
market principle would be denied and overlooked when it comes to how 
immigration effects the labor market is beyond my understanding.
  So, sure, immigration is important. We are not trying to stop 
immigration. Immigrants are overwhelmingly good people, they are hard 
workers, and they want to make a better life for themselves and their 
families. But, we have to ask ourselves, what levels and types of 
immigration serve our national interest? How can we make sure our 
middle-class workers are not having their incomes substantially reduced 
in a time when the growth and prosperity of our nation should be 
putting part of the high profits being made into their pockets? We can 
make sure that lower and middle class Americans are benefitting from 
out surging economy if we do this immigration bill right. This bill 
doesn't do that, and that is why I oppose it.

  I had a wonderful day yesterday with President Bush. We disagree on 
this issue. He made the comment in my hometown of Mobile that a Texan 
friend of his once said if we agree 100 percent on every issue, then 
one of us would not be needed. Well, we don't agree on this issue, but 
he has a good vision for America. He believes we need to do something 
about immigration and he has high ideals about it. He wants to fix our 
immigration system and he wants to fix it comprehensively.
  I have said repeatedly, in the last 2 years of debate, that we do 
need a comprehensive fix, we need a guest worker program that actually 
will work and be effective, one that is responsive to the needs of the 
market without depressing the wages of the American worker. I have said 
that we need to replace the lawless system of immigration we now have 
with a lawful one, one that serves our national interests, and by that 
I mean the interests of the American worker and the long-term national 
interests of our country.
  Sadly, I do not believe that the bill before the Senate comes close 
to creating a lawful system that serves our national interests. The 
Senate bill is a 750-page document that was plopped down here after 
only 48 hours of notice, without any committee hearings this year. It 
lacks cohesive policy goals. It is a political baby-splitting document 
crafted by politicians who were focused on the need to write something 
that could pass, rather than a document produced by professionals and 
experts and economists and law enforcement officials focused on how to 
create a system that will be honest and will work. That is what the 
debate is all about. Will the Senate bill actually work. So my 
disagreement with the legislation is not what it aspires to do, if I 
believed that it would do what it aspires to do--to secure the border 
and restore the rule of law then I'd be supportive of the bill.
  You will hear my colleagues come to the floor and talk about their 
mama and grandma and that they emigrated from country X and we are all 
blessed because overwhelmingly, except for Native Americans--even their 
ancestors at one time came here--we are all descendants of immigrants. 
I want to be clear. Those of us opposed to the Senate bill are not 
against immigration. Instead, we want to do it right so that it serves 
the immigrants who come to America and serves America by selecting 
those who can be most benefited by the American experience and who will 
most benefit America.
  We are indeed, I am afraid, moving to legislation that would repeat 
the error of 1986 in which amnesty was given and enforcement never 
occurred. Three million people were given amnesty then. Now we have 12 
million people asking for amnesty again. What is the problem with the 
legislation? Let me share some thoughts.
  First, under this legislation, the number of legal immigrants to be 
allowed into our country and to be given permanent legal status within 
the next 20 years will double. The legal number will double. Do you 
think most Americans understand that? I don't.
  Let me briefly mention the history of immigration in our country.
  From 1820 to 1879, we had what was called the great continental 
expansion, where people moved out toward the west. One hundred and 
sixty thousand came a year. Then it dropped off significantly.
  From 1880 to 1924, they called it the great wave of immigration. 
Immigration averaged 580,000 people a year, a big movement of people 
into our country, and we continued to expand westward in our Nation. 
Then immigration again began to drop off, particularly during the 
Depression, and people's wages were down.
  The period of 1925 through 1965 is sometimes referred to as the stop-
and-settle period. During that time, immigration was at 180,000 a year, 
and the large great wave of immigrants that came in the decades before 
were assimilated into America. They became productive, mastered the 
language, and became part of a settlement and an assimilation that was 
important for our country.
  In 1965, we developed the new system of immigration now known as 
chain migration, which resulted in about 500,000 immigrants a year up 
until 1990.
  Since 1990, however, the number doubled, and it has been about 1 
million a year. Since 2000, I suggest, counting the illegal flow, it 
has been at least 1.5 million a year, which is the highest rate of 
immigration in the history of our country.
  This bill would basically double legal immigration and do very little 
to stop the illegal flow. This gives us no time for a stop-and-settle 
period but perpetuates the record high rates of immigration for an 
indefinite period. That is where we are historically, and we ought to 
understand that. I don't think anybody would dispute, basically, what I 
just summarized for you.
  Let me explain how the Senate bill will double legal immigration. 
Under current law, 23.4 million immigrants, including 19.6 million 
green cards and 3.8 million workers, would be admitted and here in year 
2027. But under the Senate bill, the numbers would be 47 million 
immigrants, composed of 38.1 million green cards, twice the 19.6 
million green cards that would be issued under current law, and 8 
million, almost 9 million temporary workers on top of that. That number 
of temporary

[[Page S8282]]

workers would be here on an annual basis. Some would have to leave 
every year and return every year but that is the potential number.
  I am certain most Americans do not believe that doubling of the 
immigration levels in America is what was being discussed when people 
were promised comprehensive immigration reform. Doubling the legal 
rate, I believe, is contrary to the impression given by the bill's 
sponsors. People are not being told that reform means this kind of 
increase. In fact, I would think most people are expecting that 
immigration reform means we will reduce the rate of immigration which 
already is at the highest this Nation has ever had.
  So this kind of knowledge, when it gets out to people, fuels cynicism 
about what Congress is doing, it fuels anger at the voters. I repeat, I 
don't think their anger is focussed at immigrants. I think it is 
focused at those of us in Congress who promised we were going to create 
a lawful system that would bring some control to our borders, and it 
ends up doubling the number of immigrants that come lawfully. That is 
part of the problem. Some people get mad at the talk shows. All the 
talk shows are doing is telling the truth, that people did not state 
clearly when they promoted this bill for passage. People ought to be 
cynical and they ought to be upset about that, in my view.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business 
for an additional 10 minutes.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. SESSIONS. That is what this is all about. I was under the 
impression that when the bill promoters came forward from their secret 
meetings, they thought they had produced a bill that was going to give 
us a a lawful system of immigration. Didn't you hear that? Isn't that 
what you expected to be part of the product we would pass, that amnesty 
would be given but we would have a lawful system in the future, right? 
This is important. Isn't that what we were basically told by the people 
who produced this document, the 750-page bill they plopped down here 
without hearings a few weeks ago?
  The sad fact is that the bill language does not keep the promises of 
its drafters. According to the Congressional Budget Office, a 
nonpartisan group that works for the Congress that helps us analyze 
legislation, Cost Estimate released on June 4: Implementing the bill's 
enforcement and verification requirements will only ``reduce the net 
annual flow of illegal immigrants by one-quarter.''
  So that is a 25-percent reduction, approximately 2 million over 20 
years. Twenty-five percent, do you think that is enough of a result for 
comprehensive reform? But wait, there is more. CBO also estimates that 
the bill's temporary worker provision will add approximately 1 million 
illegal visa overstays over the same 20 years. The bill will add an 
additional number of illegal overstays, more illegal overstays than 
under current law. That is because we already have a lot of temporary 
worker visa programs, and when you create new ones that will bring in 
more temporary workers, then more people are going to stay illegally.
  CBO goes on to say this in their careful analysis:

       Other aspects of the legislation are likely to increase the 
     number of illegal immigrants, in particular through people 
     overstaying their visas from the guest worker and H-1B 
     programs. CBO estimates--

  This is their report--

     that another 1.1 million people would be added by 2017 as a 
     result of the guest worker program, about half of them 
     authorized workers and dependents, the remainder the result 
     of unauthorized overstays. That figure would grow to 2 
     million by 2027.

  Twenty years from now. The net result is that according to CBO, a 
mere 1.3 million less illegal immigrants will enter this country and 
live in this country in 2027 than would be expected under current law, 
where we expect 10 million under current law to come illegally.
  They go on to say:

       CBO expects that the enforcement measure and the higher 
     number of overstayers would on net diminish the number of 
     unauthorized immigrants by about 500,000 in 2017 and about 
     1.3 million in 2027.

  What that means is when you take the 25-percent reduction of 
illegality at the border and an increase in visa overstays illegality, 
it comes out, according to their numbers, to only a net 13-percent 
reduction in illegality.
  So we are going to double the legal number, see, and as a result we 
are only going to get a 13-percent reduction in illegality.
  I say to the Members of the Senate, that is not what we are getting 
paid to do, that is not what we promised to do, that is not what we 
should do. That is not acceptable. I wish it were not so. I wish we had 
legislation before the Senate that would do better job at reducing 
illegal immigration, that would comprehensively fix our illegal 
immigration, but we don't.
  I have been warning my colleagues about this and pointing out the 
flaws in the bill, and other Senators have pointed out flaw after flaw. 
We have this official report that indicates we have only a 13-percent 
reduction in illegality, and it is not right. We cannot pass such a 
bill and then go to our constituents and say we did something good for 
you, we fixed a broken system. We just cannot do that.

  I urge my colleagues, no matter how much they want to see our 
immigration system reformed, no matter how much they have hoped that 
this legislation would be the vehicle to do it to consider my comments 
before you vote. A careful reading of this bill indicates it will not 
create the system they are envisioning, and we should not pass it.
  Once again, didn't the promoters of the legislation promise more than 
this, that it would actually secure our border, that it would end 
lawlessness? Isn't that what they promised? Isn't creating a lawful 
immigration system for America a national imperative? Isn't it 
something we must do? No wonder the American people are cynical and 
angry.
  Another promise we were given when the bill was introduced, and 
probably while it was being prepared, was that we would move to a 
merit-based system; that we would do a better job of identifying those 
people who apply to our country who have the greatest potential to 
flourish in America and do well. Canada does this. Sixty percent of the 
people who come to Canada come based on a merit-based competition. If 
you speak English or French, if you have some education, if you have 
special skills Canada can utilize, you get more points and you compete 
with others who apply. So they attempt in this fashion to serve the 
national interest. A move toward more skill based immigration is what 
Canada has done, and they are very happy with it. Australia does it. 
New Zealand does it. Other countries operate their immigration system 
in this fashion. They still provide immigration slots for refugees, as 
they always have, and if the United States moved to this system, we 
would still have humanitarian based immigration as well. We would not 
end those programs.
  We were told that moving the United States to a Canadian or 
Australian immigration system might happen in this new bill. I was very 
interested in it because I urged my colleagues last year to have a 
point system or a merit based system in the bill. Nothing was even 
discussed about it last year and there was no hint of it in the bill 
that was offered then. So when I was told it was being considered this 
year, that presented some hope.
  Unfortunately, the merit-based system that actually made it into the 
bill does not commence in any effective way at the passage of the bill, 
instead it will not increase the percentage of immigrants who come to 
America based on skills until 9 years after passage of the bill.
  In 2006, employment-based or skill-based immigration made up 22 
percent of our immigrant flow. In 2006, we only had 12 percent. So, 
recently, skill based immigration has made up 12 percent to 22 percent 
of annual immigration. As I stated before, Canada has 60 percent and 
Australia has 62 percent skill based immigration.
  Under the Senate bill, skill-based or merit-based immigration will 
make up about 18 percent of the total immigration levels for the first 
5 years. That is not even as high as we had in 2005. Then, for the 
years 6 through 8 after the bill passes, merit immigration will drop to 
11 percent of the total annual immigration level, lower than the 12 
percent we had in 2006. Even when the

[[Page S8283]]

percentage finally increases after the ninth or tenth year, it only 
rises to as high as 36 percent based on skilled immigration, which is a 
little more than half of what the Canadian system now has.
  I don't think that is a strong enough move, and it is a strong 
disappointment to me that this is the case.
  Mr. President, I see my colleague from Wyoming, the ranking member of 
the HELP Committee, is here. I will not go on at greater length. I 
could do so because what I am pointing out to my colleagues today is 
fundamental flaws in this legislation. It is those fundamental flaws 
that one or two amendments are not going to fix.
  The difficulty we have with amendments is the bill's sponsors, the 
group that was in the grand bargain coalition, have agreed that anyone 
who submits an amendment that changes any substantial part of the 
agreement they reached in secret somewhere without hearings, without 
input from the American people, will have their amendment voted down. 
They basically have said that publically and have told that to me 
personally. They say: Jeff, I like your amendment, I think it addresses 
a valid criticism. But, we met and we reached this compromise, and I am 
going to have to vote against it because we made a pact and we are 
going to stick together to make sure we move this bill through the 
Senate without any real changes.
  That is what they have said on the floor of the Senate. They said: 
This violates our compromise. I am sorry, Senator, we can't vote for 
it. They ask their colleagues to vote the amendment down because it is 
a killer amendment, one that will harm their deal. They claim that if 
the amendment passes, the compromise will fail, and the whole bill will 
fall apart. Jeff, we have told you what we are going to do. Take it or 
leave it. Vote for it or vote against it.
  That is fundamentally what has been said, and that is not right. That 
is not what this Senate is about. If they had a bill that would 
actually work, I may be irritable with the way it was produced and 
brought to the floor procedurally, but maybe I would be able to support 
it. Instead, I can only judge how valuable the bill is based on what it 
says and whether or not it will work. CBO says it will not work. I 
believe it will not work. I believe we are going to have another 1986 
situation where we provide amnesty without enforcement. I believe we 
are again going to send a message around the world that all you have to 
do is get into our country illegally and one day you will be made a 
citizen.
  There is another concern that I have not talked about much so far, 
but it is critical. I can show you why the Z visa and the legal status 
that is given to illegal alien applicants 24 hours after they file an 
application for amnesty will provide a safe haven and a secure identity 
for people in our country who are here unlawfully and who are actually 
members of terrorist groups. The bill provides them, without any 
serious background check, lawful identity documents that they can then 
utilize to get bank accounts, to travel, and do potentially fulfill 
their dastardly goals.
  In fact, Michael Cutler, a former investigator with the immigration 
enforcement agency wrote an article in the Washington Times today 
titled ``Immigration bill a No Go'' discussing that very point. In 
careful detail, he explains the utter failure of this bill to protect 
us from terrorism.
  In addition to stating that the bill would not reduce illegality, CBO 
also found out it is going to cost the taxpayers. You are used to 
hearing that the bill will make money for us, help us and make the 
Treasury do better, all claims that I have strongly disputed. But the 
way CBO scored the bill this year, it is going to be over $20 billion 
in costs in the next 10 years and may be closer to 30, and those costs 
to the Treasury will increase in the out years. That is because under 
this system, we are going to legalize millions of illegal immigrants 
who are uneducated, many illiterate even in their own countries, and 
statics tell us that they will draw more from the Treasury than they 
will ever pay in. I just tell you, that is what they say. And the 
numbers get worse in the outyears, dramatically worse. In fact, the 
Heritage Foundation has said, based on the amnesty alone--and I don't 
know if these numbers are correct but they were done by Robert Rector 
and he has been known to be very correct on many occasions--based on 
the amnesty alone, based on the educational levels and the income 
levels of the people who would be given amnesty, the cost to our 
country would amount to $2.6 trillion during the retirement periods of 
the people who came here illegally and would be given amnesty under the 
bill.

  So that is a stunning number. I can't say with absolute certainty it 
is correct, but that is what we have been told, and we should be 
talking about it and studying it. We also know this: The net deficit 
caused by the bill according to the CBO score will grow each year after 
the first 10 years. They have said so themselves at last August's 
Budget Committee Hearing chaired by Senator Allard.
  Mr. President, I thank the Chair. I hope my colleagues will study 
this bill carefully. I hope the Senate will reject it, not approve it. 
I hope we will do a better job in the future.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator's time has expired. The 
senior Senator from Wyoming is recognized.

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