[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 105 (Wednesday, June 27, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8573-S8579]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
IMMIGRATION
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I say to my colleagues, the process has
not been a pretty one to date. It has been particularly ugly in the
last few hours in that we had an amendment yesterday of nearly 400
pages. The people who wrote it apparently found that they made numerous
errors which even they were not happy with. They filed another
amendment which our Senators don't have a copy of, I don't think even
to this moment. At least an hour ago, Senator DeMint was asking for a
copy of the amendment so people could see it and actually read what is
to be voted on. It is not good, on a matter that almost every American
is watching, a matter that is important to our country, to stumble and
bumble into this process, and part of the reason, as my good friend and
former chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter, said, it
would have been better probably had we gone through the committee
process. When he was chairman of the committee, it did go through the
committee process. It didn't do a lot of good, but at least it was
looked at in some of the areas that are inevitably fixed when we go
through that kind of process. So I am worried about this process.
The procedure the majority leader has chosen, and he says he has
support of some kind from the Republican leadership side--I assume he
does--he has chosen to utilize a procedure never before used in this
Senate. That procedure will allow the majority leader, Senator Reid, to
have the power to approve every amendment that will be offered to this
legislation. If it is not part of his clay pigeon, you are not in. If
some other amendment is offered and accepted, it is because he decided
it is appropriate. He could well accept amendments that he knows are
going to fail. He could well accept amendments that he doesn't mind
passing. But he picks the amendments. That has never happened in the
history of the Senate, never happened in this fashion before.
We must not allow that procedure to happen now. There will be
opportunities for us, before this process is over, to execute votes
that will demonstrate we don't accept this process, and it should be a
big part of any Senator's vote as we go forward with this process.
Mr. President, I have to say to my colleagues, as I indicated to the
majority leader earlier, what would Paul Wellstone say, that great
liberal advocate, a Senator who enjoyed standing alone, or Senator
Jesse Helms, that great conservative who enjoyed standing alone, both
doing what they believed was right, something we take great pride in as
an institution.
We do not have a lot of power here, but if you don't agree to
unanimous consent requests and you are consistent in your advocacy of
positions you deeply believe in, you can get a vote. Under this
procedure you do not get a vote. I offered amendment after amendment
before when this bill was before the Senate. As a result, the
leadership on the other side objected. I could not get those amendments
pending, and that leaves us unable to get a final vote postcloture.
I am not exaggerating. It has never been done before. It allows the
majority leader, under the procedure that is being used today, to
completely approve or disapprove of whether an amendment gets voted on.
So I object to that process. It is not right. We should not be doing
it, and we shouldn't be doing it on a bill that is 750 pages with a
300- or 400-page amendment that goes to some issues that are important
to America.
Let me share with my colleagues my concerns about this legislation. I
will try to summarize it and go right to the point.
Senator Reid, the President, the President's Cabinet members, leaders
of the coalition, this grand bargain group--I call them affectionately
the masters of the universe--they all tell us this bill is going to fix
illegality, and if we don't vote for this legislation, somehow legality
will not happen. A group of us have written to the President asking him
to utilize 13 special powers he already has under law that will
dramatically reduce illegality in immigration. We have not heard from
him.
We could do additional legislation that would help enforcement. I
believe that is so. But the bill will not stop illegal immigration and,
in fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office, June 4, they
rendered their report and
[[Page S8574]]
they concluded that instead of 10 million people coming into the
country illegally as they project under current law, 8.7 million people
would be entering our country illegally.
What kind of legislation is this? We have been promised it is going
to stop illegality and it only reduces illegality by 13 percent, a
fundamental failure, a fundamental misrepresentation to the American
people about what this bill will do. It is shocking.
This chart shows that situation. The blue, according to the CBO score
over 20 years, the blue shows that 10 million people would be coming
into our country at the current rate over the next 20 years. If we pass
the bill, the red will occur, 8.7 million people.
Every Senator ought to know what our own Congressional Budget Office
has reported. Every Senator who is aware of that cannot go home to
their constituents and say: I voted for comprehensive immigration
reform to make sure we create a legal system in the future. How can you
do that? This can't be done. It is an important issue.
The legislation would double legal immigration. I don't think that is
what the American people want or expect. The blue represents current
law. The red represents the new bill--and it could be more--and the
number of legal permanent resident statuses, the green cards, will
double in the next 20 years under this legislation.
I think most people thought we were going to do something to get
control of immigration and reduce illegality and reevaluate the numbers
who come. Certainly, they don't think we are doubling legal
immigration. We also know there are high costs involved. According to
the Congressional Budget Office, our study we got back a couple weeks
ago, in 10 years this legislation will cost the taxpayers of America in
welfare and social benefits $30 billion--this is their number; I didn't
make this up--$30 billion. They have been saying this is going to bring
in more tax revenue, we are going to legalize people, and they are
going to pay taxes. Wrong. It is not going to happen. It is not so. I
wish it were so. I wish I could tell my colleagues that the numbers
show when this amnesty occurs, everybody is going to pay a lot of taxes
and it will help balance our budget. Wrong. It is not going to happen
that way. It will cost $30 billion in the first 10 years, and our own
Congressional Budget Office says it will be dramatically greater in the
next 10 years and increase as the years go by.
It is going to increase the cost to the Treasury and, in fact, let me
share with you what the highly regarded Heritage Foundation study
found. Robert Rector, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, the
architect of welfare reform for our country, has been alarmed at the
cost of this bill. I am not talking about the cost of Border Patrol
agents and barriers and those kinds of items. I am talking about the
cost of providing all the social benefits we give to American citizens,
to people who came into our country illegally, what it will cost in
terms of tax credits, Medicaid, welfare, food stamps and the like. If
they are all made legal permanent residents, Z card holders, even the
temporary visas, they will be entitled to virtually all of these
programs.
According to Mr. Rector, over the lifetime retirement years of the 12
million who would be given amnesty under this provision, it will cost
the taxpayers of America--hold your hat--$2.6 trillion; over $2
trillion. It is a stunning figure. It is a figure so large that we
almost can't comprehend it or think about it. But anybody who tells you
that somehow legalizing the people who are here illegally and providing
them with every benefit we provide to American citizens is somehow
going to add revenue to our Treasury cannot be correct. CBO says no.
They say it will be even worse in the outyears. And the Heritage
Foundation has calculated the outyears to be over $2 trillion. This is
a stunning figure.
I submit that by passing this law, we will provide a path to
citizenship for people, for even those people who broke into our
country last December 31, running past the National Guard the President
called out. If you could get past the National Guard last December, you
will be given amnesty under this bill and be placed on a full path to
all these benefits and citizenship.
They have been saying we have to help people who have been here for
years and have children and deep roots. I am willing to discuss that
situation. I don't believe we can ask everybody to leave this country
who came here years ago, who have children and roots and are dug in. I
am not prepared to ask them to leave--I really am not--and I have said
that publicly for some time. But Senator Webb just had an amendment
that said if you came here in the last 4 years after we had been
talking about this issue, after we have called out the National Guard
and made clear we want to do something about it, you don't get on this
path, you haven't been here long enough to entitle you to be given
amnesty. It was voted down by a substantial vote a few moments ago. His
amendment was tabled. It is no longer on the agenda. It will not become
law. The current law, what is in the bill, provides amnesty to people
who came in last December.
I have talked about, and we have had hearings that I think
demonstrate with absolute clarity, this incredibly large flow of
immigration into America today is, in fact, depressing wages of
American workers. Oh, yesterday, we had this great union debate that we
are going to eliminate the secret ballot so people will be forced into
unions. My Democratic colleagues had charts showing wages haven't gone
up in the last few years. And I am inclined to agree because that is
what the experts told us on the immigration question. They told us that
wages have not gone up--not because of some oppressive businessperson
but because we have allowed millions of people to come into our country
to take jobs at lower wages that Americans ought to be paid to do.
Those are just the facts.
Professor Borjas of Harvard, himself a Cuban immigrant, at the
Kennedy School--and I suggested Senator Kennedy perhaps should walk
over there to Harvard from his Boston home and talk to Professor
Borjas. Professor Borjas concludes that for people in this country
without certain education levels, their wages from 1980 to 2000 have
been depressed 8.2 percent.
Anecdotally, I would just note that when I left the Chamber here last
Friday, there was a gentleman out here on the street--had gray hair and
a gray beard, with a little sign about jobs--and I talked to him. He
said he was a master carpenter in Florida and he used to make as much
as $75,000 a year--which is not too much money for a master carpenter,
in my opinion--but he can hardly make a living today because of an
incredible influx of cheap labor that has pulled down the value of his
labor.
When I raised this with Senator Kennedy last year in our debate, he
said: Well, we are going to raise the minimum wage. Well, how much are
we going to raise it? We are going to raise it to $7 an hour. That is
not good enough. We want people to make $15 an hour, $20 an hour.
If you want to know why wages haven't gone up for working Americans,
ask Professor Borjas at Harvard; Professor Chiswick at the University
of Chicago; Alan Tonelson, an expert; and one of the other professors
we had actually--I think he was with the Chamber of Commerce group, and
he admitted it. The Secretary of Treasury just recently admitted he was
concerned about the fact that wage earners were not keeping up with the
growth in the economy. That is my opinion. If somebody wants to dispute
it, so be it.
I don't think this legislation in any way provides for assimilation
to the degree we would like to see it in accordance with our great
American heritage of assimilation.
So I think the fundamental issue in this entire debate, the issue
that goes to the heart of the question, is whether this Congress and
this President really intend to keep the promises they are making.
Isn't that the real question? Because in 1986, they spun a beautiful
song: one-time amnesty, and we will have law enforcement next.
I ask: Does this bill do what the supporters claim it will?
Fundamentally, will it work? Will it secure the border? Senator Reid,
just a few moments ago, said what the American people want--they want
our borders secure. Well, will it do that? Will it enable us to enforce
the law in an effective, diligent, and consistent way that breeds
respect for law? Will it clearly reward right behavior and firmly
penalize bad behavior? Will it encourage immigration by lawful means, a
means that serves our
[[Page S8575]]
national interest and not special interests, or will it continue to
encourage illegal immigration? Are we just drifting through, once
again, a charade, a predictable cycle where every few decades amnesty
is rewarded to lawbreakers and enforcement never follows? Would that
not be a tragedy?
This Senator has no intention and will not vote for and will oppose
in every way he can--and others share this view--a bill that is going
to be like 1986, that will fail again. When this cycle occurs again, as
I predict it will if this legislation passes, those who ignore our laws
will be rewarded; those who dutifully comply will consider themselves
to be chumps for going through that process.
In recent days, I have had three people who have entered our country
legally, done it correctly, come to me and tell me: Senator, stand in
there; we support you. We did it the right way. We don't appreciate
these people doing it differently.
There was a good article in the Montgomery Advertiser about a lady
named Singh--I assume she is of Indian ancestry--who spent several
years, hired a good lawyer, spent $4,250, and eventually got her
citizenship, for which she was most proud. She was absolutely crystal
clear that she did not appreciate it that other people came into our
country illegally and would get the same privileges she got that she
had to work hard for doing it the correct way. I think there is a moral
order here that we need to respect. Repeated amnesties erode a moral
approach to the law of this country.
In the past 2 months, we have heard other Senators and the President
make promises that this is going to work. The political elite have all
said to our top magazines and newspapers that they promise real
enforcement will begin following the passage of this bill. They promise
this bill will decrease illegal immigration, it will secure the border,
and reform our legal immigration system to better serve the national
interests. That is a great promise. If that is what this bill did, I
would be for it. In fact, I was quoted in the paper several times this
spring when I heard the masters of the universe, our friends who tried
to write this bill, promise those very principles. I said that those
are principles that are getting close to something I can support. I am
really interested in it. But as I read it and studied it, I became more
and more discouraged, and as independent critics and other experts
examined it, they indicated the same.
So will the promises be fulfilled? That is a question I would like to
discuss today. Remember this: Even in 1986, President Reagan was the
President, and he was a law-and-order man, and when the bill passed in
1986, what did he emphasize? Did he emphasize the amnesty they granted?
No, because people were dubious about that. He emphasized the future
law enforcement--and this is so familiar today--and he said:
It is high time we regained control of our borders, and
Senator Alan Simpson's bill will do this.
Well, President Reagan was wrong. We had 3 million people here
illegally then. Now we are talking about providing amnesty to 12
million, maybe 20 million. It didn't work. Nobody had the Congressional
Budget Office score at that time, our own Congressional Budget Office
which tells us this bill won't work and we are going to have another
8.7 million people enter our country in the next 20 years.
At least we have been warned this time. Why shouldn't that cause us
to pause? Why shouldn't that cause us to give a decent respect to the
opinions of our own constituents who strongly oppose the bill and have
great doubts about it? Why don't we pull back, rethink it, and begin to
do what one of the pollsters suggested the American people are saying,
which is take some smaller steps incrementally, emphasizing
enforcement? That is what I would suggest we should do.
I would like to make this point. Even if President Bush--who has done
some things in recent years that are better than we have had done in a
number of years but still isn't using all the powers of his office--
even if he kept the promises he is making, he is not going to be in the
White House after another 18 months. Somebody else is going to be
there. There will be a new Congress here. So the test is really going
to be when these trigger events are met, and that will be in 2009 when
we will have a new President in office.
Now, let's think about this: Some of the Democratic candidates
already oppose the core components of the bill, such as the merit-based
system, like Canada's. Governor Richardson and Senator Obama--if they
win the Presidency, are we going to assume they will fulfill the
promises made by this administration? It won't be their priority.
Let us talk in a little more detail about this No. 1 issue which is
so critical: Will we secure the border, and is this legislation going
to help?
The bill proponents all make the same claims--that without this bill,
the border cannot be secured. But if we pass the bill, they say, we
will secure the border. Essentially, they are claiming that enforcement
can't be done unless we get amnesty and enforcement. They also claim to
be adding 18,000 Border Patrol officers, increasing the detention
bedspace, and expanding fencing. Now, you have heard that said. Of
course, I want to remind everyone we passed a law which already
requires that last year. In my view, that is not contingent on this
bill being passed. And I will go into that in some detail.
In its first articulated principle about the immigration legislation,
the White House PowerPoint that was shown to Senators this spring--and
that was intriguing to those of us who have been concerned about
creating a lawful system of immigration--the PowerPoint promised ``to
secure U.S. borders'' and ``not to repeat the 1986 failure.''
Senator Kennedy, at the famous press conference just about a month
ago, said this:
The agreement we have reached is the best possible chance
we will have in years to secure our borders.
Best chance in years.
In this legislation, we are doubling the border patrol, we
are increasing detention space.
Senator McCain said this:
This legislation will finally accomplish the extraordinary
goal of security at our borders.
Another Senator:
I am delighted we are going to secure the border.
Another one:
It will make sure our borders become secure. We have had
broken borders in this country for 20 years. It is time to
get them fixed. This bill will do that.
Another:
What happens if we fail? Our borders continue to be broken
at a time when we need to secure our country.
That is what they all said. Oh, gosh. Well, let's talk about it. They
said: Well, we started out in this legislation with 18,000 additional
Border Patrol officers; we will increase detention capacity to 27,500
beds; and another one--this is former Governor Jed Bush and Ken
Melman--``It doubles the border patrol and expands the border fence.''
That is what they said in their May 31 Wall Street Journal Open Borders
editorial. It doubles the Border Patrol and expands the border fence.
Maybe these people think this. All right. Let's see if we can get
this straight. Before we address whether this bill actually will secure
the border, it is important to clarify for the record that the bill
does not require a doubling of the Border Patrol, it does not require
more bed space than required by current law, and it does not require
more fence than current law requires. If anybody doesn't agree with
that, come on down and show me that I am wrong. This is a promotion.
What about agents? The bill does not add 18,000 Border Patrol agents,
Senators. When these statements were made, the trigger only required
that a total of 18,000 Border Patrol agents be hired.
Since then, Senator Judd Gregg got the number up to 20,000. I think
we have that. So we are close to that number now. We are close to
18,000 now and are already on track to have that number hired by the
end of 2008, so no more Border Patrol agents are required to be hired
under this bill's enforcement trigger than current law requires. Those
of you who want to see enforcement are not being given anything on
Border Patrol officers.
What the bill does do for agents outside the trigger is add 6,000 to
the total authorized level by requiring 2,400 agents to be hired in
2011, and again in
[[Page S8576]]
2012, and increasing the numbers that are supposed to be hired in 2008,
2009, 2010, from 2,000 to 2,400 per year. In other words, we are
already projected to hire 2,000; they say we will add 2,400 a year.
Current law authorization only went through 2010 at 2,000 a year, so
this bill does increase the authorization by about 30 percent. But it
certainly does not require an actual doubling of the Border Patrol, and
a 30-percent increase is not in the trigger. The reason that is
important is, if it is not required as part of the trigger that kicks
off the amnesty and the permanent residence, then appropriators in the
future are not likely to do it. I can give you a string of examples of
us authorizing Border Patrol, authorizing fencing, and never coming up
with the money to fund it.
What about bedspace? What is inside the trigger? The claim the bill
increases the detention bedspace is factually false. The bill does
nothing more than current law. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism
Act of 2004 requires that 43,000 beds be in place by the end of this
year. In 2004 we require 43,000 bedspaces by the end of 2007. The
enforcement trigger contained in this bill, though it improved a bit
after the Gregg amendment, still only requires 31,500 beds. It really
weakens the number.
What about bedspace outside the trigger? Even with the bill's latest
section on bedspace found outside the trigger, which requires the
eventual addition of 20,000 beds, the bill still only gets to 38,000
beds, still below current law. So that is a problem.
Let me mention the fencing. We hear so much about that. The claim
that the bill expands the border fence is also not true. The trigger
requires only the building of 370 miles of fencing. Listen to me now.
The trigger--the thing that was set up to make sure it happened,
knowing how in the outyears things never get funded and seldom get
funded and are unlikely to get funded, we were trying to mandate that
with the trigger--it only requires 370 miles of fencing. Current law
since last year's enactment of the Secure Fence Act of 2006 requires
the construction of 700 miles of fencing along the southern border.
In a recent column published in the National Review, Deroy Murdock
asked:
Americans who want secure borders wonder why the 700-mile
southern frontier fence Congress authorized last year, of
which only 12 miles have been built to date, stretches only
370 miles.
All I am saying to my colleagues is, we in the Senate have been
around here a long time. We have heard how these things go, and we know
a song and dance when we see one. But if you read the bill carefully
you will conclude that the promises, though promises that sound so
good, are not reality. They were absolutely headed to a failure, just
like the Congressional Budget Office said, of almost as much illegality
in immigration in the next 20 years as we had in the last 20 years--
only a 13-percent reduction. It is just not sufficient.
I see my colleague from Texas, Senator John Cornyn, one of our most
able Members, who is exceedingly knowledgeable about this issue. He is
a member of the Judiciary Committee. Of course, he was a former
attorney general in Texas and a member of the Texas Supreme Court. I
value his judgment. Out of the time left to me, I will yield--how much
time would the Senator request? First, let me ask how much time is
left?
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. There remains 40 minutes.
Mr. SESSIONS. I yield 20 minutes to the Senator from Texas.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Texas is
recognized for 20 minutes.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I almost hesitate to talk after those kind
comments from my colleague from Alabama. I am afraid anything I might
say would be a disappointment. But let me try.
This immigration bill is leaving all of us with a sense of deja vu.
That is the sense that we have been here before. Strangely, not much
has changed. Once again we see that this process ignores the request,
the stated desire of many of us, to have an open and transparent
debate, an opportunity to offer amendments and to have votes on those
amendments. As a matter of fact, I understand the condition upon which
some of us are even being allowed to speak now is that we just debate,
and we not even be so presumptuous as to seek to offer a unanimous
consent request for amendments. This is a bizarre process.
As we have seen so far, we started off rather inauspiciously, where
because of constraints being placed on Senators, denying them the
rights they have--Senators, I thought, had--and the responsibility that
each of us has on behalf of our constituents to try to improve this
legislation, to debate it--because we have been denied those basic
rights of a United States Senator, we find ourselves in a strange
position now. We have motions to table being offered. I don't know
whether all 26 or so of the amendments contained in this so-called clay
pigeon device, this arcane procedural device used to usurp the
authority and the rights of Senators in order to railroad this bill
through the floor--whether we are going to see all of these amendments
tabled; in other words, without debate, without an up-or-down vote on
the amendments and with the American people scratching their heads
and wondering what in the world is going on.
How much more out of touch can people inside the Capitol be than they
are now? We continue to see a bizarre process going forward. Last night
we received a 373-page, so-called clay pigeon amendment. This is the
bundle of the 26 amendments that had been preapproved, screened,
cherry-picked by the select few behind closed doors. You know what. We
got that, the Members of the United States Senate and our staffs, after
a special interest group had already posted it on their Web site. That
is right. U.S. Senators and their staffs got a copy of this 373-page
monstrosity, which nobody had a chance to read--we got it after a
special interest group that had been participating in these closed-door
negotiations got it and put it on their Web site.
Today, we are told: No, that is a work in progress. We are not yet
through. Today we get a new 400-page version of the same package of
amendments. I understand it is at the desk, but so far as I know, we
have not yet received a copy of it. We have not had time, obviously, to
review it and know what is in it. But that does not deter those
proponents of this legislation on the floor who are going to keep
charging ahead, regardless of our request to actually read the
legislation, to understand what is in it, to offer amendments to
improve it and to debate its contents. That is what I thought I was
elected to do on behalf of my constituents when I came to the Senate.
I have to tell you, I think this all bodes very poorly for the
likelihood that we are going to successfully accomplish true
immigration reform and border security as a result of this legislation.
I think we are heading toward a cloture vote tomorrow where it is
looking increasingly like we are not going to be able to get the job
done. I think it is a product, in large part, of secret negotiations.
I have to correct my comments. I just got the 400-page monstrosity
known as the revised clay pigeon amendment. I look forward to reading
it, hopefully, before the next vote is scheduled on the contents of
this monstrosity.
As I was saying, by secretly negotiating this legislation, skipping
the committee process, and then pushing it through the Senate without
people having an adequate time to read it, we risk passing legislation
which clearly is not thought out and which Members have not had
sufficient time to review or to study in any detail, particularly
because the language keeps changing, it seems, almost daily. This may,
in the end--and this is the most important part--it may, in the end, do
more harm than good.
For example, written into this legislation are provisions that will
directly result in an increased likelihood that dangerous persons will
get at least a probationary legal status that confers upon them a
variety of rights and privileges that I do not think, on further
reflection, we would want these people to have. These problems could be
fixed if we had a rational process of debate and offering amendments
and an opportunity to vote on those amendments but, without committee
[[Page S8577]]
review, without ample time to have that kind of debate and vote on
amendments, there is really no hope to correct these flawed provisions.
I have spoken before about the type of amendments which I personally
believe would improve this legislation. I want to talk about them. I
understand I am constrained by an agreement that I not bring up these
amendments, so I am not going to do that now. I may do it later and see
if attitudes have changed, but I do want to talk about six of the most
important amendments which I believe could and should be added. These
are only six of the amendments that I personally think would make this
bill better. I know my colleagues have other good ideas on how to
improve this legislation.
We are going to be living with this legislation for many years to
come--decades. We find ourselves now, 20 years later, living with the
consequences of unenforceable legislation that was passed in 1986. So I
think greater care needs to be taken.
One amendment I would offer would prevent criminal aliens from
getting an enforcement holiday by authorizing them to delay, and even
possibly avoid, deportation by filing frivolous applications for legal
status as well as appeals from the denial. That is right. It would
prevent them from getting virtual impunity, even though they filed a
frivolous application for legalization, as well as multiple appeals.
Another amendment I would offer would prohibit criminal aliens,
including gang members and absconders, people who have defied lawful
court orders and either have gone underground or have been deported and
entered the country illegally--technically felons under the Immigration
and Naturalization Act--my amendment would prohibit them from tying up
the process, gumming up the courts by appealing the denying of a
request for a waiver of grounds for removal.
The court clogging that would ensue without these two provisions is
almost sure to cause extensive delay that will almost certainly
increase the costs associated with this bill and frustrate the intent
of Congress trying to pass a truly workable system. This is not a
hypothetical concern. As we debate this bill there is a lawsuit pending
by people who have been deported from this country and therefore were
not eligible to receive the 1986 amnesty, but they have been litigating
their request that the INS, and now the Department of Homeland
Security, grant them a waiver from that part of the 1986 law that said
they were ineligible.
This litigation is still going on, 21 years after the 1986 amnesty
was passed. Don't you think we would like to learn from our mistakes?
Don't you think we would like to try to fix those problems? Under this
process, we are not given an opportunity to do that. My amendments
would prevent decades-long litigation and frivolous lawsuits from
occurring with respect to the provisions of this bill.
Another amendment I would offer if given an opportunity would require
judges to consider national security implications before issuing
nationwide injunctions against immigration enforcement. That is an
essential provision to protecting our Nation, something that this bill
claims to do but which it omits.
I would note that that provision passed in last year's immigration
bill but yet was consciously omitted from this one. There is no good
reason to weaken last year's bill in this regard.
Another amendment I would offer would limit the timeframe of any
appeal from a denial of Z status to 2 years, so that any error is
promptly corrected and so that court proceedings would not tend to drag
on endlessly, wasting tax dollars and logjamming our courts and
allowing a person who has been determined not to be eligible for legal
status to stay in the country indefinitely, under the guise of
appealing their denial.
Another amendment I have would prevent those who have committed
terrorists acts or provided material support to terrorism from
qualifying for legalization under the ``good moral character standard''
under this bill, something that seems to be inherently obvious to me.
It ought to be included. I am shocked it is not included.
I will give you one example. Last year, Mohammed El Shorbagi pled
guilty to providing material support to the terrorist organization
Hamas. Hamas, by the way, is identified by our own State Department as
a terrorist organization, as well as by the European Union. This
individual's conviction did not specifically bar him from becoming a
U.S. citizen because, under the law in effect, aiding an organization
that routinely fires rockets on innocent civilians, families, and
neighborhoods; people who abduct innocent individuals; and those who
have most recently staged a violent coup in Gaza, does not in any way
affect their good, moral character.
Don't you think the Senate, the world's greatest deliberative body,
representative of the 300 million people of the United States of
America, would want to fix this glaring omission in the underlying
bill? Well, I have been told that, no, we are not interested in that
amendment. We have our cherry-picked set of preselected, prescreened,
preordained, and no one else is going to be able to offer one. In fact,
you cannot even debate them, much less offer them and have a vote on
them.
I appreciate that some have finally recognized the significant flaws
and security risks that are inherent in the bill as it is currently
written. I would note, though, that it was not until late yesterday
afternoon that some agreed that such a change was needed to improve
enforcement and protect U.S. national security and included a version
in the divided amendment.
Now, as I mentioned a moment ago, because the so-called clay pigeon
that includes 26 amendments is not yet--well, it was only a moment ago
handed to me, hot off the press, I have not yet had time to study that
version, I don't know whether the modified version that was sent to the
desk today changes it. But at least there appears to be some movement
toward closing that loophole.
But what other enforcement loopholes and flaws remain in the bill? I
fear that under this expedited process, the train has left the station,
and it is going to blow right through the middle of the Senate until we
pass something without proper consideration, and we are going to make
mistakes. I think that is a bad idea.
During the previous debate, I introduced an amendment that would bar
criminals, felons, from ever being able to obtain Z status. While it
did not pass during the previous debate, I am still clueless as to why
that happened. I think now that people have had time to study it and to
think about it, hear from their constituents about it, more members
would be supportive of closing that loophole for felons. I have refiled
this. This is another amendment I have that I hope we will be able to
vote on eventually. I hope the Senate does not consciously allow felons
the benefit of a pathway to legalization and American citizenship. I
cannot imagine why in the world we would.
As I said, those are only six of the amendments that I think need to
be offered and added to this bill. Let me mention one other thing. I
see the Senator from Kentucky, who perhaps would like to add his
comments. Let me mention one other glaring loophole that I talked about
a little yesterday. This was a provision that requires a 24-hour
background check for someone who applies for legal status. But failing
that, the default position is they get a probationary Z visa. In other
words, we put a provision in here that says: If the background check
can't be completed in 24 hours--and it can't, I promise you--that the
applicant will be automatically granted legal status on a probationary
basis.
I am concerned particularly because what that does is not only gives
them an ability to obtain a probationary Z visa or legal status, the
White House has said: Oh, don't worry about it. If we cannot get the
background check done in 24 hours, and we find out they are
disqualified because they do not pass a background check, we will send
someone out to pick them up. Do you know how many absconders there are
in the United States who are under lawful orders of deportation and
have simply gone underground and the Department of Homeland Security,
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has failed to pick them up and to
execute the lawful orders of our courts? There are 623,000 absconders
who meet that definition. Are we supposed to believe that people who
fail the background check for this probationary Z visa are now going to
be picked up, when 623,000 people who
[[Page S8578]]
have defied lawful court orders, who are on the lam, who have gone
underground and whom the Department of Homeland Security has failed to
pick up and deport, according to the lawful orders of a court, that now
all of a sudden the policy has changed?
Trust us. Trust us. Well, I tell you what, the American people do not
trust the Federal Government, particularly in this area. I hesitate to
say it, but it is with good cause, based on hard experience, based on
overpromising and underdelivering when it comes to our immigration
program.
I support increasing legal immigration, looking at how to recruit the
best and the brightest and allowing them to come here, particularly if
they come to our universities and study at our world-class universities
and stay, so we do not have to send them home and so they end up
competing with us and taking jobs overseas.
I support comprehensive immigration reform. But I do not support
promising the American people that, oh, yeah, trust us this time, we
are serious, when there are such obvious flaws in the underlying
legislation, that we are being prohibited by this railroad of a process
from being able to offer amendments, to get votes on those amendments,
to be able to fix the underlying bill.
I can see why the American people would be skeptical, because I am
skeptical. I am increasingly skeptical as a result of the way this
process and this legislation has been handled.
My hope is that should this cloture vote fail tomorrow, which I
think, under the circumstances, looks increasingly likely, we will come
back and reassess what we have done, or, moreover, what we have failed
to do and try to be more serious, more deliberate, more conscious of
trying to actually deliver on our promises rather than continuing to
overpromise and underdeliver on this great issue of national concern.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Alabama.
Mr. SESSIONS. Senator Bunning from Kentucky is here and desires to
speak on this legislation. I thank him for his comments previously and
for his clarity of thought on the issue.
How long does the Senator desire to speak?
Mr. BUNNING. About 5 minutes.
Mr. SESSIONS. I yield 6 minutes to the Senator from Kentucky.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Kentucky is
recognized.
Mr. BUNNING. Mr. President, I said this before, but here we go again.
Three weeks ago, a significant majority of the Senate rejected this
flawed immigration bill and the flawed process that led to it. But now
it is back.
One of the key reasons the bill failed the first time around was the
flawed process or the lack of process that led to the bill. In the
Senate, an idea normally takes months, if not years, to become a bill
and pass. But instead of letting the bill develop through the
deliberative process, a few Senators and a few people from the
administration wrote the bill in secret.
They held no committee meetings, there were no hearings, there was no
committee report. In fact, Senators did not even see the whole bill
until several days into the debate. When those of us who were not part
of the secret negotiations finally saw the bill, we found all kinds of
problems. But we were told the bill had to be finished by a certain
date. We were not even allowed an open debate on the floor.
So with a few days looming before the Fourth of July recess, a few
negotiators got back together and blessed another list of amendments to
get votes. Apparently, they believe that 20 or more votes equals a full
debate. What a joke.
As if that were not bad enough, the majority leader is taking an
unprecedented step to shut off the right of Senators to debate and
amend the bill. That is not the Senate. The process is not the only
thing that is flawed around here; the bill itself is flawed.
In 1986--thank God I was not in Congress--Congress passed an amnesty
bill that was promised to be the last of the amnesty bills. Here we are
20 years later, and the problem is much worse, much, much worse. The
bill is no better. Instead of punishing illegal immigrants and
employers who ignore the law, this bill is a get-out-of-jail-free pass.
It gives those who broke the law their own VIP line to a green card and
citizenship.
For this bill to work as promised, the Government would have to
process at least 12 million illegal immigrants in a matter of months.
In short, the timeframe the Government would have to conduct these
background checks, issue identification cards, and to build a system to
check every employee in America to make sure they are legal, that is
the timeframe.
The Government would also have to implement new guest worker
programs, eliminate the green card backlog, overhaul the green card
system, and start issuing new visitor visas. But I do not believe it
will work, and the American people certainly do not believe it will
work. I am not talking about the far left or the far right; I am
talking about middle America--middle America.
I am talking about the people who are stuck in the lines in passport
offices, waiting on the Government, waiting for them so they can go on
a summer vacation. We are supposed to believe that the same Government
that cannot even get passports into the hands of their people is going
to complete background checks on from 12 to 20 million illegal
immigrants, give them a secure ID card, check every employee in the
United States to verify their work status, and secure the borders.
I don't think so. Unfortunately, this bill does not even secure the
borders. The $4.4 billion included in the bill does not add any new
border security. It only funds the trigger requirements of the bill
which do not even require implementation of existing laws such as
building the 700 miles of border fence and the 43,000 detention spaces.
There are other problems, too. The bill does not require background
checks to be completed of illegal immigrants getting amnesty before
they get their visas. The bill gives Social Security credits to illegal
aliens for work they did illegally. Illegal aliens with terrorist
connections can get amnesty, and they do not have to pay all their back
taxes or learn any English at least for 10 years. What a deal. The
bottom line is the bill will not work.
It is much worse than the status quo. Any chance of fixing it is
being erased by the handful of negotiators and the majority leader.
Instead of trying to fix the bill, the majority leader is using
unprecedented tactics to ensure only a few blessed amendments are
considered. We all have amendments, such as the Senator from Texas.
None of them are going to be considered.
I will not support amnesty. I will not repeat the mistakes we made 20
years ago. I will not be responsible for tens of millions more illegal
immigrants coming into this country waiting for the next amnesty. I
will not support this process or this bill.
I thank the Senator from Alabama for yielding me the time.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Alabama.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Kentucky. On
this question, this fundamental promise by our friends, whom I refer to
affectionately as the masters of the universe, that we would secure the
border--what does our expert congressional arm say about it? What does
the Congressional Budget Office say about it? They say, no, it will
not. Senator Cornyn and Senator Bunning have pointed out a number of
things that are weaknesses with the bill. Will this weakness and other
items they talked about in the bill actually secure the border?
According to CBO, the new Senate bill will only reduce the annual
illegal immigration by 13 percent. Illegal inflow at the border will be
reduced by approximately 25 percent, but that will be substantially
offset by increased additional visa overstays, almost over a half
million in the next 10 years. According to CBO, the net result will be
only a 1.3 million reduction in new illegal immigrants over the next 20
years. Because we expect under current law 10 million to come over that
period illegally--that is a lot--enactment would reduce that
expectation to 8.7 million new additional illegal immigrants by 2027.
Out of 10 million, we have 8.7 million. I ask my colleagues, is that
securing the border? Is that effecting a legal and lawful and effective
immigration system? I suggest it is not. There is no way you can say it
otherwise.
[[Page S8579]]
One of the key things of an effective immigration system is the US-
VISIT exit system. That is not affected in this. I have talked about
that some, but I won't go back into that.
I see my colleague from Louisiana here, Senator Vitter. He is an
outstanding lawyer who has spent a great deal of his time and energy
studying these 700 pages and trying to get the amendment of 370 or so
pages so he can study it and help decide what it will do. I see Senator
Vitter is here. I am pleased to yield to him 5 minutes.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Louisiana is
recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from
Alabama.
I want to briefly take the floor to lay out how enormously unfair
this process is. I am new to the Senate. Coming here, I had always
heard, particularly coming from the House, about the fundamental aspect
of the Senate being unlimited debate. I walked through the wrong door,
because that is not the case, certainly not the case for me in terms of
this bill. It has been exactly the opposite from start to finish.
Why do I say that?
First, we are handed an 800-page bill, given very little time to
digest it. Then a few days later, in terms of this latest revisiting of
immigration reform, we are handed a 373-page mega-amendment and given
no time to digest it. Then some of us demanded the time to digest it by
not agreeing to waive the reading of that 373-page amendment. Only
because we did that, we were finally given the right to look at the
amendment overnight last night. Great. So we come back at 10 a.m. this
morning, after working with our staffs to wade through 373 pages of the
amendment, only to find out that mega-amendment is out the window. We
have a new modified version of the mega-amendment, which we have never
seen before, which we were only given a copy of in the last hour. Now
we are trying to digest a new mega-amendment. Meanwhile, the procedure
is rolling along.
Of course, the majority leader, through this unprecedented use of the
so-called clay pigeon, has hand chosen the only amendments that
apparently will come up during this debate on the Senate floor. It is
not an accident that there are no Vitter amendments. I had
plenty filed. None of them are on the list. The majority leader could
have chosen any list of amendments. He could have tried to make an
effort to have a balanced list to include some amendments of folks such
as me who have fundamental reservations with the bill. He did not.
There are no Vitter amendments. It is not a coincidence there are no
Sessions amendments. There are no DeMint amendments. There are no
Cornyn amendments, the person who began this process working with the
working group, developing the bill. It is not a coincidence there are
no Elizabeth Dole amendments. All of us have been completely shut out
in terms of the handpicked list of amendments.
Then we try to participate in the process again on the Senate floor.
I try to be recognized several times to exercise my rights as a
Senator. I am shut down again because the majority leader will only
recognize me for purposes that he decides, not me, for purposes that he
approved of, not me. Basically, I am allowed to debate and nothing
more. I am not allowed to offer a motion. I am not allowed to do any of
that. It is coming to the point where I am wondering, even if he allows
me to say anything, is he going to hand me a script and I will have to
read from that?
This is not an open, fair process. This is not the Senate I heard
about, with unlimited debate and amendment. Yes, there are unlimited
amendments as long as they are approved, apparently, by the majority
leader. None of them are my amendments. Yes, there is unlimited debate
as long as you agree not to exercise any of your rights as a Senator.
You can talk only. You can't make a motion. You can't try to bring up
your amendments. You can't do any of that.
That process is fundamentally unfair. I hope many Senators who are
still considering how they will vote on cloture will focus on this
process. The American people have said loudly and clearly this is an
important issue to them. They have also said loudly and clearly, by any
poll out there, that they absolutely disapprove of this bill by
enormous numbers. For us to move ahead anyway is one thing. For us to
move ahead using this process, railroading me, railroading any strong
opponent of the bill, is something else. It is patently disgraceful.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Alabama.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments of the Senator
from Louisiana.
Let me say what I believe is not in dispute. The procedure Majority
Leader Reid has chosen to utilize is a procedure never before utilized
in the Senate. They say: You are just saying it is unfair. Everybody
says things are unfair.
The reason this is more than a question of fairness is because it is
a transfer, an arrogation of power to the leadership by which, for the
first time in the history of the Senate, the majority leader will be
able to approve or disapprove whether a Senator gets a vote on an
amendment. If one wanted to do that up until this time, since the
founding of our Republic, they stayed down here and didn't agree to
unanimous consent requests. They stood their guns. It might not be
easy, but one could get a vote. They could talk about what they wanted
to talk about. But this process by which the leadership will select a
limited number of amendments, place them in this clay-pigeon maneuver
and only those amendments get voted on and every other amendment is
rejected, is unprecedented in the Senate.
I had a senior Member of the Senate come up to me with some alarm not
long ago this morning and say: You need to be able to get amendments.
I don't think we have thought this through. It is dawning on me how
significant this is. I said earlier: What would Paul Wellstone say?
What would Jesse Helms say? What would other Senators say, individual
Senators who are proud of the ability--seldom used, perhaps--they could
utilize to raise a point that they believe in, even if everybody else
disagrees. That is part of our heritage. It will be eroded if we go
through this process.
I know my time is up. I appreciate the personal courtesies of the
majority leader. He has always been courteous to me. In this instance,
a bad decision has been made. Hopefully it will be rectified in some
fashion one way or the other by denying cloture on the legislation.
____________________