[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 121 (Thursday, August 12, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6996-S6999]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    EMERGENCY BORDER SECURITY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2010

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate 
proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 6080, received from the 
House and at the desk.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report the bill by 
title.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 6080) making emergency supplemental 
     appropriations for border security for the fiscal year ending 
     September 30, 2010, and for other purposes.

  There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the bill.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, today, I come to the floor to seek 
Unanimous Consent to pass a smart, tough, and effective $600 million 
bill that will significantly enhance the security and integrity of our 
Nation's southern border--which currently lacks the resources needed to 
fully combat the drug smugglers, gunrunners, human-traffickers, money 
launderers and other organized criminals that seek to do harm to 
innocent Americans along our border.

[[Page S6997]]

  The Senate first passed this bill last week by unanimous consent. 
Last week's vote ended an impasse over how to pay for this package that 
all of us agree needed to be passed as soon as possible.
  At first, the House proposed a border security bill that was not 
fully paid for and, thus, was unacceptable to many in the Senate.
  And, here in the Senate, many of my colleagues on the other side of 
the aisle wanted to pay for this bill by diverting critical funds from 
the stimulus bill, The Recovery Act. This too was unacceptable because 
border security does not need to come at the expense of programs that 
create jobs for millions of Americans. As important as border security 
is, we should not be taking away jobs from firemen in Buffalo and 
teachers in Syracuse in order to hire more agents in El Paso. That is 
the worst kind of robbing Peter to pay Paul that was simply an 
unacceptable way to pay for increased border security.
  Instead of raising the deficit--which we do not do in this bill--or 
diverting vital stimulus funds, the Senate ultimately agreed to pay for 
the border package by increasing visa fees on companies who hire 
foreign workers in a manner contrary to the original intent of the H-1B 
visa program.
  After the Senate reached this compromise and unanimously approved 
this border package last week, the House approved the same substantive 
border package by voice vote on Tuesday.
  But, regrettably, the House was unable to simply pass the Senate 
bill. According to House rules--because the Senate's offset did not 
originate in the House--it had to be approved by the House first, 
before the Senate's passage. So today, I again seek the unanimous 
consent of my colleagues to approve this border security bill and to 
finally provide President Obama and Secretary Napolitano with the boots 
on the ground and the resources necessary to combat the crime and 
violence that currently exists on our southern border.
  I would like to thank the original cosponsors of this legislation: 
Senators McCaskill, Reid, Inouye, Murray, Feinstein, Bingaman, Udall of 
New Mexico, Casey, Merkley, Lincoln, Udall of Colorado, Begich, and 
Burris.
  I would also particularly like to thank Senators McCain and Kyl for 
joining on as cosponsors prior to the Senate's original approval and 
for recognizing this bill as being significant border security 
legislation.
  In addition to providing many vital resources for securing our 
southern border--all of which I will detail in a moment--this bill is 
also enormously important because it will clear the path for restarting 
the bipartisan discussions we absolutely need to have on how best to 
restore the rule of law to our entire immigration system.
  Although we all agree that we must secure our borders, we will never 
fully resolve the problem of illegal immigration until we fix the 
entirety of what is wrong with our immigration system.
  But those of us who currently support comprehensive immigration 
reform also believe in providing all of the resources our experts on 
the ground are telling us they need to secure the border right now. 
That is why this bill has received the support of the entire Senate.
  We know that keeping our borders safe from dangerous gang members, 
drug dealers, and human traffickers is critical to restoring the 
public's confidence that the entirety of our focus with regard to 
immigration policy is geared toward restoring the rule of law to what 
has been a lawless system in the past.
  That is why I commend the President and Secretary Napolitano for 
their tireless work in advocating for the passage of this package to 
give our people on the ground the tools they need to secure the border.
  Here are all of the vital resources our border security package will 
provide:
  First, we provide over $250 million to hire 1,000 new Border Patrol 
agents and 500 CBP officers to permanently patrol our southern border. 
These new agents will form a ``strike force'' that will be deployed in 
different areas of the southwest border depending on where the need is 
greatest at any particular moment. We will finally have the capability 
to deploy our manpower in a way where we can continuously and 
immediately change our tactics to respond to changes in the tactics of 
smugglers and traffickers.
  Second, we will provide funding to deploy more unmanned drones to fly 
along our southern border to provide our agents on the ground with 
real-time information on unlawful border crossings.
  We are currently deploying seven of these unmanned drones on our 
border. They have been proven to be very effective because they provide 
our border patrol agents with vast force multiplication through their 
ability to identify the exact locations of larger groups that disperse 
into smaller groups upon encountering border patrol agents on the 
ground.
  These additional drones will help us gain operational control over a 
much larger segment of our southern border than we otherwise would have 
controlled because they provide miles of surveillance capability that 
is technologically impossible to achieve through other means.
  Third, we will provide funds to improve communications capabilities 
between Federal border enforcement agents and state and local officers 
along the border. The issue here is crime. Officers with different 
areas of expertise and jurisdiction need to be able to communicate in 
order to have the best information possible to break up smuggling and 
trafficking rings that are embedded in local communities. These 
improved communication capabilities will lead to countless more 
apprehensions and prosecutions of big-time smugglers and traffickers.
  As an example, if our border patrol suddenly begins encountering a 
surge of illegal border crossers from El Salvador with identical 
tattoos on their arms, it is important that they provide this 
information to State and local law enforcement on the ground so that we 
can immediately begin sharing intelligence to determine whether 
individuals with this description have recently been arrested. This 
coordination will help us determine the exact criminal intent of this 
group and their methods of operation so that they can be effectively 
combated.
  Fourth, we will provide funds to construct forward operating bases 
for the border patrol to use that are actually located on the border 
itself rather than hundreds of miles away.
  It is extremely inefficient for border patrol to apprehend 
individuals along the border and then have to drive hours to place that 
person in detention in a far-away base. These forward operating bases 
provide locations much closer to the border where detainees can be 
brought for processing so that patrol agents on the ground can spend 
much more time combating illegal activity on the border.
  Fifth, we will provide funds for Immigration and Customs Enforcement 
to conduct investigations of drug-runners, money-launderers, and human 
traffickers along our border. It is almost impossible to find out the 
sources and uses of smuggling and trafficking funds without strong 
intelligence and investigation capabilities. This bill will provide ICE 
with the resources it needs to hunt down the major players in these 
cartels who are responsible for the majority of the illegality on the 
southern border.
  Finally, we will provide over $200 million to increase the number of 
ATF, DEA, and FBI agents on our border and to bolster the number of 
prosecutors and court resources along our border so that wrongdoers can 
be immediately brought to justice.
  We will dramatically reduce the incidences of illegal smuggling of 
guns, drugs, and currency along our borders so that the American people 
can feel far safer living in many of our border communities than they 
do today.
  The best part of this border package is that it is fully paid for and 
does not increase the deficit by a single penny. In actuality, the 
Congressional Budget Office--the CBO--has determined that the bill will 
yield a direct savings to taxpayers of $50 million.
  The emergency border funds we are passing today are fully paid for by 
assessing fees on certain types of companies who hire foreign workers 
using certain types of visas in a way that Congress did not intend.
  I want to take a moment to explain exactly what we are doing in the 
bill a little further because I want everyone to clearly understand how 
these offsets

[[Page S6998]]

have been designed. There has been some discussion about this proposal, 
and I think we ought to lay it on the table and explain it clearly.
  In 1990, the Congress realized the world was changing rapidly and 
that technological innovations, such as the Internet, were creating a 
high demand in the United States for high-tech workers to create new 
technologies and products. Consequently, Congress created the H-1B visa 
program to allow U.S. employers to hire foreign tech workers in special 
circumstances when they could not find an American citizen who was 
qualified.
  Many of the companies that use this program today are using the 
program in exactly the way Congress intended; that is, these companies, 
such as Microsoft, IBM, and Intel, are hiring bright foreign students 
educated in our American universities to work in the United States for 
6 or 7 years to invent new product lines and technologies so that 
Microsoft, IBM, and Intel can sell more products to the American public 
and hire more American workers. Then at the expiration of the H-1B visa 
period, these companies apply for these talented workers to earn green 
cards and stay with the company.
  When the H-1B visa program is used in this manner, it is a good 
program for everyone involved. It is good for the company, it is good 
for the worker, and it is good for the American people who benefit from 
the products and jobs created by the innovation of the H-1B visa 
holder.
  Every day companies such as Oracle, Cisco, Apple, and others use the 
H-1B visa program in the exact way I have described, and their use of 
the program has greatly benefited the country.
  But recently some companies have decided to exploit an unintended 
loophole in the H-1B visa program to use the program in a manner that 
many in Congress, including myself, do not believe is consistent with 
the program's intent.
  Rather than being a company that makes something or provides a 
service and simply needs to bring in a talented foreign worker to help 
innovate and create new technologies, these other companies are 
essentially creating multinational temp agencies that were never 
contemplated when the H-1B program was created.
  The business model of these newer companies is not to make any new 
products or technologies such as Microsoft or Apple does. Instead, 
their business model is to, first, bring foreign tech workers into the 
United States who are willing to accept less pay than their American 
counterparts; two, place these workers into other companies in exchange 
for a consulting fee; and, three, transfer these workers from company 
to company in order to maximize profits from placement fees.
  In other words, these companies are petitioning for foreign workers 
simply to then turn around and provide these same workers to other 
companies who need cheap labor for various short-term projects.
  Don't take my word for it. If you look at the marketing materials of 
some of these companies that fall within the scope covered by today's 
legislation, their materials boast about their ``outsourcing 
expertise'' and say their advantage is their ability to conduct what 
they call ``labor arbitrage''--labor arbitrage; they say it--which is, 
in their own words, ``transferring work functions to a lower cost 
environment for increased savings.''
  The business model used by these companies within the United States 
is creating three major negative side effects. First, it is ruining the 
reputation of the H-1B program, which is overwhelmingly used by good 
actors for beneficial purposes. Some of our colleagues have legislation 
to curtail H-1B because of these types of abuses.
  Second, according to the Economic Policy Institute, it is lowering 
the wages for American tech workers already in the marketplace. And, 
third, it is also discouraging many of our smartest students from 
entering the technology industry in the first place. Students can see 
that paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for advanced schooling is 
not worth the cost when the market is being flooded with foreign 
temporary workers willing to do tech work for far less pay because 
their foreign education was cheaper and they intend to move back home 
when their visa expires to a country where the cost of living is far 
less expensive.
  This type of use of the H-1B visa program will be addressed as part 
of comprehensive reform, and it is likely going to be dramatically 
restricted--certainly, if I have something to do about it. We will be 
reforming the legal immigration system to encourage the world's best 
and brightest to come to the United States to create new technologies 
and businesses that will employ countless American workers but will 
discourage businesses from using our immigration laws as a means to 
obtain temporary and less expensive foreign labor to replace capable 
American workers.
  Let me say, in our proposal, the extra duty only goes on companies 
that are more than 50 percent foreign workers and 50 percent H-1B 
workers. The only companies that are 50 percent H-1B workers are those 
that are just doing the policy that I proposed--far, far from what we 
envisioned when H-1B was passed.
  I say to those companies: If you do not change your ways--you should 
not be doing what you are doing, and this duty is appropriate for that 
purpose.
  I do want to clarify a previous remark which mischaracterized these 
firms where I labeled them as ``chop shops.'' That statement was 
incorrect, and I wish to acknowledge that. In the tech industry, these 
firms are known as ``body shops.'' That is what I should have said, and 
that is what they are.
  While I wholly oppose the manner in which these firms are using H-1B 
to accomplish objectives that Congress never intended, it would be 
unfortunate if anyone concluded from my remarks that these firms are 
engaging in illegal behavior.
  But I also want to make clear that the purpose of this fee is not to 
target businesses from any particular country. Many news articles have 
reported that the only companies affected by this fee are companies 
based in India and that ipso facto the purpose of this legislation is 
to target Indian IT companies. It is simply untrue that the purpose of 
this legislation is to target Indian companies. We are simply raising 
fees for businesses that use the H-1B visa to do things that are 
contrary to the program's original intent, and that will be on any 
company from any country that does it.
  Visa fees will only increase for companies with more than 50 workers 
who continue to employ more than 50 percent of their employees through 
the H-1B program. That was never even close to anyone's thought when H-
1B was passed. Congress does not want the H-1B program to be a vehicle 
for creating multinational temp agencies where workers do not know what 
projects they will be working on or what cities they will be working in 
when they enter the country. The fee is solely based upon the business 
model of the company, not the location of the company.
  If they are using the H-1B visa to innovate new products and 
technologies, that is a good thing, regardless of whether the company 
was originally founded in India, Ireland, or Indiana. But if they are 
using the H-1B visa to run a glorified international temp agency for 
tech workers in contravention of the spirit of this program, I and my 
colleagues believe they should have to pay a higher fee to ensure that 
American workers are not losing their jobs because of the unintended 
uses of the visa program that were never contemplated when the program 
was created. This belief is consistent regardless of whether the 
company using these staffing practices was founded in Bangalore, 
Beijing, or Boston.
  Raising the fees for companies hiring more than 50 percent of their 
workforce through foreign visas accomplishes two important goals: 
First, it will provide the necessary funds to secure our borders 
without raising taxes or adding to the deficit. Second, it will level 
the playing field for American workers so they do not lose out on good 
jobs in America because it is cheaper to bring in a foreign worker than 
hire an American worker.
  Let me tell my colleagues what objective folks around the world are 
saying about the impact of this fee increase.
  In an August 6, 2010, Wall Street Journal article, Avinash Vashistha, 
the CEO of a Bangalore-based offshoring advisory consulting firm, told 
the Journal the new fee in the bill ``would accelerate Indian firms'' 
plans to hire

[[Page S6999]]

more American-born workers in the U.S.'' What is wrong with that?
  In an August 7, 2010, Economic Times article, Jeya Kumar, a CEO of a 
top IT company, said this bill would ``erode cost arbitrage and cause a 
change in the operational model of Indian offshore providers.'' 
Exactly. That is what we want.
  The leaders of this business model are agreeing that our bill will 
make it more expensive to bring in foreign tech workers to compete with 
American tech workers for jobs in America. That means these companies 
are going to have to start to hire U.S. tech workers again.
  This bill is not only a responsible border security bill, it has the 
dual advantage of creating more high-paying American jobs.
  Finally, I want to be clear about one other thing. Even though 
passing this bill will secure our borders, I again say the only way to 
fully restore the rule of law to our entire immigration system is by 
passing comprehensive immigration reform.
  In my many meetings with folks on the other side of the aisle to try 
to gain their support for comprehensive reform, I repeatedly heard them 
say that once we show we are serious about passing border security 
legislation, they would be able to begin working with us to fix all of 
the other aspects of our broken immigration system.
  Make no mistake about it, our entire immigration system is broken. It 
is a patient that needs quadruple bypass surgery. A single bypass 
surgery of border security alone is important but not enough to cure 
the patient of its ailment. We also need to enact tough and smart 
immigration reform that will, A, end the jobs magnet to the United 
States by requiring that all legal workers show a secure Social 
Security card prior to obtaining a job; B, end visa overstays through 
robust interior enforcement; and, C, require that all persons here 
unlawfully make their presence known to us by registering with the 
Federal Government and then either getting right with the law or 
leaving the country.
  It is my hope that the bill we are passing today will break the 
deadlock that has existed in Congress and will clear the path for us to 
finally resume bipartisan negotiations in good faith on reforming our 
broken immigration system. I intend to do everything I can to make that 
happen.
  But negotiations cannot happen out of thin air. It will take serious 
Republicans working with serious Democrats to get this done. I urge my 
colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join in this very important 
task.
  With this bill's passage today, we will clearly show we are serious 
about securing our Nation's borders. It is time for our colleagues on 
both sides of the aisle to join in fixing our entire broken immigration 
system.
  The urgency for immigration reform cannot be overstated because it is 
so overdue. The time for excuses is now over. The time to get to work 
is now.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read three 
times, passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and 
that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  The bill (H.R. 6080) was ordered to a third reading, was read the 
third time, and passed.

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