[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 93 (Wednesday, June 26, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5205-S5258]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
BORDER SECURITY, ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY, AND IMMIGRATION MODERNIZATION
ACT
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the
Senate will resume consideration of S. 744, which the clerk will
report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (S. 744) to provide comprehensive immigration
reform, and for other purposes.
Pending:
Leahy modified amendment No. 1183, to strengthen border
security and enforcement.
Boxer/Landrieu amendment No. 1240, to require training for
National Guard and Coast Guard officers and agents in
training programs on border protection, immigration law
enforcement, and how to address vulnerable populations, such
as children and victims of crime.
Cruz amendment No. 1320, to replace title I of the bill
with specific border security requirements, which shall be
met before the Secretary of Homeland Security may process
applications for registered immigrant status or blue card
status and to avoid Department of Homeland Security budget
reductions.
Leahy (for Reed) amendment No. 1224, to clarify the
physical present requirements for merit-based immigrant visa
applicants.
Reid amendment No. 1551 (to modified amendment No. 1183),
to change the enactment date.
Reid amendment No. 1552 (to the language proposed to be
stricken by the reported committee substitute amendment to
the bill), to change the enactment date.
Reid amendment No. 1553 (to amendment No. 1552), of a
perfecting nature.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the time
until 11:30 a.m. will be equally divided and controlled between the two
managers or their designees.
The Senator from Iowa.
Mr. GRASSLEY. I have expressed my frustration many times, and more
often in the last week, about the lack of progress on getting votes. We
have been on this bill for 3 weeks. Yet we have only dealt with nine
amendments. It is unclear if any more amendments will be debated and
voted on. We have provided a list to the majority on amendments that we
believe will make the bill better. It seems as though the only
amendments that will be made in order before we vote on final passage
will be the Schumer-Hoeven-Corker so-called grand compromise. This is
the one that was concocted behind closed doors for days, stalling
progress we wanted to make in the public. In other words, we lost a lot
of time while this grand compromise was being concocted behind closed
doors. Even while that was going on, we could have been debating
amendments and voting on amendments.
Not only is the amendment before us, meaning the Schumer-Hoeven-
Corker amendment, loaded with provisions that some would call earmarks,
but it continues to promote false promises that the border will be
truly secured. We get the impression from hearing the authors debate
their amendment that tomorrow we are going to have a secure border.
This is not going to happen, and I will explain that in a moment.
Let's get back to basics. We are a Nation based upon the rule of law.
In that concept, every Nation has a right to protect its sovereignty.
In fact, it has a duty to protect the homeland. Any border security
measures we pass then must be real and, more importantly, immediate. We
can't wait 10 years down the road to put more agents on the border or
to implement a tracking system to track foreign nationals. We have to
prove to the American people today that illegal entries are under
complete control and the visa overstays are being punished. Being
punished means leave our country when your visa says you are supposed
to leave the country.
Unfortunately, too many people have been led to believe the bill
before us, and this grand compromise amendment, will force the
Secretary of Homeland Security to secure the border. The fact is, it
doesn't do that, but we are led to believe that tomorrow the border
will be secure. The amendment basically is a continuation of the basic
premise of the underlying bill--legalization first, enforcement later,
if ever.
It is very simple and it is wrong. People will be legalized merely on
the submission of a plan by the Secretary of Homeland Security.
Will that plan secure the border? Who is going to know until a long
way down the road. In the meantime, you have legalization and possibly
enforcement, but you aren't going to know. Then you end up making the
same mistake I made by voting for the bill in 1986. I don't intend to
make that mistake again.
We are saying the Secretary puts forth a plan. This very same
Secretary is the one who thinks the border is already strong enough,
the same Secretary who has refused to even answer questions we
submitted to her 2 months ago about how she might interpret some of
this legislation. She obviously hasn't been forthright in answering
what those department policies would be.
The amendment puts additional agents on the border, yes. It does it,
quite frankly, in opposition to people on the other side of the aisle.
Some of the sponsors of the bill have argued already that more agents
aren't necessary. Maybe I should be satisfied we are going to have more
agents. The point is, it is so far down the road--don't sell this
amendment to me as border security.
Let's be honest with the American people. This amendment, this grand
compromise concocted behind closed doors, may call for more Border
Patrol agents, but it surely doesn't require it until the undocumented
population, who are now RPIs, apply for adjustment status or a green
card, and that is down the road several years.
I am all for putting more agents along the border, but why should we
wait? It ought to be enforcement now, legalization later. Why allow
legalization now and simply promise more agents in the future?
Even then, who believes the Secretary, like the one we have today,
will actually enforce the law? When I say like the Secretary we have
today, I mean the policy. She says the border is secure.
In this amendment there is the issue of fencing. One of the
conditions that must be met before the Secretary can process green
cards for people here illegally is the southern border fencing strategy
has been submitted to Congress and implemented. This fencing strategy
will identify where 700 miles of pedestrian fencing is in place. Note
that this is not double layered, as in current law, so current law is
weakened.
The amendment states the second layer is to be built only if the
Secretary deems it necessary and appropriate. This is another
delegation of authority to a Secretary who says the border is already
secure.
[[Page S5206]]
Additionally, the underlying bill still specifically states that
nothing in this provision shall be interpreted to require her to
install fencing. Yes, they talk about this being a strong border-secure
grand compromise, but it leaves so much discretion to a Secretary who
already says the border is secure.
Another part of the amendment requires an electronic entry-exit
system is in use at all international air and sea ports. This sounds
like all international air and sea ports--and look at this caveat--but
only ``where U.S. Customs and Border Protection are currently
deployed.''
This is actually weaker than the underlying bill which required the
electronic entry-exit system be used at air and sea ports, not just
international. Here again we have a grand compromise, supposed to get
more votes for this bill, but it is weaker than the underlying
legislation, because the underlying legislation requires biometric
entry-exit at all ports of entry, including air, sea, and land.
The amendment dictates to the Secretary which equipment to purchase
and deploy at the border. The Members who wrote the bill were
apparently given some secret list of technology that agents need, but I
am not sure if this came from the Department or some defense
contractor.
Have no fear, the border will be secure because the amendment calls
for fixed towers and cameras, unattended ground sensors, night-vision
goggles, fiberoptic tank inspection scopes, a license plate reader, and
backscatters. Obviously, I am facetious when I say the border will be
secured by this concocted, behind-closed-doors grand compromise.
What is not so funny is the spending of taxpayer dollars in this
amendment. Originally the legislation allocated $6.5 million for the
Secretary to carry out the law, and $6.5 billion is a lot of money.
When we got to committee, the Gang of 8 increased the trust fund
allocation by $6.5 billion to $8.3 billion, and $8.3 billion is still a
lot of money. We have this grand compromise concocted behind closed
doors before us, and now we are looking at not $8.3 billion but $46.3
billion upon date of enactment for the Secretary to spend as she
wishes.
As is often the case here in Washington, the solution always seems to
be throw money at a problem. This grand compromise measures the success
of their amendment by the amount of money that is going to be spent,
not by outcomes. The American people, in the polls of this country,
want the outcomes to be a secure border, not the amount of money that
is going to be spent on the success of a piece of legislation. Of
course, the money has to come from somewhere, so the amendment requires
the government to raid the Social Security trust fund. It is ObamaCare
all over again, where the Medicare trust fund was raided to help
finance that. It is irresponsible and unacceptable.
Moreover, the amendment's sponsors will claim that people here
illegally will pay for our border security needs. But money has to come
into the trust fund, and after it gets into the trust fund it has to be
repaid to the Treasury. Where will the American people be reimbursed?
The sponsors of the bill say the taxpayers will not bear the burden.
Yet there is no requirement the funds be paid back. There is no time
limit or accountability to ensure the taxpayers or the Treasury gets
its money back.
The Schumer-Corker-Hoeven amendment increases fees on visas for legal
immigrants in order to replenish the trust fund and the Treasury.
Employers, students, and tourists will pay the price. Talking about
employers, students, and tourists, these are people who abide by the
law who are paying the price. Meanwhile, the amendment says for those
being legalized--in other words, people who came here undocumented,
those people having not subjected themselves to American law by
crossing the border illegally--they cannot be charged more than what is
allowed already. The Secretary cannot adjust the fees or penalties on
those who apply for or renew their RPI or blue card status, and those
are the people who came to this country without papers, in violation of
our law.
The amendment in the underlying bill will not end illegal immigration
because the border is not going to be secure. The Congressional Budget
Office says illegal immigration would only be reduced by 25 percent due
to the increased numbers of guest workers coming into the country. The
amendment does nothing to radically reduce illegal immigration in the
future and does not provide any resources to interior enforcement
agents whose mission it is to apprehend, detain, and deport illegal
immigrants.
Just as with the 1986 amnesty--and I voted for that, which was a
mistake I regret--we are going to be back in the same position in 10
years, facing the same problem.
The authors have talked a lot about the border surge in their
amendment, but they seem to be hiding from the fact the border changes
only account for about half of the total amendment. There are changes
to every title. There are changes to exchange visitor programs, the
future guest worker program, and visas, even for the performing arts.
This isn't just a border amendment. There are provisions in the bill
that were put in there specifically to get Senators to support passage
of this bill, because they think if they can get 70 votes, the House of
Representatives is going to buy into this thing. I expect to vote
against the bill, and I expect the House of Representatives to fix this
miserable failure, both the underlying legislation as well as the grand
compromise amendment before us, so we can vote for a bill going to the
President that has border security before we have legalization.
That is going to happen. I trust the other body isn't going to buy
into the argument the Senators in this body want to use; that somehow,
if this gets 70 votes, it is so bipartisan how could the other body not
do it? This body is not the deliberative body on this amendment that
history tells the American people the Senate is. This is a body that
for 3 weeks, with 451 amendments, didn't deliberate. We stalled and
voted on 9 or 10 amendments. The House of Representatives is going to
be the deliberative body on immigration reform, and it is going to put
the Senate to shame.
I encourage my colleagues to oppose the amendment. It does nothing to
change the legalization first philosophy and offers little more than
false promises the American people can no longer tolerate.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Hawaii.
Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, I rise to speak about an agreement I have
reached with Senator Graham on the Hirono-Murray-Murkowski amendment
No. 1718, which has been cosponsored by Senators Boxer, Gillibrand,
Cantwell, Stabenow, Klobuchar, Warren, Baldwin, Mikulski, Shaheen,
Leahy, Franken, Menendez, and Schumer.
I ask unanimous consent that Senator Landrieu be added as a
cosponsor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, I have been speaking on the Senate floor
and talking with my colleagues about my concern that the immigration
bill we are considering inadvertently disadvantages women who are
trying to immigrate to the United States. I believe the new merit-based
point system for employment green cards will significantly disadvantage
women who want to come to this country, particularly unmarried women.
Many women overseas do not have the same educational or career
advancement opportunities available to men in those countries. This new
merit-based system will prioritize green cards for immigrants with high
levels of education or experience. By favoring these immigrants, the
bill essentially cements unfairness against women into U.S. immigration
law. That is not the way to go.
After I brought these concerns to Senators Schumer and Graham,
Senator Graham graciously agreed to sit down with me. We were able to
work out a way to address the concerns about women in the merit-based
system that I believe will significantly improve this bill. The new
Hirono-Murray-Murkowski amendment reflects a few changes which we
agreed to after working with Senator Graham.
The changes we made include: limits on the ability for certain types
of health care workers to obtain points multiple times based solely on
their
[[Page S5207]]
employment, clarification that there must be a personal relationship to
obtain points under the humanitarian concerns section of the amendment,
elimination of the provision that awarded points for being a last
surviving relative of a U.S. citizen, harmonization of tier 3 with
tiers 1 and 2 by adding points for English language skills, and
ensuring the tier 3 visas do not--do not--reduce the overall numbers of
tier 1 and tier 2 visas available.
We should continue to increase the opportunities for women in our
immigration system, but I believe this agreement will help level the
playing field for women. Our amendment would establish a new tier 3
merit-based point system that will provide a fair opportunity for women
to compete for merit-based green cards.
Complementary to the high-skilled, tier 1 and lower skilled tier 2,
the new tier 3 would include professions commonly held by women so as
not to limit women's opportunities for economic-focused immigration to
our country. This system would provide 30,000 tier 3 visas and would
not reduce the visas available in the other two merit-based tiers.
I wish to thank Senator Graham for working with me to modify this
proposal in such a way he could agree to lend his support while still
addressing the real concerns that women will be at a disadvantage under
the new merit-based system. I believe our amendment is a step in the
right direction toward addressing the disparities for women in the new
merit-based system, and over 100 organizations, including faith-based
organizations, support the Hirono-Murray-Murkowski amendment.
I urge my colleagues to support this amendment to improve the new
merit-based immigration system and make this bill better for women. I
hope we can reach an agreement to bring this amendment to the floor for
a vote.
I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, we will have a vote before much longer
on the question of whether the legislation before us violates the
budget. I think that is going to be established quite clearly. The
chairman of the Budget Committee, Senator Murray--and I am the ranking
Republican on that committee--is going to acknowledge that and the
Parliamentarian will so rule that the legislation violates the budget
and violates it in a number of ways, contrary to the promises made by
the sponsors of the bill.
The sponsors of the bill proposed a large piece of legislation and
told everyone a great deal about their bill, one fact after another,
and those promises and representations have been shown to be
inaccurate. They are not accurate and that is unfortunate. That is why
the bill is having the difficulties it is.
If it simply was a bill that provided a legal status for people who
had been here a long time without difficulties and it was a bill that
actually fixed the border, fixed the workplace enforcement, fixed the
entry-exit visa, and created an effective internal enforcement
mechanism for the future, the legislation would have a good chance of
having popular support. But as people find out more about it, they find
all those factors are not going to be achieved effectively--in some
instances even weakened from current law--and as a result the
legislation is in trouble.
When we get a piece of legislation that is 1,200 pages and people are
unable to digest it, it boils down to talking points. So the sponsors
produced a series of talking points that they said reflects what is in
the legislation. One of their talking points was that the bill is not
going to cost the taxpayers money; that we would fine the people who
are here illegally and they will pay the cost of this bill so it would
not impact the budget. We were promised that in the Senate Judiciary
Committee when this legislation came up. Senator Schumer made that
explicitly clear. This is a quote from him in committee, and this is
what their talking point said and what their Members have been saying
repeatedly:
And here, what we're simply doing is making sure that all
the expenses in the bill are fully funded by the income that
the bill brings in. This is to make sure that this bill does
not incur any cost on the taxpayers. It's to make it revenue
neutral.
That was the promise we had heard. People like to hear that. They
were pleased to hear that. It was a positive spin for the bill. He goes
on to say:
Section 6 provides start-up costs to implement the bill,
repaid by fees that come in later.
Then he goes on to say money will be paid from companies and workers
and by the immigrants who get the legal status in terms of ``their
fines as they go through the process.''
That was the promise that was there. Yet now we have legislation and
a score that demonstrates that is plainly not correct. First, the
Congressional Budget Office analyzed the cost, and this was before we
added the extra money last week or what we will vote on today. This was
before they added the substitute Corker-Hoeven-Schumer amendment, and
that substitute adds a lot more money.
What our experts in the budget office tell us is that it would add
$14 billion to the on-budget debt of the United States, but it is
really more than that.
Most of the individuals who will be legalized will be able to have
Social Security cards and will pay FICA, Medicare, and Social Security
withholdings on their paychecks every week, which will incur extra
revenue for the U.S. Government. Our colleagues claim credit for the
FICA money to try to justify their claims that they are within the
budget and that we should not just count the on-budget score that debt
increases from the CBO. But we have to know that the FICA money is
money that goes to the Social Security and Medicare trust funds, and
every one of the individuals whose average age now is in their thirties
will eventually claim the benefit of Medicare and Social Security. They
will draw out of the Medicare and Social Security trust funds the money
they paid in.
Statistically speaking, they will draw out a lot more than they pay
in because those funds are not on a sound basis. Medicare and Social
Security are on an unsound basis today. They are counting that money to
pay for their bill when that money is dedicated to the Social Security
and Medicare trust funds.
By spending that money today, they are simply adding to the debt of
the United States. They cannot claim that twice. They cannot claim that
the individuals who are going to be given Social Security cards and
will be on a path to receive Social Security and Medicare when they
retire--that they are paying into Social Security and Medicare if their
money is being spent on funding this program. That is double counting,
and Mr. Elmendorf of CBO showed that.
This chart shows it is really more than just the $14 billion, which
is significant. This chart shows how much the deficit of the United
States is impacted by this legislation. The unified budget surplus
counts all the Social Security money and all the tax money in one pot.
It is one way to do the accounting of the United States. It is not
accurate in this case. It should not be used. It claims a $197 billion
surplus. That is the Social Security and Medicare money. But if we take
away the Social Security surplus this bill creates, $211 billion, and
the money they pay into the Medicare trust fund, $56 billion--the net
deficit is $70 billion. We have to get our minds correct.
The reason this country is going broke, the reason this country is so
far off a sound fiscal path, is that we continue, we persist, in using
a unified budget number when that money for Social Security and
Medicare is dedicated money. It is set aside to pay for something in
the future.
If someone sets aside money in their savings account for their
retirement, they cannot spend it today and pretend they still have it
for their retirement account. It is just that simple.
This is a bad trend we have been in. It was not so obvious when
Social Security and Medicare were bringing in a lot more money than was
going out. But now that is not so, and we will soon be in deficit, and
very serious deficit. So we should not in any way suggest, believe, or
tell the American people that this bill is paid for. It is not
[[Page S5208]]
paid for, and as a result it violates the Budget Act. That is the point
of order that Senator Vitter has made, and we will vote on it.
In addition to that, it is worse. There are 10 more budget violations
in the bill: One is for new direct spending to exceed the Judiciary
Committee's authorization levels over a 5-year period. Another one is a
10-year violation of spending over authorized levels in violation of
the committee allocations.
Another is an emergency designation to increase spending pursuant to
emergency spending from the comprehensive immigration trust fund;
emergency spending designation for the comprehensive reform trust fund
in violation of the PAYGO Act; emergency designation in violation of a
2010 budget resolution; emergency designation for Social Security
cards, in violation of the statutory PAYGO Act. This bill calls it an
emergency to have funds for Social Security implementation. That is not
an emergency.
Another is an emergency designation for the E-Verify system. That is
a system we have established and should be able to expand rapidly. That
is not an emergency to expand that. That is in violation of the 2010
budget resolution.
Another is an emergency designation for E-Verify in violation of the
PAYGO act; emergency designation for passenger manifest information
expenditures, in violation of the 2010 budget resolution; emergency
designation in violation of the Statutory PAYGO Act for passenger
manifest information.
All of those represent violations of the Budget Act. Senator Vitter
raised the one that plainly violates the flat spending limit we agreed
to and are now operating under. When the response came from Senator
Leahy, he moved to waive that. He moved to waive not only that, but all
the other 10 violations of the Budget Act. You only raise one at a
time. Senator Vitter raised one, and they moved to waive them all and
eliminate this pesky complaint that their bill spends more money than
the budget allows.
We will be voting on that, colleagues, and this Senate has been in
recent months doing well with regard to adhering to the budget limits
we agreed to. We have had seven consecutive votes in which the Senate
has voted not to violate the budget when a bill hit the floor that
violated the budget. We sent the bill back for reform so if it comes
back it has to be in harmony with the bill--seven consecutive votes.
My colleagues who have been there and who believe they have a
responsibility to honor the budget limitations we agreed to should not
vote to waive the budget. Let's stay within the budget. Let's require
the bill's sponsors to do what they promised to do, and by right they
should be able to do, which is produce a bill that comes within cost
without raiding the Social Security and Medicare trust funds, as they
now intend to do. That is just the way it is. I wish it were not so,
but it is.
I will take a minute to point out that recently--last night or late
yesterday--Senator Bennet, one of our most able Members of the Senate
and a Member of the Gang of 8, took the floor to promote the bill and
claimed that before jobs are offered, the bill ``requires an American
is offered the job first.''
He went on to say: ``We are not bringing in a whole bunch of new
people when there are Americans looking for work.''
We are not bringing in a whole bunch of new people when there are
Americans looking for work--well, we are. The guest worker program that
is in this bill, in addition to the legalization process of normal
immigration, doubles the number of guest workers who will be coming to
America over current law. These are not people who come to be permanent
residents and immigrate to America. These are people who come to take a
job and work for a certain period of time--really up to 3 years, and
they can extend for 3 years. They have become permanent job takers, in
many instances.
He says: First of all, you have to certify an American has been
offered the job first. He and other supporters claim this bill is not
going to impact wages, is not going to impact jobs. They say don't
worry about it--I am worried about it. First and foremost, we are going
to have 1.1 million people, and many of those are not able to work in
the economy fully today because they are illegally here. They will be
given a legal status, a Social Security card, driver's license, and the
ability to apply for any job in America. So all of a sudden we are
going to have a half million people, perhaps, out there competing for
jobs that Americans cannot find today because unemployment is very
high. That is going to happen promptly.
Then we are going to accelerate another 4.5 million people into the
country, without regard to their skills, and they will be looking for
jobs mostly in the lower skilled workforce area. Then, in addition to
that, we add the normal flow of immigration into America. We currently
welcome 1 million immigrants every year, but this is going to welcome
1.5 million a year. So, there will be an additional 500,000 workers a
year in America under the normal immigration system. In addition to
that, the guest worker program will double--all at a time when we are
not doing well economically.
Today's announcement that the government revised downward
substantially the growth in the first quarter is a real problem. We are
not seeing job growth. Let me just show this chart about the impact on
wages and workers in America that will occur as a result of this
legislation. I think probably these numbers are modest. I think it will
be more dramatic than this.
This is our Congressional Budget Office. They looked at the numbers,
and they said: the average wage would lower over the first dozen years
if this bill passes.
For 12 years, if we pass this bill, the average wages of Americans
will be lower than would have been the case if the bill had not passed,
according to our own CBO.
Somebody came and said on the floor: We won't worry about that
because in 20 or 30 years they say it might be better.
First of all, our problem is today. People are unemployed today, and
they cannot find work today. Wages have been declining every year since
1999. Working wages of Americans have been declining relative to
inflation steadily for over a decade. This bill will accelerate that.
It takes us in exactly the wrong direction. Why would we do that?
Then it says CBO--this is their own report and this chart is in their
own report:
CBO estimates that S. 744 would cause the unemployment rate
to increase slightly between 2014 and 2020.
So for the next 7 or 8 years we are talking about increased
unemployment.
This chart shows the wage situation. This is the current rate. The
bill passes, wages drop, and they start going up out here, according to
CBO, in year 2025. If the bill had not passed, the growth would have
been higher still, but now it knocked it down dramatically. Even though
it is growing, it doesn't mean it is getting back to where it would
have been had the bill not been passed.
People who say this bill will not impact adversely--working Americans
are facing an economic reality that is unfortunate for them.
Finally, they say it will make the economy stronger. You have heard
that. Under this bill we will give legal status, in the next 10 years,
to 30 million people; permanent legal status to 30 million people
instead of 10 million people who would be given legal status in America
if we followed current law.
Virtually all of those will be able to work, and we would see some
increase in GDP/GNP if that were to occur. However, how much increase
do you get and how does it compare out per person in America?
CBO said S. 744 would reduce per capita GNP by 0.7 percent in 2023.
That is page 14. In fact, per capita GDP, according to their own chart
that I have reproduced from their report, drops from 2017, 2021, 2025,
2029, 2030. It takes until 2030 before it starts getting back. If the
bill hadn't passed, GDP per capita would hopefully be going up.
This is way below what would happen, and this hurts Americans when
per capita GNP is reduced. Everybody will feel that--maybe not the
masters of the universe in their suites out here that are nipping off
extra profits because they have lower wages. It may not impact them.
They may make more money.
In fact, Professor Borjas at Harvard says the people who gain the
most from this immigration bill will be the people
[[Page S5209]]
who hire the most low-wage workers because wages will go down. They
will make bigger profits, but the people who will be hurt are the
vastly more numerous workers whose wages will go down.
This needs to be talked about. People seem to be in denial, but we
have to talk about that. I ask my colleagues to consider this as they
decide how to vote on this important piece of legislation.
I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Heitkamp). The Senator from Louisiana.
Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, I come to the floor this morning to
talk to an issue I have been speaking about for a couple of days. I
most certainly can appreciate the frustration of the Senator from
Alabama and the Senator from Iowa.
The Senator from Alabama has been opposed to this bill from the
beginning. He may have a different view. I am not sure any amendments
would satisfy him, but of course he has been debating in good faith,
and that is part of this process that needs to go on.
The Senator from Iowa has been working very hard. He has spent so
much time both in the committee and on the floor trying to work out a
bill he is comfortable with, but sometimes that happens and sometimes
it doesn't.
I think what should happen, no matter what, is that after all the
controversial issues are debated, there should be a coming together on
both sides at a certain time, recognizing that all time has expired,
all probability of any serious negotiation on any bills or any
amendments that have to be voted on is over, and as friends and
partners and as the leaders trying to move--appropriately and
maturely--forward, we could come together at least with a short list of
amendments that are completely uncontested and cleared on both sides. I
am going to continue to ask for this because I think it will send a
very positive signal to people that even though things have broken down
some in the Senate, it is not completely broken.
To frame this issue so people can understand why I might be concerned
is that there have been 800 amendments filed on this bill--300 in
committee, about 150 of which were debated and voted on or dispensed
with, 500 filed on this floor. So in order for those amendments to get
any consideration at all--which they haven't in any large measure--good
will has to prevail, and the good will flew out of this Chamber a long
time ago. I would like to get a little piece of it back. I wish I could
get all of it back. I wish we would act as we did 4 or 5 or even 6
years ago. It is not happening. Maybe it will.
I would like to begin to move in that direction by asking my
colleagues for consideration of a small group of amendments that, to
our knowledge, have no opposition. I am going to read a few of those.
Senator Grassley and his staff have been working on this. Senator Leahy
and his staff have been working on this. I provided a list to Senator
McCain and to every Member of the Gang of 8. I am hoping we can salvage
some effort.
What people might not realize: When a major bill such as this is
being debated, there is a lot more going on besides what they see in
committee or what they hear on the floor. The evidence of that would be
that 800 amendments have been filed. Someone had to write all of those
800 amendments. Staff worked very hard to think about ideas--not to
derail the bill but to help the bill. No draft is perfect. Very smart
staffers and Members actually do read the text and come up with ideas
to improve.
One in particular: I had a hearing in my Small Business Committee. I
notified the immigration subcommittee, Judiciary. We conducted our
hearing with the blessing of the chair. We didn't talk about any of the
major pieces of the legislation except for the one or two that talked
about small business. In all the discussion of major businesses needing
skilled workers and major businesses and hotel chains, I thought maybe
someone could gather some information about what small businesses might
need and maybe improve the bill.
I am supporting immigration reform. I think all Democratic Members--I
don't know of anyone who is not. There are some Republican Members who
are not supporting the bill, but there are some who are. So one
amendment is requiring a mobile ap to be developed so a farmer, for
instance, or a person in a rural area who has either high-speed
connection or particularly wireless connection could pull up E-Verify
on their mobile ap. They wouldn't have to drive 200 miles, as in the
Presiding Officer's State in North Dakota or South Dakota or Louisiana
or Mississippi. We have areas that people are working hard, and they
are not right next door to an Internet cafe. So one idea we had was for
mobile aps. That is what one of these amendments is. Wouldn't that be a
big help? There is no one I know who is opposed to that. There are
billions of dollars in this bill. Some of it most certainly could be
spent helping small businesses access better E-Verify.
There is another provision in this bill from Klobuchar, Landrieu,
Coats, Blunt, Barrasso, and Enzi. This is as broad a coalition as could
reflect broad-based support. Klobuchar is from Minnesota, Landrieu is
from Louisiana, Coats is from Indiana, Blunt is from Missouri, Barrasso
is from Wyoming, and we are Republicans and Democrats. I appreciate
that this amendment has been cleared by both sides, and it requires
certificates of citizenship and other Federal documents to reflect the
name and date of birth determination made by State courts to help
ensure that name and date of birth changes for adopted children are
reflected in Federal records.
We adopt about 100,000 children in America every year. I think these
parents should be given our best efforts. These are parents who are
adopting children domestically, keeping them off the streets, out of
mental institutions, pouring their hearts and souls into helping raise
children who others have either thrown away or given up. Yet we make it
difficult.
A few of us who work on this issue a lot know how things need to be
fixed. This is a bill that comes to the floor. We think, gosh, this
bill is not big enough to command its own attention on the Senate
floor, so we are going to prepare an amendment for when the immigration
bill comes up and we hope the Members will allow it to go through.
I am not going to give up on my Members yet. I am going to remain
very optimistic and very hopeful that even Senators who are opposed to
this bill and have done everything they can to stop it or people
opposed to the original draft who have done everything they can to
amend it--some of that has been successful, some of it has not been.
But I am hoping at the end of the day, even those who have been making
these great efforts will step back and understand and be respectful
that other work should go on as well. This amendment is an example.
There is another amendment that Senator Cochran and I have, amendment
No. 1383. It simply requires reports on the EB-5 visa program. The
requirement for reports is not in this bill. It is a program everyone
here is familiar with. It has many problems. The underlying bill fixes
it, and I think to those of us supporting the bill, fixes it
adequately. I am not sure what the opponents think. But there is no
requirement to report back to the committee so we can continue to
monitor this program. Because it has been so off-track in the past,
let's make sure we get it on-track in the future. This is just standard
Senate operations. Unfortunately, we are now at a place in time in the
history of the Senate, there are no standard operating procedures
anymore, and it is a sad day.
There is another amendment that I understand has been completely
cleared. Murray-Crapo amendment No. 1368 prohibits the use of restraint
on pregnant women in DHS detention facilities during labor and
childbirth except in extraordinary circumstances. Now, please, the
amendment simply would say you cannot shackle women during childbirth
and labor. Is anyone on the Senate floor opposed to this? If so, please
make yourself known.
Nelson-Wicker is a very important amendment to Senator Wicker, who is
a Republican, and Senator Nelson, who is a Democrat. I am a cosponsor
of this amendment, but it is Senator Nelson's amendment. I can't
believe there would be anyone in this Chamber who would disagree. All
it is saying is since we are spending now--and I might need to ask the
Senator from Iowa to give
[[Page S5210]]
me the final update on the number because the number keeps going up--if
Senator Grassley would mind giving me the number--$46.3 billion on the
southern border, California, Texas, New Mexico.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Let me correct that. That is money total to be spent,
not necessarily all on the border. But about $30 billion was added in
this amendment for the border.
Ms. LANDRIEU. So $30 billion on the land border, and it could be
something between 30 and 46 and those numbers keep changing. But it is
a lot of money. Senator Nelson's amendment says that at least $1
billion of that money be spent on maritime border security, not land
border. As he said so eloquently, if we continue to put up fences and
borders on the land and make it secure--which we all want to do--there
are maritime assets that need to be stepped up. I think most everybody
understands that and would say that is a very good amendment.
These are amendments that don't need to be voted on. I am not asking
for votes on these amendments. They don't need to be voted on. They
would normally go by voice vote en bloc--no votes required. Out of the
800 amendments, this list has less than 45 amendments that probably
don't need any vote, no time, just a simple--it is a consent. Staff has
been given these and looked at these amendments.
I am going to continue to come to the floor today in hopes that after
the leaders negotiate on the contested amendments--and I have a list of
the contested amendments. It looks quite different than the list I am
talking about. The list that is being contested has names such as:
Vitter, Vitter, Vitter, Vitter, Vitter, Vitter, Vitter, Lee, Lee, Lee,
Lee, Cruz, Cruz, Cruz, Cruz, Cornyn, Cornyn, Cornyn, Cornyn. That is a
list. There is another list: Chambliss, Portman, Vitter, Inhofe,
Toomey, and Fischer. These lists are lists from Members who really
believe they need to get a vote on their amendments. I would like them
to get a vote. I am not opposed to them getting a vote.
What I am opposed to is this list which is not one Senator, it is
numbers of Senators who have worked very hard to get bipartisan support
for amendments that improve the underlying bill, which is going to
pass.
The bill is going to pass. It is either going to pass with 69 votes,
72 votes, or 74 votes. There is no way this bill is not going to pass
the Senate. It is clear it is going to pass. People don't like that it
is going to pass, but it is going to pass.
So before it passes, I am asking with all of my heart for the
consideration of amendments that have been brought by Democrats and
Republicans who have been working in good faith to make the bill better
and to solve problems for our constituents. Our constituents are not
trying to negotiate on the number of Border Patrol agents. The Gang of
8 did that. They are not trying to negotiate whether we are going to
have 40,000 or 80,000 Border Patrol agents. My constituents want help
for the kids they adopted. Some of these amendments are to get help for
Holocaust survivors. There are only a few of them left in the world. We
would like to give some attention to them. Some of them spent 6 years,
7 years, or 4 years in a prison camp, and this might help them to die
in peace.
Madam President, I ask that there be order on the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Order, please. The Senate will be in order.
Ms. LANDRIEU. I--as well as many colleagues--have gotten to the point
where we would like to try to get back to a place where after all the
fighting is over, all the yelling is done, all the posturing is done,
all the message amendments are done, we could at least trust each other
enough to have a consent package of items that would be helpful to the
people we represent. That is a simple request.
I will yield the floor. Others want to speak, but I will come back
once we have a clear list and again ask unanimous consent for these
amendments. But I will not do that now.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from
Texas.
I want to give an update, not only to Senator Landrieu, but for all
the Senators. First of all, 10 days ago we started out with 27
amendments that were noncontroversial--or supposedly noncontroversial.
Obviously, they were not all noncontroversial. That grew to 44 or 45,
and I think we are back at 35 now on that list.
Remember, about 14 of those were included in the Hoeven-Corker
amendment. They were included in that for sweetener--to buy people off
to get their votes on final passage. So there are 14 that will probably
be passed when we vote on final passage.
Last night my staff cleared 12 amendments, and that does not count
several Republican amendments that were added to the list. We are
making progress. Some are noncontroversial, but others are not. The one
that the Senator from Louisiana mentioned that appeared to her to be
noncontroversial, we suggested some technical changes to make it more
definitive. If that is done, we can probably accept that.
Also, everyone has to remember that there are amendments on this list
which are under the jurisdiction of other committees and not under the
jurisdiction of the Judiciary Committee. Some of the amendments were
rejected for that reason. Some of the amendments are technical, but
some are more complicated.
I give my assurance to all of my colleagues that we will continue to
work on this list.
I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of whatever time is left
when Senator Cornyn is done.
Ms. LANDRIEU. Will the Senator from Texas yield for 30 seconds?
Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I would be glad to yield as long as it
doesn't come out of my 10 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, I thank Senator Grassley for those
comments. I will continue to work with him in good faith on this list.
I realize not all of these amendments are under the jurisdiction of the
Judiciary Committee, so that is why we have been working with leaders
of other committees that have jurisdiction over these amendments to
help get them passed.
I appreciate my friend's work and will continue to move forward.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, we have been on this bill for about 2\1/
2\ weeks. We find ourselves in a very strange position where we have
had votes on 10 amendments, and now Senators are talking about clearing
another 45 amendments 2 days before the majority leader has basically
set a deadline and said we are going to be through with this bill one
way or the other. This strikes me as a strange way to do business, but
here we are.
I have always believed that even though you want something--and in
this case I believe virtually every Senator in this Chamber wants an
immigration bill--that you can want something so bad and be so
desperate that you will get a bad deal. I think we are beginning to see
some elements in this bill, which I want to talk about briefly, that I
think ought to give all of us pause and cause us to wonder whether this
is the way we should be doing business.
One of the things my constituents in Texas found so infuriating about
the process of passing the Affordable Care Act--all 2,700 pages--was
the way there were backroom deals and various special interest
boondoggles that helped garner the 60 votes necessary to pass ObamaCare
back in 2010. Some of them became somewhat famous. There was the
``Cornhusker kickback,'' ``Gator aid,'' and the ``Louisiana purchase.''
They became symbols of Congress's irresponsibility when it came to
discharging our duties as Members of the Senate.
It is suggested that if, in fact, individual Members got sweeteners
that were sufficient to get their vote, that was the way we ought to be
doing business. Unfortunately, we are starting to see similar tactics
break out here on this immigration issue, suggesting that some Members
are so desperate to get a deal, any deal, they are willing to take a
bad deal, one in which none of these standing alone would pass muster
or scrutiny.
Immigration reform is a nationwide challenge, and immigration reform
should promote the national interests, not the special interests of
individual
[[Page S5211]]
Senators or any region or State or lobbying group. Yet when we look at
the underlying bill, I see a litany of de facto earmarks, carve-outs,
and pet spending initiatives. Because we have been in such a rush since
last Friday to move to the designated deadline the majority leader has
set for this bill, there may be many Members who are unfamiliar with
these special carve-outs, de facto earmarks, and pet spending
initiatives. I want to talk about a few of them.
The bill directs $250 million from the comprehensive immigration
reform trust fund to boost immigration-related prosecutions in a single
sector. There are nine Border Patrol sectors, but the Tucson sector is
the surprise beneficiary of $250 million in a special earmark in this
bill.
I have a simple question: Don't all of the border sectors need
increased funding for prosecutions? Well, I believe the answer is yes.
So I believe carving out the Tucson sector for special treatment is
entirely inappropriate. So we see that even longtime opponents of
earmarks are now cosponsoring legislation that is filled with de facto
earmarks, including one that benefits their State alone. We wouldn't
see this sort of thing, I believe, if we had a stand-alone bill. But
they have jammed that in here in order to get the maximum number of
votes. We have seen strange things happen.
This bill also creates a bureaucracy to determine which occupational
category should be prioritized under the new guest worker program.
However, it requires a new bureaucracy to automatically designate
Alaska seafood processing as a shortage occupation that receives
special treatment. We might as well call this the Alaska Seafood
Special.
I will mention one more boondoggle, and that is the jobs for youth
pet program, which authorizes $1.5 billion to expand an Obama stimulus
program that could conceivably be used to give free cars, motorcycles,
scooters, and other vehicles to young people who participate. I am
referring to page 1,182 of the jobs for youth amendment. It is title V
under the bill, which says: The funds made available under this section
may be used to provide supportive services, such as transportation or
childcare, that is necessary to enable the participation of such youth
in the opportunities.
So I believe this is an open-ended invitation to take this $1.5
billion and use it for purposes that many of us would cringe at if we
really understood it.
I want to make two final points about the spending in the bill.
First, we are going to be asked to waive all 11 budget points of order
under the bill at a time when there is bipartisan concern about our
fiscal standing, at a time when our debt is $17 trillion. I think we
have been pretty good recently in not waiving budget points of order. I
believe we are recognizing on a bipartisan basis that it is important
we hold the line against increased deficit spending and increased debt.
But we are going to be asked to vote to essentially violate our own
pay-go rules in waiving the budget points of order, busting the
Judiciary Committee's spending limit, and to designate certain spending
as emergency spending even though it is obviously not emergency
spending. So much for fiscal responsibility.
Supporters of the underlying bill continue to argue that this
legislation will actually reduce the Federal deficit. It is a bizarre
situation where we can spend almost $50 billion and claim that it
actually reduces the deficit, but that is the argument. Yet, as I
explained on Monday, the only way we can transform this bill into a
deficit reduction bill is by double counting more than $211 billion
worth of Social Security revenue. In other words, the money paid in in
terms of Social Security taxes is eventually going to have to be paid
out in benefits, and they can't say we will pay it out in benefits and
then also use that surplus to fund the underlying bill because that is
double counting.
Indeed, the bill assumes the very same pot of money can be used to
fund new spending initiatives and fund these future Social Security
benefits, but only in Washington can we get away with such magical
accounting techniques. In the real world this bill actually increases
the Federal Government's on-budget deficit over the next 10 years.
I am just suggesting that in our rush to get a bill we are making
concessions we ordinarily would not make on stand-alone legislation,
whether it is in these sweetener provisions, the de facto earmarks,
special carve-outs, or by double counting revenue. But to add it all
up, we are left with a bill that is chock-full of de facto earmarks,
porkbarrel spending, and special interest sweeteners. This is a bill
that increases the on-budget deficit but fails to guarantee a border
that is secure and offers only promises, which historically Congress
has been very bad about keeping.
Does that sound like real immigration reform? I know we can do
better, and I know we must do better if we are ever going to solve our
biggest immigration problems.
Again, I would love to support an immigration reform bill.
Unfortunately, the way this bill is shaping up, I cannot and will not.
My hope is that the House of Representatives will take up this issue on
a step-by-step basis and in smaller increments so people can actually
read and understand it. By working through this issue in the House,
eventually they will be able to come up with a conference committee
that will produce a responsible immigration reform bill, one that
doesn't offer de facto earmarks and various sweeteners to people who
support it, but one which will stand on its own merits and will not
bust the budget by double counting Social Security funds paid into the
bill in the future.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. CORKER. Madam President, it is my understanding that Senator
Leahy is yielding time--or maybe it is Senator Landrieu who is yielding
time. Somebody is yielding time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. CORKER. Madam President, I want to speak today on the amendment.
I know the Senator from Texas, my friend and someone I respect, made
numerous comments about the bill. But actually the vote we have today
is about the border security amendment that has been negotiated and a
lot of people have worked on. I know some of his comments refer to some
portions of the amendment. Mostly, he was talking about the bill
itself.
The issue before us today is the border security amendment the
Senator from North Dakota and myself and many others worked on. I want
to put this in context, if I can. Fifteen days ago in the Republican
caucus at what we call our conference lunch, there was a discussion
about the ways of trying to make this immigration bill better. The
Senator from North Dakota had a base bill dealing with border security,
and many of us at the time said what we could do is take a base border
security amendment, expand it, and try to accommodate many of the
desires of people in our caucus with other provisions in it that many
Senators here in this body wanted to see happen. Two Fridays ago, we
actually had about 12 offices come together for a meeting to talk about
many of those attributes they felt would make this bill better. So over
time we developed a 115-page amendment--some people say 119-page
amendment--dealing with not just border security but many issues people
in this body thought would make this bill better.
There has been some dispute about the size of this amendment; I know
we have had some discussion from people on the floor. It is unfortunate
that sometimes people will come to the Senate floor and say things that
are a little over the top in order to make a point. But I will note
that today some of my friends on my side of the aisle received multiple
Pinocchios, if you will, from a very well-respected publication,
because the fact is the amendment is as we have said.
Because of the rules of construction in the Senate, when we add a
119- or 115-page amendment to a 1,100-page bill and we intersperse the
amendment throughout it, no doubt we come up with a 1,200-page bill, if
you will. The fact is, 1,100 of those pages we have had since April.
They have been through committee. People offered amendments. So let me
say I think the amendment size issue has been totally rebutted. I would
say the Senator from
[[Page S5212]]
North Dakota and myself have certainly carried the day on that issue. I
think it is a fact now. We understand the size.
We know this amendment has some things in it other than border
security. That was part of the process in getting to a place where we
enhanced the bill.
Some people are talking about the cost, and my friend from Texas was
just speaking. If my colleagues noticed--and it is very important
around here to listen--he talked about on-budget costs. First of all,
everybody in this body knows the problem we have in America today is
the off-budget items and that our entitlement programs are what are
driving the huge deficits we have in this Nation. So it is the
entitlement issues most people who speak about deficit reduction are
focused on because we have done so much already on what we call the
discretionary side, which is the on-budget piece.
CBO has scored this bill and basically they have said--not basically,
they have said if this bill were to pass, when we take into account the
entitlements and we take into account the discretionary spending, which
is what is called on-budget, we will reduce the deficit by $197
billion. One of the main reasons that is the case is when immigrants
move into what is called the temporary status, they pay in for 10
years, and one of the toughest provisions in this bill is they cannot
receive any benefits for 10 years. Think about that. We have this huge
amount of money that is going to be coming into the Social Security
Program and coming into the Medicare Program which, candidly, helps
people in this Nation because it makes those programs more solvent.
We have to listen to the words here. Let's think about it when people
talk about the cost of this border security amendment. Yes, it costs
$46 billion to implement these items--which, by the way, almost every
Republican has championed for years, all of the items in this border
surge, if you will--but it costs $46 billion. I will tell my colleagues
I have been here 6\1/2\ years and I would put my credentials on
focusing on deficit issues with anyone in this body. I have never had
an opportunity to vote for a bill that cost $46 billion over a 10-year
period but generated $197 billion into the Treasury without raising
anybody's taxes and, I might add, also generating economic growth for
our country. So I want to debunk that. This is a tremendous opportunity
for us to actually reduce our deficit while, at the same time, securing
our border.
People are talking about process--and I am coming to the end here. It
is interesting to me that the very people, I hate to say it, on my side
of the aisle who have been raising cain, if you will, about the fact
there aren't enough amendments are the very people who are objecting to
amendments being offered.
Look, this is the old game that is played around here: Well, we think
we ought to have 35 amendments. We think we ought to have--but somebody
on my side is objecting. Most people in the country don't understand
that in the Senate we have something called unanimous consent, and if
one Senator disagrees, it cannot happen--one Senator. So we have had
this situation going back and forth where we have tried to have
amendments. I agree, let's have amendments. There is one amendment in
particular I wish we could vote on and pass. I would love to see it.
But guess what. I want everybody to know the very people who are saying
they want to have more amendments are objecting to more amendments. So
understand what is happening here on the Senate floor.
There will be some people who say, Well, I am going to vote against
this because of the process. I want America to understand what is
happening in this body right now. As a matter of fact, I don't know if
it is true, but my understanding was the other side was actually going
to agree to 35 amendments, and people heard that and they said: Well,
my gosh, they might accept 35 amendments. Go down there and file more
amendments because we are afraid they are actually going to agree to
what it is we are asking for. So we will see.
Let me close with this: Nobody in this body can say the amendment we
are voting on today does not do anything someone can imagine relative
to border security. My good friend from Texas spent a lot of time
drafting a border security bill that had 5,000 Border Patrol agents.
This one has 20,000--20,000 Border Patrol agents. This amendment calls
for 20,000 Border Patrol agents. It doubles the number of Border Patrol
agents on our southern border.
We are adding $4.5 billion worth of technology that the chief of
border control has been trying to get for years, bought and paid for in
this bill.
We are adding an entry-exit visa program that has to be fully in
place.
We are adding E-Verify for every employer in the country.
We are also adding 350 miles of fencing.
People are saying: Well, we don't know if this will ever happen. My
colleagues should read the triggers. If it doesn't happen, nobody gets
a green card, and every American can see whether this happened.
Then people are saying, Well, on the fencing piece--nobody, by the
way, debates the 20,000 Border Patrol; nobody debates E-Verify; nobody
debates entry-exit; nobody debates the $4.5 billion in technology. But
then people are saying, Well, wait a minute. On the fencing piece,
though, the Homeland Security Secretary can decide where it goes. Well,
my friends in good government--and I happen to be with one of those--
yes, it does say she can decide in section 5 of the bill which places
work best.
We know the people from Texas don't even want a fence. People in
Arizona wish to have a fence. But it still says under the triggers--and
people are trying to malign and trying to fool people all out across
America because they know what is getting ready to happen. The fact is,
without the 350 miles ironclad, in place, there is no green card. So
all five provisions have to be in place.
I know people try to spin things when they get on television and they
try to say things to confuse America. What I would say to America is
read the bill. I think Americans would be proud of border security,
which brings me to a close here today.
Here is what I want to say: On the procedural vote that took place 2
days ago, every single Democrat voted to end debate on this border
security measure. We had 15 Republicans who voted for it. The process
issue is behind us and today we are voting on the amendment itself. I
don't know how any Republican can look a TV camera or a constituent in
the eye and not say this amendment strengthens--surges--on the border
and makes our border more secure. So if, for some reason, Republicans
come to the floor today--a majority of Republicans--and they vote
against this border security amendment, what is going to happen is the
Democrats are going to own the border security issue, and basically
Republicans--whose constituents I think in some cases care more about
this issue than many people on the other side--will be giving up this
issue.
I don't know how any Republican can go back home and say to their
constituents: I voted against adding Border Patrol agents and I voted
against adding a fence on the southern border and I voted against an E-
Verify system and I voted against an exit-entry program and I voted
against the technology our Border Patrol chief wants. I voted against
it because I didn't like the process. I voted against it because this
bill has been before us now for over 2 months and I had a chance to
make amendments in the Judiciary Committee and I had a chance to make
amendments on the floor but, candidly, I didn't want that to happen, so
I kept that from occurring.
I would ask my friends: Please, today is about an amendment to a bill
that makes it stronger. My colleagues may not like every provision, but
we cannot look folks in the eye back home and say this isn't something
that those who care about border security would know surges the border,
makes this country safer, and I would say makes this bill a much
stronger bill.
With that, I yield the floor. I hope my good friend and great partner
from the State of North Dakota will make some comments.
I wish to thank Senator Leahy from Vermont for his generosity with
time this morning.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I yield 10 minutes to the distinguished
[[Page S5213]]
Senator from North Dakota, and I ask unanimous consent that the last 5
minutes be reserved for the Senator from Vermont.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. HOEVEN. Madam President, I thank the distinguished Senator from
Vermont, and I wish to particularly thank my distinguished colleague
from the State of Tennessee for all of his work on this border surge
amendment. That is what we are talking about: a border surge amendment.
The amendment we have offered, Hoeven-Corker, is about securing the
border first. As the good Senator from Tennessee described, that is
absolutely the focus of what we are doing here.
We are willing to work with everybody on both sides of the aisle in
this body and in the House to come up with legislation that secures the
border. We believe that is what Americans want. That is what we are
working so hard to do.
What I would like to start with, though, this morning in terms of my
comments is this budget point of order we are going to be voting on in
a few minutes. I would like to cite right from the Congressional Budget
Office report. So I am going to just take facts, statistics right out
of the CBO report because, as the good Senator from Tennessee explained
a minute ago, so much of this is getting either misunderstood or
misinterpreted. So let's get right to the CBO report, and let's look at
exactly what it says.
According to CBO, it is clear that this legislation will reduce our
deficit. The CBO report shows that in the first decade there is $197
billion provided from this legislation that we can use for deficit
reduction--less, obviously, as Senator Corker just explained so well a
minute ago, as we are putting significant resources into securing the
border. So if you take out that additional $40 billion that our
amendment costs to make sure we secure the border, to make sure we have
the E-Verify system, to make sure we have electronic entry and exit at
all of our international airports and seaports--deduct that $40
billion, that is $157 billion that we have available in the first
decade and, according to CBO, in the second decade, $700 billion. So
that is about $850 billion over the next two decades that is available
to help us reduce the deficit, and that is after putting the five
triggers in place that we provide in this legislation to secure the
border first.
That means a comprehensive southern border strategy: 20,000
additional Border Patrol agents; 700 miles of fence in total--350 in
addition to the 350 we have; a national mandatory E-Verify system; and
electronic entry and exit identification must be in place, as I said,
at all international airports and seaports. These things must be done
upfront. These triggers must be met and illegal immigrants must be in
provisional status for 10 years before anyone can get green cards,
other than DREAMers or some blue card ag workers. So the cost of border
enforcement is paid for, and we still have $850 billion available for
deficit reduction.
So you might ask, well, why the budget point of order, then? Why the
budget point of order when we are trying to get the debt and the
deficit under control? Well, the budget point of order goes to the
amount of dollars coming in on-budget and off-budget. What do we mean
by off-budget? That means entitlement programs. So the amount of
dollars coming in do not match up with what is exactly in the budget,
now both on-budget and off-budget. But that is understandable, isn't
it?
This is new significant legislation, so of course we have to adjust
the on-budget and the off-budget to account for this $850 billion we
did not have before. OK--almost $1 trillion now that we have. OK. So of
course we have to make some adjustments.
So the real question here, the real question on this budget point of
order is, Would you rather have $850 billion available to reduce the
deficit or would you rather not have it? Because if you do not pass the
legislation, you do not get the $850 billion in funds to help with
deficit reduction. That is, if you will, kind of the bottom line here,
isn't it?
Now, it is true, as I say, we have to adjust our budget categories,
but overall, CBO scoring--after paying for an incredible amount of
additional resources to secure the border first--$850 billion over the
next two decades.
Also, this funding strengthens entitlement programs. Right. Why?
Because the funding we are talking about is paid into Social Security
and Medicare. CBO shows that in both the first decade and the second
decade more is paid into those programs to make them solvent. But
opponents say: Well, yes, sure. More is paid in, but those payers
someday are going to get benefits, so they are going to take it out.
But CBO shows that the amount being paid in is more than the benefits
being paid out and that the amount is on a growth trajectory, not the
reverse, meaning more is paid in in the second decade than the first
decade, so we make those programs even more solvent, and it gets us on
the right trajectory. That is why we should defeat the budget point of
order--because, quite simply, we want the $850 billion to help reduce
the deficit. That is the real issue we are dealing with.
Also, I want to take a minute again to address the GDP, GNP, wages,
and unemployment. Again, I want to quote from the CBO because I really
believe these things are getting misinterpreted.
GDP--gross domestic product--in the first decade grows 3.3 percent
more with the legislation. In the second decade, it grows 5.4 percent
more. OK. GNP--gross national product--per capita in the first 10
years, 0.7 of 1 percent less, it is true, in the first decade, but
after that we get more GNP. So long term, more GDP, more GNP.
Unemployment. This talk about increasing unemployment--0.1 of 1
percent in the first 6 years, as you adjust. After that, there is no
difference in unemployment.
The same thing with wages--initially 0.1 of 1 percent lower because
you have immigrants coming in who earn a lower wage, but over time, in
the second 10 years, wages go up. OK.
What is my point? The point is that for all of these categories, in
all four of these categories, we do as well or better--as well or
better--over the long run. Isn't that what we want?
I will summarize.
The first order of business for immigration reform is to secure the
border. Americans want immigration reform--of that there is no doubt.
But they want us to get it right, and that means securing the border
first.
Our amendment, as the Senator from Tennessee said, is 119 new pages--
not 1,200. Madam President, 1,100 is in the base bill. That has been
out here since May.
Our amendment secures the border with five tough provisions or
triggers that must be met before green cards are allowed. We have
talked about that. A comprehensive, high-tech plan on the southern
border must be in place: 20,000 Border Patrol agents, a total of 700
miles of fence--things our colleagues on our side of the aisle have
been asking for are here--a national, mandatory E-Verify system,
electronic entry and exit at international airports and seaports. That
is about securing the border first. That is what this amendment is
about. It is objective, and it is verifiable. That is what the
technology on the border--$4.5 billion in technology for sensors,
radars drones, helicopters, planes--that is what it is all about, so we
know we have the border secured.
So we ask our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join with us.
Let's rise up. Let's meet this challenge for the American people, and
let's address border security. That is what this legislation does.
Madam President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, the Hoeven-Corker amendment is subject to
a budget point of order because it increases the net on-budget deficit
over both the 5- and 10-year periods and exceeds the Judiciary
Committee's allocation for direct spending. But on-budget effects do
not take into account the significant off-budget savings.
Last week the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office concluded that
our bill is going to help us achieve nearly $1 trillion in deficit
reduction. We have also learned that the Hoeven-Corker amendment would
significantly increase our border security, and, as the CBO said and as
my friends from Tennessee and North Dakota have said, the
[[Page S5214]]
amendment would reduce both illegal entry into the country and the
number of people who stay in the country beyond the end of their
authorized period.
So when we vote on waiving the point of order, I will vote to waive
it because the Hoeven-Corker amendment and the overall amendment will
spur job growth and will dramatically reduce our deficit.
Then we are going to vote on the substitute. The substitute is the
product of many months of hard work and bipartisan collaboration in a
very transparent process. No one should oppose the cloture motion on
the committee-reported substitute, as amended.
The Senate Judiciary Committee held lengthy and extensive public
markup sessions to consider the Border Security, Economic Opportunity,
and Immigration Modernization Act, S. 744. This was after a couple
dozen hearings over the last few Congresses. We did it in as
transparent a way as possible.
Madam President, over 300 first-degree amendments were filed. We had
them online for a week and a half before the Senate Judiciary Committee
even took up the bill.
Over the course of 3 weeks, we debated the bill for nearly 40 hours.
We often worked late into the evening. That was online. That was
streamed. That was open to everybody. And certainly the thousands and
thousands and thousands of e-mails that came in from all over the
country showed people were watching.
The committee considered a total of 212 amendments--we had 212
amendments during that time--136 of which were adopted. Every member of
the committee--Democratic or Republican--who filed amendments to the
legislation was afforded the opportunity to offer multiple amendments.
Nearly every member of the committee, in both parties, who offered an
amendment had an amendment adopted. All but three of the amendments
adopted passed on a bipartisan vote, and the committee reported the
legislation by a bipartisan vote of 13 to 5.
So, as I said, the public witnessed what we did. They saw us streamed
live on the committee's Web site. They saw broadcasts on C-SPAN. All
our amendments were posted, and as we had developments, they were
reported in real time. Members from both sides of the aisle praised the
transparent process and the significant improvements to the bill made
by the Judiciary Committee.
Let me also compliment the ranking Republican on the committee, the
senior Senator from Iowa, Mr. Grassley. We were on different sides of
the legislation, but we worked very well together. We talked numerous
times throughout the whole markup to make sure it would go. He would
come to me at times when some of their members had to be out for one
reason or another--other committees--and we worked around that. We made
sure everything went--we made sure neither side was surprised. I
appreciate the cooperation I received from Senator Grassley. I think it
is one of the reasons we could actually show the Senate the way the
Senate is supposed to work.
I hope colleagues will vote for the committee-reported substitute, as
amended.
This is one of our Nation's toughest problems, but we were not
elected to do easy things. In fact, if all we had were easy things, I
do not know why anybody would want to be in the Senate. We were
elected, the men and women of this body, from all over the country--
from both parties, with philosophical differences--and we are supposed
to fix our Nation's toughest problems.
We are on the eve of coming one step closer to fixing our Nation's
broken immigration system. I hope the vast majority of Senators will
vote yes. There has been a great deal of work on this. Is this bill
perfect? No. Is any bill perfect? No. Is this much better than what we
have today? Yes. Is it exactly the bill I would have written? No. It is
not the bill Senator Grassley would have written. It is not the bill
any one of us individually would have written. But we are not a
monarchy. We are not a dictatorship of one. We have 100 people here
representing over 300 million Americans, and we are supposed to mold,
as best as possible, the sentiments and needs of those 300 million
Americans but also the aspirations of those who would be Americans,
like my grandparents and my wife's parents and even Members of this
body.
So, Madam President, I hope that, one, we will waive the budget point
of order and then, secondly, we will vote for the amendment, as with
the substitute.
I believe we are ready to vote.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
Mr. REID. Madam President, I will use leader time so I can talk. We
are going to be in a vote in a few minutes to waive the Budget Act, and
then we are going to have two more. One is on the adoption of the Leahy
amendment, as modified, and then a cloture vote on the committee-
reported substitute amendment.
I mentioned on the floor this morning the work done by the Gang of
8--extremely important. As I indicated at that time, as I look at the
Republicans and Democrats who did this, I do not know of anything in it
for them politically. It was done because they believed the immigration
system is broken and broken badly and needed some repair work. They did
a remarkably good job.
But I would like to add to that the junior Senator from Tennessee,
Mr. Corker, and Senator Hoeven. What they have done to help us with
this bill is remarkably important and good. Could we have passed this
without them? Maybe. But the point is that they have strengthened this
legislation. When I worked on it 7 years ago, the issue was always, is
there going to be a secure border? What they have done is made that
without any question a fact. So I admire what they have done--again,
not for any political benefit because, as I look, I doubt they will get
any from this, but they will get the benefit of doing what they believe
is right for our country. I appreciate that. History will indicate that
I am right. Maybe in the short term it may not be, but history will
indicate, when the books are written, that these two good men allowed
us to do something that is important for our country.
What if we did not fix this broken immigration system today, in 2013,
this week? What would the future be for this country? No. 1, as we have
said, the security of this Nation would be not as good as it would have
been had we passed this bill. Secondly, the economic security of this
country would be not nearly as good as it will be if we pass this bill.
A $1 trillion debt will be reduced in this country.
So I admire all of these Senators for the good work they have done
for the country. I know we have been working for the last couple of
weeks and very intensely for the last couple of days to come up with a
list of amendments. I have people on my side of the aisle who are very
interested in having a vote on their amendments. I even have had a
number of Republican colleagues come to me and say: You have to do
something to allow us to have some amendments. We have tried very hard
to do that, but I have to say, honestly, I am not really happy with
what has taken place since I have left here last night and got here
this morning because we are going backward, not frontward. So I hope
that when we get these three votes out of the way, people agree. Let's
do the possible. There is a way we can come up with some amendments. I
understand both sides want their amendments heard and voted on; they
are important to them. If it is important to them, it should be
important to us. So we are going to continue to work on that to see if
we can come up with a list of amendments.
I would be remiss if I did not mention, together with the 10 Senators
I have already talked about, the chairman of the committee. We would
not be where we are without a fair, open markup. That is not the way it
always is around here. This man is the President pro tempore of the
Senate. He is the chairman of the committee. He has a lot of power. He
could run that committee any way he wants. That is the way it is here.
He did. He ran it the way it should be run. I admire and appreciate the
work he has done.
So let's get these votes out of the way, see if we can come up with a
list of amendments, something we can work on. Each side is going to
have to give a little.
I ask unanimous consent that the second and third votes in this
series be
[[Page S5215]]
10 minutes in duration and that there be 2 minutes of debate equally
divided between the two votes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Under the previous order, all postcloture time has expired.
Amendment No. 1551 is withdrawn.
The question is on agreeing to the motion to waive budget points of
order for consideration of this measure.
The yeas and nays are ordered.
The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the
Senator from Utah (Mr. Lee) and the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Blunt).
Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Utah (Mr. Lee) would
have voted ``nay.''
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Baldwin). Are there any other Senators in
the Chamber desiring to vote?
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 68, nays 30, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 162 Leg.]
YEAS--68
Alexander
Ayotte
Baldwin
Baucus
Begich
Bennet
Blumenthal
Boxer
Brown
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Chiesa
Collins
Coons
Corker
Cowan
Donnelly
Durbin
Feinstein
Flake
Franken
Gillibrand
Graham
Hagan
Harkin
Hatch
Heinrich
Heitkamp
Heller
Hirono
Hoeven
Johnson (SD)
Kaine
King
Kirk
Klobuchar
Landrieu
Leahy
Levin
Manchin
McCain
McCaskill
Menendez
Merkley
Mikulski
Murkowski
Murphy
Murray
Nelson
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Rockefeller
Rubio
Sanders
Schatz
Schumer
Shaheen
Stabenow
Tester
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Warner
Warren
Whitehouse
Wyden
NAYS--30
Barrasso
Boozman
Burr
Chambliss
Coats
Coburn
Cochran
Cornyn
Crapo
Cruz
Enzi
Fischer
Grassley
Inhofe
Isakson
Johanns
Johnson (WI)
McConnell
Moran
Paul
Portman
Risch
Roberts
Scott
Sessions
Shelby
Thune
Toomey
Vitter
Wicker
NOT VOTING--2
Blunt
Lee
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and
sworn having voted in the affirmative, the motion is agreed to and the
point of order falls.
Amendment No. 1183, as Modified
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there will now be 2
minutes of debate equally divided prior to a vote on amendment No.
1183, as modified, offered by the Senator from Vermont, Mr. Leahy.
The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I yield my time to the Senators from
Tennessee and North Dakota.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. HOEVEN. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Vermont.
Americans want immigration reform, but they want border security
first, and that is exactly what this amendment does. It secures the
border with five tough provisions or triggers that must be met--that
must be met--before green cards are allowed. Those five triggers are: a
comprehensive southern border strategy that must be deployed and
operational, 20,000 additional Border Patrol agents, a total of 700
miles of fence, a national mandatory E-Verify system must be in place,
and electronic entry and exit identification must be in place at all
international airports and seaports.
Simply put, this is about making sure we secure the border, and we do
it in an objective and verifiable way.
I want to thank all of my cosponsors on this legislation, and turn to
the good Senator from Tennessee and thank him for his work.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
The Senator from Iowa.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, this grand compromise makes false
promises to the American people and throws money at the border, but
there is no accountability to get the job done. We need to see the
results, but the only result we are being assured of is legalization--
legalization first, border security later.
On top of all the earmarks that are in this amendment, the grand
compromise also has a grand plan for spending taxpayers' dollars, and
we have to raid the Social Security trust fund to get it.
The American people expect us to get this right. This amendment is
the wrong answer. I urge a ``no'' vote.
I yield the floor, and I yield the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time has expired.
Mr. CORKER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent for 30 seconds.
Mr. GRASSLEY. I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The question is on agreeing to amendment No. 1183, as modified.
Mr. MENENDEZ. I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The yeas and nays have been requested.
Is there a sufficient second?
There is a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk called the roll.
Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the
Senator from Utah (Mr. Lee) and the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Blunt).
Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Utah (Mr. Lee) would
have voted ``nay.''
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The result was announced--- yeas 69, nays 29, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 163 Leg.]
YEAS--69
Alexander
Ayotte
Baldwin
Baucus
Begich
Bennet
Blumenthal
Boxer
Brown
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Chiesa
Collins
Coons
Corker
Cowan
Donnelly
Durbin
Feinstein
Flake
Franken
Gillibrand
Graham
Hagan
Harkin
Hatch
Heinrich
Heitkamp
Heller
Hirono
Hoeven
Johnson (SD)
Kaine
King
Kirk
Klobuchar
Landrieu
Leahy
Levin
Manchin
McCain
McCaskill
Menendez
Merkley
Mikulski
Murkowski
Murphy
Murray
Nelson
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Rockefeller
Rubio
Sanders
Schatz
Schumer
Shaheen
Stabenow
Tester
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Warner
Warren
Whitehouse
Wicker
Wyden
NAYS--29
Barrasso
Boozman
Burr
Chambliss
Coats
Coburn
Cochran
Cornyn
Crapo
Cruz
Enzi
Fischer
Grassley
Inhofe
Isakson
Johanns
Johnson (WI)
McConnell
Moran
Paul
Portman
Risch
Roberts
Scott
Sessions
Shelby
Thune
Toomey
Vitter
NOT VOTING--2
Blunt
Lee
The amendment (No. 1183), as modified, was agreed to.
Cloture Motion
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there will now be 2
minutes of debate equally divided prior to a vote on the motion to
invoke cloture on the committee-reported substitute, as amended.
The clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
Cloture Motion
We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
hereby move to bring to a close debate on the committee-
reported substitute amendment to S. 744, a bill to provide
for comprehensive immigration reform, and for other purposes.
Harry Reid; Patrick J. Leahy; Michael F. Bennet; Charles
E. Schumer; Richard J. Durbin; Robert Menendez; Dianne
Feinstein; Sheldon Whitehouse; Patty Murray; Debbie
Stabenow; Robert P. Casey, Jr.; Mark R. Warner; Thomas
R. Carper; Richard Blumenthal; Angus S. King, Jr.;
Christopher A. Coons; Christopher Murphy.
Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to yield back all
time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, all
time is yielded back.
By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum call has been waived.
The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the
committee-reported substitute amendment to S. 744, a bill to provide
for comprehensive immigration reform, and for other purposes, shall be
brought to a close?
The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
The clerk will call the roll.
[[Page S5216]]
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the
Senator from Utah (Mr. Lee) and the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Blunt).
Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Utah (Mr. Lee) would
have voted ``nay.''
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Murphy). Are there any other Senators in
the Chamber desiring to vote?
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 67, nays 31, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 164 Leg.]
YEAS--67
Alexander
Ayotte
Baldwin
Baucus
Begich
Bennet
Blumenthal
Boxer
Brown
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Collins
Coons
Corker
Cowan
Donnelly
Durbin
Feinstein
Flake
Franken
Gillibrand
Graham
Hagan
Harkin
Hatch
Heinrich
Heitkamp
Heller
Hirono
Hoeven
Johnson (SD)
Kaine
King
Kirk
Klobuchar
Landrieu
Leahy
Levin
Manchin
McCain
McCaskill
Menendez
Merkley
Mikulski
Murkowski
Murphy
Murray
Nelson
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Rockefeller
Rubio
Sanders
Schatz
Schumer
Shaheen
Stabenow
Tester
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Warner
Warren
Whitehouse
Wyden
NAYS--31
Barrasso
Boozman
Burr
Chambliss
Chiesa
Coats
Coburn
Cochran
Cornyn
Crapo
Cruz
Enzi
Fischer
Grassley
Inhofe
Isakson
Johanns
Johnson (WI)
McConnell
Moran
Paul
Portman
Risch
Roberts
Scott
Sessions
Shelby
Thune
Toomey
Vitter
Wicker
NOT VOTING--2
Blunt
Lee
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote the yeas are 67, the nays 31.
Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in the
affirmative, the motion is agreed to.
The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, we have been talking about a couple of
things, including the schedule. We are moving forward. This vote
suggests it is obvious that a very large and bipartisan majority of the
Senate will support an immigration bill. I know there have been
proposals for amendments. I am not going to make a proposal at this
time. I will leave that for the leader. There have been efforts to get
a finite number of amendments from both Republicans and Democrats so we
can vote. Under normal circumstances, we would probably have voice
votes on some of those amendments. I hope we can do that because I
think we would be able to complete this immigration bill.
Our staffs have a great deal of work to do in putting everything
together. The staffs on both sides of the aisle have worked long hours.
They have been here working even after the rest of us have left. After
this is completed, maybe they can actually have some time with their
families and prepare for this great Nation's celebration next week.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to continue
to speak for 5 minutes as if in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Supreme Court Ruling
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, today the Supreme Court struck down section
3 of the Defense of Marriage Act. I think that helped this Nation take
a major step toward full equality. The ruling confirms my belief that
the Constitution protects the rights of all Americans--not just some
but all of us--and that no one should suffer from discrimination based
on who they love. I share the joy of those families who had their
rights vindicated today, including many legally married couples in my
home State of Vermont. I have already heard from many and the joy they
have expressed is so overwhelming.
In August, my wife Marcelle and I will celebrate our 51st wedding
anniversary. Our marriage is so fundamental to our lives that it is
difficult for me to imagine how it would feel to have the government
refuse to acknowledge it. Without her love and support over the past 51
years, there is nothing I could have ever accomplished that would have
been noteworthy in my life. It has taken the joining together of two
people who love each other.
Today we have thousands of gay and lesbian individuals and families
across the country who have had their rights vindicated by the Supreme
Court's decision, including the same rights Marcelle and I have had for
51 years.
Despite today's historic ruling, there are still injustices in our
Federal laws that discriminate against these married couples. I will
continue to work with Senator Feinstein on legislative fixes to protect
all families.
As we continue to fight for equality and against discrimination in
our Nation's laws, I am hopeful today's ruling will address a serious
injustice. By just striking down section 3 of the Defense of Marriage
Act, the Supreme Court has pronounced that our Federal laws cannot
discriminate against individuals based on who they love. I believe this
should extend to our immigration laws as well.
Last month I was forced to make one of the most difficult decisions
in my 38 years as a Senator when I withdrew my amendment that would
have provided equality in our immigration laws by ensuring that all
Americans--all Americans--may sponsor their lawful spouse for
citizenship. It was one of the most disappointing moments of my 38
years in the Senate, but I took Republicans, many who spoke in good
faith, at their word that they would abandon their own efforts to
reform the Nation's immigration laws if my amendment had been adopted.
I believed what they said, and I withdrew it.
However, with the Supreme Court's decision today, it appears the
antidiscrimination principle I have long advocated will apply to our
immigration laws, and binational couples and their families can now be
united under the law. As a result of this very welcome decision, I will
not be seeking a floor vote on my amendment.
Today's decision should be seen as a victory for all of those who
support justice, equality, and family values.
I had the privilege of serving with a wonderful Senator from Vermont
when I first came here, Robert Stafford. He was ``Mr. Republican'' in
our State. When we were debating the question of same-sex marriage in
the Vermont Legislature, Senator Stafford said: If we have two people
who love each other and make each other better--two Vermonters who love
each other and make each other better because of that love--what
difference does it make to us whether they are the same sex or not?
Vermont is better because they make it better.
I agree with him. There is still important work to be done so all
families are protected under our Federal laws. Until we fully achieve
the motto engraved in Vermont marble above the Supreme Court building
that declares ``equal justice under the law,'' I will continue to fight
for the equal treatment of all Americans.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, over the last few days I have received
numerous e-mails and calls from conservatives and tea party activists
from across the country regarding immigration. Their opinions really
matter to me because they were with me 3 years ago when so many people
in Washington--and in Florida, for that matter--thought I had no chance
to win my election.
Let me say these people are patriots. They are Americans from all
walks of life who are deeply concerned about the direction our country
is headed, and they are increasingly unhappy about the immigration
reform proposal in the Senate. It is not because they are ``anti-
immigrant'' as some like to say, and it is not because they are closed-
minded. They believe, as do I, that as a sovereign country, we have a
right to secure our borders and we have a right to have immigration
laws to enforce them.
They are increasingly opposed to this effort because for over three
decades and despite many promises to enforce the law, the Federal
Government, under both Republicans and Democrats, has failed to do so.
In the end, it is not just immigration reform itself that worries
them; it is the government that has failed them so many times before.
They realize we have a legal immigration system that needs reform. They
realize we have over 11 million people currently living in our country
illegally and that we have to deal with them. They just simply believe
no matter what law we
[[Page S5217]]
pass, we cannot trust the Federal Government to ever actually enforce
it.
This sentiment was best summed up for me in an e-mail I received from
Sharon Calvert, a prominent tea party leader in Tampa, FL. She wrote:
Today, June 2013, we are in a very different political
climate than we were after the last election. We are in a
political climate of distrust. Distrust of government and
elected representatives is at its highest.
She goes on to say:
Do we want to trust this administration to faithfully
enforce a bill to the best interests of all Americans with a
bill that few have read?
She makes a powerful point.
After finding out that the IRS investigates people based on their
political views, all the questions that remain about Benghazi, and
seeing the Justice Department target reporters, trust in the Federal
Government is rightfully at an all-time low.
I share this skepticism about this administration and Washington in
general. In just the 2 years I have been here, I have seen the games
played and the promises broken and how the American people ultimately
suffer the consequences. That is exactly what led me to get involved in
this issue in the first place.
We have a badly broken legal immigration system--not only one that
does not work; it actually encourages illegal immigration. We have a
border with Mexico that, despite billions of dollars already spent, is
still not secured. Every day, people, drugs, and guns are trafficked
across the border, and we have 11 million people living in this country
illegally in de facto amnesty.
What I am describing is the way things are now. This is the status
quo, and it is a terrible mess. It is hurting our country terribly, and
unless we do something about it, this administration isn't going to fix
it.
Political pundits love to focus on the politics of all this, but for
me this isn't about catering to any group for political gain.
Predictably, despite all the work we have done on immigration reform,
some so-called ``pro-immigrant'' groups continue to protest me daily.
This isn't about winning points from the establishment or the
mainstream media either, by the way. No matter how consistent I have
been in focusing on the border security aspects of reform, whenever I
have spoken about it the beltway media has accused me of trying to
undermine or walk away from this reform.
This isn't about becoming a Washington dealmaker. Truthfully, it
would have been a lot easier to just sit back, vote against any
proposal, and give speeches about how I would have done it differently.
Finally, this certainly isn't about gaining support for future
office. Many conservative commentators and leaders--people whom I
deeply respect and with whom I agree on virtually every other issue--
are disappointed about my involvement in this debate.
I got involved in this issue for one simple reason: I ran for office
to try to fix things that are hurting this special country. In the end,
that is what this is about for me--trying to fix a serious problem that
faces America.
The proposal before the Senate is by no means perfect. As does any
proposal that will come before the Senate, it has flaws; but it also
has important reforms that conservatives have been trying to get for
years. For example, it changes our legal immigration system from a
predominantly family-based system of chain migration to a merit-based
system that focuses on job skills.
This proposal mandates the most ambitious border and interior
security measures in our Nation's history. For example, it requires and
funds the completion of 700 miles of real border fence. It adds 20,000
new border agents. It details a specific technology plan for each
sector of the border. It requires E-Verify for every employer in
America. And it creates a tracking system to identify people who
overstay their visas.
These are all things that at a minimum must happen before those in
the country illegally can apply for permanent status. And the proposal
deals with those who are here illegally in a reasonable but responsible
way. Right now, those here illegally are living in de facto amnesty.
This is what I mean by that: They are unregistered, many pay no taxes,
and few will ever have to pay a price for having violated our laws.
Under this bill they will have to come forward. They will have to
pass background checks. They will have to pay a fine. They will have to
start paying taxes. They will be ineligible for welfare, for food
stamps, and for ObamaCare.
In return, the only thing they get is a temporary work permit, and
they can't renew it in 6 years unless they can prove they have been
holding a job and paying their taxes. For at least 10 years, that is
all they can have. After all that, they cannot even apply for permanent
status until the fence is built, the Border Patrol agents are hired,
and the border security technology, E-Verify, and the tracking system
are fully in place.
Yet despite all of these measures, opposition from many conservatives
has grown significantly in the last few weeks. Why? Well, because they
have heard the Secretary of Homeland Security can just ignore the
border requirement. But this is not true. The Department does have the
discretion on where to build the fence but not on the amount of fencing
it must build. At the end of the day, it is simple: 700 miles of
pedestrian fencing must be built.
They have also heard the Secretary of Homeland Security can just
waive the radar and the drones and the ground sensors and the other
technology required in the bill. But that is just not true. The
Secretary can always add more to the plan, but the list of border
security measures we mandate in the legislation is the minimum that
must be implemented.
Some oppose it because they have heard ``a future Congress can just
defund all of the security measures'' as they have done in the past.
But that is just not true. The money is built into the bill. Unlike
previous border security laws, it doesn't leave it dependent on future
funding.
They also oppose the bill because they have heard it creates a
taxpayer subsidy for people to buy a car or a scooter. That is just not
true. Nothing in this bill allows that.
Finally, they oppose the bill because they have heard that last
Friday, a brandnew, 1,100-page bill no one has read is what is now
before the Senate. That is just not true. This is the exact same bill
that has been publicly available for 10 weeks. The main addition to it
are about 120 pages of border security because in order to add 700
miles of fence, 20,000 border agents, and a prohibition on things such
as foreign students or tourists from getting ObamaCare, we had to add
pages to the bill.
Now, I understand--I do--why after reading these false claims people
would be opposed to this bill. I also understand why, after we have
been burned by large bills in the past, people are suspicious of big
reforms of any kind. I understand why, after promises made in the past
on immigration have not been kept, people doubt whether they will ever
be kept again in the future.
But I also understand what is going to happen if at some point we do
not come up with an agreement we can support on immigration reform.
What is going to happen is we will still have a broken legal
immigration system. We will not have more Border Patrol officers. We
will not have enough fencing. We still will not have mandatory E-
Verify. And we will still have 11 million people living here illegally.
That is why I am involved, because despite all of the problems we
have with government, the only way to mandate a fence, E-Verify, and
more agents is to pass a law that does so.
I knew getting these requirements into the bill would not be easy.
This administration insisted the border is already secure, and they
fought every effort to improve the border security parts of this bill.
The administration wants the fastest and easiest path to citizenship
possible, and they fought every condition and every trigger in this
bill.
I got involved because I knew if conservatives didn't get involved in
shaping this proposal, it would not have any of the border security
reforms our Nation desperately needs.
Getting to this point has been very difficult. To hear the worry and
the anxiety and the growing anger in the voices of so many people who
helped me get elected to the Senate, whom I agree with on virtually
every other issue, has been a real trial for me. I
[[Page S5218]]
know they love America, and they are deeply worried about the direction
this administration is trying to take our country.
When I was a candidate, I told people I wanted to come here and
fight. I want to fight to protect what is good for America and fight to
stop what is bad for America. I believe what we have now regarding
immigration is hurting our country badly, and I simply wasn't going to
just leave it to Democrats alone to figure out how to fix it.
I guess perhaps at the heart of my support of this proposal is that I
know firsthand that while immigrants have always impacted America,
America changes immigrants even more. Just a generation ago my parents
lived in poverty in another country. America changed them. It gave them
a chance to improve their lives. It gave them the opportunity to open
doors for me that were closed to them. And the longer they lived here,
the older their kids got, the more conservative they became, the more
convinced they became that limited government and free enterprise and
our constitutional liberties made this Nation special.
I am a firsthand witness to the transformative power of our country,
how it does not just change people's pocketbooks, it changes their
hearts and their minds. Despite all the challenges and despite our
broken government, I still believe this is that kind of country.
I realize in the end many of my fellow conservatives will not be able
to support this reform. But I hope you will understand that I honestly
believe it is the right thing to do for this country--to finally have
an immigration system that works, to finally have a fence, to finally
have more agents and E-Verify, and to finally put an end to de facto
amnesty.
In my heart and in my mind, I know we must solve this problem once
and for all or it will only get worse and it will only get harder to
solve.
To my fellow conservatives, I will continue to fight alongside you
for real tax reform, for lowering our debt, for balancing our budget,
for reducing regulations, for rolling back job-killing environmental
policies, and for repealing the disaster of ObamaCare. To my fellow
conservatives, I will continue to fight alongside you for the sanctity
of life and for traditional marriage. But I will also continue to work
in the hopes of one day uniting behind a common conservative strategy
on how to fix our broken immigration system once and for all.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.
Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I want to say how much I respect the
Senator from Florida. I respect his viewpoint. I respect the amount of
effort he has put into this issue, which is a very difficult and a very
complex issue. He speaks from the heart. I have never questioned his
motives, and he has worked very hard to put together the very best
piece of legislation that I think could have been accomplished on this
Senate floor.
I wish I could stand with him in terms of final support because I,
too, believe our current system is broken, that it needs to be
addressed. The status quo is not an option. We will continue down the
same road, and only to a greater degree than where we find ourselves
today.
I am deeply concerned. For me, the most difficult of things to work
through--it finally came down to the fact that, as Senator Rubio has
talked about, there is a great level of distrust in this country today
toward whatever comes out of Washington and whomever's mouth it comes
out of.
I think some of this is due to certain events that have happened in
the last several months. Benghazi is still not settled. The American
people still are not satisfied with what has been said about what
happened in Benghazi and what our response should have been. There have
been changing narratives. That feeds into the distrust.
Certainly, there are the scandals--the IRS scandal and others
continue to feed this distrust. It is a very dangerous thing for a
democracy when people have lost trust in their elected Representatives,
in their government. It is a very dangerous thing for the future. We
need to restore that.
To me, that element that now exists means when we take up legislation
as comprehensive as this bill is, as sweeping as this bill is, we need
to ensure the American people understand it and that they have trust in
us that what we promise we will do in this bill will be fulfilled.
All this, from my perspective, has to be measured against the 1986
Immigration Reform Act, which I voted for and supported. Ronald Reagan
was President at the time. We had a divided Congress--Republicans and
Democrats. This Senate was under one party and the House was under
another. So the situation was somewhat similar to today. But with
President Reagan's leadership, and with the promises that were made,
the 3 million people who were here illegally at that time were granted
an opportunity to get on a path to citizenship--and it was combined
with the fact that we promised in that bill, verbally and in language,
that we would secure the border so we would not have to deal with this
again. Well, here we are in 2013 dealing with it again, but there are
not 3 million illegal immigrants; there are now 11 million illegal
immigrants.
It is having an enormous impact on our country, and it is an issue
which we have to address. But I think we have to do it in a way that
acknowledges that the promises made then were not fulfilled. When added
today to the broken promises and the growing level of distrust than any
of us could possibly imagine, that has to be addressed. The way, in my
opinion, to address that is--to borrow from Ronald Reagan trust, but
verify.
I think verify, because of this trust deficit, has to come first
before people are ready to trust. They simply do not believe that the
promises made will work, that they will be fulfilled.
When the underlying bill basically says the Secretary of Homeland
Security will state that the Department has a strategy to address the
border security problem, that does not play very well with people who
have seen strategies promised before. They want to see results. The
real issue here has been--at least for me, and I think for many of my
colleagues--whether we are able to prove to the American people they
are going to get their results before we start moving people through a
legalization process which we know we are never going to be able to
pull back.
There were some amendments offered by my colleagues which I supported
because essentially they said we want to look at results first before
we begin the process--from which we are never going to be able to pull
back--of granting legal status for illegal immigrants in this country.
So it is that cart before the horse that, for me at least, and I
think for many, is the reason why we cannot support this bill as it is
currently written.
I hope the House will come forward with something more credible,
perhaps more sequential, that addresses this very fundamental flaw in
this bill to prove to the American people that we will fulfill the
promises we are making in this legislation before we start a process of
granting legal status to illegals. We need to ensure we will not get
years down the road only to find we have not succeeded in fulfilling
those promises, and have created yet another amnesty situation.
I am the son of an immigrant. My mother came here with her family. It
has been the narrative in our family that legal immigration is what has
made America the country that it is. So I do not fear immigration. The
diversity has been good for our country. I served as Ambassador to
Germany for 4 years, and I cannot tell you how many Germans and
Europeans from other countries came up to me and basically said:
Someday I hope to get in the lottery, that my name will be pulled. I
have been in line for 15 years; I have been in line for 20 years
waiting to come to your country through a legal immigration process.
It is pretty hard, when you are the son of an immigrant--you know
your family came here the right way--to know there are millions of
people in this world who would love to come to America and become
responsible citizens, and yet to see them look at people flooding
across the borders and being granted that privilege which they have not
yet been able to attain.
So I trust that we will be able to go forward. I hope the House will
come forward with something that is more credible than what the Senate
is poised to pass. I voted earlier for a procedural
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motion to allow debate on this issue because I think we need to have
this debate. I was hoping that we could address this fundamental issue
through the amendment process. The employee verification has been
strengthened, the border security has been strengthened, the exit visa
problem has been strengthened, assuming the promises come true, but
they have only been strengthened on a piece of paper. We need to see it
strengthened for real on the border, at the employment offices, and at
the exit visa offices on the portals for people coming in and out of
this country. That is yet to be seen. That is yet to be demonstrated.
So without that fundamental approach of demonstrating results first
in order to restore that trust, which is so lacking with the American
people--yet justified, on the failures of Congress and the failures of
this administration, in particular, or any administration to deliver
what they said they would and--to fulfill their promises--that is why I
will not be supporting the bill.
I do hope, given the problems we have with the status quo--as I think
was clearly outlined by my colleague from Florida--we need to keep at
this. We need to find the solution to the problem because America
cannot continue to be the country that it is and be the country that we
want it to be if we do not address this wound and this flaw in the
current immigration system.
We need the ability to attract and maintain people with skills for
many of our businesses. Some of our most important industries--
pharmaceutical, software, and others--important to our national defense
and national security need those employees coming here the legal way
through visas. We also need our agriculture industries and others to
have access to workers. I have a lot of processing plants in my State
and agricultural sources in my State that cannot find enough American
workers to fill the positions they have offered. That ought to be
addressed. I want to address that.
So I am not simply someone standing up and saying we do not have to
fix the problem. We do have to fix the problem. I respect the efforts
that have been made in a bipartisan way to try to do that. I just think
this bill has one major fatal flaw; that is, promises are not
demonstrated, are not fulfilled, before the process starts. For that
reason, I cannot support the bill in its final form.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Baldwin). The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. FRANKEN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Supreme Court Ruling
Mr. FRANKEN. Madam President, I rise today to talk about college
affordability and student loan interest rates. But before I do that, I
would like to take a moment to comment on the historic decision this
morning by the Supreme Court.
I have been married to my wife Franni for 37 years. It is the best
thing that ever happened to me, and I have long believed that every
loving couple should be seen as equal under the eyes of the law. So I
have been fighting for years, along with others, to overturn the so-
called Defense of Marriage Act. I am very happy today that the Court
did so in part this morning.
Today all Minnesota couples will be treated equally under Federal
law, and this will make a real difference for those families.
We still have work to do. I think Americans should have the freedom
to marry the person of their choosing regardless of the State in which
they live. So we still have work to do, but today is a happy day.
Student Loan Interest Rates
OK. Back to college affordability and student loan interest rates.
The interest rate on the Stafford subsidized loan is set to double on
July 1. Along with a number of my colleagues, I am fighting to prevent
that from happening and to reach an agreement to protect students and
make college more affordable for them and for their families.
Not long ago I had a group of student leaders from MnSCU--the
Minnesota State Colleges and Universities--come to my office in DC to
discuss college affordability.
Now, remember, these are members of the student government of many of
Minnesota's public colleges and universities. They are the student
leaders. There were about 20.
I asked them: How many of you work while you are going to school,
while you are in college?
Every one of them put up their hand.
I said: OK. How many of you work at least 20 hours a week?
Most of them.
How many of you work 30 hours a week while you are going to school?
More than I expected.
Then I asked them: How many of you work full time, work 40 hours a
week while you are going to college?
A number of them raised their hand.
Mind you, these are the student leaders of these schools. So they
also spend their time in student government. Working in college is not
necessarily a bad thing. Some work can help students better manage
their time, become more productive, and help pay for college. I worked
during college. It was like 5 hours a week in our dorm kitchen.
Evidence shows that when a student starts to work more than 15 hours
a week, it becomes harder for the student to maintain good grades at
school and to graduate from school on time. Students are working more
because college is becoming less and less affordable. They are still
taking out more and more student loans and graduating with more and
more debt.
Minnesota has the unfortunate distinction of being the State with the
third highest average debt for students graduating from college, at
over $30,000 a student. Whether those student Americans are attending
community college or 4-year public or private colleges, it is
increasingly difficult for them and their families to afford higher
education.
Part of what has happened is that State support for higher education
has gone down in recent years, shifting more of the burden onto
students and their families. According to the latest report from the
State Higher Education Executive Officers, public colleges experienced
a 9-percent decrease in State funding per student from 2011 to 2012,
including in Minnesota.
Minnesota public colleges saw a 27-percent decrease in State funding
per student from 2007 to 2012. Meanwhile, and partially because of
this, the University of Minnesota saw an increase of 65 percent in its
average tuition and fees in constant dollars from 2002 to 2012. Our
other public 4-year universities saw a 47-percent increase in average
tuition and fees. Our public 2-year colleges saw a 39-percent increase
in tuition and fees over the same time period.
After more than a decade of higher education spending cuts and
tuition increases in Minnesota, things have started to turn around this
year. The State legislature passed a bill that increased funding for
higher education in Minnesota by $250 million, including a tuition
freeze at the University of Minnesota and Minnesota's other public
colleges and universities for 2 years. That is very good news. While
this is a great victory for Minnesota's students and families, it
certainly will not solve the college affordability problem in
Minnesota.
As college has gotten more expensive, our Federal student aid system
has not kept up. In 1975, Pell grants--long the cornerstone of our
Federal financial aid system--a full Pell grant covered almost 80
percent of the cost of attending a public 4-year college, but now it
pays for approximately 33 percent of the cost of a year at a public 4-
year college.
As students have turned to student loans, more of them are ending up
tens of thousands in debt. In Minnesota I have held several college-
affordability roundtables and heard from a number of extraordinary
students. One of them is Taylor Williams, who was a senior at the
University of Minnesota in the spring. He grew up in a low-income
family. Taylor was afraid of taking the advanced placement courses
because he did not think he could afford the tests. The tests cost too
much money. Fortunately, Taylor had a guidance counselor who found
funding to help him pay for the tests, and his success in those AP
tests helped him start college with 1 year's worth of credit. Taylor,
when I talked to him, was also working 30 to 40 hours a week and
receiving
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community scholarships. Yet, in spite of all of this, he is graduating
with student debt.
Because of stories like Taylor's, I recently introduced the
Accelerated Learning Act, a bill to reauthorize an existing Federal
program that provides funding to low-income students to help pay for AP
and IB--International Baccalaureate--exams. This is a Federal program
that has been around for over a decade and has helped students lower
the cost of college. I am pleased that this legislation was included in
the larger bill to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education
Act that we passed out of the HELP Committee earlier this month.
Taylor and countless other students at schools across Minnesota
demonstrate tremendous perseverance and grit in getting a college
education and cobbling together the resources to pay for it. They are
working incredibly hard, and they are still taking on significant
amounts of debt--debt that will stay with them for a good portion of
their lives.
Paying for college should not have to be that hard. In many other
countries it is not. In fact, in many other countries, students can go
to college for free--for free--or pay extremely low tuition. According
to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD,
countries where students pay zero tuition for their postsecondary
education include the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Ireland,
Iceland, Mexico, Norway, and Sweden. Other countries, such as France,
Austria, Switzerland, and Belgium have postsecondary systems where
students have to pay tuition of less than $1,500 per year.
Because of this it is not a surprise that many of these countries are
also surpassing the United States in higher education attainment. Not
very long ago the United States ranked first in the world in the
percentage of 25- to 34-year-olds with a higher education. According to
the latest data from the OECD, the United States is now 14th in that
category. This is a trend we need to reverse if the United States is
going to remain globally competitive. In an ideal world the United
States would provide free or extremely low cost postsecondary education
to its citizens, as so many other nations do. Unfortunately, that is
not going to happen anytime soon. So we need to take smaller but
important steps to help our students pay for college.
The interest rate on subsidized Stafford loans is going to double
from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent on July 1 unless Congress takes action
to prevent that from happening. This interest rate--this is an increase
that would affect almost 200,000 students in Minnesota, who would end
up paying about $1,000 more for each student loan they take out over
the life of that loan. That is above what they are already paying.
At a time of record-low interest rates, it makes no sense to let the
student loan interest rate double. We should prevent that from
happening. Ultimately, we need a long-term fix so that interest rates
do not become more unaffordable for students and their families. We
also need to make sure that whatever action we take does not make the
problem worse.
Several of my colleagues have proposed short-term fixes to this
interest rate problem. I am proud to support efforts by Senators Jack
Reed and Tom Harkin to freeze the interest rate at 3.5 percent while
Congress works out a longer term solution. I am also a proud cosponsor
of Senator Warren's legislation to tie the student loan interest rate
to the rate at which the Federal Reserve lends money to banks. At a
time when the Fed is lending money at an interest rate of .75 percent
to banks, it makes no sense for students to borrow money from the
government at a rate of 6.8 percent a year or even higher. Senator
Warren has been an important voice in this debate in the Senate, making
the student loan interest rate the focus of her first piece of
legislation.
We need to get this done. Democratic leaders have been negotiating in
good faith on this issue. If we need to pass a short-term extension of
the current interest rate to give negotiators more time to produce a
solution that works for students and their families, well then that is
what we should do.
Fixing the student loan interest rate is far from the only issue we
have to tackle to make college more affordable for students. I just
reintroduced my bipartisan Understanding the True Cost of College Act
to standardize financial aid award letters among universities so
students can have clear and consistent information about the cost of
their education. Students and their families and high school counselors
need to have uniform financial aid letters so they can make real
comparisons about all the costs before deciding where the student
should go to college. That is what my bill makes possible.
I also stand ready to work with my colleagues to protect the Pell
Grant Program and to support other programs that make college more
affordable for students, such as the TRIO and Work-Study Programs.
We have a lot to do and a long way to go to make college more
affordable for our students. Doing that will help more Americans find
jobs to support their families, help more employers find qualified
workers for their businesses, and help our economy prosper. This is one
of the most critical issues we face as a Congress. Addressing the
student loan interest rate is a solid first step we can take toward
tackling this issue.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
Mr. GRASSLEY. In the last 3 weeks, I have pointed out several flaws
in the immigration bill. Within a couple of days, we will have a bill
through the Senate. I think I owe to my colleagues and to my
constituents, since I have been pointing out flaws, what it would take
for me to vote for an immigration bill because I am just like most
everybody and maybe everybody in the Senate who will tell you that the
status quo is not legitimate to maintain and that we have to reform the
system.
So there are, I would like to say, 100 Senators who believe the
immigration system needs to be fixed. I can guarantee that there are
also 100 different ways to fix it. Nobody has a perfect solution, but I
bring an experience to the table that very few others have.
My deep-rooted concern with this bill stems from my strong belief
that we made a mistake in 1986. We allowed legalization and ignored the
laws on the books. Another major shortcoming was that we allowed
legalization without creating adequate avenues for people to enter,
live, and work in this country legally. In other words, if we had a
system that works, where we had a shortage of workers, if they could
legally come to the country, we would not have the problems we have
today. We did not do that in 1986.
These were crucial flaws that have led us to the debate we have been
having the last 3 weeks, and I am not willing to pass that mistake on
to future Congresses.
What will it take for somebody such as I, a Senator who voted for
amnesty in 1986 and wasn't a part of the Group of 8 or Group of 10, to
vote for immigration reform this year? This is what I need to see in an
immigration bill in order to support it and send it to the President.
When I mentioned four different points, it doesn't mean that takes
care of everything, but if these things were taken care of, regardless
of the other things, I would feel I would have to support it. They are:
No. 1, legalization after border security; No. 2, meaningful interior
enforcement, including allowing ICE to do its job and work with State
and local people; No. 3, strengthening, not weakening, current law with
regard to criminals; and, No. 4, protecting American workers while
enhancing legal avenues.
I will explain them at this point, starting with legalization after
border security. Most Americans contend that a legalization program is
a compassionate way to help those who are unlawfully in the country.
However, those compassionate people who support such a program of
legalization do so only on the promise that the government will secure
the border and stop the flow of illegal immigration.
We are a nation based upon the rule of law. We have a right to
protect our sovereignty, and, of course, a duty to protect our
homeland. Any border security measures we pass must be real and
immediate. We can't wait 10 years to put more agents on the border or
to implement a tracking system to track foreign nationals. We have to
prove to
[[Page S5221]]
the American people that illegal entries are under complete control and
that visa overstays are to be punished.
Unfortunately, too many people have been led to believe this bill
before us will force the Secretary of Homeland Security to secure the
border. It doesn't.
A fundamental component of any legislation is border security first
and foremost, not legalization now and enforcement later, if ever.
There has to be pressure on the executive branch to get the job done.
We must tie legalization to results. Only then will advocates and a
future administration truly try to secure the border.
Secondly, meaningful interior enforcement, including ICE being
allowed to do its job and work with State and locals. Enforcement of
the immigration laws has been lax and increasingly selective in the
last few years. As a result, States have been forced to deal with the
criminal activity that surrounds the flow of people here who are
undocumented.
They have stepped up efforts to control the effects of illegal
immigration in some States, and the States should be able to protect
their people and stem the lawlessness within their border. Yet time and
again this administration has denied States the opportunity and tried
to stop them from enforcing immigration laws.
Federal immigration enforcement officers have also been handicapped
from doing their job. The bill would practically render these officers
useless since they are required to verify a person's eligibility for
legalization before apprehending and detaining. They need to be
provided the resources to fulfill their mission and not be told by
Washington to sit idly by.
The unfortunate reality is that the bill does almost nothing to
strengthen and enhance our interior enforcement efforts. The bill does
nothing to encourage Federal, State, and local law enforcement efforts
to apprehend and detain individuals who pose a risk to our community.
The Federal Government will continue to look the other way as millions
of new people enter the country undocumented.
Meanwhile, the bill gives the States no new authority to act when the
Federal Government refuses. I will be the first to say that border
security is a must, but people who enter illegally and overstay their
visas and are residing in the interior of the country, this cannot be
ignored. This is something that if it is fixed, I would feel very
comfortable voting for an immigration bill.
Strengthening, not weakening, current law with regard to criminals.
It is not going to go over well back home if we say one can have
criminal activity, even be deported from the country, and make
application again to have the benefits of this legislation.
One of the major reasons why immigration is a subject of such
significant public interest is the failure of the Federal Government to
enforce existing laws. Eleven million people have unlawfully entered
the country or overstayed their visas because the Federal Government
did not deter them or take action to remove them.
This bill before us significantly weakens current criminal law and
will hinder the ability of law enforcement to protect Americans from
criminal undocumented aliens.
The bill weakens current law regarding passport fraud, only charging
those who make or distribute illegal passports three or more times. It
allows a person to knowingly purchase materials for making illegal
passports but only charge the person with a crime if 10 or more
passports are made.
It also weakens current law for those who illegally enter the
country, changing existing laws by removing the crime of illegally
attempting to enter the United States. This essentially incentivizes
foreign citizens to attempt to illegally enter the country as many
times as they wish.
Further, once they successfully enter the United States illegally,
the alien would only be subject to criminal punishment if they are
removed from the country three or more times. Why isn't once enough?
Taken together, the bill weakens current law and will make it easier
for undocumented aliens to enter the country illegally by not
criminalizing their attempts to enter, nor their actual illegal entry,
unless they had been previously removed three or more times. This is a
drastic change that will encourage future entries by undocumented
people.
Given the serious nature of criminal street gangs, we need to pass an
immigration bill that prevents entry into the country if one is a gang
member. More important, we need to ensure that gang members are not
being rewarded with legal status. Regrettably, the bill is weak on
foreign national criminal street gang members in several regards. In
addition to weakening current law, the bill does very little to deter
criminal behavior in the future. The bill ignores sanctuary cities,
allowing criminals to seek safe harbor in jurisdictions where they have
policies aimed to protect people in the country illegally.
It increases the threshold required for actions to constitute a
crime. It punishes persons only if they have already been convicted of
three or more misdemeanors on different days, and it only punishes
undocumented aliens who are removed from the country three or more
times.
I am committed to making sure any bill that is sent to the President
makes a more serious effort to penalize those who attempt to enter or
reenter the United States. It needs to be tough on lawbreakers and send
a signal that fraud and abuse, including identity theft, will not be
tolerated. It needs to ensure that gang members are not granted
legalization but rather made deportable and inadmissible.
We need to protect victims of crime and ensure that child abusers and
domestic violence perpetrators do not receive benefits under the
immigration law. Finally, we need to ensure that dangerous,
undocumented criminals are not released in our country but are detained
until they are properly returned to their home country.
Fourth and last, we need to protect American workers while enhancing
legal avenues.
While I support allowing businesses to bring in foreign workers, they
should only do so when qualified Americans are not available. There
have been too many stories about U.S. workers who have had to train
their replacements who come in through the H-1B visa program. Foreign
nationals are being hired but then working in locations not specified
in their application. Other work visa programs are not free of
controversy.
I agree with the creation of a temporary worker program, such as the
W visa program created in this bill. I have long argued we must enhance
and expand opportunities for people who wish to work legally in this
country. Yet as we do that, we cannot forget the American worker. We
need to fight for them and ensure that they are not disadvantaged,
displaced, and underpaid because of our generation laws.
The bill before the Senate makes that move in the right direction by
increasing worker protection for Americans and by providing more
authority to the executive branch to investigate fraud in the H-1B visa
program. Unfortunately, the bill is slanted to ensure that only certain
employers undergo more scrutiny. All employers who bring in visa
holders should be held to the same standard. All employers, not just
some, should be required to make a good-faith effort to recruit U.S.
workers. All employers, not just some, should be required to attest
that they did not or will not displace a U.S. worker within 180 days of
applying for an H-1B worker. All employers, not just some, should be
required to offer the job to a U.S. worker who is equally or better
qualified.
Our employment-based immigration program, including the H-1B program,
has served and could again serve a valuable purpose if used properly.
However, they are being misused and abused. They are failing the
American worker and not fulfilling the original purpose that Congress
intended when it was created.
Reforms are needed to put integrity back into the program and to
ensure that American workers and students are given every chance to
fill vacant jobs in this country.
Again, how I vote on the final bill coming out of conference with the
House is undecided. I want to be able to support something that will
make Americans proud, that will not make the same mistakes we did in
1986, and
[[Page S5222]]
will stand the test of time so future generations can benefit. I need
to see at least these four key changes before I can cast a vote in
support.
I have said to Iowans and to my colleagues that the bill before the
Senate is precooked, but I have faith that a better bill is achievable,
a bill that can gain more votes, including mine. This body, the Senate,
is described as the most deliberative parliamentary body in the world--
and I believe it is--but when we had 451 amendments offered to this
bill, we were promised free and open debate. We have only dealt with
about a dozen of them, and we can't say we had a fair and open debate
as we were promised.
It surely did not meet the standard that was set by Chairman Leahy
when he promised in committee a free and open debate. There was free
and open debate and no limit on amendments. We stuck with it until we
got done.
We could have just as well stuck with this bill until we got it done
and we could have had votes on more amendments.
Now we are going to pass a bill that is not the best for the country
and doesn't accomplish even what the authors of the legislation hoped
to accomplish, particularly when they say secure the border first and
then legalize. We have to rely upon a body that is not considered a
deliberative body, the House of Representatives, to correct these
mistakes that are made in this bill. I think they will, I hope they
will, and then I hope I can vote for the product that will go to the
President of the United States.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for
10 or 12 minutes as in morning business and then have the Senator from
Massachusetts, Ms. Warren, be recognized at the conclusion of my
remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(The remarks of Mr. Whitehouse and Ms. Warren pertaining to the
introduction of S. 1229 are located in Today's Record under
``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Heinrich). The Senator from Alabama.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, we just saw on the news today that the
GDP for the first quarter, according to the Wall Street Journal, was
revised downward dramatically from previous estimates. I am not saying
there is anything wrong with their accounting, but they go back and
doublecheck their numbers and add other analyses and they come up with
what the growth of the economy was in the first quarter. The previously
announced growth level was 2.4 percent for the first quarter, which is
low. Coming out of a recession, we need to be doing better than that.
But now that it was revised downward, they found there was only 1.8
percent growth in the first quarter. That is a very dangerous trend,
and the article said it is evidence of a slowing growth in America.
The fourth quarter of last year GDP growth was only .4 percent. If
continued throughout the year, that is a very troubling number. The
data shows for the last 15 quarters, almost 4 years, we have averaged
only about 2 percent growth in our economy--growth in GDP.
I would say to my colleagues, as we vote to bring in more and more
workers at a time when jobs are not being created in any significant
number, we need to be aware that this can cause severe consequences.
The Atlanta Federal Reserve Economic Study, done several years ago,
found the immigration flow today in the Atlanta area of the Federal
Reserve had reduced the wages of American workers in that region by as
much as $1,500 a year. That is $120 per month less money for an average
family to take care of themselves.
Unemployment and declining wages are a big reason that people are
getting in trouble on their credit cards. Professor Borhaas and others
have done studies on this.
Another study found a $960 decline in people's annual wages, which is
about $80 a month. Eighty dollars a month may not sound like a lot for
a Senator, but it sounds like a lot for a working American--maybe equal
to their gas bill, or part of it.
I would say that as we consider our votes on the immigration bill,
let's consider that this economy is not growing and is not creating
large job growth. We have projections that we are not going to do so
for the next decade. And I am not talking about people who will be
legalized that are here, but we ought not overload the economy with a
new flow that is much larger than the current flow of immigration
legally.
I see my colleagues are here, and I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as if in
morning business to offer a unanimous consent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Unanimous Consent Request--H. Con. Res. 25
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, it has now been 95 days since the Senate
passed a budget, and I have come to the floor myself now 6 times to ask
unanimous consent to move to conference. My Democratic colleagues have
asked unanimous consent to move to conference another eight times.
After every request, a Senate Republican has stood up and said no--no
to the opportunity to work on a bipartisan budget deal.
I want to say to the Republicans who are blocking a bipartisan budget
conference: Enough is enough. We have heard so many excuses--refusing
to allow conference before we get to a so-called preconference
framework; putting preconditions on what can be discussed in a
bipartisan conference; claiming that moving to a budget conference--
which leading Republicans did call for just a few months ago--was
somehow not regular order; to, most recently, claiming we need to look
at a 30-year budget window before looking at the major problems we have
right now in front of us--which, I add, is unacceptable, because the
American people rightly expect us to work on both at the same time.
Hearing these changing excuses week after week has been frustrating
not just for Democrats but for many of my Republican colleagues as
well.
A large group of us--Republicans and Democrats--think that although
we do have major differences between the parties' values and
priorities, we should at least come to the table and try to work out a
bipartisan deal. That is what American people do every day. And when
there is a disagreement, they can't afford to play a game of chicken
and hope the other person gives in, because when that happens,
important work cannot get done. Kids don't get picked up from school,
bills don't get paid, small businesses miss a major opportunity for
expansion. Every day regular Americans avoid those kinds of situations,
and we here in the Senate should at least try to do the same.
There are extremely important things that are not getting done in the
Senate right now because some Republicans want to embrace the harmful
top-line spending level in sequestration which has a major gap between
the House and Senate appropriations levels for the next fiscal year. We
don't have much time left to resolve that gap. After we come back from
next week's State work period, we will have 1 month to try to come to
an agreement or else we are going to find ourselves in a very tough
situation in September. We could, once again, be working against the
clock to avoid a harmful crisis. The last thing the American people--
who come together and resolve differences every day--want to see is
another round of manufactured crises coming out of Washington, DC, and
they do not have to. We still have time.
I know there are leaders on both sides of the aisle who would
strongly prefer to solve problems rather than to get into yet another
political fight that creates uncertainty for our families, our
businesses, our country, and our economy. I am confident that if those
of us who prefer commonsense bipartisanship over artificial crisis work
together, we can reach a fair agreement and show the American people
our government does work.
I urge Senate Republican leaders to drop the tea party-backed
strategy of delaying until the next crisis, and allow the Senate to
join the House in a formal bipartisan budget negotiation.
Therefore, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to
consideration of Calendar No. 33, H. Con. Res.
[[Page S5223]]
25; that the amendment which is at the desk, the text of S. Con. Res.
8, the budget resolution passed by the Senate, be inserted in lieu
thereof; that H. Con. Res. 25, as amended, be agreed to; the motion to
reconsider be made and laid upon the table; that the Senate insist on
its amendment, request a conference with the House on the disagreeing
votes of the two Houses, and the Chair be authorized to appoint
conferees on the part of the Senate; that following the authorization,
two motions to instruct conferees will be in order from each side--
motion to instruct relative to the debt limit, and motion to instruct
relative to taxes and revenue; that there be 2 hours of debate equally
divided between the two leaders or their designees prior to votes in
relation to the motions; and further, that no amendments be in order to
either of the motions prior to the votes; all of the above occurring
with no intervening action or debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the request?
Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
Mr. CRUZ. The issue before this body is not complicated. There are a
lot of procedural ambiguities that make it difficult to penetrate, and
yet it is one very simple issue. The issue before this body is whether
the Senate can raise the debt limit of the United States with simply
using a 50-vote threshold or whether it should go through the regular
order before raising any debt limit, subject to a 60-vote threshold.
What is the difference? The difference is simple: If the debt limit
can be raised using 50 votes, then the majority party--the Democrats--
do not need to speak to the Republicans, do not need to sit down at the
table and work with the Republicans, do not need to listen to any
opposing views.
Indeed, the President of the United States has been very candid. He
has been unequivocal. President Obama has said he believes we should
raise the debt limit, with no preconditions, with no negotiations, with
no changes whatsoever.
If you think it is OK that in 4\1/2\ years our Nation's debt has gone
from $10 trillion to nearly $17 trillion, if you think it is OK that
our Nation's debt is now larger than the size of the entire economy, if
you think it is OK that our children and grandchildren are being be
bankrupted--in 4\1/2\ years the national debt has grown over 60
percent--and if you think it is OK that the Senate Democrats want to
continue borrowing trillions more while doing nothing--nada--zilch--to
address the spending problems, to rein in out-of-control spending, then
you should welcome this motion.
Over and over again the majority has asked to go to conference on the
budget. Why? Because going to conference on the budget allows a
procedural back door to enable them to raise the debt ceiling using
only 50 votes.
How do we know that is what this is about? We know that is what this
is about because my friend the Senator from Washington could go to
conference on the budget right now. This instant we could go to
conference on the budget--right now--except, when I ask--as I am going
to in a moment--for unanimous consent not to use it as a procedural
back door to raise the debt ceiling, my friend the Senator from
Washington is going to object. And I know this because we have done
this kabuki dance more than once and we continue doing it back and
forth. But it makes clear that is what this fight is all about.
Of course the Senate budget didn't address the debt ceiling; the
House budget didn't address the debt ceiling; we didn't have a debate
on the floor of this Senate about the debt ceiling; we didn't have a
vote on the floor of the Senate about the debt ceiling; and yet the
reason the majority is so adamant that they want to go to conference is
because it presents them with an avenue to use 50 votes--the votes of
only the Democrats in this body--to raise the debt ceiling to dig us
further in debt and to do nothing--nothing--to fix the problem.
I would suggest that is irresponsible. That is not what Americans
want. That is not what Democrats, Republicans, or Independents outside
of the Washington beltway want.
We fundamentally know it is wrong to stick our kids and grandkids
with $17 trillion in debt. It is even more wrong to keep on doing it
and making it worse and worse and not rolling up our sleeves to fix it.
One of the great frustrations of this body is that for some time now
the American people have been unequivocal: Their top priority is jobs
and the economy, and is turning around what is going on. Yet this body
doesn't talk about that. It doesn't talk about generating jobs, getting
the economy growing, and stopping our out-of-control debt. Instead, we
debate every other priority under the Sun--whether it is restricting
Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms or whether it is a
national energy tax through the President's climate change proposal.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I am not sure whether there has been an
objection.
Mr. CRUZ. Reserving the right to object, I ask unanimous consent that
the Senator modify her request so that it not be in order for the
Senate to consider a conference report that includes reconciliation
instructions to raise the debt limit.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I would object. What the Senator is
asking for is a precondition on a conference committee without the
consideration of this whole Senate.
What I have offered to him and to this body in my unanimous consent
request is a vote on the motion to instruct conferees, which is what
occurs in the Senate if we want to put any precondition onto a budget.
I reject his unanimous consent, and I ask again my unanimous consent
request.
Mr. CRUZ. Would the Senator yield for a question?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Washington object to the
request as modified?
Mrs. MURRAY. The Senator from Washington objects to the request as
modified, and again reasks my original unanimous consent request.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. CRUZ. Reserving the right to object, I would note the comment
from my friend from Washington suggesting a motion to instruct the
conferees. What she of course knows is that is a typical Washington
maneuver, because the motion to instruct is nonbinding and it is
subject to 50 votes. So if we had a motion to instruct the conferees
not to raise the debt ceiling, every Democrat in this body would vote
against it. It would be defeated. And even if it were passed, it would
be nonbinding on the conferees.
No one should be confused. What the Democrats want is to raise the
debt ceiling. And they want to do it using 50 votes, ignoring the views
of the minority, and doing nothing to fix the problem.
Accordingly, I object.
Mrs. MURRAY. I make my unanimous consent request.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the original request?
Objection is heard.
The Senator from Colorado.
Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I was here to talk about immigration, and
that is what I will talk about. But I have been caught in a crossfire
on this subject, and I want to say my view is this is exactly what
people hate about Washington, DC. It is exactly why we have a 10-
percent approval rating.
For 4 years I went to townhall meetings and was asked over and over
and over: Why don't the Democrats in the Senate pass a budget? Which I
think is a very legitimate question. We got a new Chair of the Budget
Committee and we passed a budget after 4 years, and now we are told we
can't go to conference to have a discussion with House Republicans
about what our budget ought to look like.
I actually disagree with the Senator from Texas, I have to say
respectfully, on the merits of this issue; that is to say, on the debt
ceiling itself. This is the reason I think folks in Colorado can't
stand this place. There is not a mayor in my State, whether they are a
Republican or a Democrat or a tea party mayor, not one--not one who
would threaten the credit rating of their community for politics. Not
one. We would run them out on a rail, because that is not the way you
do business. The credit rating of a community is the most important
thing it has. The
[[Page S5224]]
full faith and credit of the United States of America--which until the
last debt ceiling discussion had never been questioned--was questioned
for the first time in our history; not because of the size of our
debt--which, by the way, I have spent 4 years trying to work on because
I believe it is a very severe problem we face, and I look forward to
working with the Senator from Texas on this issue--but because of the
political dysfunction in DC. That is why we got this downgrade.
The Senator from Alabama, who has left the floor, was talking about
the restatement of our GDP numbers in the first quarter. I worry a lot
about that. The people I represent are not concerned with the
procedural stuff that goes on here. What they are worried about is an
economy they are living in day after day after day where, even in
periods of economic growth, median family income is falling, middle-
class families are falling behind. They are worried about an economy
where they are earning less at the end of the decade than they were at
the beginning, but their cost of higher education continues to
escalate, their cost of health care continues to escalate. As
individuals, as families, and as members of a generation, they are
worried we are going to be the first generation of Coloradans and
Americans to leave less opportunity and not more to the people who are
coming after us.
Mr. CRUZ. Would the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. BENNET. I wish to finish my statement, and then I will gladly
yield for a question.
I was glad to hear the Senator from Alabama. He and I disagree on the
immigration bill, but we certainly agree on the issue of the concern
all of us have about this economy--or most of us have about this
economy. It is one of the reasons we should pass this immigration bill.
The Congressional Budget Office tells us we would see 3 additional
points of GDP increase in the first 10 years, 5 over the two 10-year
windows, if we pass the bill.
To the point about American jobs, I was very glad to hear him say he
was not talking about the 11 million people who are here because most
of the 11 million people who are here are working. But they are working
in a shadow economy, a cash economy, under circumstances where they can
be exploited. We have allowed that to happen because of the broken
immigration system we have. If all you cared about--and I deeply care
about it--was raising wages for the American worker, you would want to
bring those 11 million people out of that shadow economy. You would
want them paid in something other than cash, and you would want them,
for heaven's sake, paying taxes at a time when we have the kinds of
deficit problems the Senator from Texas is describing.
The Senator also talked about the future flow of immigrants. I should
say I was part of the bipartisan group. This is not a partisan bill,
this immigration bill. There were eight of us. Four Republicans and
four Democrats worked together on this bill, and one of the things we
thought hard about was the future flow of immigrants to this country
because generation after generation of Americans, since the founding of
our country, has relied on new immigrants to bring their ideas, to
bring their talents, to bring their energies to our shores to build
their businesses here.
Today what we are saying to people--even people who get college
degrees in the United States, degrees that we subsidize, that we pay
for--even to those people, we are saying: Don't stay here. Even if you
want to stay here, please go home to China and start your business
there. Go home to India and compete with us there. Hire people there
instead of creating jobs here in the United States.
We are a nation of immigrants. We subscribe to the rule of law. This
bill is a ratification of those two American ideals--ideals that you
can almost not find in any other country in the world.
That is why I am so glad that for once this body is actually acting
in a bipartisan way to deal with not an easy problem but a tough
problem. I will tell you the kids who are visiting today from 4-H all
across the country and from my State of Colorado actually are expecting
us to do these hard things, as our parents and grandparents did before
them, so we don't leave them in the lurch.
That is what is at stake. That is why I wish we could find a way past
this budget impasse as well so we actually could start to have a
responsible conversation about what we are going to do on the
entitlement side and on the revenue side, so we do not continue to hack
away at domestic discretionary spending in ways that could lead us,
with some of the House proposals, to invest only 4 percent of the
revenue we collect in the future--4 percent in transportation and
agriculture and education. There is not a business in this country that
would last a year if it invested 4 percent of its cash flow in the
future of that business.
At some point we have to move beyond where we have been here and
actually get into a serious discussion about how we are going to manage
this debt down over the next decade or two in ways that do not prevent
us from growing our economy and in ways that do not subject our
children to unpaid bills. It would be as if I went to the mortgage
lender on my house and I said: I would like to buy a house, and I am
going to take out a mortgage, and then I am going to give it to my kids
to carry for me instead of paying for it myself. That is the position
we are in today. The only way we are going to solve that is if
Democrats and Republicans can sit down together and actually move past
the talking points.
With that, I will yield for a question.
Mr. CRUZ. If I may ask my friend two questions on the two topics he
addressed, the first being the debt ceiling, the second being
immigration. On the debt ceiling, the question I will ask is, Does my
friend from Colorado believe Congress should continue raising the debt
ceiling in perpetuity, with no changes and no preconditions, and should
the Senate be able to do so with just 50 votes?
Mr. BENNET. Here is how I answer that. I appreciate the question.
Through the Chair to the Senator from Texas, it is clear that this is
not going to get us anywhere, this procedural fight the two of you are
having every couple of weeks. I think that is clear. I think it is
clear that the debt ceiling is something that has been raised time and
time again by Republicans and by Democratic Presidents over the years.
I think it is also clear that we have to deal with our debt and our
deficit. I believe that. But for myself, I don't feel like I would come
to the floor and say that I am only going to allow this bill to go to
conference with the Republicans in the House if all the money comes to
Colorado--or some other stipulation I would want that 99 other Senators
would not agree with.
The second thing is that I think it is important for people to
understand that this issue--again, I am not in any way trivializing the
issues around our deficit and our debt. I want the Senator from Texas--
I hope he understands that. I hope he knows that about me. But I worry
about the debt ceiling as a tool for accomplishing this, first for the
reasons that have to do with our credit rating but also because there
is a view among some that the debt ceiling is about bills we are going
to incur as opposed to the ones we already have incurred.
In other words, it would be one thing if somebody said: I am spending
too much money and I am going to cut up my credit card, and that is
what they would do, but that is not what the debt ceiling is about.
What the debt ceiling is about is somebody saying: You know what, I
want the best cable package I can find, I want the best satellite
package I can find, and when the bill comes to pay for it, I am just
going to chop it up into little pieces and not pay it. That is what I
don't like about this approach.
But everybody is entitled to their own approach on this question. I
just wish we could move forward here instead of continuing to earn the
10-percent approval rating Congress has. That is all I am asking for.
Mr. CRUZ. Will the Senator yield for an additional question at that
point?
Mr. BENNET. Sure.
Mr. CRUZ. I like and agree with his analogy about cutting up a credit
card. Indeed, if my friend from Colorado supports anything resembling
Congress cutting up the credit card, that will truly be a dramatic
position, a position on which he and I could find common cause.
Mr. BENNET. May I.
Mr. CRUZ. If I can ask the question. I ask, the natural results of
what my
[[Page S5225]]
friend from Colorado just said are that I assume, then, that he would
readily support Pat Toomey's Default Prevention Act? What Pat Toomey's
Default Prevention Act does is it ensures what the Senator said--money
that we borrowed we will keep paying. It says that in the event the
credit limit is not raised, the United States will always, always,
always pay its debt. We will never, ever, ever default on the debt, and
we will take that completely off the table. Then the debt limit fight
would only be about, as my friend from Colorado put it, cutting up the
credit card for future spending.
Would my friend from Colorado support the Default Prevention Act of
Pat Toomey, making it impossible--taking default off the table
permanently?
Mr. BENNET. I say through the Chair to my friend from Texas, I have
not read the bill, but I will read the bill. I commit to him that I
will do that.
I appreciate the implication of this, which is that the Senator is
not objecting to my metaphor about the cable bill being cut up, because
I do think that is a real problem.
We are not saying to people--we should not be saying to people that
we are going to behave in an irresponsible way. As somebody who used to
spend his time restructuring companies that were really well run,
really well operated but had horrible balance sheets, I would have to
think hard about the treatment that creditors would provide to, in this
case, the U.S. Government when I look at that. I will look at that.
I say to the Senator from Texas that there are other things we might
even be able to agree on too around here. For a long time I have
thought it would be important for us to put health care on a budget in
this country. We are not on a budget. During the health care debate I
had an amendment called the fail-safe amendment that would say to the
American people and to the Congress: This is what we have to spend on
health care. That is all there is. There is not any more. We have to
manage toward that. If we failed, if we tripped over it, we would
actually have to make cuts, make changes to our system of health care.
We spend twice as much as any other industrialized country in the
world, and it is crowding out a lot of other things that the 4-H kids
and others whom I worry about care about.
So I think there is much we can work on, but I just don't think we
are going to get to it through this kind of discussion. We might get to
it through this kind of discussion.
In any event, I will commit to the Senator from Texas that I am going
to sit down and stop talking about what he said.
Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, there is no one else on the floor. I
thought I would take the opportunity to talk again a little bit about
our immigration bill. This has been such a gratifying process to me
because it has been bipartisan from the start. In fact, I have been
telling people that it is not even that it has been bipartisan, it has
been nonpartisan. The work on the Gang of 8, which led to work in the
Judiciary Committee, which led to work on the floor is the way this
place ought to operate on a whole host of issues, from energy--the
Presiding Officer cares a lot about that--to infrastructure, to the
budget issues I was just talking about with the Senator from Texas.
It is important for people to know that this is a bipartisan bill
because I think people are fed up with the partisanship in this town,
and they do not believe it reflects the way they live their lives.
There is a reason for that. It does not. This place is decoupled from
the lives of ordinary American people, and this is an effort--among
others, hopefully--to recouple those priorities.
I have been interested in the objections to the immigration bill
since the beginning. First there was the objection that it was actually
going to drive up our deficit. Not surprisingly, we learned from the
Congressional Budget Office that this bill actually would create the
most significant deficit reduction of any piece of legislation we
considered here, certainly that we passed here--$197 billion in the
first 10 years, $700 billion in the second 10 years. Even in
Washington, $1 trillion is still a lot of money. That is what we heard,
both because people now not paying taxes would be paying taxes and also
because of the economic growth that would be generated if we could
restore the rule of law to our immigration system and to this economy.
That was an objection. That objection was answered--not by me but by
the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
The second objection was that the legislation was not going to get a
fair airing, that it was going to be rushed through in the dead of
night. I don't like doing work that way.
There were eight ``no'' votes on the fiscal cliff deal at the end of
the year, and I was one of those ``no'' votes, one of three Democrats
who voted no not largely but partly because it had not had any process
and it was in the middle of the night. This bill, by contrast, had 7
months of negotiations among four Democrats and four Republicans. It
had 3 weeks to go through the Judiciary Committee, a markup that had
160-some amendments, many of which were accepted. Forty-one Republican
amendments were accepted to this bill. It came to the floor for the
debate we have had over the last few weeks.
I realize the amendment process is jammed up, and I am sorry about
that because I think people ought to be able--including the Presiding
Officer--to offer the wise amendments they have and the not-so-wise
amendments they have, at least in my opinion. But there certainly has
been an open process for this bill. Sometimes I have heard people say,
well, it is just like health care all over again. I was here during the
health care bill, and I can say this process looks nothing like that
process.
There is a third objection from some who say there is no border
security in this bill. First of all, that wasn't even true of the Gang
of 8 bill. We had substantial border security, and as my lead, I was
taking what John McCain and Jeff Flake--both Senators from Arizona--
said was important. They are two Senators who have a border State, and
they have been working hard to resolve these issues in our group. We
made a substantial investment in that bill for border security and
technology. Even fencing was included in that bill.
I think it is a reasonable expectation--not of Republicans but of the
American people--that our border should be secure. Certainly the people
in Colorado believe our border should be secure. So when Senators came
and said: We would like to vote for this bill, but we would like to do
more on border security, not only was I open to that, I supported that.
The bill before us has incredibly substantial border security. There
are 700 more miles of fencing. We doubled the number of Border Patrol
agents on the border.
One of the Senators said to me that we are at a point now where there
is a Border Patrol agent every 1,000 feet on the southern border. One
might ask whether that is a wise use of resources, but it was important
for some people to have that before they would sign on to this bill. So
I don't think any reasonable person looking at this could say border
security has not been addressed.
So what are the objections to moving forward? We have heard people
say: Well, it is the path to citizenship or we don't like that part of
the bill. That was a core principle for the four Democrats and four
Republicans who started this negotiation, and it has been a core
principle for a lot of people who voted for this bill. A very important
reason to pass this legislation is to resolve the situation for the 11
million people who are here illegally. The pathway to citizenship is
the right way to do it.
This is not amnesty. This has to be earned. People have to pay a
fine. People have to learn English for the first time in our history.
People have to pay their taxes. It takes 10 years to get a green card,
then 3 years after that. They have to pass background checks all along
the way so we know who the people are we want to stay in this country
and who the people are we want to leave this country.
I see the Senator from Louisiana is here, so I will wrap up. To my
friends
[[Page S5226]]
who think some lawful status that doesn't include a pathway to
citizenship is useful to this country, I ask them to look at countries
all around the world that have created a subclass of people--not even
citizens, just a subclass of people--who have no attachment to their
culture, no feeling they are ever going to participate in their civic
or political institutions or meaningfully in their economy, no chance
to believe their children or the children after them are actually going
to make those contributions as well, and ask: Does that look like the
United States of America to you?
That is not what the Founders had in mind. We hear a lot of cheap
talk about the Founders around here these days. That is not what the
Founders had in mind when they wrote into the Constitution that it was
our responsibility as a body to deal with immigration.
So I hope people will consider that objection, take a look at the
Senate bill, and will, hopefully, support it.
With that, I know the Senator from Louisiana was scheduled to speak,
so I will yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I am here to speak about an amendment I
have filed on this immigration bill that I have been working hard to
get a vote on. It is certainly not the only amendment I filed, but it
is a top priority. My amendment is the violence against women and
children amendment, amendment No. 1330.
We have heard a lot of promises and a lot of rhetoric on this issue
from many people, including the Gang of 8. What I have found
distressing, as I have actually gotten to read the bill--and let's
always remember one of the great lessons of ObamaCare was to read the
bill before we vote--is that the details and exact language does not
match a lot of the rhetoric.
One of the earliest and most important promises by the Gang of 8 was
that in this amnesty process folks who were guilty of serious crimes
would not be eligible for citizenship; in fact, they would be deported.
That is why the bipartisan framework for comprehensive immigration
reform that the Gang of 8 released in January of this year said:
Individuals with a serious criminal background or others
who pose a threat to our national security will be ineligible
for legal status and subject to deportation. Illegal
immigrants who have committed serious crimes face immediate
deportation.
We can all agree with that. The problem is the details in the text of
the bill do not agree with that because it does not include several
serious offenses, particularly against women and children.
My amendment is simple. It is to beef up and strengthen this part of
the bill by including the Violence Against Women Act offenses as
crimes, which would disqualify someone from being granted amnesty and
would trigger immediate deportation. These include serious, violent
crimes such as sexual assault, stalking, domestic violence, sex
trafficking, dating violence, child abuse and neglect, as well as elder
abuse. It is specifically Violence Against Women Act offenses. These
are serious, violent crimes against some of the most vulnerable people
in our society. In my opinion those offenses should clearly be
disqualifiers. So that is what the amendment would do.
Now, VAWA, which we debated and voted on a few months ago, has
widespread bipartisan support. More than 200 national organizations and
more than 500 State and local organizations expressed support for that
bill. A great majority of Senators voted for it. I voted for it. So we
should certainly follow up on that rhetoric and that vote by making
sure these serious offenses in the Violence Against Women Act are
disqualifiers to amnesty in the immigration bill.
This is not my only amendment, and not getting a vote for this
amendment so far is a frustration. It is a frustration for a lot of us
with regard to a lot of amendments. This immigration debate is
enormously important. This bill is enormously long. It is well over
1,000 pages. So far we have had 10 rollcall votes on amendments--10,
period. That is one amendment per--I don't know--120, 130 pages. That
is ludicrous, and that is not the full, robust amendment process we
were promised for months and months by both the majority leader and the
Gang of 8.
I hope I can get a vote on this amendment, and I also want and expect
a vote on the other amendments I filed. I have many amendments, but I
have narrowed that list down.
So, with that, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my
Violence Against Women and Children amendment No. 1330 be made pending
and eligible for a vote.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
The Senator from Colorado.
Mr. BENNET. I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
Mr. VITTER. In closing, I find that very disheartening. This is a big
subject. I agree with the proponents of the bill when they say this is
a big problem that needs fixing. It has been on the Senate floor for 3
weeks. The bill is well over 1,000 pages long, and we need more
opportunity for serious debate and amendments than we have gotten.
As soon as a path to passage was identified late last week--as soon
as that happened, the amendment process was basically shut down. It
continues to be shut down today. The important amendment I have brought
to the floor that has been denied a vote is an example of that. I find
it very regrettable.
I yield the floor.
Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
College Education Cost
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, we have a major crisis in our country
today in terms of the high cost of a college education, and in addition
to that the incredible debt burden college students and their families
are facing. This is a major problem in Vermont, and it is a major
problem for every State in our country.
The job of the Senate is to understand that crisis, improve the
situation, lessen the burden on students and their families, and not to
make the situation worse than it is today. At a time when we need the
best educated workforce in the world, hundreds of thousands of bright,
young Americans who are qualified to pursue a higher education--who
want to pursue a higher education--do not go to college, and they do
not go to college for one very simple reason: They cannot afford to go
to college.
According to a Pew study of 18- to 34-year-olds who have not
completed college, 48 percent say they cannot afford to do so. Higher
education for middle-class families and working-class families is
simply too expensive, and this is an issue we must address.
What does it say about our country when hundreds and hundreds of
thousands of young people who want to contribute and do more with their
lives cannot get the education they need? In many cases it deprives
them from making it into the middle class, and it denies this Nation
the intellectual capabilities they have.
Further, millions of young people who graduate college are saddled
with an incredible debt burden which radically impacts their lives. In
America today, the average debt for a college graduate is over $27,000
in my State of Vermont. It is about $28,000. That is the average. That
means there are many young people who have more debt. For those who go
to graduate school or medical school or dental school, the debt can be
many times higher. Last year I talked to two young dentists in the
State of Vermont. They are in debt to the tune of over $200,000 for the
crime of having gone to dental school.
This horrendous debt burden impacts the lives of young people in many
ways. It can determine--and this is a hugely important issue--the
profession they choose to enter. How can a person become a teacher, a
childcare worker, a legal aid attorney or even a primary care physician
if the salary a person earns will not enable them to pay off their debt
and take care of the obligations they face? In other words, this debt
is forcing many young people into professions which are not necessarily
their love. It is not what they wanted to do; it is what they have to
do in order to earn money to pay off their
[[Page S5227]]
debts. This crushing debt burden determines where many young people
will live and whether they can even afford to buy a home. How does a
person go out and buy a home if they are spending 20 or 25 percent of
their income paying off their student debt? This debt burden on our
young people even determines, in some cases, whether they get married
and have kids.
The higher education debt burden the American people are now carrying
at $1.1 trillion is now higher than our credit card debt and is having
a significant impact upon our economy. In fact, the Federal Reserve and
the Department of Treasury have both issued warnings that high levels
of student loan debt could drive down consumer demand and have a
negative impact on economic growth. In other words, if a person is
spending all their money paying off debt, they are not buying goods or
services. So this high level of student loan debt is having a negative
impact on our overall economy.
According to a report released by the New York Fed--and this is
important for people to hear--student loan debt has nearly tripled
since 2004. In less than 10 years it has nearly tripled. Total student
loan debt in the United States now exceeds $1.1 trillion. The average
student loan balance has increased 70 percent since 2004.
If we do not act immediately, the subsidized Stafford Loan Program
will see a doubling of interest rates on July 1, a few days from now.
Let me repeat: If Congress does not act immediately, within the next
few days, the subsidized Stafford Loan Program will see a doubling of
interest rates on July 1. The rates will rise from 3.4 percent to 6.8
percent for subsidized Stafford loans. This would be a disaster for
millions of students and their families all over our Nation. We must
not allow that to happen. At the very least, we must immediately pass
legislation that extends interest rates at 3.4 percent for several more
years on the Stafford Loan Program. Meanwhile, as part of higher
education legislation, we must begin work on a long-term solution that
guarantees the students of this country will be able to attend college
and graduate school and not be burdened with suffocating debts.
As we contemplate long-term new policy on student loans, one thing we
should be very clear about: The Federal Government should not be making
a huge profit off the needs of low-income and working families who
utilize the Stafford Loan Program. That is simply wrong. In fact, that
is what we are doing today.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Federal Government
makes a substantial profit from student loans. For loans made this
year, in 2013 alone, that profit is expected to exceed $50 billion, and
this is higher than the profits made by ExxonMobil, the most profitable
company on Earth. As I hear every day on the floor of the Senate, we
are reminded we live in a competitive global economy. I hear every day
from my colleagues that the United States is not doing all we can do in
terms of educating our young people in such areas as science,
engineering, technology, and math. In fact, in the immigration bill we
are debating, there is an effort to bring hundreds of thousands of
workers from abroad, presumably because we do not have enough workers
who are knowledgeable in terms of engineering, science, math, and other
technologies. What sense does it make if we are doing a bad job now in
educating our young people in general, and specifically in the STEM
areas, that we make it harder for kids to get a college education? What
sense does that make?
I should mention that countries all over the world understand this
point, and they are doing a much better job than we are of investing in
their young people in general and specifically in higher education.
According to a report released just yesterday by the OECD, the United
States was one of the few advanced countries in the world that did not
increase its public investment in education. In fact, the vast majority
of advanced nations do everything possible, and a lot better job than
we do, to make higher education more affordable for all of their
students.
A couple weeks ago I had the Ambassador from Denmark coming to the
State of Vermont to talk about what goes on in Denmark. People asked
him: How much does it cost to go to college in Denmark? The answer was:
Nothing, not a penny out of your pocket. It is paid for out of the tax
base. In fact, students there get a stipend.
But Denmark is not the only country which makes sure all of their
kids can get a higher education, a graduate school education, a medical
school education, while not having to pay for it out of their own
pocket. Austria, Finland, Norway, Scotland, and Sweden also do the
same. In Canada, which is an hour away from where I live, average
annual tuition fees were $4,288 in 2010, roughly half of what they were
in the United States. Yet the OECD says Canada is one of the most
expensive countries for a student to go to college--half the cost of
where we are. Germany is in the process of phasing out all tuition
fees. Even when German universities did charge tuition, it was roughly
$1,300 per student.
Here is the bottom line: All over this country, students and their
families are facing crushing debt, radically impacting their lives and
the choices they make. There are some in the Senate who say: Yes, that
is pretty bad. How can we make it even worse? How can we raise interest
rates for our kids and make it harder for them to go to college and
make sure when they get out of college they are deeply in debt?
I say: No, I think that is absurd.
I remind my colleagues that when Wall Street banks borrow money--do
my colleagues know what they are getting it for today? They are getting
it for less than 1 percent--three-quarters of 1 percent. We are talking
about families having to spend 6 percent, 7 percent, 8 percent, 9
percent in order to send their kids to college, to help our country, to
make it into the middle class. That is absurd. We have to understand
that a well-educated population is perhaps the most important thing we
need as a nation if we are going to survive in a highly competitive
global economy.
Let me conclude by saying this: This Congress has to act and act
immediately to prevent the disaster we are looking at from happening;
that is, the doubling of interest rates on the Stafford Loan Program,
which will go from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent on July 1. Short term, we
have to extend the 3.4-percent interest rate. Long term, we need to
make certain every kid in this country, regardless of income, can go to
college and leave school without a crushing financial debt.
I thank the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I am here today on the immigration bill,
but I wish to thank the Senator from Vermont for bringing our attention
to this very serious issue. It is a little bit of a variation on a
theme today about trying to reconnect the priorities of the American
people--frankly, whether they are Republicans or Democrats or anybody
else--and this place, which has become totally disconnected. I wish to
say through the Chair to the Senator from Vermont how on point he is.
The people I represent care about the fact that they are living in an
economy that even when it grows--I was talking about this a little bit
earlier--it is not producing sufficient jobs and it is not driving up
income. That is what they are concerned about. The student debt crisis
the Senator speaks about, where it tripled over the last 10 years, is a
huge part of this story. It is a significant part, because if a
family's income is going down but the cost of higher education is
skyrocketing--by the way, at the same time the cost of health care is
skyrocketing--it makes it very hard to get ahead. People are
desperately worried, as I said earlier, that we are going to be the
first generation of Americans to leave less opportunity, not more, to
our kids and grandkids.
But there is another issue as well, which is today, in the 21st
century in this country, if a person is born and living in poverty,
their chances of getting a college degree or the equivalent of a
college degree are 9 in 100--9 in 100. For the folks in the Chamber,
for the pages who are here today, we have 100 chairs, 100 desks in the
Senate. If these desks represented poor children living in this country
instead of Senators, those four desks in the front row and four at that
end right there, and another one, those are the only folks who would be
getting a college degree. Ninety-one other people in this Chamber would
be constrained to the margin
[[Page S5228]]
of this economy and a margin of our democracy from the outset.
Matters are getting worse, not better. We led the world in the
production of college graduates when George Bush--this is not a
partisan observation, it is a temporal one--when George Bush, the son,
became President. We led the world. Let me tell the young people who
are here today, 13 years later, we are 16th in the world in the
production of college graduates. Because of our inability to come
together and figure out how to deal comprehensively over time in a
thoughtful way with the fact that we don't want to stick our kids with
this debt we have acquired--which we need to do; we are just hacking
away at domestic discretionary spending for higher education, for K-12
education, for agriculture, for infrastructure.
Some of these budgets we have considered--we have not passed them
here; they passed them over in the House--would invest only 4 percent
of our revenue, 4 percent of the revenue we collect, in the future of
this country. Ninety-six percent on something else is not going to get
the job done.
On an issue such as this, where our students are saying: How do you
at least not make matters worse, we ought to be able to come together
in a bipartisan way and solve this problem.
I thank the Senator from Vermont for coming to the floor to focus our
attention on something the American people actually care about.
Mr. SANDERS. I thank the Senator.
Mr. BENNET. With that, I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coons). The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I want to give my colleagues a point of
view on the immigration bill before the Senate from somebody other than
a Senator.
In the weekend Des Moines Register, there was an article called
``Another View: Immigration reform plan adds disorder to a failing
system'' by Mark H. Metcalf, who had been an immigration judge and now
is a county attorney in the State of Kentucky.
I am quoting:
The most recent push for immigration reform is compelling.
True to our heritage of inclusion, it succeeds. False to our
tradition of rule of law, it fails.
For any law to forge consensus, it must appeal to both fairness and
common sense. The measure now on the U.S. Senate floor fails this
litmus.
What is sold as a means to simplify and dignify one of our
most important national institutions--immigration and
naturalization--mandates complexity and much of the same
disorder that got us where we are today. The bill's neglect
of an effective court system only aggravates this disorder.
America's immigration courts are weak, and this latest
measure keeps them that way. Put simply, immigration courts
cannot impose order. Few aliens ordered removed after years
of litigation are ever deported.
Edward Grant, a senior immigration appeals judge, noted
this impasse in 2006.
Then he quotes Edward Grant: ``All should be troubled that only a
small fraction of [deportation orders] . . . is actually executed.''
And he was right. A 2003 Justice Department report found
only 3 percent of aliens free during trial were actually
removed after courts ruled against them. Those who deserve
relief fare just as poorly.
By last count, more than 330,000 cases were backlogged.
This historic dysfunction offers a glimpse of things to come
if the current version of reform passes.
The cause of this dysfunction is simple. Immigration courts
have no authority over immigration enforcement agencies.
Unlike federal district courts that have U.S. marshals, among
others, to execute their orders, federal immigration courts
have no such muscle.
Numbers tell the story.
Some 11 million illegal aliens now live in the U.S. Visa
overstayers--those who entered America legally and then
refused to leave--comprise 40 percent of this total. The rest
crossed unguarded borders and entered illegally. Both groups
brought children with them. From these two populations, 1.2
million deportation orders remain unexecuted.
The immigration courts observed this dysfunction first
hand. From 1996 through 2012, the U.S. permitted some 2.2
million aliens to remain free before trial. Nearly 900,000 of
these individuals--39 percent of the total--skipped court and
disappeared.
In the shadow of 9/11, things were even worse. From 2002
through 2006, half of all aliens free awaiting trial
vanished. Nothing in the details now being debated addresses
this systemic defect, and continued neglect will only
diminish public support for worthy initiatives intended to
elevate the foreign-born.
Fine improvements dot the present legislation. Enhancements
that protect lawful American workers, recruitment of the
highly skilled into our tech-driven economy, and real-time
tracking of visa holders into and out of ports of entry
provide overdue fixes.
Emphasis on border security demonstrates a seriousness
absent from earlier proposals. Those illegally brought to the
U.S. as children--better known as ``Dreamers''--earn tracks
to citizenship incentivized through higher education and
military service.
Now, let me editorialize here. There are two paragraphs where he says
good things about this legislation. I do not necessarily agree with a
couple of those points.
Now continuing to quote:
Some reworking is needed; but this value-added approach
appeals to our better instincts as a nation. Problems
persist, though, in that essential mechanism upon which a
rule of law nation depends: effective courts.
While the bill authorizes 225 new judges, judicial
authority declines. Deportation orders are further enfeebled.
Aliens deported from the U.S. may apply to come back, and the
thousands who skipped court can request a waiver--and get in
line with the many who played by the rules.
Fraud is enabled. Courts and immigration agencies alike
will be required to accept--without independent
verification--aliens' claims to work and residency that make
them eligible for the path to citizenship.
Constitutional protections are turned upside down.
Here I editorialize. Listen to this on how our laws are turned upside
down. Continuing to quote:
Aliens in civil deportation proceedings will receive
counsel on demand, while citizens receive counsel only when
facing criminal charges and only after proving they are
indigent.
So again editorializing, it gives more constitutional rights and more
legal counsel than the common criminal in this country might get.
Order is subverted. Even felons who are subject to
deportation may seek injunctions that allow them to remain in
the U.S. In the end, courts that spent years deciding the
cases of those who should be removed will see their orders
overturned by waivers that mock the judicial process.
America's immigration courts express fundamental confidence
in those who embrace our shores and the redemptive power of
our democracy. For the immigrant in particular, they reveal
the beginnings of accountability that are a surety of our
exceptionalism.
But ignored by administrations both Republican and
Democrat, these courts have ceased to do the critical work
for which they were created--to definitively decide the
claims of those who ask to join our nation and see that those
decisions are impartially enforced.
So now, instead of debating how we extend the great prize
of American citizenship to more of the world's bright and
talented, Congress argues whether felons should be deported.
This is the small-ball politics that has sabotaged public
confidence in immigration. It shows how far we have fallen
both in the mission of these special courts and with
immigration in general.
Courts without authority cannot provide order. Even less
can they assure liberty.
Only independent and empowered courts are an equal match
for the certain risks and superior opportunities that
American immigration offers. History proves them not just a
priceless check against tyranny, but also an effective
antidote for drifting government agencies that delay relief
to the deserving and deny sanction to the offender.
Such courts are a necessary complement to immigration
reform that is inclusive, accountable and commands consensus.
That is the end of the article in the Des Moines Register by this
former immigration judge, Mark H. Metcalf.
I thank my colleagues for listening to this, and I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
Mr. HELLER. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss S. 744, the Border
Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act.
From the very beginning of this debate, I have said that our Nation
needs immigration reform. I have also urged Senate leadership to ensure
that the Senate has ample opportunity to debate this bill, amend it,
and take the hard votes necessary to make the bill as good as it can
be. To ignore this problem and to do nothing to change the status quo
would be a disservice to the American people and a great detriment to
our country.
I have also said throughout this process that in order to enact
meaningful,
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comprehensive immigration reform we have to strengthen border security.
It is true that the border security portion of the underlying bill
needed significant improvement. Through the hard work and negotiations
led by my colleagues Senator Hoeven and Senator Corker the border
security portion of this legislation has been addressed, and for that
reason I can support this bill.
The Hoeven-Corker amendment, which I cosponsored, adds 20,000
additional Border Patrol agents to the southern border. It requires
twice the original amount of fencing along the border--700 miles total,
to be exact--and requires the Department of Homeland Security to
implement a border fencing strategy to help ensure that the fence is an
effective deterrent. It also mandates that the E-Verify system be fully
implemented before any registered provisional immigrant can adjust
their status. This will help make sure businesses have a safe and legal
workforce. And the amendment requires an electronic entry-exit system
at all international air and sea ports of entry where U.S. Customs and
Border Protection officers are currently deployed.
By increasing and enhancing security efforts at our borders, by using
new technology that will allow us to better monitor activities at our
borders, we will ensure that those who are here are here lawfully and
that they have the opportunity to thrive and succeed, just like many
generations of American immigrants have done.
To do nothing now amounts to de facto amnesty for 11 million people
who are already here illegally. We must take action to prevent further
unlawful entry. The current system is backward, and it is broken.
This legislation represents a product of many long hours of debate,
discussion, and deliberation in this body. It addresses a problem in
our country that requires dramatic change and meaningful reform. While
this bill is just one step in the process, it is a step in the right
direction. It takes into consideration the necessity of securing
America's borders, while encouraging the lawful immigration of those
who would come to our shores to contribute to America's greatness, as
immigrants have done since our Nation's founding.
In the past, attempts to reform our immigration system failed due to
a process that was neither transparent nor fair.
But from the Judiciary Committee proceedings to today, the Senate has
had ample opportunity to debate this legislation and amend it. As a
result, we have a bill where the good far outweighs the bad. With this
legislation, we can address the 11 million undocumented individuals
living in the country under de facto amnesty. We can finally secure our
borders and stop more people from living here illegally. We can fix a
system that has been broken for decades once and for all.
We can continue to maintain the smartest, hardest working, most
creative workforce in the world. Fighting for what you believe in and
working with Members from both sides of the aisle does not mean you are
turning your back on your principles. Democrats and Republicans can
find ways to work together and pass legislation this great Nation
deserves. Republicans can do so and still stay true to their
conservative principles.
No question, this has been a contentious debate. My constituents feel
strongly about this issue on both sides of the spectrum. Some reporters
in Nevada like to harp on the fact that my work to find a solution
between Democrats and Republicans has been politically motivated. One
such reporter even resorted to describing my actions in racially
insensitive terms.
The bottom line: The easy thing to do politically is nothing. The
harder choice is to govern. We must remember that long before America
was the great Nation we are today, before we were the world's greatest
economy, a military superpower, a global champion for democracy that
has forever changed human history, America was merely an idea. America
began as an idea in the hearts and minds of a persecuted minority that
longed for freedom and the opportunity to decide for themselves what
their destiny would be. That idea was brought here by immigrants who
crossed the oceans and devoted themselves to the formation of a free
society unlike any the world had ever known.
America has always been a Nation of immigrants. That heritage is one
of the defining aspects of our national success story. When I think
about a true American immigrant success story, I think about one of my
constituents back home, Mr. Carlos Pereira. Carlos came to America from
Peru in the 1990s. He and his wife Kathia set out to build their very
own bakery. But they wanted to build more than a bakery, they wanted to
build a new life for themselves and for their children. They did just
that. They built a bakery with their bare hands. They laid the bricks
and hammered the nails, and after a lot of long nights and hard work,
they built Bon Breads in Las Vegas. Today, their company is a world
renowned, internationally respected enterprise, and their products are
used by chefs and restaurants all over the world. Bon Breads is
responsible for creating hundreds of jobs in Nevada, and is a perfect
example of what our immigration system should encourage.
Carlos' hard work, dedication, and perseverance allowed him and his
business to succeed in a way that would be impossible in many other
countries today. I have three naturalized citizens on my staff about
whom I can say the exact same thing. That is a true immigrant success
story. That is the kind of potential we can unlock by fixing what is
broken with our current system.
We can improve our economy, create jobs, and strengthen our Nation as
a whole with this immigration reform bill or we can choose to protect
the status quo, do nothing to fix the overall problem. This bill is a
step forward toward much-needed reform to our immigration system. It is
true to the American idea that has defined our Nation since its
founding, the idea that is inscribed on the Statue of Liberty,
welcoming the tired, the poor, and the huddled masses, yearning to
breathe free.
Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a profound statement
recently, that in America it does not matter where you came from, it
only matters where you are going. Our immigration laws should embody
that principle and enable good hard-working people to come here, study
hard, start businesses, raise families, and contribute as productive
citizens. The bill before us is a good step toward preserving that
idea.
I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this immigration reform
bill.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that after the
Senator from Massachusetts makes his remarks that Senator Grassley be
recognized, then I be recognized after him, and then Senator Kaine,
those four in that order.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Colorado.
Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I know the Senator from Massachusetts is
here, and I look forward to hearing his farewell. Before he does, I
wanted to say thank you to the Senator from Nevada for his work on this
bill, for getting us to a bipartisan result, for helping us grow the
vote, and for the statement he made about surely not one of us would
have written the bill exactly the way it is written. But there is much
more that is good about this bill than not. I am grateful for his
support. I thank the Senator.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. COWAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to
15 minutes as in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Farewell to the Senate
Mr. COWAN. Mr. President, I rise today in my final full work week and
not yet 150 days into my Senate career, yet at the precipice of the
close of that career. On January 30 of this year, Governor Deval
Patrick sent me to this Chamber to represent the people of
Massachusetts and their interests.
Yesterday, on June 25, those same people took to the voting booth and
called me home. In doing so, they called Senator-elect Ed Markey to the
high honor of serving this august body. After 37 distinguished years in
the House, Senator-elect Markey now has this opportunity to offer his
voice, wisdom, accumulated experiences, humor,
[[Page S5230]]
esprit de corps, and tireless commitment to justice and equality to the
Senate. I, for one, believe that Massachusetts and the country will be
better for it. Like a majority of Massachusetts voters who expressed
themselves yesterday, I am quite confident Senator-elect Markey will
serve with distinction and act in the best interests of the citizens he
is now privileged to represent.
The Senator-elect bested a strong candidate who brought a new voice
and, yes, a new visage to the Massachusetts political scene. I applaud
Gabriel Gomez on a well-run campaign and, most importantly, his
willingness to sacrifice so much in an effort to serve the people of
the Commonwealth. He started this journey as a relative unknown, but I
suspect we have not heard the last of Mr. Gomez. I thank him and his
family for their sacrifices and their willingness to engage.
When it comes to farewell speeches, few will top the words offered by
John Kerry on this floor a few months ago. After 28 years of
distinguished service to the people of Massachusetts, now-Secretary
Kerry spent nearly an hour reflecting on his service to this body. By
the same measure, as merely an interim Senator serving but a few short
months, I probably should have ended my remarks about 45 seconds ago.
But before I yield, I will take a few minutes to reflect on my brief
time in this body and extend my gratitude to a number of folks.
First, I want to acknowledge and recognize the outstanding staff
members in Boston and DC who have helped me serve our constituents to
the best of my ability. When Governor Patrick named me as interim
Senator, a few people--okay, more than a few--openly questioned whether
I would be up to the task and whether I was capable of accomplishing
anything other than locating the lavatory during my temporary
assignment. But I knew something those doubters did not know. I knew I
was going to be able to do my best for the folks back home because I
came to the Senate armed with the knowledge of the issues by dint of my
time in the Patrick-Murray administration. I planned to make a few key
hires and convince the bulk of Secretary Kerry's Senate staff to stay
on and help me do the job the Governor sent me to do. In other words, I
knew what I did not know, but I knew enough to hire the people who knew
the considerable rest. Boy, have they proven me a genius. If you work
in the Senate but a day--and I suspect the same is true in the House of
Representatives--you will learn quickly that staff make this place hum,
and good staff make all the difference in the world. I hope my team
will forgive me if I do not list them all by name, thereby avoiding the
sin of omission, but, instead, all of the staff will accept my
heartfelt appreciation for their willingness to join my team, show me
the ropes, teach a new dog some old tricks, educate me on all of the
rules that matter, which seem to be written nowhere, and their
exhibition of degrees of professionalism and service to our country
that the public too often thinks is missing in their Congress.
To my entire staff, I have been in awe at your greatness. I am
forever in your debt for your immeasurable contributions to our work in
the interests of Massachusetts residents. I look forward to your many
successes yet to come.
To two of my team in particular, Val Young, my chief of staff, and
Lauren Rich, my scheduler, who have known and worked with me for years,
thank you for your continued willingness to partner with and trust in
me.
If I am being honest about the people who helped me look as though I
belong here, I must spend a moment or two acknowledging the wonderful
women and men who comprise the Senate staff. From the Capitol Police,
who protect us every day and somehow knew my name on the first day, to
the subway operators who always deliver us on time and unfazed, to the
elevator operators who excel in the art of cutting off reporters and
their annoying questions, to the cloakroom staff who field every
cloying call about voting schedules and presiding hours, to the clerks
and Parliamentarians who discreetly tell you what to say and do as
presiding officer while the public in the gallery silently wonders why
everyone addresses you as Mr. or Madam President while sitting in that
chair, to the generous food service staff who look the other way when
you go back for seconds and sometimes thirds, and to so many others who
are the oil that makes this engine hum, each of you has shown me such
patience, support, and grace that I know your love for this institution
may trump even the Members' affection for this place and will sustain
the institution long after any one or all of us leave this Chamber. You
are tremendous resources for every new Senator, and I suspect great
comfort to even the longest serving among us. The public may not know
you by name or know the importance of your work, but now I do. I have
been honored to serve you.
The next folks I recognize are the youngest and most silent among us.
Of course, I speak of the pages, the young women and men who spend part
of a high school year dressed and acting in formal traditions of this
body. I have yet to speak with an uninteresting page or a page
uninterested in the Senate and our government. These are dynamic young
people who could be doing so many different things with their time but
they give their time and service to the Senate and its Members. They
are indispensable to both. I look forward to the day when my young boys
will be of age to follow in the footsteps of these outstanding young
people.
Last, and by no means least, I want to thank the family and friends
who supported my family and me during my short tenure. We often say it
takes a village to raise a child, but I can attest it also takes a
village to help an interim Senator meet his duties at Congress and at
home. Whether offering me a spare bedroom in Silver Spring or agreeing
to last minute babysitting duties so my wife and I both could celebrate
Black History Month at the White House, our village is vast and
generous. Of course, every village needs a queen. The queen of my
village is my wife Stacy. I was able to serve because she was willing
to be mom and dad and sacrifice in ways known and unknown while I have
been in DC. Over the past few months, I have missed many homework
assignments, some birthday dinners, pediatric appointments, school
performances, and parent-teacher meetings, but our sons never felt
their dad was absent and unaccounted for because their mom, a supermom,
more than made up for my absence.
Stacy has been my rock and salvation for nearly 20 years now. I am
better every day for it. Let the record show for now and all time my
love and dedication to Stacy.
In January of this year I planned to leave the Deval Patrick
administration and transition back into private life. I was looking
forward to more conventional hours, a reprieve from working under the
public scrutiny of the press, and spending more time with my wife and
our young son. So I came to the Senate. Go figure.
I was surprised, but deeply honored, when Governor Patrick sent me
here to represent the folks back home. I am eternally grateful to the
government's faith and trust in my ability to serve. This floor on
which I stand today and with which I have become so closely acquainted
over the last 5 months has been occupied by some of the most dynamic
and greatest political figures of our Nation's history.
From my own State of Massachusetts alone: Adams, Webster, Sumner,
Saltonstall, Brooke, Kennedy, all who held a seat in the Chamber before
me, are enough to make any person feel daunted when assuming a desk on
this floor.
I was appointed to the Senate to fill the seat of another great
Senator, John Kerry, and work alongside another great Senator,
Elizabeth Warren.
Thank you for being here, Elizabeth.
Although my time was short, I only sought to uphold not only Senator
Kerry's legacy in this body but the work of all of the esteemed
Senators who have dedicated their service to the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts, and I pledged to be the best partner I could to Senator
Warren.
I entered the Senate at a vexing time in this body's history. As we
all know, congressional approval levels are dismally low. People across
the Nation and political pundits everywhere believe partisanship is a
divide too wide to bridge and a wall too high to overcome. Yet despite
the overwhelming public pessimism, I came to Washington with two
achievable objectives:
[[Page S5231]]
to serve the people of Massachusetts to the best of my ability and to
work with any Senator willing to implement smart, sensible, and
productive policy to advance the ideals of our Nation.
From the outside, the prospects for bipartisanship may seem slim.
Party-line votes are the norm. The threat of the filibuster demands a
supermajority to pass meaningful legislation. The American people have
come to believe Congress is more committed to obstruction than
compromise.
To the everyday observer we have reached a standstill where
partisanship outweighs progress and neither side is willing to reach
across the aisle for the good of the American people.
What I have encountered in the Senate is not a body defined by
vitriol but one more defined by congeniality and common respect. That
began before I even started here.
On the day the Governor announced my appointment, I was pleasantly
surprised to receive calls on my personal cell phones--I still don't
know how they got those numbers--from Senators King, Hagan, and Cardin.
I had the pleasure of receiving warm welcomes from Majority Leader Reid
and Republican Leader McConnell, among so many others that first day.
One of the first persons to congratulate me after Senator Warren and
Secretary Kerry escorted me for my swearing in was my colleague from
across the aisle, Senator Tim Scott. Since then Senator Rand Paul and I
have recounted our days at Duke and our affection for college
basketball.
On a bipartisan congressional delegation to the Middle East, I traded
life stories and perspectives with Senators Klobuchar and Hoeven and
discussed the comedic genius of Will Ferrell with Senators Gillibrand
and Graham.
Senator Portman stopped by my Commonwealth Coffee last week to wish
me well as I leave the Senate. He encouraged me every day during my
time here.
Senator Burr, my next-door neighbor in the Russell Building, has
always been good to remind me that I came from North Carolina before I
had the privilege to serve in Massachusetts.
Senator McCain invited me to cosponsor my first Senate resolution.
Senator Manchin has shown me more kindnesses than I can count.
The freshman Senators on both sides welcomed me to their class and
offered never-ending encouragement.
Indeed, one of them, Heidi Heitkamp, has become the North Dakota
sister I never knew I had.
I wish I had time to recount every kindness each of the other 99,
including the late Senator Lautenberg, gifted me while here, but I
don't. Each has been recorded indelibly in my memory and is returned
with gratitude.
In April I experienced the very best of this body's character in the
wake of the Boston Marathon bombings when Members from every corner of
this Nation extended their sympathies, their prayers, and pledged their
assistance and support for the city of Boston and to all those affected
by that tragedy. In the aftermath we all came together as Americans to
honor those killed and to support the wounded during their time of
recovery.
We saw the same in the wake of terrible tornadoes that swept through
Oklahoma.
Upon closer inspection, it is clear all of us here have common bonds
and share similar goals. If only we are willing to seek out those bonds
and focus on the goals that are in the best interests of our Nation.
While we may not agree on every policy, every line item, or every
vote, we have each embraced the role of public servant, committed to
improving the country we have pledged to support and defend. As I have
discovered in my time here, there is more opportunity for cooperation
than the American public might believe. This cooperation has led to
some noted successes.
Thanks to the bipartisan work in the Agriculture Committee and on the
Senate floor, we were able to send a farm bill to the House. Through
the joint leadership of the so-called Gang of 8, we are debating right
now a workable approach to comprehensive immigration reform. We have
confirmed five Cabinet Secretaries.
In what will remain the most memorable all-nighter of my Senate
career, through a marathon session and more votes in one night than
most interim Senators have in a career, the Senate passed a budget. Now
we anxiously await the urgent opportunity to conference with the House.
I have seen progress, and I remain a true believer in the democratic
process, the core functionality of our government endowed to us by our
Founding Fathers so many decades ago. I remain a true believer in the
Senate's system of government and the Senate's role in that system.
If I have been asked a question any more frequently than: What are
you going to do next, Mo, it has been: Is our system of government
broken? Is Congress broken?
I have answered truthfully each time: No, our system of government is
the greatest ever known and the best example of democracy in human
history.
The genius of our Founding Fathers is on display every day on Capitol
Hill, in every State capitol, and every city or townhall across this
Nation. Part of the Founders' genius was the birth of the government
designed to function as the people needed it to but function only as
effectively as the privileged few empowered within it want it to work,
or as Secretary Kerry himself said best a few months ago in his final
floor remarks:
I do not believe the Senate is broken. . . . There is
nothing wrong with the Senate that can't be fixed by what's
right about the Senate--the predominant and weighty notion
that 100 American citizens, chosen by their neighbors [or
Governor, in my case] to serve from States as different from
Massachusetts and Montana, can always choose to put parochial
or personal interests aside and find the national interest.
What an awesome responsibility and privilege.
In my scant 5 months I have seen the promise of those words realized
in more ways and in more interactions than the public, unfortunately,
has had occasion to witness. I believe in that unlimited promise still.
I also have been part of history while I was here. With my
appointment, in coincidence with the appointment of Senator Scott, two
African Americans are serving in this body concurrently for the first
time in our Nation's history.
Senator Scott and I are, respectively, the seventh and eighth Black
Senators to serve in this body. While I believe this number to be far
too few, I am also hopeful that it is a sign that these United States
will soon be represented by a more diverse population that more closely
reflects the diverse country that we are and the diversity of opinions
that exist across and within our diverse Nation.
With different perspectives, different backgrounds, different races,
religions, and creeds, we are better equipped to confront the issues
that face our vast and changing Nation. America has always been and
always will be a nation of immigrants, where religious freedom is in
our DNA, where more and more we are chipping away at the barriers
preventing us from achieving true marriage equality, and where people
worldwide still yearn to reach our shores to enjoy our freedoms.
A Congress that is more reflective of this America, as this Congress
is becoming, will be good for America.
Finally, I offer my heartfelt gratitude to the people of
Massachusetts. Not one person was given a chance to vote for or against
me, but I have gone about my work every day as if they had. I came to
this body beholden to Massachusetts, her residents, and the country
only, and leave confident that I have stayed true to that honor.
Ladies and gentlemen of the Commonwealth, it has been a true honor
and privilege to represent you as your junior Senator in the Senate.
With that, this will likely be the final time I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I will be brief.
I appreciate very much the remarks of Senator Cowan. The only thing
he said that I disagree with is: No one had a chance to vote for him to
get here.
There was one big vote that was very important, a man by the name of
Deval Patrick. Once he made that decision, you were our Senator as well
as the Senator of Massachusetts.
I, of course, know Deval Patrick. We all saw him at the convention
giving his brilliant speech. He was swarmed with people giving him
advice as to
[[Page S5232]]
who he should select to replace Senator Kerry. He called me and said:
Don't worry about it. I am going to select the best person from the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts to represent Senator Kerry's seat for the
interim.
He was right, and I have told Governor Patrick on the telephone. A
couple of weeks ago I said: Make sure to call Governor Patrick for me--
because I know they are good friends--and tell him I told you how much
we all admire you.
In the Democratic caucus yesterday, this good man didn't get one
standing ovation, he received two. This is rare. He got that because he
is a genuine person. He came here now and talked about the goodness of
this body. We need more of that.
Senator Cowan, thank you very much. I admire you. I know in the paper
today you said that you are always going to be Mo, but to me you are
always going to be Senator Cowan.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts--the Senator
from Oklahoma.
Mr. INHOFE. May I interrupt for a parliamentary inquiry?
Mr. President, first of all, we are operating under a unanimous
consent request, and I would ask if we can modify that to hear from the
Senator from Massachusetts and then revert back to the unanimous
consent request that has been granted.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Ms. WARREN. I thank the Senator from Oklahoma. I will be brief.
Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, for 4 months I have had the privilege of
serving alongside my good friend Mo Cowan. From the time he was sworn
in, Mo hit the ground running. Even though his time here was short, Mo
has been a committed and strong advocate for the people of
Massachusetts and here in Washington.
As former chief of staff to Governor Patrick, Mo brought to the
Senate a deep knowledge of the issues facing our Commonwealth. Through
his committee work and his outreach to his constituents, his careful
consideration of important national issues, he has worked tirelessly to
ensure that the interests of the people of Massachusetts are well
represented and the people of America are well served.
He has built great relationships and earned the respect of our
colleagues on both sides of the aisle.
I very much enjoyed getting to know Mo's wonderful family: his smart,
talented, and patient wife Stacy and their two young boys. I am sure
Grant and Miles are looking forward to having their dad closer to home
again.
Mo has been a dedicated public servant, and his time in the Senate
only adds to his fine record of service on behalf of the people of the
Commonwealth. It has been an honor to work together with Mo fighting
together for Massachusetts families. I wish him and I wish his family
the very best. It has been an honor to be a partner of Senator Cowan in
the Senate.
Thank you, Mo.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. GRAHAM. Would the Senator yield for a second? I hate to
interrupt.
Mr. INHOFE. Go ahead.
Mr. GRAHAM. I will buy the Senator's book.
May I have 1 minute to say something about our departing colleague
because I may not be able to get back. Literally, 1 minute.
Mr. INHOFE. Yes.
Mr. GRAHAM. I appreciate that, I say to the Senator.
I would like to say to Senator Cowan, ``Mo,'' from Massachusetts: I
haven't known you very long, but I have found you to be someone who has
been, quite frankly, very earnest in their time in the Senate, very
smart, and a lot of fun. We got to travel to Egypt, to Turkey, to
Israel to see some of the more dangerous places in the world, and I
just want to let the people of Massachusetts know that I have met a lot
of colleagues in my time here, but this is one fine man. I wish you all
the best. I have learned a lot from you. I know you are originally from
North Carolina. That is probably why we hit it off. I have learned a
lot and I have laughed a lot. You are a fine man and we wish you well.
I hope that maybe public service is in your future, but whatever you
do, I know you will do it well. Godspeed.
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, let me just say kind of the same thing. I
had occasion to research Senator Cowan. I do this because one of the
things I enjoy doing every Wednesday morning, when we have our Prayer
Breakfast, is introducing those who are speaking. He was speaking. When
one researches someone like him and you find things out, you kind of
redevelop a love for everyone, and I wonder: Are you sure you are in
the right place here? I have to question that.
But I hold you in the highest regard. I am very familiar with how you
tick, how you think, what you said, and we will miss you in this place.
Thank you so much.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, we have a unanimous consent request.
Senator Grassley was going to be next, and I will go ahead and take his
time.
The unanimous consent request was that I be recognized as in morning
business for such time as I shall consume.
Let me share a couple of things. First of all, I am looking forward
to serving with the Senator who was elected yesterday. I think he will
find out something that I found out when I was first elected to the
Senate after serving for several years in the House of Representatives:
It is a more civil place. It is a place where we can have differences
of opinion, where we disagree with each other, but we do so in a very
friendly way.
I am actually looking forward to that because there have been times
when our discourse, our discussions with each other were not friendly,
but I think it will turn out to be a total change. I wish to get on
record to say that I am looking forward to serving with our newly
elected Senator from Massachusetts.
I look forward to being with him, although I think he has every
reason and opportunity to change his mind on some of the positions he
has taken in the past.
Let me share something I didn't say when I had the floor yesterday
and was talking a little bit about President Obama's talk. There were
four things that I didn't hear, and I am going to repeat them. They are
statements that were made by President Obama talking before an
audience.
I have to say I truly believe I know the reason for this long talk
that he gave yesterday, because he had served for 4 years. He knew his
far-left base was demanding some type of cap and trade. He knew he
didn't have the votes to pass it. So he was not able to push that,
knowing before the election, if this came out, what kind of a tax
increase this would be on the American people. So he waited until after
the election, and that is what we heard yesterday.
Some of the things he said were a little bit insulting, but I can
handle that. He said he lacks ``patience for anyone who denies that
this problem is real.'' He is talking about global warming. He is
trying to revive global warming.
I say revive because it is interesting that when it started out 12
years ago it was global warming. Remember Kyoto? That is what it was
all about, the Kyoto treaty. In fact, they came back from Rio de
Janeiro and the treaty was never submitted by President Bill Clinton to
the Senate for ratification. The reason was the votes weren't there. So
time went by and they decided, since it is not warming and we want to
keep this thing alive and we want to do all we can to destroy
CO2 in our society, let's call it something else. So they
called it climate change. A few other titles came along in the
meantime. For the first time it has now reverted back, after several
years, to global warming.
Some of the statements he made were: ``We don't have time for a
meeting of the Flat Earth Society,'' and ``sticking your head in the
sand might make you feel safer, but it's not going to protect you from
the coming storm.'' Listen to this:
The 12 warmest years in recorded history have all come in
the last 15 years. Last year, temperatures in some areas of
the ocean reached record highs, and ice in the Arctic sank to
its smallest size on record--faster than most models had
predicted it would. These are the facts.
Those aren't the facts. That is not even true, but it is interesting
we would be trying to revive this. I know there are a lot of people all
excited out there who have said: Oh, for the last 4
[[Page S5233]]
years we haven't said anything about global warming. Now we are talking
about it and now something is going to be done. I would like to quote
this from the Economist:
Over the past 15 years air temperatures at the Earth's
surface have been flat while greenhouse-gas emissions have
continued to soar. The world added roughly 100 billion tonnes
of carbon to the atmosphere between 2000 and 2010. That is
about a quarter of all the CO2 put there by
humanity since 1750.
Of course, we know that is true because we know the major surge came
in the 1940s following World War II.
Continuing to quote the article, which quotes James Hansen, who is
one of the major movers behind this whole thing--the global warming
movement:
And yet, as James Hansen, the head of NASA'S Goddard
Institute for Space Studies, observes, ``the five-year mean
global temperature has been flat for a decade.''
This is a guy on the other side who has always been held up to be the
authentic knowledgeable person.
Here is a quote from the NASA Goddard Paper from January of this
year:
The five-year mean global temperature has been flat for a
decade, which we interpret as a combination of natural
variability and a slowdown in the growth rate of the net
climate forcing.
A quote from Reuters in April, 2013:
Scientists are struggling to explain a slowdown in climate
change that has exposed gaps in their understanding and
defies a rise in global greenhouse gas emissions. . . . Some
experts say their trust in climate science has declined
because of the many uncertainties. The UN's Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had to correct a 2007 report
that exaggerated the pace of melt of the Himalayan glaciers
and wrongly said they could all vanish by 2035.
All that sounded good at the time, but it was a lie. Still quoting
from the article:
``My own confidence in the data has gone down in the past
five years,'' said Richard Tol, an expert in climate change
and professor of economics at the University of Sussex in
England.
I could go on and on. Yesterday on the floor I talked about Richard
Lindzen with MIT, considered by many people to be the foremost
authority on climate anywhere in the country, and he is talking about
what the motive is behind people to promote this thing. He said
controlling CO2--and I am quoting from memory now--is a
bureaucrat's dream. If you control climate, you control life. That is
exactly what we were talking about at that time, and it was true.
We have covered all these things, and I have said for several years
now that people understand the science isn't there. I can remember some
of my Republican friends got upset with me because I often said good
things about Lisa Jackson. Lisa Jackson was the first Administrator of
the EPA under President Obama, and she is, of course, a liberal and all
of that. But she has a propensity for telling the truth, and that is
all I ask for in people who are serving in public office. In fact, she
has done that, and I wish to share one thing with my colleagues.
When they are unable to pass any kind of cap-and-trade bill--and keep
in mind the last time they tried to do it was the bill that was
introduced by two House Members, one of whom was elected to the Senate
yesterday. In that cap-and-trade bill, people realized what the size of
the tax increase would be and it went down in flames. So when the big
U.N. party--by the way, when I talk about the U.N.'s Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change--the IPCC--that is something a lot of people
don't know about. That is the United Nations. They are the ones that
put that together to fortify their position that we need to do
something to equalize the wealth of nations worldwide.
In fact, I wrote a book about that. I would not ask anyone to buy it
because that would be inappropriate, but I will loan it to you, if you
want to read it, and I cover that in a lot of detail. But on this
subject, I asked Lisa Jackson the question, right before going to
Copenhagen--and Copenhagen is the biggest party of the year.
I am going to wind this up, and I will continue this later, but I
would only say the science is not there, with what they were talking
about yesterday. I think I pretty much made the point I came to make.
But returning to Lisa Jackson, right before everyone was going to
Copenhagen--and remember, IPCC is part of the United Nations and once a
year they throw a big party. Friends of mine, I can remember one from
Africa showing up at one of these parties and I said: You don't believe
all this global warming stuff, do you? He said: No, but this is the
biggest party of the year. So they all show up.
At that time--I am not sure where it was, but the time I am talking
about, 2 years ago, it was in Copenhagen. So I said, right before I
left for Copenhagen to be a one-man truth squad there, I said to Lisa
Jackson, the Administrator of the EPA serving at the time, in a hearing
we had: I have a feeling once I leave town, since you can't pass any
kind of cap and trade, you are going to try to do it through regulation
and you are going to have to have an endangerment finding, and when you
have an endangerment finding, it has to be based on some type of
science. What science are you going to use? She said: The IPCC, the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change--the United Nations.
As luck would have it--it wasn't months after it or weeks after
that--hours after that Climategate came in and they were exposed for
lying about the science for all those years. So the timing could not
have been better.
I would only say I am glad this issue has opened up again because I
had a dusty old file on climate change I haven't used for 5 years and I
have gotten it out and we are ready to use it again. I just hope the
American people will look at the beautiful political speech made by the
President yesterday for actually what it is.
Let's keep in mind the cost of this anytime we want to go into the
extreme position of saying that CO2 is the cause of climate
change or of global warming. We are talking about a tax increase to the
American people. One of the Senators stood after I said this yesterday
and said there is no evidence of that yet. That was the Wharton School
of Economics and MIT that came out with those figures.
The last thing I will say, God is still up there and climate is going
to change and it has. I can remember studying this--and going from
memory now, not reading anything--and reading about the first time they
came out with this fact that we are all going to die because the world
is going to freeze over. That was in 1895. In 1895, they talked about
this disaster that was coming upon us--the coming ice age, they said.
Then, in 1918, all of a sudden the climate started getting warmer. It
was going through these cycles. It has been happening since the
beginning of time. It got warmer. That is when global warming first
came up, in 1918.
Then, in 1984, the next cycle came in, and that was a cold cycle. But
listen to this, because what is interesting about this is in 1944,
after the Second World War, we had the largest surge in CO2
in our country's history. It precipitated not a warming period but
another cooling period, which lasted until 1975. Then, of course,
another warming period came in, which I disagree with all the
statements that were made--certainly by the President yesterday and by
many of the Members of this body--now we are precipitating going into a
leveling off and perhaps a warming period.
So it is going to be changing, and it is a little arrogant for us in
this country to look at these God cycles up there and say we can do
something to change that because we can't. It is a beautiful world we
are in, and we are going to try to make it better, but we don't need
the largest tax increase in America's history to make it better.
With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown). The senior Senator from Iowa.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, the only unanimous consent request I am
going to make is at the end of my remarks I will ask for inclusion of
something in the Record.
I wish to share with the public what is taking place on the
immigration bill before us. Unfortunately, very little is taking place.
We have been on the floor of the Senate considering this bill for 2\1/
2\ weeks, and only 13 amendments have been disposed of. We have had
nine rollcall votes on amendments, and three of those amendments were
tabling votes. Yet over 550 amendments have been filed to this bill.
Senators are still filing amendments. The fact is less than 3 percent
of all amendments filed have actually been considered. For a process
that was labeled as ``fair
[[Page S5234]]
and open,'' with the invitation to file amendments, even from the
people who wrote the bill, the Gang of 8, it has become laughable.
Our side has been asking for votes. We have tried to call up
amendments. Last night we sent a list of 34 amendments over to the
majority and requested votes on them. I am told they have refused that
list, and I think it is because there are some tough votes on those
amendments. They want to limit the number of amendments that can be
considered. They want to choose the amendments. In a sense, they want
to tell Republicans which amendments we can offer from our side.
That is not right. I am very disappointed not just for myself but for
a lot of other Members of the body. There is no deliberation. It seems
as though there is no path forward to have votes to make the bill
better. And, of course, this isn't the way to legislate. Immigration
reform is an important matter. We have to get it right. We shouldn't
rush a bill just to get it done, especially if we are going to pass a
bad bill. This bill shouldn't be rushed if we are getting it wrong. We
have to get it right. It is unfortunate that what has happened on the
floor of the Senate--9 rollcall votes out of 550 amendments, and
counting, that have been filed. So much for the world's greatest
deliberative body.
Immigration reform hasn't been debated on this floor since 2007, and
as far as I can remember, a major piece of legislation such as this on
immigration hasn't passed the Senate since 1986.
It may seem that we have been on the bill for a long time. Compared
to a lot of other issues, it has been a longer time. But most of the
time has been spent delaying actual debate and consideration of
amendments, while Members craft a grand bargain compromise behind
closed doors. Of course, that has been adopted at this point in the
process.
Unfortunately, it appears this bill has been precooked, deals have
been made, and apparently having an open debate on amendments to the
bill isn't part of that deal on any more than the few amendments we
have discussed--particularly those amendments that could substantively
change the underlying bill for the better. So we get the impression
that, sorry, the kitchen is closed.
What has happened? We are supposed to be the most deliberative body
in the world. We pride ourselves on that. But now we are going to rely
on the House of Representatives to do our job to be deliberative and to
fix this legislation. I have great hopes when this process is done
through conference that I can vote for a bill that will go to the
President of the United States.
As I have said before, the Judiciary Committee markup was full and
open, and I have complimented Chairman Leahy many times on that point.
It is too bad that process couldn't have been carried out here on the
floor of the Senate.
Whether members were pleased in committee with the vote results for
their amendments, in committee the members at least had the opportunity
to offer amendments for debate and consideration. Amendments were
debated. Amendments were voted on. But that hasn't been the case in the
last 2\1/2\ weeks here on the Senate floor.
We have tried to offer amendments to this over 1,000-page-long bill.
The majority is shutting us out. They have gotten the votes they need
to pass this bill through Members getting their favorite amendments
into the bill, and some of these seem to me to be special interest
provisions and some of them tend to be like the cornhusker kickback
sweeteners of ObamaCare fame. Now we are getting the door to the shop
closed.
It is important for the public to know we have tried to make this
bill better by trying to offer amendments. We have given the other side
a list, and I think it has been flatly refused. It is not too much to
ask for this number of amendments to be considered. That list had 34
amendments--that is 34 amendments out of 550 filed. Senators want to
see a lot more amendments considered and voted on, but we have limited
the number to 34.
I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the list of
amendments we asked the majority to consider before final passage.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
1. Grassley 1570--gangs
2. Vitter-#1577 or 1578--moves trigger in Corker-Hoeven
before RPI
3. Vitter--Strike Amnesty (#1474)
4. Vitter--Voter Integrity Protection Act (#1290)
5. Vitter--Child Tax Credit (#1289)
6. Vitter-1473--no RPI status for convicted drunk drivers
7. Vitter-1445--WIRE Act
8. Vitter--Sanctuary Cities 1291
9. Vitter--VAWA 1330
10. Inhofe-1560--Zadvydas, detention for longer than six
months
11. Sessions-1607--interior enforcement
12. Lee-1593--permits CBP agents to access federal lands
for immigration enforcement activities.
13. Lee-1210--absconders don't get RPI
14. Lee-1214--no sworn affidavits
15. Wicker 1606--sanctuary cities
16. Fischer 1594--English at RPI
17. Cruz-1579--replace title I with beefed up border
security measures
18. Cruz-1580--Obamacare defunding if people are in rpi
status.
19. Cruz-1581--proof of citizenship to vote
20. Cruz-1583--no citizenship
21. Cruz-1584--no benefits
22. Cruz-1585--H-1B increases
23. Cruz-1586--numerical limitations on permanent residents
24. Cornyn--1622--Strike RPI eligibility for domestic
violence, child abuse, and drunk driving offenders; require
interviews of criminals and previously deported
25. Cornyn-1619--Allow for national security and law
enforcement application information sharing;
26. Cornyn--Human Smuggling
27. Toomey--increase W guestworkers
28. Portman-1634--E verify
29. Coats-1563--Triggers: High Risk at RPI and effective
control before green cards
30. Hatch--back taxes
31. Coburn-#1616--Strikes judicial review, taxpayer funded
lawyers and new DOJ Office of Legal Access Programs for
aliens.
32. Coburn-#1612--Denies RPI to aliens convicted for
domestic violence, child abuse, assault with bodily injury,
violation of protection order, drunk driving, reduces
allowable misdemeanors making an alien ineligible for RPI and
eliminates the Secretary's ability to waive that provision.
33. Johnson--1 year application period
34. Johnson--EITC
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. INHOFE. I also wanted to mention even though I oppose the bill, I
do think they have done a good job of trying to get some amendments
out, particularly Senator Grassley and Senator McCain, who offered the
opportunity to have my amendment. It was a good amendment. It was so
good that the ACLU is scoring against it. Hopefully, we will get a
chance to get those in.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The assistant majority leader is recognized.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as if in
morning business for 10 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Senator Mo Cowan
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I was here on the floor when Senator Mo
Cowan gave his farewell remarks. He came to the Senate as an appointee
to fill the spot John Kerry left vacant when he left to the Secretary
of State's position. I can't think of a person who came to the Senate
who has been so warmly received so quickly.
Senator Harry Reid made the comment that it is rare for a new
Member--just 6 months of seniority--to get a standing ovation at his
caucus lunch. Mo Cowan got two yesterday, which I think is a tribute to
the fact that we enjoyed his service and value his friendship, and will
remember him for his fine representation of the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts.
Mo Udall, a wise and witty longtime member of this Senate, famously
said that once politics gets in your blood, the only cure is embalming
fluid.
There is a lot of evidence to support that idea. But another Mo--
Senator Mo Cowan--is an exception to the rule.
When he was appointed 5 months ago to fill the seat vacated by
Secretary of State John Kerry, Senator Cowan said he was happy to serve
his State--but only a new Senator could be elected to finish Secretary
Kerry's term in this Senate.
Well, yesterday Massachusetts voters went to the polls to choose that
new Senator. I look forward to Senator Ed Markey joining this body very
soon.
For now, I want to take a moment to thank Mo Cowan for his service to
his State, this Senate and our Nation.
Senator Cowan has served with wisdom, courage and civility. He has
made
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friends and allies on both sides of the aisle--no easy feat.
I have to confess, I was probably pre-disposed to like Senator Cowan
because of his sartorial style. The last Senator to wear a bow-tie so
regularly was my dear friend and political mentor, Paul Simon.
More admirable than Senator Cowan's sense of style, however, is his
sense of fairness and decency and courage.
He has co-sponsored important bills including the Paycheck Fairness
Act, the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act, the Employment
Non-Discrimination Act, and the Safe Chemical Act.
In the wake of the terrible murders of 20 little children and their
teachers in Newtown, CT, Senator Cowan voted for sensible regulations
to help keep weapons of war out of the hands of criminals and those
with serious mental illness.
He voted for a budget resolution that would enable us to continue
reducing the Federal deficit while still, meeting our obligations today
and investing in a secure future.
I am particularly grateful to Senator Cowan for co-sponsoring a bill
Senator Enzi and I have worked on for several years and which this
Senate passed. The Marketplace Fairness Act will give States--if they
wish to use it--a way to collect sales and use taxes in Internet
purchases--taxes that are already owed but rarely collected.
Massachusetts lost $268 million last year because of the inability to
collect these taxes.
He flew on Air Force One with President Obama and travelled to the
Middle East with a bipartisan group of Senators to investigate the
Syrian civil war.
Senator Cowan has also been a diligent defender of the people of
Massachusetts. He and Senator Warren have worked especially hard to
protect their State's struggling fishing industry.
His service here was short, but his record is impressive. It is
especially impressive considering the fact that before he was sworn in
as a Senator, Mo Cowan had never held a single elective position in his
life.
William Maurice ``Mo'' Cowan was born in a small rural town in North
Carolina that he sometimes likens to the old TV town of Mayberry. His
father died when Mo was 16 years old. His widowed mother raised Mo and
his sisters on the money she earned as a seamstress, the equivalent of
about minimum wage.
Mo Cowan graduated from Duke University--the first person in his
family to graduate from a 4-year college. He earned a law degree from
Northeastern School of Law in Boston.
He earned a reputation as a very good lawyer and a mentor to other
young lawyers in the Boston area, especially young lawyers of color.
Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick convinced Senator Cowan to join
his administration as his chief counsel and later promoted him to chief
of staff.
When Governor Patrick approached Senator Cowan about serving as
Massachusetts' junior Senator until yesterday's special election could
be held, Senator Cowan tried to persuade the Governor to choose someone
else. Thank goodness he lost that debate.
Mo Cowan is a young man--especially by Senate standards--just 44
years old. He was born on April 4, 1969. He came into this world 1 year
to the day after Dr. Martin Luther King died.
With his appointment to the Senate, Senator Cowan became the eighth
African American ever to serve in this body. He and Senator Scott made
history--the first time that two African Americans had ever served in
this Senate at the same time.
I think Dr. King would be pleased that we have made progress, but he
would also remind us that we still have a long way to in achieving a
Senate that better reflects the American people, and he would be right.
I might add that the Supreme Court's ruling yesterday striking down
parts of the Voting Rights Act means we may have to work even harder to
make that possible. And I am committed to doing so.
On the day that Senator Cowan was sworn in to this body, he said:
Days like today are what my mother spoke of when I was a kid, [and she
said] that if you worked hard and did the right things and you treated
peoples well, anything could happen.
Years from now, other mothers will teach that lesson to their sons
and daughters--and they will able to point to Senator Cowan as proof.
In closing I want to thank Senator Cowan's wife Stacy and their young
sons Miles and Grant for sharing so much of their husband and father
with this Senate.
To my colleague Senator Cowan: It has been a privilege to work with
you.
Mr. President, I ask how much time is remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator has 6 minutes remaining.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, what is pending before the Senate is a
piece of history. For those who are witnessing this debate--whether in
the galleries or at home on C-SPAN--you are watching a debate on the
floor of the Senate that doesn't happen very often. We are debating the
comprehensive immigration reform bill. It is the first time in 25 years
we have tackled this issue.
If you look at the history of the United States, you know right off
the bat we are a Nation of immigrants. My mother was an immigrant to
this country. Many of us have immigrant parents and grandparents and
great-grandparents. That is who we are. We come from all over the world
to this great Nation. But the history of immigration law will tell you
that immigrants aren't always well or warmly received. There have been
periods in history where we have excluded people from certain countries
and excluded immigrants in general. There were other periods where we
couldn't wait to get the cheap labor from anyplace in the world to
build this great Nation. We have had real mixed feelings when it comes
to immigration.
The sad reality is for 25 years our immigration laws haven't worked
well. The estimate is we have about 11 million undocumented people
living in America. I have come to know many of them. They are not who
you think they are. Many of them turn out to be the mothers in a
household where the father and all the kids are American citizens. Many
of them turn out to be the people who sat down next to you in church.
They are the ones who, incidentally, cleared your table at the
restaurant. They are making the beds in your hotel room for the next
morning. They are watching your kids in daycare. And they are taking
care of your mom at the nursing home. These are the undocumented people
of America, many of them just asking for a chance to be part of this
American family. This bill gives them a chance.
But it isn't easy. They have to come forward and register with the
government, tell us who they are, where they live, where they work, and
tell us about their families. Then they have to pay a fine of $500.
That is the first installment. Then any job they have, they have to pay
their taxes and submit themselves to a criminal background check.
If that isn't enough, we tell them we are going to continue to
monitor them over 10 years, watching them. During that period of time
they have to demonstrate they are learning English. Then if they
complete that 10-year period, they have a 3-year chance to become
citizens. It is a 13-year process. Many of them have already been here
for 10 years or more. But if they are ready to travel down this long
road--and many are--at the end of the day their dream will come true.
They will be citizens in America. It is no amnesty. They are going to
pay a heavy price to make it all the way through those 13 years, but it
gives them their chance, and it makes us a safer Nation knowing who
they are, where they live, and where they work.
We are going to tighten our system so people applying for jobs in the
future have to prove who they are--no more phony Social Security
numbers, no more phony IDs. There is going to have to be real proof
before you get a job in America.
Approximately 40 percent came here on a visitor's visa and
overstayed. If you came here on that visa, we are going to track you
into America and out of America. The system is going to be tough.
And when it comes to the border, there is a difference of opinion
between the Democratic side and the Republican side of the aisle about
how much
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to do. Well, we have made a dramatic investment in border security
between the United States and Mexico. In the last 10 years we have
increased the Border Patrol between the two countries from 10,000 to
20,000. In many sectors we now have 97-percent effectiveness stopping
those who try to cross the border. We are going to invest 20,000 more
workers on that border--40,000 Border Patrol people.
People who have come to the floor critical of this bill say it isn't
enough. I will have to tell you, for some of these folks it will never
be enough. We are going to put billions of dollars into making that
border safe and reducing, if not eliminating, illegal immigration. That
is part of our promise in this bipartisan agreement that was reached.
I have been fortunate to serve with the so-called Gang of 8, four
Democrats and four Republicans. We have sat across the table for 5
months now, 30 different sessions, working out all the details, and we
have come up with an agreement--a good bipartisan agreement that is
finally going to move us forward.
I might add one footnote. Twelve years ago, I introduced a bill
called the DREAM Act, and said children brought to this country deserve
a special chance to become citizens. They didn't do anything wrong.
They didn't break any laws. They were 2 and 5 and 10 years old. They
were brought here by their parents. They deserve a chance. This bill is
the strongest bill ever brought to the floor of the Senate when it
comes to the DREAMers. I am proud of that. I am happy these young
people will finally get the chance to prove themselves, as I am sure
they will, when it comes to the future of this country.
There are lots of other provisions. Never take for granted that the
fruits and vegetables on your table appear magically. They are picked,
and many of them are picked by foreign workers, migrant workers. We
have an agriculture worker section here, which is important for the
future of our agricultural economy. We have a section when it comes to
the talented people we want to keep in the United States once educated
here, and those we can bring in to help create jobs in our country. But
the first rule in this bill, and the one I insisted on: Every job has
to be offered to an American first. With our unemployment, that is the
starting point, and it is included in this bill and it should be.
There are parts of this bill I don't applaud or necessarily endorse,
but it is the product of a compromise. We are not only proving to this
Nation that we can address the biggest issue in our heritage, we are
trying to prove to this Nation this Chamber--this Senate--can go to
work, roll up its sleeves, and get something done on a bipartisan
basis.
There will be some ``no'' votes, but the test votes we have had so
far show a strong bipartisan majority to move forward. If we get it
done--and I hope to God we do during the course of this week--I pray
that my colleagues over in the House will accept their responsibility
to this Nation to accept the need for comprehensive immigration reform.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama is recognized.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I see Senator King from Maine here. I
will only talk for a minute. I will share some thoughts later about
where I see the difficulties with the immigration bill.
I would say that for the vast majority of the people who will be
legalized or who will be coming into the country, businesses will be
under no requirement to hire Americans first. That is not accurate, and
it is a cause of concern for me.
Farewell Remarks
I wish to share some brief remarks. I know we have a lot to do, but I
was here to hear Senator Cowan's farewell remarks to us. They were
delivered eloquently and effectively, with integrity and graciousness
and a sense of purpose that I found impressive. I think all of us have
found him impressive, getting to know him. I heard him share his
background recently, how he came to this position. He does so with a
constancy of purpose and clear vision for what he believes is right. He
has been raised right, and he reflects those values and has done so in
the Senate.
It is a pleasure for me to have had the opportunity to get to know
him. I would just say it must be a special thrill for him to be able
to, all of a sudden, find himself, as he said so nicely, in the U.S.
Senate without having to campaign, raise money, or otherwise be in that
position.
He served his State with skill and dedication. It is a pleasure to
have served with him. I wish him Godspeed in his future endeavors.
I understand the Senator from Maine is going to share with us some
valuable history today. Maybe a connection between Maine and Alabama
might even be mentioned.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine is recognized.
Mr. KING. Mr. President, I rise in morning business, and I request
unanimous consent for 15 minutes for remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Battle of Gettysburg
Mr. KING. We all know that next Thursday, a week from tomorrow, is
our Nation's most important anniversary--July 4, 1776, the birthday of
the country. But Tuesday, July 2, is also one of our most important
anniversaries because July 1, 2, and 3 are the days the Battle of
Gettysburg occurred. That was probably the defining event in the
history of this country. It is especially important this year because
it is the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. What I would
like to do is share a few moments about one particular aspect of that
battle. It does indeed involve Maine and Alabama. It involves a man
from Maine named Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, who in 1862 was a
professor of modern languages at Bowdoin College in Maine. He was not a
soldier, had no history in the military, but decided that he had a
vision of America and he wanted to serve his country.
He joined a volunteer regiment organized in Maine in August of 1862
called the 20th Maine regiment. They came down the east coast, up the
Potomac to Washington, and were immediately deployed to Antietam in
September of 1862--the bloodiest day in American history. Fortunately
for the 20th Maine, they were held in reserve that day. They did see
action over the course of the fall and early winter at the Battle of
Fredericksburg. Then, along with 2 great armies, they headed north into
the State of Pennsylvania.
Mr. President, you are going to have to bear with my cartographic
skills. I think it would be helpful if we can see what happened. It is
easy to draw Virginia because it is a big triangle, so this is
Virginia. Here is the Maryland-Pennsylvania border.
In the early summer of 1863, two great armies snaked north out of
Virginia. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia came up the west side of the
foothills of the Appalachians and into Pennsylvania, shadowed by
Meade's Army of the Potomac, both 90,000 men. Meade was leading the way
into Pennsylvania without a particular destination but a desire to
engage the Federal Army in one climactic battle which he thought
correctly could have ended the Civil War.
Nobody knows exactly why on July 1 of 1863 those two armies collided
in the little town of Gettysburg. There is a rumor that there was a
shoe factory there and that the southern Army was going to go and
requisition those shoes. For whatever reason, the two armies met in
this little town of Gettysburg, PA. One of the interesting things about
the battle was that Lee's army had already gotten almost to Harrisburg
and came down into Gettysburg. The Union Army was coming up the
Taneytown Road from Washington and from the south, and they came in in
this direction. So at the Battle of Gettysburg, the southern army came
in from the north, and the northern army came in from the south.
On the first day of the battle, there was a standoff. They met almost
by accident in this town. There was fierce fighting in the streets of
Gettysburg, in the south of the town, and it was essentially a draw.
At the end of the day on July 1--and the word flashed back to both
armies that this was it. This was the confrontation, and reinforcements
came in from both lines of march to meet at this little town.
What happened on the second day was that on the morning of the second
day the Union troops--again, if this is
[[Page S5237]]
the town up here, the Union troops ended up on a hill called Culp's
Hill and then in a long line to the south, along an area that was an
old place where they buried people. Of course, that is Cemetery Ridge.
On the other side, the Confederates--and interestingly enough,
throughout American history red markers represent the Confederates and
blue the Federals--the Confederates ended up on a long ridge that ended
up down this way, with about a mile apart, and over here was a place
where they trained people to be preachers. That, of course, is Seminary
Ridge. So generations of sixth graders have been--Seminary Ridge over
here, Cemetery Ridge over here--generations of sixth graders have been
confused by this, but it is ``Cemetery'' where the Union was and
``Seminary'' where the Confederate troops were.
About the second day of the battle, a Union general noticed there was
a small hill down at the bottom of the entire line of Union troops that
was unoccupied by either side. He also immediately realized this could
be the most important piece of property in the entire battlefield
because it had an elevation that looked up the entire Federal line and
it anchored the Federal line.
The Union general grabbed the nearest officer near him and said: We
have to occupy that hill immediately. The fellow's name was Strong
Vincent, was the officer from New York. Vincent grabbed two other
regiments, New York and Pennsylvania, and then Maine, the 20th Maine
Regiment, and they went to the top of this hill.
Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain had only been the colonel of the 20th
Maine for about a month. He was in charge of 358 men. Vincent took him
to the extreme left flank of the Union Army, of this little hill, which
is called Little Round Top.
We had Pennsylvania, New York, and Maine. Vincent took Joshua
Lawrence Chamberlain to this point, and here were his orders:
This is the extreme left flank of the entire Union Army.
You are to hold this ground at all hazards.
``At all hazards''--that means to the death.
Almost immediately upon getting to the top of the hill, up came the
15th Alabama--one of the crack regiments in Lee's army--up the hill to
try to dislodge the 20th Maine. If you have not been to Gettysburg,
Little Round Top--if God were going to build a fortress, it would look
like Little Round Top. It is steep, rocky, with lots of places to be
behind, and indeed Chamberlain took maximum advantage of that. As the
charge came, they were able to repel it.
A half hour later or so, the Alabamians came again. They were pushed
back. They came again and were pushed back. Each time they got closer
and closer to the top of the hill because of the nature of guns in the
Civil War. A good shooter in the Civil War, a good handler of a rifle,
could get off four shots a minute.
I want you to think of yourself, Mr. President, at the top of that
hill with the 15th Alabama coming up. You take aim with your rifle and
shoot--bang. You are now prepared to shoot a second time. That period
until that sound--it felt like an eternity--was 15 seconds. That is how
long it would take to reload and get another shot. That is why in this
situation the charge came closer and closer.
By the third and fourth charge, it became hand-to-hand combat.
I should say, by the way, as I mentioned, that Joshua Lawrence
Chamberlain was not a soldier by trade; he was a professor at a little
college. He spoke 10 languages in 1856. But he had a deep vision for
the meaning of America, and he had a deep concern about the issue of
slavery.
When he was a student at Bowdoin in the early 1850s, a young
professor's wife was writing a book, and he sat in the living room of
this professor and listened to her read excerpts from this book, and
the book turned out to be probably the most influential book ever
published in America. It was called ``Uncle Tom's Cabin.'' It described
for people in the country the evils of slavery. Indeed, when Abraham
Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe and shook her hand, he said, ``I am
shaking the hand that started the Civil War'' because it lit the fuse
that led to the pressure that ultimately led to the abolition of
slavery.
In any case, four and then five charges, and each time, the 15th
Alabama was repelled. But then they were gathering at the bottom of the
hill for the final assault late in the day, a hot afternoon, July 2,
1863. The problem was, for Chamberlain, his men were out of ammunition.
They each had been issued 60 cartridges at the beginning of the battle.
They had all been fired during those five assaults. He then had a
choice to make as a leader. He had three options:
One was to retreat--which is a perfectly honorable thing to do in a
military situation, but his orders were to hold the ground ``at all
hazards'' because if he had not, if the Confederates had gotten around
Little Round Top, the entire rear of the Union Army would have been
exposed.
His other option was to stand and fight until overwhelmed. That would
not have worked very well because it would have only delayed them for a
few minutes.
Instead, he chose an extraordinary option that was very unusual even
at the time. He uttered one word, and the word was ``bayonets.'' There
is a dispute in history whether he also said ``charge'' and what his
actual order was, but everybody agrees he uttered the word
``bayonets,'' and his soldiers knew what that meant, and down the hill
into the face of the final Confederate charge came 200 crazy guys from
Maine. The 15th Alabama for the first and only time in the Civil War
was so shocked by this technique that they turned and ran, and the 200
boys from Maine--and I say 200 but at the beginning of this action
there were over 300; they lost 100 to casualties and death--captured
400 or 500 Confederates with no bullets in their guns.
Chamberlain tried to call his men back. They said, ``Hell no,
General, we are on our way to Richmond.''
I tell this story because it is a story of extraordinary bravery. By
the way, Chamberlain received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his
bravery and creativity that afternoon on that little hill in
Pennsylvania. But I tell the story because it is a story of our country
and it is a story of how a single person's actions and bravery can have
enormous impact. Historians argue about whether this was really the key
turning point, was there something else, was it some other regiment at
another place, but an argument can be made that this college professor
from Maine saved the United States. The defining moment for our country
was that hot afternoon in Pennsylvania, July 2, 1863.
I believe it is one of the great stories of American history. In
fact, the story of Chamberlain and Little Round Top is taught in Army
manuals to this day as a story of leadership, creativity, perseverance,
courage, and devotion to God and country.
I hope all Americans will think about these moments, and thousands
more like them, as we celebrate not only the birth of our country next
week, but also the rebirth of our country in the 3 days prior to July
4th.
I thank the Chair.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming is recognized.
Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as if
in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Health Care
Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, we have heard a lot of talk this week
about the big push by President Obama and his allies to promote the
health care law. We are less than 100 days out from the implementation
of that law. People in Wyoming are already feeling the effects of the
Democrats' health care law.
The law says employers with more than 50 full-time employees have to
provide expensive, one-size-fits-all health insurance. Employers all
across the country are cutting full-time workers back to part-time
status and cutting their shifts to less than 30 hours a week. Thirty
hours a week is the cutoff point to be considered a full-time worker
under the Democrats' health care law.
As a result of the Democrats' health care law, we are starting to get
stories like the one from the Rocket-Miner newspaper in Rock Springs,
WY, that came out yesterday.
[[Page S5238]]
The subheadline is ``School district looks at coverage, worker
options,'' and that is under the headline of ``Health Care Reform.''
Here is what the article says:
More than 500 employees working for Sweetwater County
School District No. 1 could see a reduction in their
paychecks for the upcoming school year.
The district may reduce hours for part-time employees to
exempt it from covering them on its insurance plan under
President Barack Obama's Patient Protection and Affordable
Care Act.
This is the Rocket-Miner newspaper in Rock Springs, WY, Tuesday, June
25.
The article goes on to explain that the school district has more than
500 employees who are working between 30 and 34 hours a week. Those are
the people that the health care law is threatening the most. The
article goes on to say these workers ``are likely to see their hours
decreased by up to five hours.'' So they will be cutting the hours of
workers from 34 hours and getting them down to 29 hours.
It quotes the school board chairman saying that the huge chunk of
money it would need to provide Washington-approved insurance for
everyone would have to come out of classrooms and other essentials.
Taking money out of classrooms and other essentials, he says: ``We are
talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars.''
Well, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars isn't a very impressive
amount to Washington Democrats, but for a small school district in
Wyoming, that is a big hit to their budget. It is a lot of pain that
the law is inflicting on those teachers and on those students. So for
the employees who are going to see their hours cut from 35 hours to
fewer than 30 hours, the Democrats' health care law is hitting their
paychecks, and hitting it hard.
Well, that was yesterday. Today in the Gillette News Record, Kathy
Brown wrote: ``School trustees consider changes with ObamaCare.'' Here
is what they say in Campbell County:
About 200 part-time positions could be affected. It does
mean the district must track the hours of employees much more
closely, and consider what to do with 320 substitute
teachers, 27 substitute bus drivers, 23 coaches, eight
temporary and four summer-only employees.
Before the July 17 meeting, school officials will try to
provide information to trustees on hours and possible costs.
``This is a paperwork nightmare,'' says one of the trustees.
She wondered if the district would have to hire more
employees just to do the paperwork and tracking.
There are nearly 8 million people in this country who are working
part time because they cannot find full-time work. These are not just
numbers in a monthly unemployment report, these are people all across
the country in towns such as Rock Springs and Gillette, WY. They want
to work and provide for their families, but they are suffering from the
bad economic recovery which has been caused by the failed policies of
Washington Democrats. Then they get hit a second time with this
terrible health care law. This health care law cuts back their hours
and cuts their paychecks even more.
I want to make one more point about the health care law. This
headline is from the front page of this morning's Investor's Business
Daily, June 26, 2013. It says: ``Privacy Falls Victim To ObamaCare
Hub.''
The hub they are talking about is the database of information about
people that was created by this health care law. It was created so
Washington could figure out who has health insurance and who might
qualify for subsidies under the law. With this data hub Washington
bureaucrats are going to have access to a huge amount of personal
information about people all across the country.
Here is what the article says:
The ObamaCare hub will ``interact'' with seven other
federal agencies: Social Security Administration, IRS,
Department of Homeland Security, Veterans Administration,
Office of Personnel Management, Defense Department and--
believe it or not--the Peace Corps. It also will plug into
state Medicaid databases.
So what does the hub want to include in all of this? Well, the
article goes on to say that the hub will store ``names, birth dates,
Social Security numbers, taxpayer status, gender, ethnicity, e-mail
addresses, phone numbers on millions of people expected to apply for
coverage via ObamaCare exchanges.''
That is just part of it. They are also going to have ``tax return
information from the IRS, income information from Social Security
Administration, and financial information from other third-party
sources.''
The article says Washington ``will also store data from businesses
buying coverage via an exchange, including a `list of qualified
employees and their tax ID numbers,' and keep it all on file for 10
years.''
In addition, the article goes on to say:
The Federal Government also can disclose this information--
We are talking about citizens' private information turned over to the
government, and the government ``can disclose this information `without
the consent of the individual.' '' They ``can disclose this information
`without the consent of the individual' to a wide range of people,
including `agency contractors, consultants, or grantees' who `need to
have access to the records' to help run ObamaCare.''
So all of this personal, private information is collected in one
place, held for 10 years, and made available to bureaucrats,
contractors, and consultants.
This is just another terrible effect of the Democrats' health care
law. This is a law that American people are just starting to learn more
about, and a law that many of those who voted for it didn't even know
what was in it. The more people learn, the more worried they become
about how this law will affect their care, their jobs, their paychecks,
and their privacy.
When Democrats in Washington pushed their health care law through
Congress, they were not honest with the American people about any of
these negative effects. The American people deserve better.
I yield the floor.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I come to the floor to speak on the bill
that is before us, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill. No matter
what side of the aisle you are on, we can all agree that our current
system is not working, and it is in need of reboot and reform. I
believe that the bipartisan approach taken in this bill gives us an
opportunity to address this issue in a thoughtful manner. I thank the
drafters of this bill for their hard work and tireless advocacy; I also
thank Chairman Leahy and the Majority Leader for the open and
transparent process that this bill has undergone.
I have three principles on immigration reform: we must protect our
borders, protect American jobs, and reward those who play by the rules.
And I believe that this carefully drafted and negotiated bill meets all
of these metrics. In addition to an accountable path to citizenship for
the undocumented population currently in the U.S., the bill also
includes new resources to secure our border and puts forth a rational
approach to future legal immigration to the U.S. While I do not agree
with every part of this bill, I believe that the compromises that were
made are fair. In passing this bill, we do what is right for our
economy, and we do what is right for our society.
This bill makes important reforms across the board, but I want to
focus on a few that are of particular importance to Maryland. The
seafood industry is the lifeblood of Maryland's Eastern Shore. It is
also a traditional industry that is adapting in today's world. They
rely on H-2B workers to keep their businesses running when American
workers are unavailable. I have consistently fought for an approach to
the H-2B program that recognizes that one size does not fit all,
protects the wages and jobs of all workers, and provides the certainty
that small businesses need to survive. This bill includes important,
tailored provisions that ensure the availability of the H-2B program.
The inclusion of the returning worker exemption, a provision that I
sponsored for many years, simply allows workers who entered during this
fiscal year not to be counted toward the H-2B cap through 2018. This is
a fix that aids the small, seasonal businesses that rely on these
workers year after year, such as the crab-pickers on Maryland's
Hooper's Island.
The bill also includes language that protects the wages of American
workers while striking a balance with the needs of employers. It adds
crucial
[[Page S5239]]
worker protections by providing for transportation costs for H-2B
workers, mandating that employers are responsible for fees, and
requiring that American workers not be displaced. The H-2B program is
far from perfect--and it could benefit from improvements--but its
availability is vital to many businesses. It is our job to make sure
that it works for all.
Tourism is vital to Maryland's economy, and programs like the Visa
Waiver Program ensure our friends and allies around the world are able
to visit our State. Each year, the Visa Waiver Program allows 16
million tourists to visit the United States and spend more than $51
billion, while supporting half a million jobs. This bill includes
important provisions to expand the Visa Waiver Program that I have long
fought for. These provisions give discretion to the Secretary of
Homeland Security to include countries that meet strict security
requirements, while also protecting our borders and creating jobs in
the tourism industry. New national security requirements mean stronger
passport controls, border security, and cooperation with American law
enforcement.
The current system punishes our allies--and that is what is happening
with our close friend Poland. Poland has been a longtime friend to the
U.S. and has stood with us in Iraq and Afghanistan, fighting and dying
alongside Americans. But Polish citizens cannot visit the U.S. without
a visa. Expanding the Visa Waiver Program to Poland alone could mean
$181 million in new spending and could support 1,500 new jobs. The
expansion of the Visa Waiver Program is good for national security and
economic development and helps our most trusted allies.
Now is the time for comprehensive immigration reform. Immigrants are
part of the fabric of our country, and we all benefit from an approach
that recognizes these contributions while ensuring that our laws are
followed and respected. This bill does that, and I look forward to
supporting its passage here in the Senate.
Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I rise to speak about the special procedures
for certain nonimmigrant agricultural workers included in the
underlying immigration bill. I have thoughts about the overall
immigration bill which I will share later, but at this time I want to
focus on a specific provision in the underlying substitute amendment.
Many farmers and ranchers in this country will tell you that they
need reliable, dedicated, and experienced employees to make their
operation successful. This could mean contracting with seasonal workers
to help a farmer harvest row crops or for my colleague, Chairman Leahy,
it could mean finding employees to milk and move cows on dairy farms in
Vermont. Agricultural labor in this country comes from a variety of
places, and an important source is from temporary and seasonal foreign
workers.
Currently, the H-2A program assists employers and foreign workers
with visas to perform temporary and seasonal agricultural labor. The
most common form of agricultural visa is for seasonal work in
harvesting, planting, or maintaining crops. Workers usually get visas
to the United States to perform work for several months and then return
to their home nations. However, Congress and the administration for
decades have recognized a special segment of temporary agricultural
workers which are distinct from the others, particularly those
industries within agriculture which require workers for longer periods
because of the unique work they perform. Under the existing H-2A
program, these occupations are recognized by special procedures which
allow employees to meet the needs of the specialized industries they
serve. Occupations which serve the livestock industry are examples of
agricultural jobs that require temporary work for longer periods of
time. Herding and managing livestock is an inherently different type of
work than that which is performed by other temporary agricultural
workers. In many cases, those working as temporary foreign workers in
livestock related occupations often have rich cultural histories and
family ties to herding which allow them to bring their unique
experience to the United States and make significant contributions to
our livestock industry.
This inherent challenge is evident in the special procedures which
manage nonimmigrant sheepherders in the existing H-2A program. For over
50 years, temporary nonimmigrant agricultural workers have been coming
to the United States to work as herders in the sheep and goat industry.
Over all these decades, Congress has recognized the special nature of
the sheepherding program in immigration law. At this time, I ask
unanimous consent that the following letters dated July 28, 1987, from
U.S. Senator Al Simpson and the response from Immigration and
Naturalization Service, INS, Commissioner Alan Nelson dated November 4,
1987 be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.
In this exchange, Senator Simpson, serving as the chairman of the
Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and a primary author of the
Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, wrote the administration
expressing the continued intent of Congress that the agency and its
rules reflect the historical arrangement that sheepherders had within
the H-2A program. Senator Simpson highlighted specifically the fact
that sheepherders should not be subject to the same return requirements
as other nonimmigrant temporary agricultural worker programs. In its
response, the Immigration and Naturalization Service recognized the
uniqueness of the sheepherder program, its effectiveness operating
under these special procedures, and sheepherders should not be subject
to the same return requirements as other nonimmigrant agricultural
workers.
As a result, the H-2A sheepherder program has operated successfully
with little change from when it first started. Currently, the special
procedures fall under the authority of the U.S. Department of Labor and
have continued to largely reflect the unique needs of sheepherders and
other special procedure occupations.
That is why I am pleased this immigration bill includes language
which authorizes special procedures for these very agricultural
occupations. Section 2232 of the legislation creates the new
nonimmigrant agricultural worker program. Within that section 218(A)(i)
authorizes ``special nonimmigrant visa processing and wage
determination procedures for certain agricultural occupations''. Those
occupations include (A) sheepherding and goat herding; (B) itinerant
commercial beekeeping and pollination; (C) open range production of
livestock; (D) itinerant animal shearing; and, (E) custom combining
industries. This is an important step forward in making sure that the
nonimmigrant sheepherders and workers in other special occupations can
continue to enter our country and work in these unique temporary
agricultural jobs.
Particularly important is that the bill provides these special
occupations with unique rules on work locations, and housing. This is
because unlike the typical temporary nonimmigrant agricultural jobs
performed in the United States, the special procedure occupations
operate in unique conditions. For example, sheepherders may work alone
or in teams monitoring animals graze in remote areas where mobile
housing is required. For sheepherders, mobile sheep wagons serve as
both a historical symbol and functional shelter from the elements of
the range where teams of sheepherders prepare meals, bunk, and keep
supplies for livestock. By including the housing language in this
section, Congress clearly intends that traditional uses of these
housing units continue for special procedure occupations.
I have expressed concerned in recent years about efforts by the U.S.
Department of Labor to avoid consulting stakeholders when drafting new
policies for special procedure occupations. Bypassing stakeholders has
confused employers and employees and led to a number of inconsistent
enforcement actions by agency personnel.
I ask unanimous consent that the letter I sent to the Department of
Labor on November 14, 2011, as the ranking member of the Senate Health,
Education, Labor and Pensions, HELP, Committee as well as the response
I received on February 2, 2012, from Department of Labor Assistant
Secretary Jane Oates be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my
remarks. You will note that previous practice afforded the Secretary
some discretion in how it
[[Page S5240]]
consults with special procedure stakeholders--specifically, that the
``administrator may consult with affected employer and worker
representatives.'' I am pleased that this bill includes text which
requires that agencies ``shall'' consult with employer and employee
representatives and publish for notice and comment regulations relating
to the implementation of the special procedures. This is an important
step in ensuring that both employers and employees are heard in the
rulemaking process and their concerns are reflected in agency guidance.
This consultation will help avoid future confusion amongst the parties,
ensure that policies practically serve the program, and that there can
be an end to inconsistent enforcement actions.
Mr. President, the occupations represented by these special
procedures may affect only a few specific industries but play an
important role in protecting the future of American agriculture. I am
pleased the immigration bill allows occupations such as sheepherding to
operate under the new program as it has operated for the past 50 years.
In addition, I am pleased that the legislation recognizes a specific
need to address the unique wage, housing, and operational components of
the special procedure programs. Finally, it is vital that rulemaking
requires agency consultation with stakeholders when drafting policies
for the special procedure program. I thank the sponsors of this bill
for their work on this section.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
U.S. Senate,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC, July 28, 1987.
Hon. Alan Nelson,
Commissioner, Immigration and Naturalization Service,
Washington, DC.
Dear Al: I am writing to comment on the Immigration
Service's interim final regulations regarding the H-2A
program, as they would affect the sheepherding program.
Congress clearly intended that the sheepherding program be
allowed to continue in its present form and under its present
conditions. This was actually explicitly stated in previous
Senate versions of the Immigration Reform and Control Act. I
am now concerned that the proposed regulations might not
fulfill congressional intent in this area.
I understand that the interim final INS regulations require
all H-2A workers to return home for a minimum of 6 months
after residing in the U.S. for a period equal to three labor
certifications. Under present practice, there is no such
requirement in the H-2 sheepherding program. While I
understand the reason for a ``six month return'' rule in
other occupations, present practice allows a much briefer
time outside of the U.S. after three labor certifications for
sheepherders. I suggest that current practice be continued in
this area.
Thank you for your attention and assistance. With best
personal regards,
Most Sincerely,
Alan K. Simpson,
United States Senator.
____
U.S. Department of Justice
Immigration and Naturalization Service,
Washington, DC, November 4, 1987.
Hon. Alan K. Simpson,
U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
Dear Senator Simpson: This is in response to your letter of
July 28, 1987 concerning the interim H-2A rule that requires
that a person who holds H-2A status for three years must
remain abroad for six months before he can again obtain H-2A
status. You indicated this would be detrimental to the sheep
industry, and that in promulgating the H-2A program Congress
intended that the sheepherder program continue under the
prior conditions.
Persons admitted as H-2 nonimmigrants have traditionally
been limited to stays of no more than three years. The
interim rule to which you referred, found in 8 CFR
214.2(h)(3)(viii)(C), was an attempt to strengthen this
limitation to ensure that persons who hold H-2A status are
nonimmigrants, and are not using the status as quasi-
permanent residence. Our concern was the practice of
employing an individual as an H-2A for three years, sending
him abroad solely for the purpose of obtaining a new visa,
and then bringing him back to the United States. Such actions
do not constitute a meaningful interruption in employment in
the United States, and turns H-2A nonimmigrant status into
quasi-permanent residence, while leaving control over the
alien's immigrant status with the employer.
We recognize that the prior H-2 sheepherder program worked
effectively for the sheep industry. The administration has
already recognized the uniqueness of this program through
special provisions in the Department of Labor temporary
agricultural labor certification process. Based on your
statement regarding the intent of Congress regarding this
program, in the final H-2A petition rule we will include a
similar provision, and not require a six month absence after
a sheepherder has been in the United States for three years.
Sincerely,
Alan C. Nelson,
Commissioner.
____
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC, November 14, 2011.
Re Changes in the Special Procedures for the H-2A Program
Hon. Hilda L. Solis,
Secretary of Labor, U.S. Department of Labor, Washington, DC.
Dear Secretary Solis: I write to respectfully request the
Department of Labor reconsider several of the recent changes
it made to Special Procedures for the H-2A Program. Although
there are some positive changes, which are well intentioned,
there are several that will have serious adverse impacts on
H-2A employers. Specifically, I am concerned that the
Department of Labor continues to make these changes with
little or no input from stakeholders and offers little
clarification as to how the guidance will be enforced.
Several Training and Employment Guidance letters (TEGLs)
were issued June 14, 2011 and published in the Federal
Register on August 4, 2011 in accordance with 20 CFR 655.102.
Special procedures under this section are designed to provide
the Secretary of Labor with a limited degree of flexibility
in carrying out the responsibilities of the Immigration and
Nationality Act (INA). However, the guidance issued under
these TEGLs in 2011 deviates significantly from past
interpretations of employment guidelines, was written devoid
of stakeholder input and causes several significant
challenges for the employers in the open range livestock
industry.
Although several of the changes create significant
challenges, those concerning sleeping units and variances are
creating the one of the most alarming negative impacts on
livestock producers. Guidelines concerning the use of mobile
housing for open range occupations have remained unchanged
for 22 years. A separate sleeping unit has been understood to
be a bedroll/sleeping bag, bed, cot, or bunk. However, the
latest TEGL references the term ``housed'' in regards to
sleeping unit and adds a three day consecutive limitation for
employees sharing a mobile housing unit on the range, such as
a sheep wagon. This seems to imply that a separate sleeping
unit is to include a separate ``housing unit.'' Not only is
the guideline inconsistent with previous standards but when
interpreted strictly proves impractical for many employers.
The resources necessary to move and secure multiple housing
units in remote areas of range would not only hinder herding
operations but could also prove to be dangerous in adverse
weather conditions or during the shorter hours of daylight
associated with the winter months.
H-2A employers engaged in sheep herding activities want to
provide safe workplace conditions for their employees.
However, when Department guidelines are vague, inconsistent
or made without stakeholder input--challenges are due to
arise that could adversely impact the industry and its
employees. There is also ongoing concern about enforcement
activities by the Department. Instances of inconsistent
interpretations of guidance have been reported that concerns
both long-standing policies and guidance resulting from the
2011 TEGLs. In the case of guidance that pre-dates the 2011
TEGLs, there have been instances in which employers are
challenged for practices that are consistent with state
standards for their occupation and in areas where the
Department is to provide deference to state workforce and
employment requirements.
Additionally, there has been a great deal of confusion over
the revision of the requirements for variances by the 2011
TEGLs. In the past, operators were able to file a variance
once with their appropriate state department of workforce and
employment with no need to file additional variances for
herding activities. However, the new guidance requires
variances to be filed every year and can be applied to only
extremely limited situations. This change limits flexibility
for employers to best serve the needs of their employees and
creates impractical consequences for a number of range
operations. I encourage the Department to consider returning
its policies to allow for variances to be filed once for
activities recognized by the special procedures and to remove
the time limit that has been imposed on variances.
Thank you for considering this request and these comments
regarding the Special Procedures for the H-2A Program. Again,
I encourage the Department to allow greater stakeholder
participation in future changes to the special procedures. I
look forward to the Department's response on this matter.
Sincerely,
Mike Enzi,
United States Senator.
____
U.S. Department of Labor,
Washington, DC, Feb. 2, 2012
Hon. Michael Enzi,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senator Enzi: Thank you for your letter to Secretary
of Labor Hilda L. Solis requesting that the Department of
Labor (Department) reconsider the recent changes made to
Special Procedures for the H-2A Program through the Training
and Employment Guidance Letters (TEGL) published in
[[Page S5241]]
the Federal Register on August 4, 2011. The TEGLs updated
special procedures previously established under the H-2A
Temporary Agricultural Program for occupations such as sheep
and goat herding to reflect organizational changes as well as
new regulatory provisions contained in the Temporary
Agricultural Employment of H-2A Foreign Workers in the United
States (H-2A Final Rule) published by the Department on
February 12, 2010. Your letter has been referred to my office
for response. The Employment and Training Administration is
responsible for administering foreign labor certification
program through the Office of Foreign Labor Certification
(OFLC).
In your letter you state that even though there were some
positive changes set forth in the TEGLs, the Department
continues to make changes with little or no input from
stakeholders and offers little clarification as to how the
guidance will be enforced. Of particular importance, you cite
changes pertaining to sleeping units made available to
workers and to the variance procedure previously required of
employers when petitioning for more than one worker to be
housed in mobile units used in the open range. Your letter
states that the above change in guidance limits flexibility
for employers to best serve the needs of their employees and
creates impractical consequences for a number of range
operations.
To provide for a limited degree of flexibility in carrying
out the Secretary's responsibilities under the Immigration
and Nationality Act (INA), while not deviating from statutory
requirements, the H-2A Final Rule provides the Administrator
of OFLC with the authority to establish, continue, revise, or
revoke special procedures for processing certain H-2A
applications. The special procedures for sheep and goat
herding, for example, have been recognized for many years and
draw upon the historically unique nature of the agricultural
work that cannot be completely addressed within the
regulatory framework generally applied to other H-2A
employers. Such procedures recognize the peculiarities of the
industry or agricultural activity, and establish a reasonable
and tailored means for such employers to meet underlying
program requirements while not deviating from statutory
requirements. Prior to making determinations regarding the
use of special procedures, the H-2A Final Rule states that
the ``OFLC Administrator may consult with affected employer
and worker representatives''. The Department published these
revised special procedures in June 2011 with a delayed
effective date of October 1, 2011, to provide affected
employers time to understand and adapt to any changes. The
Department then published each TEGL as a notice in the
Federal Register on August 4, 2011.
The special procedures published by the Department covering
occupations involved in the open range production of
livestock do not change the longstanding requirement that
employers must provide housing and sleeping facilities to
workers under the H-2A Program. Due to the unique nature of
the work performed on the open range, employers in this
industry are allowed to self-certify that housing is
available, sufficient to accommodate the number of workers
being requested, and meets all applicable standards. Within
the housing unit, workers must be afforded a separate
sleeping unit such as a comfortable bed, cot, or bunk with a
clean mattress. Therefore, it would be possible for the
employer to continue to have one camp with more than one
worker so long as each worker had his or her own bed. Because
employers participating in the H-2A Program must make
arrangements for housing workers several months in advance of
the start date of work, the Department believes employers
likewise have sufficient time to plan and arrange for the
provision of sleeping units for its workers. Where it is
temporarily impractical to set up a separate sleeping unit
which would result in more than one worker having to share a
bed, cot or bunk, the revised special procedures defined
``temporary'' as no more than three consecutive days to
ensure workers promptly receive the housing benefits they are
entitled to under the H-2A Program.
In your letter you also state that the new guidance departs
from the previous practice of allowing employers to file a
housing variance request only one time with the appropriate
State Workforce Agency. Though the new guidance continues the
practice of allowing employers to submit a written request
for a housing variance, the Department's requirement has
remained consistent by stipulating that ``When filing an
application for certification, the employer may request a
variance from the separate sleeping unit(s) requirement to
allow for a second herder to temporarily join the herding
operation.'' Each open range production of livestock
application is adjudicated on a case-by-case basis and
conform to housing safety and health standards.
If you have any additional questions, please contact Mr.
Tony Zaffirini, Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental
Affairs, at (202)-693-4600.
Sincerely,
Jane Oates,
Assistant Secretary.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I come to the floor today in support
of S. 744, the bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill before
the Senate.
Through the process of negotiation and compromise, including 212
amendments that were considered during the course of the Senate
Judiciary Committee markup last month and now much discussion on the
Senate floor, a workable, tough--but fair--bill sits before us, ripe
for us to take action on a problem that has gone unresolved for far too
long.
Colleagues, this is our last, best chance to achieve immigration
reform.
The bill before the Senate provides long-sought-after solutions that
will help fix our broken immigration system. It takes into
consideration our country's modern-day national security, economic, and
labor needs, as well as our country's age-old tradition of preserving
family unity and promoting humanitarian policies.
It would also bring approximately 11 million undocumented individuals
now living in the United States out of the shadows and on a path where
they could proudly and openly contribute to this great nation.
The first fundamental principle of the bill is that we must control
our Nation's borders and protect our national security.
Before a single undocumented person in the United Staes can earn a
green card, several important ``triggers'' must be met, showing that
the Federal Government has effectively secured the border and is
enforcing current immigration laws. These triggers include the
following:
No. 1, an unprecedented increase of 20,000 new full-time
Border Patrol agents stationed along the southern border.
No. 2, the full deployment of the comprehensive southern
border security strategy, which requires the Department of
Homeland Security to conduct surveillance of 100 percent of
the southern border region.
No. 3, DHS completion of the southern border fencing
strategy, which includes at least 700 miles of pedestrian
fencing along the southern border.
No. 4, implementation of a mandatory employment
verification system for all employers, known as E-Verify,
which will prevent unauthorized workers from obtaining
employment.
No. 5, implementation of an electronic exit system at air
and sea ports of entry that operates by collecting machine-
readable visa or passport information from passengers of air
and vessel carriers.
These enforcement improvements build upon the Department of Homeland
Security's substantial progress in securing and managing our borders.
Over the past several years, DHS has deployed unprecedented amounts
of manpower, resources, and technology to secure the Nation's borders,
and these efforts have not only led to enhanced border security but
have also expedited legitimate trade and travel.
The second fundamental principle included in the bill is the creation
of a path to citizenship for the 11 million individuals who are living
and working in the United States without proper immigration
documentation.
While some have insisted that all 11 million undocumented immigrants
should be deported, such a solution is not reasonable.
A majority of these individuals and families have become integrated
into the fabric of their communities, and deportation would be a severe
outcome. Many work and pay taxes, but they and their families live in
the shadows and face the possibility of being picked up and deported,
daily.
The State of California has the largest number of undocumented
immigrants, estimated to be 2.6 million people or nearly one-fourth of
all unauthorized immigrants currently living in the United States.
These individuals have become an essential part of the California
workforce. Many work in hotels, restaurants, agriculture, and the
housing and construction industries.
A recent study of immigrants in California that was completed by Dr.
Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda and Marshall Fitz of the Center for American
Progress concluded that, ``if all unauthorized immigrants were removed
from California, the state would lose $301.6 billion in economic
activity, decrease total employment by 17.4%, and eliminate 3.6 million
jobs.'' The study further showed that, ``if unauthorized immigrants in
California were legalized, it would add 633,000 jobs to the economy,
increase labor income by $26.9 billion, and increase tax revenues by
$5.3 billion.''
This bill establishes a process to bring these individuals out of the
shadows.
The need to provide a stable, legal, and sustainable workforce
through immigration reform is critical in the agricultural sector.
[[Page S5242]]
According to government estimates, there are about 1.8 million people
who perform hired farm work in the United States. Approximately 1.2
million of these individuals--fully two-thirds of those who help bring
pistachios, almonds, wine, and other things we enjoy, to our tables--
are not authorized to work here.
Some may ask, why don't farmers hire Americans to do the work? The
answer is, they have tried and tried, but there are not many Americans
who are willing to take a job in the fields. It is hard, stooped labor,
requiring long and unpredictable hours, often in the hot Sun and high
temperatures. That is why the labor shortage persists even in these
challenging economic times.
The United Farm Workers initiated the ``Take Our Jobs'' campaign in
which they invited citizens and legal residents to apply for jobs on
farms across the country, but only seven people accepted jobs and
trained for agriculture positions.
A 2012 California Farm Bureau survey found that 71 percent of the
tree fruit growers and nearly 80 percent of raisin and berry growers
were unable to find adequate labor to prune trees and vines or pick
crops.
This problem also impacts year-round industries such as dairy. A 2012
Texas A&M study found that farms using an immigrant workforce produce
more than 60 percent of the milk in our country. Without these
immigrant dairy employees, economic output would decline by $22 billion
and 133,000 workers would lose their jobs.
All over the Nation, growers are closing their farms because they
lack a stable, legal workforce. And American farmers who remain are
suffering economic losses because of the lack of immigration reform.
And when farmers suffer, there is a ripple effect felt throughout the
economy--in farm equipment manufacturing, packaging, processing,
transportation, marketing, lending, and insurance.
The reality is that if there are not enough farm workers to harvest
the crops in the United States, we will end up relying on foreign
countries to provide our food supply. This is not good for our economy
or for ensuring that Americans are receiving safe and healthy foods.
Right now, the H-2A visa, or temporary agricultural guest worker
visa, is the only program that is available for growers to hire foreign
workers. Unfortunately, this program has not worked for the vast
majority of agricultural employers.
A 2011 National Council of Agricultural Employers survey found that
administrative H-2A delays prevented almost three-fourths of surveyed
employers from timely receiving workers, which caused economic loss of
nearly $320 million for farms in 2010.
Katie Jackson from Jackson Family Wines in Santa Rosa, CA, wrote me
about the challenges she currently faces in navigating the H-2A visa
program and identifying a sufficient number of skilled workers. She
wrote that because, ``very few of the unemployed in this Nation will
opt to work in agriculture, and even fewer have the necessary skills to
do so,'' Jackson Family Wines turned to increased automation and use of
the H-2A program. However, Ms. Jackson noted that ``the H-2A program is
cumbersome and from our perspective merely provides a temporary fix.''
In previous Congresses, Senators Craig, Kennedy, and I repeatedly
tried to pass bipartisan legislation to address this, known as AgJOBS,
without success.
This year, I collaborated with Senators Rubio, Bennet, and Hatch to
negotiate and develop a new proposal that is balanced and fair to
address the ag labor crisis. I am very grateful to Senator Schumer and
the other Members of the Gang of 8 that they incorporated this proposal
into this bill; it is now subtitle B of Title II, the ``Agricultural
Worker Program.''
All of the elements of this program were negotiated between farm
worker representatives and a large coalition of grower organizations.
These negotiated provisions protect both farmers who are forced to rely
on foreign farm labor and the farm workers by allowing the current
undocumented farm workers to continue to work in agriculture to earn a
blue card and eventually a green card.
Under the bill, agricultural workers who can document U.S.
agricultural employment for a minimum of 100 work days or 575 hours in
the 2 years prior to date of enactment are eligible to adjust to blue
card status. Blue card applicants must not have a felony or violent
misdemeanor conviction and must pay a $100 fine for being in the United
States without immigration status.
Agricultural workers are eligible for a green card when they pay all
taxes, have no felony or violent misdemeanor convictions, and pay
another fine--of $400. The worker must also document that they
performed at least 5 years of agricultural employment for at least 100
work days per year during the 8-year period beginning on the date of
enactment or performed at least 3 years of agricultural employment for
at least 150 work days per year during the 5-year period beginning on
the date of enactment.
To replace the problematic H-2A program, the bill will also address
the long-term workforce needs of farmers going forward, including
dairies and other year-round ag industries, by creating a streamlined
system to bring in temporary guest workers through a new agricultural
visa program called the W-Visa program.
This two-part new farm worker visa program provides a temporary
worker two options, which are at-will employment or contract-based
employment.
No. 1 at-will employees have the freedom to move from employer to
employer without any contractual commitment.
No. 2 contract employees must commit to work for an employer for a
fixed period of time, which can provide increased stability for both
employees and employers. After fulfilling this commitment, they are
then free to work for other U.S. agricultural employers.
The bill includes specific negotiated wage rates that replace the
``adverse effect wage rate'' standard that exists under the current H-
2A program, which has proven to be very controversial, and which many
farmers say is one of the reasons that the H-2A program is unworkable.
The number of agricultural guest workers who can enter the country in
any given year is subject to a carefully negotiated cap to reflect
anticipated labor market demands.
For the first 5 years, the visa program is capped at 112,333 per
year. With a 3-year visa, this would result in 336,999 temporary
workers who can be in the country at one time.
To ensure that a given year's visa allocation is not used up by
regions of the country that harvest earlier than others, the bill
requires that the visas be evenly distributed on a quarterly basis in
the first year and that the USDA Secretary can modify the timing of the
disbursement of visas based on prior usage patterns thereafter. Any
unused visas that remain at the end of a quarter can be rolled over to
the next quarter but not to the next year.
The cap may be increased if there are demonstrated labor shortages or
reduced in response to a high unemployment rate of agricultural
workers. After 6 years, the number of applications for guest worker
visas and the number of blue card applications approved will also be
considered when determining the annual caps.
This new, improved visa program will help American agriculture
continue to be a driving force in our Nation's economy.
For those who are currently unauthorized to be in this country,
Democrats and Republicans together created a new registered provisional
immigrant--or RPI--program to provide such immigrants with lawful
immigration status.
RPIs would be authorized to work in the United States and to travel
abroad. Only if they meet stringent criteria may they renew their RPI
status for another 6 years and ultimately adjust from RPI status to
that of a lawful permanent resident--or green card holder.
Let me be clear, this is not amnesty. Amnesty is automatically giving
those who broke the law a clean slate, no questions asked. This bill
does not do that. Instead, the bill imposes rigorous requirements in
order for each individual to attain legal status, apply for a green
card, and eventually become a citizen.
The time has come for those who are already here, doing jobs across
the
[[Page S5243]]
spectrum--such as caring for our aging population, working in
restaurants and hotels, and creating successful small businesses. It is
realistic for us to secure a sufficient legal workforce, while
importantly protecting our U.S. workers, to meet the labor needs of
this country.
This bill would also finally pave the way for DREAMers who were
brought to the United States by their parents and grew up here; they
consider the United States their home and want to give back.
Approximately 65,000 DREAMers graduate from our high schools each
year. They are hard-working and are dedicated to their education or to
serving in the Nation's military. Some are valedictorians and honor
roll students; some are community leaders and have an unwavering
commitment to serving the United States.
Through no fault of their own, these young individuals lack the
immigration status they need to realize their full potential. This bill
will provide an opportunity for these students to fulfill the American
dream and it is only prudent for us to give them that chance.
While still prioritizing the American workers who are seeking jobs by
establishing a strict screening requirements, this bill aims to meet
the needs of businesses so that our economy can succeed not only in the
fields but in medical, technological, and research labs across the
country.
This bill reforms the H-1B visa program for high-skilled workers by
doubling and potentially tripling it depending on the country's labor
needs. Ensuring that this country stays ahead of the curve in
technology, it facilitates advances in science, technology, math, and
engineering by stapling a green card to certain STEM graduates'
passports. It creates a W visa program for low-skilled workers and
encourages ideas through entrepreneurship, enabling the creation of the
likes of the next eBay, Google, PayPal, and Yahoo, all which were
founded by immigrants.
I want to commend the members of the Gang of Eight Senators--Schumer,
McCain, Durbin, Graham, Menendez, Rubio, Bennet, and Flake,--for
providing a foundation that strikes the right balance and reflects the
best thinking on how to accommodate all the various concerns and
interests.
I also want to recognize those who paved the path forward for them,
including former Senators Kennedy, Specter, Salazar, Kyl, and Martinez.
Their hard work in tackling this difficult issue has finally brought us
to this crucial stage.
This is not a perfect bill, but it is a necessary bill. If we do not
seize this opportunity, I fear that the chance of comprehensive reform
will be gone for another generation--something I believe would be a
terrible mistake for our country.
It realistically and pragmatically updates our current immigration
system in a way that enhances our national security, ensures our labor
needs are met in a fair way that does not compromise U.S. workers,
facilitates timely family unification, and is humane. I hope you will
join me in passing this bill in the Senate.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, as we look forward to bringing our debate
on comprehensive immigration reform to a close, I especially want to
recognize the work of one Senator who made a major contribution to this
legislation. Provisions contained in this legislation will rewrite our
entire agricultural visa program, and they will do so for the better.
For the first time, America's dairy farmers will have access to
temporary foreign workers, and the population of undocumented farm
workers will have the chance to come out of the shadows and into the
lawful immigration system, where they will have rights and the
protection of the law. I am grateful for the work she has done, and I
am proud to support her important contributions to this legislation.
The work of the senior Senator from California on this legislation
should be recognized and commended. She worked long and hard to bring
agricultural workers and employers together to find consensus.
She spent many hours keeping these negotiations going, and she did
not give up until a fair agreement was reached. And just this week I
know that Senator Feinstein stood up for farmers in the Northeastern
part of the United States and resisted last-minute efforts related to
this bill to create a divide between farmers in different parts of the
country. For this, I thank her.
Yesterday, the Washington Post published an article about Senator
Feinstein's distinguished service in the Senate, her leadership, her
incredible work ethic, and her tenacity. I ask unanimous consent that
this article be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Washington Post, June 25, 2013]
Feinstein, NSA's Top Congressional Defender, Has Built Respect Over
Decades of Service
(By Emily Heil)
She stands before television cameras just hours after the
news breaks that the U.S. government has been conducting a
massive survillance program, compiling a database of
Americans' phone records and monitoring foreign terrorism
suspects' Internet traffic.
Her hands form fists.
``It's called protecting America,'' says Dianne Feinstein.
A five-term California Democrat who chairs the Senate
intelligence committee, Feinstein hardly needs to flex her
muscles these days to command deference. On Sunday talk shows
and from podiums around the Capitol, she's playing the role
of chief congressional defender of the surveillance program
to skeptical colleagues and critics who say it's Big Brother
run amok. She is also one of the most senior members of the
powerful Judiciary and Appropriations panels.
Just as she is playing such high-profile roles, Feinstein,
who turned 80 on Saturday, is blazing a new political trail
as a symbol--an unwilling one--of the changing workplace.
``It's a non-role as far as I'm concerned,'' Feinstein
says. ``I've always had the belief that age is just
chronology. I know people who are 50 who are older than I
am.''
With the death of Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.) this
month, Feinstein became the Senate's oldest member, a
distinction never before held by a woman. In fact, there's
only been one other female senator over 80: Rebecca L.
Felton, an 87-year-old, lace-collared white-supremacist
suffragette who was appointed to a vacant seat from Georgia
and served for less than two months in 1922.
Feinstein's age is in most ways incidental to her success;
in others, it's key. She's benefiting from the privileges
that seniority brings in the Senate and from a work ethic
forged in an era where women had to work twice as hard as
their male counterparts to succeed.
There are now a record 20 female senators, many of whom
have taken on high-ranking roles such as chairmanships of key
committees that can help ensure long political life spans.
They may soon be as likely as men to grow old in elected
office--or in any office.
Women over 60 make up the fastest-growing segment of the
workforce, notes Elizabeth Fideler, a fellow at the Sloan
Center on Aging and Work at Boston College and the author of
``Women Still at Work: Professionals Over 60 and on the
Job.'' And the sight of older woman at the office--even when
that office is the Capitol--is becoming more familiar.
``Obviously, politics is a bit harsher an arena, but people
are willing to accept an older person so long as they remain
effective,'' she says.
Age is a sensitive topic for anyone. For politicians, even
more so. When Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.) at 72 launched his
presidential campaign in 1995, Time magazine's cover asked,
``Is Dole Too Old for the Job?'' And recall Sen. John
McCain's (R-Ariz.) anger at a question about his age during
the 2008 presidential campaign. (McCain was 70, and called
the questioner a ``little jerk.'')
If the politician in question happens to be a woman, she's
even more likely to get The Question or be the target of
late-night vitriol.
In 2007, at the age of 67, Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) became
speaker of the House--the highest-ranking woman in the
history of the republic--and a feast for comedians' Botox
jokes.
``Nancy Pelosi said today we've waited 200 years for
this,'' Jay Leno cracked after Pelosi was sworn in. ``Two
hundred years? How many face-lifts has this woman had?''
Former congresswoman Pat Schroeder (D-Colo.) predicts that
even as women remain in office into old age, the public will
never tolerate ``a female Strom Thurmond,'' a reference to
the late South Carolina Republican senator who left office at
the age of 100, his final years spent with staffers and
colleagues overlooking (and compensating for) his diminished
mental and physical powers.
``The public would turn on her,'' Schroeder says. ``Not
like they did with Strom, who everyone thought was funny--
this kind of character.''
Tall and unstooped, Feinstein is often seen striding down
the Capitol's marble halls.
Even her political adversaries say she remains more engaged
in the minutiae of her job than many of her younger
counterparts.
``I always think if I'm half as prepared and energetic as
Senator Feinstein, I'm doing okay,'' says Sen. Claire
McCaskill. The Missouri Democrat calls Feinstein ``the ideal
of what a senator should be.''
``Role model'' is the one part of her new status that
Feinstein embraces. ``That is the biggest compliment,'' she
says.
[[Page S5244]]
Former secretary of state Madeleine Albright says the
scrutiny that female politicians will draw in their older
years will be just a continuation of what they have faced at
other points in their careers. ``They'll talk about
[Feinstein's] hair--but that's what happens now anyway,'' she
says.
It did, at least, early in Feinstein's career, when media
reports swooned over her looks and her impeccable ensembles.
``Charm Is Only Half Her Story,'' was the headline of a Time
magazine 1990 story, which described her as ``a casting
director's idea of a Bryn Mawr president who must be bodily
restrained from adding gloves--or perhaps even a pillbox
hat--to her already ultra-conservative banker-blue suits and
fitted red blazers and pearls.''
Ask friends and colleagues to describe Feinstein and
something surprising happens.
``She does her homework,'' says former senator Olympia
Snowe (R-Maine).
``She does her homework,'' says Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-
Ga.), the vice chairman of the intelligence committee.
``She just does her homework,'' says Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-
Calif.)
At home, as in the office, Feinstein works constantly. That
includes spending her days off poring over thick briefing
books and, always, the ``weeklies,'' a stack of the memos she
requires every member of her staff to submit each Friday.
In the memo, each employee--from top policy advisers to
mailroom clerks--describes what he or she has done that week:
meetings they attended, people they met with, legislation
they worked on, or what kind of letters have been coming in
from constituents. Feinstein scours them, and then asks
pointed questions at mandatory Monday-morning staff meetings
in her Washington office.
This interrogative style has led some former staffers to
grouse that she is a tough boss, prone to calling out
underlings, even in group settings where such queries can
come off as insults. Mark Kadesh, a lobbyist who was her
longtime chief of staff, says that the rigors of working for
her weren't for everyone. ``The thing is that she's no more
demanding of herself than she is of her staff,'' he says.
``If you couldn't keep up, it was tough. If you accepted that
challenge, it was a great experience.''
Yet colleagues--even Republicans--find her approachable.
``You knew that she always came to her conclusions based on
real knowledge and understanding, not in a partisan way,''
Snowe says.
Chambliss credits her with helping to smooth over the once-
strained relationship between the Senate and House
intelligence committees. The bipartisan leaders now meet
regularly to talk about how to speak with one voice on tricky
issues--a change from the past. ``We couldn't afford that--
the world has become too dangerous a place on intelligence
issues,'' he says.
Feinstein's always-be-prepared ethos seems, in part, a
holdover from an earlier time. When she first entered public
office as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors
in 1969, few women held elected offices. Those who did faced
far more scrutiny than their male counterparts.
Feinstein recalls being the top vote-getter in her first
election to the board, which by law, meant she would be its
president. But some, citing her inexperience, called on her
to cede that position to the second-place man. She politely
declined. Her ascent from supervisor to mayor was accompanied
by tests. ``You would get pressed,'' she says. ``And so you
learn to know your stuff.''
To this day, Feinstein enters no forum--be it a hearing
with top military brass or a one-on-one with a low-level
staffer--without excruciatingly detailed preparation.
``On the NSA issue, none of the members had gone to these
briefings, and yet they're all talking about them--whereas if
Dianne hadn't gone to them, known everything about them,
she'd have the grace not to say something,'' Schroeder says.
``My jaw always drops when I see someone who'd rather be at
the gym or running to the airport who wants to stand up and
criticize something they don't know anything about.''
While she's surely come a long way from those board
meetings in San Francisco, the tests still come.
In March, Feinstein had a YouTube-able moment when she
spoke before the Senate Judiciary Committee about her
proposal to ban assault weapons. Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican
freshman from Texas and a tea party favorite, prefaced a
question to her with a discourse on the Constitution, in
which he informed Feinstein (who has served on Judiciary for
20 years and was the panel's first female member), that the
Second Amendment gives people the right to bear arms.
``I am not a sixth grader,'' she replied, calmly, but with
a rare edge to her voice that indicated that she was just a
bit peeved with the gentleman from Texas. ``It's fine you
want to lecture me on the Constitution. I appreciate it. Just
know I've been here for a long time.''
And may be longer still. Feinstein, who won reelection in
2012, will be 85 when her term ends. Will she run again?
``Ask me in three years,'' she says.
Mr. GRASSLEY. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, we have been working to come up with a list
of amendments. Without any editorializing, this is the list we have
been able to come up with. The staff has worked on this for long hours.
I ask unanimous consent that a managers' package of amendments
consisting of Boxer-Landrieu-Murray No. 1240 (pending); Brown No. 1597;
Carper-McCain-Udall No. 1558, as modified; Carper No. 1590; Coats No.
1288; Coats No. 1373; Coburn No. 1509; Coons No. 1715; Flake No. 1472;
Heinrich-Udall of New Mexico No. 1342; Heinrich-Udall of New Mexico No.
1417; Heinrich-Udall of New Mexico-Gillibrand No. 1559; Heitkamp-Levin-
Tester-Baucus No. 1593; Klobuchar-Landrieu-Coats-Blunt-Barrasso-Enzi
No. 1261; Klobuchar-Coats-Landrieu-Blunt No. 1526; Landrieu-Coats-
Shaheen-Franken No. 1338; Landrieu-Cochran No. 1383; Leahy No. 1454;
Leahy No. 1455; Murray-Crapo No. 1368; Nelson-Wicker No. 1253; Reed No.
1223; Reed No. 1608; Schatz-Kirk No. 1416; Shaheen-Ayotte No. 1272;
Stabenow-Collins No. 1405; Toomey No. 1236; Udall of New Mexico-
Heinrich No. 1241; and Udall of New Mexico-Heinrich-Gillibrand No. 1242
be in order and considered en bloc; that the Senate proceed to vote on
adoption of the amendments in this package en bloc; that upon
disposition of the managers' package, the following amendments be in
order to be called up and the clerks be authorized to modify the
instruction lines to fit the committee-reported amendment, as amended,
where necessary: Sessions No. 1334; Hirono No. 1718; Fischer No. 1594;
Blumenthal No. 1636; Vitter No. 1445; Brown No. 1311; Toomey No. 1599;
Hagan No. 1386; Coats No. 1563; McCaskill No. 1457; Johnson of
Wisconsin No. 1380; Boxer No. 1260; Cruz No. 1580; Feinstein No. 1250;
Lee No. 1214; Udall of New Mexico No. 1218; Vitter No. 1577; Tester No.
1459; Vitter No. 1474; Heitkamp No. 1593; Lee No. 1207; Whitehouse No.
1419; Cruz No. 1579; Udall of New Mexico No. 1691; Cruz No. 1583;
Heinrich No. 1342; Cruz No. 1585; Reed of Rhode Island No. 1608; Cruz
No. 1586; Nelson-Wicker No. 1253; McCain-Cardin No. 1469; and Portman-
Tester No. 1634; that at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning, June 27, the Senate
proceed to vote in relation to the amendments in the order listed; that
the amendments be subject to a 60-affirmative vote threshold; that
there be 2 minutes equally divided prior to each vote; and all after
the first vote be 10-minute votes; that upon disposition of the
Portman-Tester amendment No. 1634, the pending amendments to the
underlying bill be withdrawn; the majority leader then be recognized
for the purpose of raising points of order against the remaining
pending amendments to the substitute amendment; that after the
amendments fall, the substitute amendment, as amended, be agreed to;
the cloture motion with respect to S. 744 be withdrawn; the bill, as
amended, be read a third time, and the Senate proceed to vote on
passage of the bill, as amended.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. GRASSLEY. I object, and I ask for the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The Senator from Iowa.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, on behalf of myself and my colleagues--I
better say on behalf of myself and some of my colleagues--I have to
object. The majority party has offered an agreement from our point of
view that is insufficient and clearly not serious, even though I know
they consider it a serious offer.
Last night, our side offered a list of amendments that could be voted
upon. We asked for votes on 34 amendments and those 34 amendments are
less than 10 percent of all of the amendments that are filed, right now
about 550. But now the majority wants to limit the number of amendments
and, in a sense, limit our rights, because each Senator ought to have
an opportunity to put down the amendments they want to offer. It
doesn't preclude the majority party from offering any amount of their
amendments they want to offer.
It seems to me the majority wants to pick and choose the amendments
they like. They don't want to take tough votes so they have chosen just
a few of
[[Page S5245]]
our amendments to make it look as though it is very accommodating.
I have to say I feel a bit used and abused in this process. For 2\1/
2\ weeks we have been pushing to get votes on our amendments. We have
had a measly 10 votes on amendments. I will remind my colleagues that
there were 550 filed. That is pretty embarrassing for the majority
after they promised a fair and open debate.
I wish to remind my colleagues about fair and open debate. One
Republican Member of the Group of 8 said:
I am confident that an open and transparent process, one
that engages every Senator and the American people, will make
it even better. I believe that this kind of open debate is
critical in helping the American people understand what is in
the bill, what it means for you, and what it means for our
future.
That same Senator also wrote to Chairman Leahy on March 30 before the
bill was brought up in committee:
I wish to express my strong belief that the success of any
major legislation depends on the acceptance and support of
the American people. That support can only be earned through
a full and careful consideration of legislative language and
an open process of amendments.
In a letter to me on April 5, that same Senator wrote:
If the majority does not follow regular order, you can
expect that I will continue to defend the rights of every
Senator, myself included, to conduct this process in an open
and detailed manner.
When the bill was introduced, the senior Senator from New York said:
One of the things we all agree with is that there ought to
be an open process so that people who don't agree can offer
their amendments.
So it is very clear the Gang of 8, the authors of the legislation,
called for a robust floor debate. They said they supported regular
order.
So I ask now: Do they think that having only a few amendments
considered, and this list that has just been put before us, is that a
robust and open process? Do they think the majority party has used
regular order?
After spinning our wheels for a couple of weeks, we had an important
vote a couple of days ago. The proponents have been bragging for weeks
that they were going to get over 70 votes for their legislation and
somehow force the House to take up their bill. Of course, that won't
happen if they don't get 70 votes. But I saw the shock of some that
they had on their faces when their vote count fell short here a couple
of days ago.
So now what are they doing? They need to pick up some votes and they
need to make it look as though we have had a more fair process. So
after less than the expected vote yesterday, the proponents came to me
wanting to strike a deal that would give us votes on amendments. The
problem is they still want to limit our amendments, but they want to
make sure we include amendments that will help them pick up some votes.
Well, I happen to be a farmer and I am proud to be a farmer, but I
want them to know I haven't just fallen off of the hay wagon. It is
pretty clear what is going on around here. Regardless of the reasons
for the majority now trying to look as though they are accommodating
us, I am still willing to negotiate votes, but it needs to be a lot of
votes.
Some on my side may be less charitable than I am since they also
understand what is going on around here. So in the end, we may very
well not be having any more votes on amendments. It is too bad the
majority led us down this road and is aiming for the ditch. In other
words, we have not had the fair and open process we were promised as we
had in committee--a fair and very open process there, but it ended up
completely contrary to what the Gang of 8 told us we were going to have
when we got to the floor.
In the end they have only themselves to blame. In the end I think the
end is right now. We are going to have votes on cloture. We are going
to have a vote on final passage. I am telling people on my side of the
aisle that if you are going to be against this bill, there is no sense
in debating it anymore; we might as well carry our story to the other
body because that is where this bill is going to be perfected, if it
can be perfected, in a way that is going to be sent to the President
and to solve the problems we have and not make the same mistakes we
made in 1986.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Blumenthal). The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak at this
time, followed by the Senator from Ohio and the Senator from New York.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I am disappointed the Senator from Iowa
didn't accept the proposal of the majority leader and let us continue
making improvements to this bill. But I have watched this debate and I
wish to add my voice to those who came out and complimented the good
work, the bipartisan work the Gang of 8 has performed in their efforts
to forge a bipartisan compromise on an issue that is of remarkable
importance to this nation--to our economic growth, to our security and,
quite honestly, to who we are as a country.
I look forward to voting in favor of this legislation. I will not
recap all of the components and the path of how we got here. Suffice it
to say this piece of legislation includes protections for American
workers, improves border enforcement, puts in a place a more effective
identity verification process, improves our entry exit system, as well
provides a reasonable earned pathway to citizenship for the 11 million
undocumented immigrants who already live and work in America.
Additionally, the Congressional Budget Office has indicated that
immigration reform will also help decrease the deficit.
As well, it includes key priorities I have championed in the Senate,
including sensible and necessary reforms to our high skill and
employment based visa programs. It makes sure that as we continue to
train and educate the world's best and brightest--STEM and PhDs from
Brazil or the Czech Republic or India--they can stay here in America.
Unfortunately, because what happens now is that when they get their
degree, we send them home to compete against us. Canada, the U.K., and
Australia have changed their laws, so now these high skill individuals
don't go home, they simply move across the border to Canada and take
those high-paying jobs and support jobs with them.
This legislation will also makes important strides to ensure
DREAMers--those young people who were brought to this country at a
young age, through no fault or choice of her own, who are caught in
this limbo at this point, where many jurisdictions, including
unfortunately, my State, sometimes don't allow them to finish their
education--have the opportunity to contribute to the only country they
know.
As a matter of fact, during this year's State of the Union Address I
was proud to invite Ambar Pinto. Ambar is a 19-year-old incredible
young woman who was born in Bolivia, has grown up most of her life here
in Virginia, and I was proud to invite her to be my guest at the State
of the Union Address. I know Ambar will be able to contribute to her
community, to Virginia, and to the United States, and this legislation
will make sure she gets the same kind of fair shot in this country that
I had and other Americans have had.
Let me also say--I know there are other Senators who wish to speak--
this legislation is about the character of our country. Senator
Alexander from Tennessee said something the other day I have quoted him
on a number of times. In this immigration debate, we discuss the
character of our country. If I move to China tomorrow, I will never be
Chinese. If I move to India tomorrow, I will never be Indian. If I move
to France, I will never become French. It is only in America that
someone from anywhere around the world, if they play by the rules,
accept our democratic principles and our free enterprise system, can
come here and get the fair shot and not only can they become Americans,
but their children will be Americans for generations to come. Our
country is at its best when it welcomes hardworking immigrants into the
national fold. That American tradition is reflected in the tenants of
this legislation.
This path has been circuitous. We are long overdue. The last
immigration reform was more than 20 years ago. Our current system is
fundamentally flawed and broken. It is time to pass this legislation
with an overwhelming majority, get it to the other body, get
[[Page S5246]]
it out, and get this bill to the desk of the President for his
signature.
I am proud of the work that has been done by Members from both
parties on this important legislation. I look forward to its successful
conclusion, I hope, tomorrow, and I look forward to the fact that the
Ambar Pintos and so many others who have lived in the shadows for so
long, will be able to pursue the American dream.
With that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about the underlying
immigration bill, but, more importantly, to talk about an important
amendment that I hope can be brought up. I have spoken on the Senate
floor about this before and have provided great detail as to why it
works to ensure that we have employment verification at the workplace,
why it is so important, really, the critical element, I believe, in
terms of immigration reform.
I believe strongly if we do not have a stronger employee verification
system at the workplace, the rest of this legislation is not going to
work. We are not going to have the people come out of the shadows that
those who are proponents of this legislation would like to see, and I
would like to see. Significantly, we are not going to be able to
curtail future flows of illegal immigration.
People come here to work, and it is that magnet of employment that
over the years has drawn people to this great country. If we are just
going to put up more fences and have more Border Patrol, which I
support, we are not going to get at the problem. First, when people
want to get here badly enough, they figure out a way to go over or
under those fences. They figure out a way to go around them. That has
been the story of our country. Every time we have increased
enforcement, including some sectors of the border now where there are
double fences, people still manage to find their way across in order to
find work.
Second, 40 percent of those who are here illegally in this country,
we are told, came here legally. They did not come across the border
illegally. They overstayed their visas. The only way to get at that
problem is to ensure that we have strong workplace verification.
Frankly, the underlying bill must be strengthened in order for the
legislation to work the way it is promised.
I believe this amendment I am prepared to offer with Senator Tester,
my colleague from Montana, is not just bipartisan, it is not just one
that has been worked through with the Gang of 8, with the White House,
with the chamber of commerce, with the AFL-CIO, with all the groups--we
played by the rules over the last month or so to put together a good
amendment--but it is one that will actually ensure to the American
people that we can have an enforcement in place both at the border and
in the interior at the workplace that will enable the rest of the
legislation to work.
I have made it very clear over the last several weeks that I cannot
support the underlying bill unless it has those enforcement guarantees
because I cannot go to my constituents, look them in the eye, and say
this is going to work.
So I agree, our immigration system is broken. The legal system is
broken. The illegal immigration system, obviously, is broken. But we
have to do the right things to fix it or else the promises we make are
simply empty promises.
They say everybody wants to go to Heaven, but not everybody is
willing to do the hard things to get there. This is an example of that.
It is a hard thing. A lot of people do not want to see a tightening at
the workplace. But it has to happen, and I think we all acknowledge
that.
I was part of the 1986 immigration reform. That dates me, I know. But
I was on the commission that helped come up with that. We proposed
employer sanctions--it was called at the time--both in terms of the
legislation and how it was implemented. Those employer sanctions were
never put in place. That is one, although 3 million people were
legalized, millions more came--up to 12 million now.
This is the critical part of this legislation, and I urge my
colleagues on both sides of the aisle, let's have a vote on it. If we
do not have a vote on it, we will not send the necessary message to the
House of Representatives of the importance of this piece of the puzzle.
People said: Well, why didn't you include it in the Corker-Hoeven
amendment, which was about a border surge? Because it needs to be and
deserves to be drawn out as a separate issue, a separate debate, which
we have had on the Senate floor. I have spoken on it before, Senator
Tester has spoken on it, and we need to be sure that we can show
through a bipartisan vote that, yes, we are willing to do the hard
things to get to ``Heaven,'' the hard things to make sure this
legislation actually works; and that is dealing with this at the
workplace, which is the magnet, which is the reason people come to this
country.
So I would ask any colleagues on both sides of the aisle, please, let
us have a vote. There have only been 10 votes out of the over 500
amendments, apparently, that have been filed. There have been only 10
votes on this floor. Let us have a vote. We will be able to do it in a
bipartisan way. We will be able to show the American people, as
Republicans and Democrats, we can come together to solve big problems--
and this is a big one. If it is not solved, I will tell you, it is not
going to work.
The pilot program for the kind of E-Verify that is in the underlying
bill has been tested. Do you know what the recent report says on it?
Fifty-four percent of those who are illegal got through the system and
got a job--more than half. Why? Because the verification does not work.
Our legislation strengthens it in a half dozen ways.
Again, I have gone into great detail on this on the Senate floor, and
it is all in the Record, and I have shared this with all my colleagues
who are interested.
Again, we have done the right thing in terms of working with both
sides of the aisle, playing by the rules in terms of being sure the
Gang of 8 signs off on it. It is not perfect, it is not exactly the
amendment I initially drafted, nor is the underlying legislation
perfect. But it does put in place real enforcement to ensure that the
legalization will not occur in the absence of enforcement, which would
lead not only to fewer people coming out of the shadows, but more
illegal immigration coming, as happened in 1986.
The 1986 bill casts a long shadow in this place, and we have to be
sure we do not repeat those mistakes. This will ensure we do that.
I urge my Republican colleagues, including the ranking member who has
been terrific in this process trying to work with us, to accept a
reasonable list and to accept some time limits that are reasonable.
I will say, last July 4th, a year ago, we were kept in session in
this place. I was kept in session, as was every Member. I was happy to
do it. But, frankly, it was regarding legislation that was more
political than it was real. It never went anywhere because it was
viewed as kind of a political exercise. I think both sides of the aisle
would agree with that. We stayed on Saturday. As I recall, we stayed
that weekend.
Here we have a historic bill before us on immigration and we cannot
stay for a couple days to be sure we get through some of these
amendments? That makes no sense.
Members in this body know me. I am not a partisan. I am not a guy who
normally gets up here and rails against the other party about process.
But I would say both parties need to figure out a way to come together
and to come up with a list of amendments that make sense to ensure that
this legislation we are considering is one that not only goes over to
the House with over 60 votes but goes over to the House with the kind
of substantive provisions that are going to make the legislation work
so we can tell the American people and, frankly, tell our colleagues in
the House this is something they ought to take up because our
immigration system is broken.
I see my colleague from Montana is here. I would yield to him to see
if he has any comments to make.
[[Page S5247]]
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.
Mr. TESTER. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Ohio.
I just want to say this: I am not going to speak a lot about the
amendment. I think Senator Portman has laid it out very well. I just
want to say that we have immigration problems in this country that need
to be fixed, and they have needed to be fixed for some time.
I think the Gang of 8 has done a great job coming forth with a good-
faith effort, with a good bill that heads us in that direction. I think
this amendment makes a good bill even a better bill.
I thank Senator Portman for his work in a bipartisan way to put forth
an amendment that makes the bill better, that makes the bill work
better.
I will tell you, at some point in time there will be a unanimous
consent request offered on this amendment to get a vote on it, and I
will hope that both sides agree that we can get a vote on this
amendment. I will tell you why. It makes the bill better, and it will
pass. That is what we are here to do.
So I thank my friend from Ohio, and I will encourage, as he did, both
sides to come together to make a good bill an even better bill so we
can pass it through Congress and get it to the President's desk.
Thank you, Mr. President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Montana. I
thank him for his willingness to work on this together. This was not an
easy process. Let's be honest, a lot of people would like not to
tighten up the workplace requirements. There are people on all sides of
this issue. The business community sometimes does not want to. Labor
unions sometimes do not want to. Other groups are concerned about this.
But the reality is, unless we have strong workplace verification
provisions in place, the rest of the legislation does not work. It is a
critical piece of the puzzle.
I urge my colleagues to give us a vote. Give us a chance. Let's show
we can, on a bipartisan basis, do something that will actually create
the enforcement that is needed to have the rest of this legislation
work.
Again, I am urging both sides of the aisle to work on this together
and to come up with a reasonable list of amendments. I am not
suggesting anybody else's amendment should not be offered, but I am
saying there is a way to get there. If we have to stay in, I hope
Members would be willing to do this on an issue this important to the
American people and this important to the future of our country.
With that, I yield back the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, thank you.
I thank the Senator from Ohio for his good work on his piece of
legislation. I will talk about that in a minute.
I want to just talk in general about where we are. Obviously, this
has been a long hard road, and we are on the edge of passing one of the
most significant pieces of legislation that this body will have passed
in a very long time.
The good news is we are going to pass it with just about every
Democrat voting for it and a very significant number of Republicans
voting for it. The reason for that is the vast majority of Members in
this body realize that the immigration system is broken and needs
fixing, absolutely. We have a dumb system right now. We turn away
people who create jobs, and we let people cross the border who take
away jobs from Americans.
America is crying out that we fix the system. We have 11 million
people in the shadows. They are working for substandard wages, many of
them under desperate conditions, and they bring down the wage rates for
everybody else, through no fault of their own. We want to bring those
people to an earned path to citizenship.
We want to take our immigration system and admit people who are going
to create jobs. We have shortages. Google Maps is now in Vancouver,
Canada. It is an American company. It is an American idea. But they are
in Vancouver, Canada, because they cannot get the employees they need
here. They are willing to pay whatever, but Canada's immigration system
is much better than ours and they can get the people from all around
the globe who are needed to run that part of the company.
We are fair to agriculture, growers. The farm workers have come
together on this bill. It is a large improvement over the present
system.
Now, I have heard my good friend from Ohio--and I like his amendment.
In fact, my staff worked on it with him. But let's make no mistake
about it. This is a vast bill, and E-Verify--permanent E-Verify--is in
the bill. Maybe it can be improved a little bit, but it is 0.01 percent
of the bill. It does not deal with border security. It does not deal
with entry-exit. It does not deal with the 11 million. It does not deal
with future flow. So I would urge my colleague to reconsider.
Of course, we want this amendment offered, and many of us will
support it. But to say that is the only reason--if it does not get in
the bill it is not worth voting for--I would have to respectfully and
completely disagree with my colleague.
Let's face it, there are Members on his own side of the aisle who
will block him from offering it. So that says it all, doesn't it? Why
do they do that? Because they do not want a bill to pass. That has been
the strategy.
I heard my good friend from Iowa talk about we are not approving
enough amendments. Well, I will tell you, the folks on the other side
have had a great plan: block votes for 2 weeks and then, in the final
hours, complain we have not had enough votes. That is what they have
done.
The first week we wanted to move amendments. The able chairman of the
Judiciary Committee did. Oh, no. We had to change the rules and change
the number of votes it takes to pass a bill around here. Week 2, we
proposed many amendments be offered and the pace was painstakingly
slow.
That is the plan: Block votes for 2 weeks and then complain.
Finally, last night, we got a list of 35, 36 amendments from the
other side. Of course, we have many amendments. That would be 72
amendments because our side would want a one-for-one. That is only
logical and fair. Then we heard it was not sufficient, that they wanted
more amendments than that.
Furthermore, the Republican steering committee, my own colleagues
have told me, sent out word: Get more amendments out there because we
want to make sure there are so many amendments that we could never
finish this bill.
In fact, even in that list of 36, the majority--not the majority but
those who asked for the most amendments--were professed opponents of
the bill. They were not interested in improving the bill. The strategy
was, at the last hour, create dilatory tactics so the bill could never
be approved.
Again, look at the list. One Member--I will not mention his name--
offered seven; another offered six. They are two of the five leading
opponents of the bill. They are not interested in improving it. Many of
the amendments on that list of 35 were debated in committee and
defeated by bipartisan votes. The committee was an open process that
shows our bona fides. There were 301 committee amendments, more than
130 votes, 49 Republican amendments added into the bill.
Leader Reid has just made a reasonable offer. He took 17 amendments
from that list of 36. Every one of them was a Republican request. He
did not make them up. He did not spin them out of whole cloth. He added
15 Democratic amendments. We have a lot of people on this side who
genuinely want to improve the bill. Of course, the other side objected.
So the idea--the idea that we are not allowing amendments. Please.
Take the leader's offer. That is half of the amendments you submitted
last night.
Mr. McCAIN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. SCHUMER. I would be happy to yield to my friend from Arizona.
Mr. McCAIN. My understanding is that there were 17 amendments that
were just proposed by the majority leader, and it was opposed by the
Senator from Iowa because we were not allowing votes. Did I hear
correctly that after a unanimous consent request for 17 Republican
amendments--1 of them very critical to the Senator from Montana and the
Senator from Ohio because of E-Verify, which is something which is a
fundamental key to making
[[Page S5248]]
sure that those 40 percent of the people who are in this country
illegally, who did not cross our border but came on visas and
overstayed--and then it is my understanding that after those 17 votes,
with 10 minutes allowed for each side, if I understand the unanimous
consent request by the majority leader, then we would do 17 more and
even 17 more, if necessary. Yet the Senator from Iowa says we are not
allowing amendments.
I have to say, I think in honesty, if I would ask the Senator from
New York this, there was a delay of a couple days there that was
unnecessary, which frankly was from the other side. But to somehow
allege that the rights on this side of the aisle are being abridged,
when there is a unanimous consent request to have 17 votes right now
with 10 minutes in between--perhaps the Senator from New York can
explain to me that logic.
Mr. SCHUMER. It is very hard to explain. It is sort of twisted logic
a little bit, it is sort of pretzel-like logic. It is also pretzel-like
logic to delay votes for so many weeks and then say all at once we need
hundreds and hundreds of amendments. Not right, not fair, particularly,
as my good friend from Arizona knows, when so many of those amendments
come from sworn opponents of the bill, when so many of those amendments
were disposed of in committee. So he is right.
One other point I would make while my good friend from Arizona is
here, one of my fellow so-called gang members. We have a lot of
disputes in this body because one side is against the other side. One
side says one thing and the other side bands together and says no. We
get gridlock. We need 60 votes. Neither side has it.
That is not the case here. Every major vote has been bipartisan, with
a very significant number from the other side supporting the bill. More
than that, the whole process has been bipartisan. The Gang of 8 was
four and four. We sat in that room and haggled. We had as many disputes
on the Democratic side, which did not want to accept what the
Republicans wanted, as disputes on the Republican side, which did not
want to accept what Democrats wanted.
But we all met in the middle because we believed in this bill. The
sad fact is that while the vast majority of Americans support this
proposal--by every poll that is seen, a majority of Republicans support
this proposal, a majority of conservative Republicans support this
proposal--there is a group in the country and reflected in the Senate
that is so opposed to this bill they will go to any length to stop it.
But the good news is, when you have a bipartisan majority, that cannot
happen. So we get the kind of logic that my good friend from Arizona
has pointed out. We get the kind of thing--it is sort of like Houdini.
Remember, he tied himself in a straitjacket and then complained he
could not get out.
Mr. McCAIN. Would the Senator yield? The Senator from Iowa may allege
that the amendments he wants considered are not in that package. I
would ask the Senator from New York, and perhaps the majority leader,
would we then agree to have votes on the amendments the Senator from
Iowa wants? This is a beginning and something we could continue to vote
on as long as it takes.
When we were doing the budget, we stayed up all night. That was
another great moment in the history of the Senate. Again, I am not
saying all amendments are not equal. But I think it is pretty clear
that the Senator from Montana and the Senator from Ohio Mr. Portman
have a very important amendment that has to do with E-Verify, a
fundamental of this legislation.
We can assure the American people that the magnet disappears because
of the certainty of penalties for employers, which is embodied in E-
Verify, which the Senator from Ohio has spent weeks on. Only a nerd
such as the Senator from Ohio could come up with the absolute detailed
and absolute complete and comprehensive approach to E-Verify, a man I
admire enormously.
Anybody who could be the Director of the budget has to be a nerd, as
we know. But I admire the work of the Senator from Ohio, along with the
Senator from Montana. Is there anyone who would disagree that what the
Senator from Ohio and the Senator from Montana are proposing would not
improve the bill enormously and the confidence of the American people
that we can verify whether someone is in this country illegally and
applying for a job?
I guess my other question is, if the Senator from Iowa does not like
the list that the majority leader read from, why do we not do some of
the other amendments or are we not going to do any amendments? Finally,
may I say to my friend from Ohio, I have the greatest respect for his
intellect and his capabilities. I know he knows I was just joking with
my comments.
As a personal aside, when I was practicing for a failed run for the
Presidency, the Senator from Ohio played my opponent, and I began to
dislike the Senator from Ohio enormously. He did a great job, as he did
in the last election.
Mr. SCHUMER. I thank my colleague. Reclaiming my time, I would say,
when we get a nerd from Ohio and a farmer from Big Sandy, MT, together,
of course we are going to get a very good amendment.
The bottom line, though, is simple. That amendment is in the list
that the leader suggested. Every one of the 17 Republican amendments
was part of that list of 36. So the bottom line is--and now many more
amendments have been filed--just talking about the amendment. Look, E-
Verify is in the bill. I would not quite agree with my colleague from
Arizona.
E-Verify will work very well without the amendment. I think it will
work somewhat better with the amendment. It is a good amendment. I am
supportive of the amendment. My staff helped work on the amendment. But
let's not say this bill will have no internal enforcement without the
amendment. It has very strong internal enforcement. In fact, it has
mandatory E-Verify.
My good friend from Alabama has been railing for years that we need
mandatory E-Verify in the country. As we work through the process, if
the House in its wisdom moves the bill, we can improve things. This is
not the last train out of the station. But I say this: If we do not
have a bill, we will have no E-Verify, improved, not improved.
So many of the things that many of my colleagues on the other side of
the aisle wanted will not be in the bill. Again, to me, having worked
in a bipartisan way--and I have taken as many criticisms from my side
of the aisle as from the other to get this done, what is happening
here--not the Senator from Ohio. He is sincerely eager to improve the
bill and I support that improvement. But for many others who are
vehemently opposed to the bill, there is a view to delay and delay and
delay in hopes--I would say forlorn hopes--that they cannot move the
bill.
We have not been on this bill for 1 day. We have been on the bill for
3 weeks. Again, most of the objections, not all but the vast majority,
came from the other side when we wanted to move forward. So I would
urge that we adopt the leader's motion, 32 amendments, a reasonable
amount of time to debate them, 17 from the Republican list, 15 from the
Democratic list, and go forward.
I do not think there will be a single objection from our side, I will
tell you that much. If you say we want these 32 and then untold more,
that is a different story. That is a different story. But, again, let
me conclude on a happy note.
We have our differences. But it has been truly amazing to work with
the two Senators from Arizona and the Senator from South Carolina and
the Senator from Florida and the Senator from Colorado and the Senator
from Illinois and the Senator from New Jersey. It has been an amazing
journey. On one of the most difficult issues that faces America, we
have crafted a proposal that has broad support and strong momentum,
momentum that increased with today's vote and will increase further
with tomorrow's vote.
Please, one of the things our citizenry objects to is there is always
naysaying. It is always easier to say no than to say yes. But as has
been pointed out, when you say no, you are keeping the 11 million here
under what many have called unstated amnesty. You are keeping a broken
system that kicks out of the country people who create jobs and lets
into the country people who take away American jobs.
[[Page S5249]]
You are preventing the change in our immigration system to make America
grow.
CBO said: Wow, because of this bill, GDP would grow by 3 percent this
decade and 5 percent next decade. It is obvious. That is the energy of
immigrants--poor immigrants, unskilled immigrants, rich immigrants,
educated immigrants. Our ancestors, such as James Madison Flake, who my
colleague from Arizona once told me about, but all our ancestors,
whatever part of the globe they came from, worked so hard and are part
of the secret to American success.
This bill restores that energy and that vitality. Again, this bill is
not perfect. We never claimed it would be. But I would urge my
colleague, my good friend, sincere friend from Ohio, who is very
smart--that is what my friend from Arizona said--but has many other
great attributes as well, and everyone else in this body, to not say,
if I did not get exactly the change I wanted, this bill is no good; I
cannot vote for it.
That is what has paralyzed this Nation in the last decade. This is an
attempt not only to fix our immigration system but to overcome it. I
pray to God we will.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, because there were some comments made
about the amendment that Senator Tester and I have offered, let me be
very clear. This is about making the underlying bill work.
I do not believe it will work if we do not have strong workplace
verification, simply, both because as the Senator from Arizona said, 40
percent of the people who are here illegally did not come across the
border, they came because they overstayed their visas and they are here
illegally now, and because when folks want to come here badly enough to
get work, they will go over, under, and around whatever barriers we put
on the border.
I am for more border security. It is a good part of the bill. It does
not solve the problem. Fifty-four percent--remember that. That is the
pilot program for E-Verify. Over half of the people who are illegal who
attempt to get work are getting through.
Mr. McCAIN. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. PORTMAN. I don't think it is going to affect anybody in this
Chamber. I don't think the bill will work. I am not going to vote for
it if it doesn't have strong enforcement, because I don't think they
are going to come out of the shadows in the way they want to have them,
including me. I don't think you are going to be able to stop people
from coming in the future. The flows of illegal immigration, as we saw
in 1986, cannot be curtailed unless there is strong enforcement at the
workplace.
Mr. McCAIN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. PORTMAN. I yield to my colleague from Arizona.
Mr. McCAIN. It is my understanding the Senator from Ohio, it is true,
worked for weeks, literally consulting industry, consulting labor, the
best high-tech people in America, and has come up with these fixes
which all of us, no matter how we are on this issue, agree would
dramatically improve our capability to make sure if anyone is in this
country illegally before they obtain a job.
Maybe it might be helpful to our colleagues if the Senator could
describe for a couple of minutes, if he would, what he has been through
in this process of coming up with this product to make sure this is a
system that can work. I am not sure people are aware of that.
Again, I say only someone with his background, knowledge, and
expertise, in my view, could have come up with this amendment, along
with the Senator from Montana.
Mr. PORTMAN. I thank my colleague. I have explained this on the floor
in some detail as to what is in the legislation and why it is so
important, including speeding up the time for E-Verify to apply,
including a real trigger that is comprehensive, including having the
ability to verify somebody's identity--which is the problem now with E-
Verify--by photo match, by doubling the amount that goes to the States
for them to provide the data.
It also has privacy protections. It also ensures we don't create a
new national database that could have potential negative consequences
for all of us as citizens who care about civil liberties. It is a great
balance.
We have worked with the chamber, we have worked with the AFL-CIO, we
have worked with the White House, we have worked with Republicans and
Democrats alike. We have worked with people in the Gang of 8. It is not
exactly the amendment we initially drafted. Ours was even tougher, I
will say, in some respects, but it is an amendment I believe in my
heart if we could get passed would create an E-Verify system that would
be strong enough to create a deterrent, and right now the incentive to
work is so strong that we can't solve this at the border. Plus, as my
colleague from Arizona indicated, folks are coming over and overstaying
their visas.
Let me say one more thing more if I could, please.
The Senator from Iowa has 34 amendments he wishes to have offered. I
don't know if all 34 of those would actually be offered. Some of them,
as my colleague from New York said, are being offered by the same
Senator. I imagine there will be some voice votes in there. I know, as
I said earlier, there has to be a time agreement that has to be
reasonable. I know there has to be a limit. It seems to me there is a
way for us to get there. This is, again, to show the American people
that on a bill this historic we don't just have 10 amendments on the
floor, to show we have the ability to hear not just from our amendment,
Senator Tester and myself--which is critical to me to having this bill
succeed--but also other Members, who as Members of the Senate have the
right to be heard.
I would hope we could come together. I misspoke earlier and said it
was last 4th of July. It was 2 years ago on the 4th of July. I remember
missing the 4th of July events back home because we were here voting.
Why? Because we wanted to spend some time on the Buffett rule, and that
was fine. We all came back and did it. It didn't go anywhere.
I would only suggest this is even more important. If we have to stay
through the weekend, if we have to ensure that we stay up late tonight
and tomorrow tonight to get this done, I hope we will do it to provide
an ability to find a way forward where we have these amendments.
Significantly, we would offer an amendment like this one that enables
this bill to work, and it enables us to have even more support as this
bill goes to the House of Representatives.
I yield back the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate majority leader.
Mr. REID. I have been very patient today, and I have just about had
it on this, all of this pontificating on this amendment, all right?
The Senator from Ohio had an offer to put this in the bill. He turned
it down. We are spending all of this time because he has been aggrieved
in some way? He had the opportunity to put this amendment in the bill
as it is offered.
I wanted to be quiet all day, but this is enough. This is enough. The
American people need to know he had the right to put it in the bill.
They agreed on it. He said no. I assume this is because he wants a big
show out here to have a separate vote. I don't know what it is. That is
enough. I have had enough. I know he is a smart man. He has been head
of OMB and a lot of good things. I know nothing bad about him, but that
is enough of this, enough of this.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.
Mr. TESTER. Mr. President, I wish to talk a little bit about
amendment No. 1634 very quickly. The good Senator from Ohio has talked
about it and explained it very well, but I wish to talk about a few
things.
This amendment substantially improves privacy protections in the E-
Verify Program. That is a good thing. It ensures no Federal database
will be created using the Photo tool or other data from a State DMV
database. That is a good thing.
It ensures no other Federal Government agency can access information
made available under E-Verify. That is a good thing.
It increases privacy protections using established techniques, such
as requiring an individual to be notified when
[[Page S5250]]
their Social Security number is used for purposes of employment
verification in a manner that is potentially fraudulent. That is a good
thing.
It requires new regular reporting of suspected fraudulent use of the
E-Verify process.
This is a good amendment. It will make a good bill better.
For that reason I ask unanimous consent that amendment No. 1634 be in
order for the purpose of a vote on the Senate floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
Mr. GRASSLEY. I reserve the right to object, and I will object.
I want the Members of this body to know that I very much am
interested in E-Verify, because I have legislation in for mandatory E-
Verify. I was involved with several Senators in 2007 as we tried to get
an amendment put together in those negotiations. It is a case of
something very important. I happen to support this amendment, but it is
one of 34 others we sent over to the majority to give us votes on. Our
side isn't going to let the other side pick our amendments and choose
our amendments that are going to be adopted any more than they would
let us decide what Democratic amendments are going to be offered. That
applies to the Portman amendment as well and the amendment of which
Senator Tester is a cosponsor.
We had this set up where we were asked to put together amendments. It
happens to be that a Republican Senator, somebody who just spoke and
was involved in this colloquy, asked me to put together some
amendments. I worked hard with a lot of dissenting Republicans about
how we should do this process, put together 34 amendments and gave them
to that Senator. He was going to negotiate with the leader or the
majority.
It seems to me I ended up giving my amendments to an errand boy,
didn't do much negotiation. We are here where we are.
Also for that Senator, I wish to tell him that he said we could do 15
vote amendments now, then maybe 15 more, and then maybe 15 more.
The unanimous consent request said after we do those amendments we
were asked to do, the bill be read a third time and the Senate proceed
to vote on final passage of the bill. There wouldn't have been a
tranche of so many and then another tranche.
Here we are, even though I think it is a pretty good amendment. We
were promised a free and open process of amendments, and the Group of 8
promised that from day one that they put their bill down, that this
bill can be approved.
We have had a chance to improve it by a dozen votes, and that is it.
I am sorry for Mr. Portman and for Mr. Tester that I have to object to
their amendment, but I do object.
I think if we had 2\1/2\ weeks, we could have been doing a lot of
these other things we are going to have to rely on the other body to do
to get a decent bill to go to the President of the United States.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The Senator from Montana has the floor.
Mr. LEAHY. Would the Senator from Montana yield for 1 minute?
Mr. TESTER. I yield to the Senator.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I think of myself as one of the calmest
people around here, but a lot of facts and numbers have been tossed
around here. Let's get a few in perspective.
When this bill was before the Judiciary Committee, there were 301
amendments filed. We put them online. Every single person saw a week
and a half in advance what the amendments were. We then brought them
up. I would bring up one from one party and then one from another. We
did this day after day after day into the night until people said we
have no more amendments we want to bring up.
We adopted 136 of those amendments, all but 3 of them with Republican
and Democratic votes. To say nobody has had a chance to amend this--we
had nearly 140 amendments, including amendments from the Senator from
Iowa, others, and myself. All but 3 of these 136 were by bipartisan
votes.
I well remember the last night of that markup, late in the evening. I
said, does any Senator, Republican or Democratic, have another
amendment they want? No. There were not any more amendments, and we
voted out the bill.
We have offered to have rollcall votes on 15 Democratic amendments,
17 Republican amendments, and then another 29 amendments that everybody
agrees should be passed and do them en bloc in the managers' package.
Now I know some--not the Senator from Iowa because he has been here a
long time, but I know some Senators are new to this body. I have been
here 38 years. I have seen great legislators in the Republican Party
and great legislators in the Democratic Party. We always talk about the
hundreds of amendments we know we are going to get down to a finite
number. Then you agree to vote on those, and you usually have a
managers' package where both Republicans and Democrats agree these can
be done en bloc. This is what we have done. There are several
amendments here on the floor. We have offered 15 Democratic, 17
Republican, and another 29 en bloc.
The objection did not come from the Democratic side. It came from the
Republican side, including some who said they would never vote for any
immigration bill whatsoever.
The distinguished majority leader has more patience than the Senator
from Vermont. I applaud him for his patience.
I have not spoken on this point, and I apologize for taking the time,
but it is frustrating to me to hear these numbers when so much work has
been done by both Republicans and Democrats on this bill to get to the
point we are.
I respect my friend Senator Portman, but he was offered the
opportunity to put his amendment in the package which was agreed to. I
had amendments. I would love to have the glory of saying: Here is the
Leahy amendment passed on the floor. I said: No, I am more interested
in getting it passed. I will put it in the package and let it go
through. I don't need to have my name on it. I just want to get it to
the floor.
I thank the Senator from Montana.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana has the floor.
Mr. TESTER. I thank the Senator. I want to get back to the amendment
for a second here since it was objected to.
We wonder why we have a single-digit approval rating in Congress. The
people out here that I represent aren't Democrats first, they are not
Republicans first, they are Americans first.
This amendment was objected to by somebody who actually agrees with
the amendment. If you are home watching this on TV, you are saying what
is going on in Washington, DC? We have an amendment that people agree
is going to make this bill better, but yet it is objected to. Why? Is
it because there will be one or two more votes for this bill in the
end? Is that why? If it is, that is not a good reason.
Look, we all live in this country. We all want this country to work.
We all want it to continue to be a leader in the world. This amendment
makes a good bill better.
I want to kick it to the Senator from Ohio for his closing comments
on this amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the Senator from Ohio is
recognized.
Mr. PORTMAN. I thank my colleague from Montana. There was some
discussion, both by Senator Leahy--who actually was complimented
earlier in his absence about the way he handled this bill in committee,
by Senator Grassley, because of the amendments he did offer and allowed
Republicans and Democrats to offer.
To my friend, the majority leader, and to the Senator from Vermont,
yes, we were offered, Senator Tester and I were offered the opportunity
to put the legislation into the Hoeven-Corker amendment.
By the way, the idea there was that we had to cosponsor that
amendment sight unseen, which ended up being about 1,200 pages. We
chose not to do that, Senator Tester and I, for a very simple reason,
which is we wanted to have a debate and a vote on this issue.
I have discussed this on the floor now three times, and I will
discuss it once more. Apparently the Senator from Nevada wasn't there
to hear it.
We believe--and I am passionate about this, as you can tell--that if
we don't fix the workplace we cannot have
[[Page S5251]]
an immigration system that works. It is as simple as that. And to not
have a separate debate and a separate vote on this amendment, on this
issue, does not give us the possibility of sending this over to the
House with a strong message and maximizing the chance the House of
Representatives will see that strong bipartisan vote on this important
issue of workplace enforcement to ensure it is part of the final
package. It is that simple.
If it had been part of the so-called border surge amendments,
rightfully so, Members from the other body and others observing this
process would have said it wasn't about E-Verify, it wasn't about the
workplace, it was about the border and about the 20,000 new Border
Patrol agents, and they would have been right. Let's be honest.
We asked for something simple: Give us an opportunity to have a
debate. It is not about us, it is not about politics, it is about the
substance of the legislation, to make sure that coming out of the
shadows will actually happen because folks will find it more difficult
to find jobs if they are illegal, to ensure that we don't have a future
flow of illegal immigration because we have, again, an employment
verification system that works, and to show that there is bipartisan
support for that.
Look, it is, frankly, not a very popular part of the legislation, and
over the years it hasn't been. In 1986 it wasn't. That is why it was
never implemented, because there is sort of an unholy alliance among
employers, among those representing labor union members, among those
representing certain constituent groups who feel there might be some
discrimination or other issues. That is why we have carefully drafted
this amendment to address those concerns, and we wanted to be sure we
had a separate debate and vote.
By the way, we are talking about a 5-minute debate, and we still hope
we will get it because it makes too much sense. We could not believe--
Senator Tester and I could not believe that couldn't be possible in
this body, that the world's greatest deliberative body couldn't spend
10 minutes debating this crucial issue to show, on a bipartisan basis,
what kind of support there is for not just dealing with the border but
also dealing with the workplace, which, in my view, is the critical
element here.
We made a mistake in 1986 by not writing the legislation properly and
not implementing what we had in terms of employer sanctions. That is
one reason. Although 3 million people were given legal status and
amnesty, millions more came, to the point where now 12 million people
are living in this country in the shadows. We have to be sure that
problem is addressed, and that is why legitimately we thought it would
be appropriate for this body to take up that issue and have a vote on
it.
I stand by that. I think we made the right decision, although I am
very, very discouraged by the fact that it now appears there might be
some sort of a roadblock here. Let's get a reasonable list, let's get
reasonable time limits, and let's work through these amendments. We
could be doing them right now. We could have done them yesterday. We
could do them tomorrow. We could be here over the weekend.
Two years ago we stayed in over the July 4th recess to talk about the
Buffet rule, which never went anywhere. This is not substantive
legislation that we actually hope will become the law of the land and
have a major impact on all of us as American citizens and the future of
our country, a nation of both immigrants and laws?
I ask again, Mr. President, that Republicans be reasonable, Democrats
be reasonable, and let's come together with a list that makes sense,
and let's vote on these amendments. Let's start doing our work.
With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Chair for allowing me to have the floor.
Look, we were moving--Senator Grassley had a list of 16, 18
amendments Wednesday night. He was prepared to begin the voting on
those Thursday, Friday, Saturday if need be, as Senator Reid had said
we could work on Saturday. Monday, what happened? They had the super-
amendment, they had the Corker-Hoeven amendment, and the majority
decided to sit on that and not allow any amendments to occur Thursday,
not allow any amendments to occur Friday, and only have a cloture vote
on Monday. And that vote--I don't think our Members understood fully--
gave complete power to the majority to dominate this process, to end
the idea that we would have an open, fair process. It ended with the
cloture vote Monday.
We were in the process to vote on a series of amendments. Senator
Grassley worked and worked, and he got 35 amendments that he said we
would agree to, out of the hundreds that were out there, to have votes
on. Yet now they come back and say 15 or 17, and now we are going to do
this, and we want this amendment and that amendment.
The process, I hate to say--it is pretty obvious to me--on Monday
afternoon was altered. We had gone from an open debate process, as
Senator Leahy conducted in the Judiciary Committee--at the end of it,
he did say: Anybody else have anything else they want to offer? And
there was nothing else to offer, and he voted.
The committee was not a normal committee. We had four of the Gang of
8 on it. So the vote after vote after vote, including two votes on E-
Verify that would have strengthened the bill, was voted down. Votes on
the earned-income tax credit--fixing and honoring the promise not to
provide that welfare payment--were voted down.
So I just want to say that everybody knows what happened. The
Republican Members of the Gang of 8 said we would have an open process.
Right after the vote Monday afternoon, they told me they were going to
work for a process, but I knew then that the deal had been cooked and
that this wouldn't result in something that would work and be fair.
Mr. VITTER. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. SESSIONS. I would be pleased to yield to the Senator from
Louisiana.
Mr. VITTER. I thank the Senator from Alabama for yielding, and I want
to echo these concerns. I, for one, have been filing amendments and
trying to get votes on important amendments for weeks, since the very
beginning of this process. I started the first day of this debate, and
I haven't let up.
The Senator from Alabama is exactly correct. A slow, halting
amendment process at the beginning was completely shut down by the
proponents of this bill as soon as they identified a path to pass the
bill. As soon as they put together the major elements of the Corker-
Hoeven amendment, then the amendment process was shut down. Now they
are trying to resurrect a little bitsy piece of it at the tail end of
the entire debate. For what reason? For the purely cynical reason that
they can get a few amendments they want up to try to grow and maximize
their vote. Well, that is a purely cynical, one-sided process, and I,
for one, won't stand for it.
I have been here urging my amendments from the beginning and
consistently. The Senator from New York was on the floor a few minutes
ago saying this was some last-minute plea. It hasn't been last-minute
on my part. I started on day one, and I continued on day two and
continued on day three, all through the process. I was ready with my
amendments early on. Friday, I organized a letter expressing this very
concern about the shutdown of the amendment process and organized
signatures and sent that letter on Monday to the distinguished majority
leader.
So my plea for votes on significant amendments didn't start today. It
didn't start yesterday. It has been part of the entire floor process,
but that process has been completely controlled and manipulated in a
one-sided way by the proponents of this bill, and now they just want a
few amendments at the end. Why? No. 1, so they are not embarrassed by
the complete shutdown they have orchestrated; and No. 2, so they can
try to buy a few more votes for the bill on cloture. Well, that is not
an open process, that is not a fair process, nor is it fair to be
picking and choosing what amendment votes I get. All of the amendments
by myself and others are germane.
This is not reasonable in any way. So I proudly join the Senator from
Iowa in objecting to that offer, which was completely cynical and one-
sided.
I thank the Senator for yielding.
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The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Senator from Louisiana for his comments,
and I thank Senator Portman for providing some good language to improve
our situation.
I truly believe what happened Monday afternoon heralded deep trouble.
There was deep trouble the week before when a dramatic reversal of
enforcement ideas came about to throw money at this problem come
Friday. That is what happened, and the process has been shut down
essentially since then.
Mr. JOHNSON of Wisconsin. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. SESSIONS. I will yield to the Senator from Wisconsin.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
Mr. JOHNSON of Wisconsin. Mr. President, first of all, I appreciate
the Senator from Alabama yielding the floor.
I came down first of all to express my gratitude to Senator Grassley
for fighting for amendments, and I wish to comment on and really affirm
what Senator Vitter was talking about--the Senator from Louisiana--
about how these amendments were chosen by the other side.
I have not been an abuser of the amendment process in my time in the
Senate. I try to pick the amendments and I try to write the amendments
I think really have a positive impact on any piece of legislation.
In this case, on the immigration bill, I want to solve the problem. I
was looking for a reason to vote for the bill. What prevents me from
voting for this bill is the huge cost we are having to pay for it.
Listen, I don't want to divide families. I don't want to deport
children's fathers. I don't want to deport husbands and wives. But I
also agree with the American people that we cannot--we are already
bankrupt in this country. We cannot provide benefits to those people
coming here whom we want to welcome into our country, to contribute to
our country, but we can't be paying benefits.
So I offered two amendments--first of all, to not allow the Secretary
to extend the registration period another 18 months, so we can get this
behind us. My other amendment, which I think is more significant and
would help me vote for the bill, would be to prevent immigrants from
obtaining the earned-income tax credit. The American people by a 77-
percent margin do not believe we should be paying benefits, as we are
bankrupting this nation, to people who are not citizens.
The amendment, the one I really asked for, if it was going to be
narrowed down from two to one, I asked for a vote on the amendment to
prevent the earned-income tax credit--a welfare benefit paid through
the Tax Code--from being offered to immigrants. That is the one I
wanted, but in this package, negotiated apparently by the majority
leader, they were going to offer the other amendment. Why? Because I
don't believe they want to expose their Members to that vote, basically
providing benefits to non-U.S. citizens that they know full well the
American people do not support.
So, once again, I appreciate Senator Grassley's efforts. I also fully
support Senator Portman's amendment as well. He is exactly right. The
way we stop illegal immigration is by reducing the demand for illegal
border crossings. We do that by shutting down the demand for that
labor.
Again, we want to welcome legal immigrants through a legal process,
but we cannot tolerate this lawlessness and this illegal immigration,
and we simply cannot afford to pay noncitizens that benefit level. The
cost of the bill is $262 billion, which just makes it very difficult
for me to support it.
I yield back.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, one more thing. First, I agree with
Senator Johnson. I offered an amendment on the earned-income tax credit
in committee--and four of the Gang of 8 Members are on the committee--
and they all voted that down, as I recall, even though they promised
there would be no welfare benefit for those in the country illegally
who would be given provisional status under this legislation. So that
was a breach of one of the key promises they made when the bill was
moved forward.
As a result, we know the earned-income tax credit is not a tax
deduction; it is a direct check from the U.S. Treasury to people based
on a lower income. It is a welfare-type payment. It is not a tax
deduction-type situation. So that was a disappointment in committee,
that the group's promises were violated, and they have been blocked
again on the floor.
There is one more thing I want to say. I don't appreciate the idea
expressed that no matter what would happen, Members on this side would
not vote for the bill. That is not true. We need, and need badly, an
immigration bill that would improve the immigration system of America,
put us on a sound course for the future, would provide compassionate
status for people who are here illegally and put them in a situation
where they do not have to be deported. And I would support that and
have said that for years, actually, and have said that through this
process.
But let me tell you what the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration
Services Association wrote to the Senate just 2 days ago, June 24:
The . . . immigration bill, if passed, will exacerbate
USCIS concerns about threats to national security and public
safety.
They go on to say:
It will further expose the USCIS agency as inept with an
already proposed massive increase in case flow that the
agency is ill prepared to handle.
They go on to say this about the bill:
It was deliberately designed to undermine the integrity of
our lawful immigration system.
They go on to say:
This bill should be opposed and reforms should be offered
based on consultation with the USCIS adjudicators who
actually have to implement it.
Nobody asked them. They met in secret with the special interests, big
business interests, the La Raza interests, the agriculture interests,
the Immigration Lawyers Association, but they didn't have any of the
officers there. I wrote and asked them to meet with them. They still
refused to meet with them because they didn't want to hear that.
On June 24, 2013, ICE's union association wrote us and said:
I urge you to vote no as this bill fails to address the
problems which have led to the nation's broken immigration
system and in fact will only serve to worsen current
immigration problems.
They go on to say:
Instead of empowering ICE agents to enforce the law, this
legislation empowers political appointees to further violate
the law and unilaterally stop law enforcement. This at a time
like no other in our nation's history, in which political
appointees throughout the federal government have proven to
Congress their propensity for the lawless abuse of authority.
There is no doubt that, if passed, public safety will be
endangered and massive amounts of future illegal
immigration--especially visa overstays--is ensured.
So all this talk about the greatest bill ever, it is not so. This
bill is much weaker than the bill that was voted down in 2007. It was
on the way to defeat last week, until they had a desperate claim to
throw 20,000 agents at the border and spend a bunch of money without
any thought about how it would work.
I am concerned about this. I think a lot is at stake. We know how the
situation got here. We know what happened. They voted cloture Monday
and the majority leader filled the tree. He, therefore, has complete
control over any amendments. The last time in 2007, there were 47
amendments voted on. This time, nine have been voted on. Even with the
35 Senator Grassley proposed, that would be less than last time.
We know what has happened. The Corker-Hoeven amendment was able to
rescue a bill that was in deep trouble, and now it looks like we are
moving on to final vote, without the ability to have amendments,
because the majority will not agree to allow an open process, as was
promised, and allow a number of amendments that were offered.
Senator Leahy said a lot of amendments were offered in committee. Why
couldn't they have been offered on the floor? Why couldn't we have
voted for amendments on the floor? The majority doesn't get to pick and
choose what amendments they are going to allow to come up. We are
either going to have an open amendment process or we are not, and it
looks like we are not.
[[Page S5253]]
I thank the Chair and would yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, before I begin my remarks on immigration
reform, I would like to acknowledge the diligence and leadership of my
colleague from Alabama Senator Sessions, who has spent a lot of hours
on this floor and in the committee before this on the issue of
immigration. I commend his relentless efforts to bring to light many of
the problems and questions surrounding the legislation before us, some
he has been talking about in the past few minutes.
As a Member of the House of Representatives in 1986, I opposed the
Simpson-Mazzoli Act, which granted amnesty to nearly 3 million illegal
immigrants. Supporters of that law then promised that it constituted a
one-time fix to our Nation's broken immigration system. Instead, the
promise itself was broken. At least four times as many illegal
immigrants now reside in the United States some 27 years later.
Despite this failure, the Senate now tonight is considering
legislation that repeats the mistakes of Simpson-Mazzoli. The
provisions are different, but I believe the results will be the same.
Still, supporters of this legislation before us promise border security
in return for amnesty, just as proponents of Simpson-Mazzoli did.
In light of these facts, here is a more credible promise: I believe
the child of Simpson-Mazzoli will become the mother of all amnesties.
You can call it what you want.
Compounding the mistakes made a generation ago will ensure that the
problem of illegal immigration revisits generations to come on a much
grander scale. Therefore, I rise to urge my colleagues to reject this
deeply flawed legislation.
The subject of border security has been talked about in the Senate.
During consideration of the Simpson-Mazzoli Act in 1986 in the Senate,
my former Senate colleague and coauthor of that legislation stated the
following: ``The American people, in my mind, will never accept a
legalization program unless they can be assured this is a one-shot
deal.''
The assurances to which he referred were border security and tough
enforcement of immigration laws. Specifically, Simpson-Mazzoli called
for 50 percent more Border Patrol personnel for 2 years and new
penalties for employers who hired illegal immigrants. Unfortunately, as
we know, the former proved insufficient and the latter was hollow. But
it was too late. Nearly 3 million illegal immigrants had already been
granted amnesty by the time most lawmakers figured out that the
assurances were basically a sham.
Despite the drastic increase in illegal immigration in the
intervening years, supporters of the bill now before the Senate make
similar assurances of border security in return for a form of amnesty.
They say there will be a surge in Border Patrol and a fence along the
southern border. We have heard it before, but they claim two main
distinctions between their promise and the one we heard in 1986.
First, the supporters of this bill say this bill does not contain
amnesty but a tough path to citizenship. Second, they say this bill
will secure the border before legalization occurs. But will it? I
believe neither claim holds water.
Under this legislation, once the Secretary of Homeland Security
notifies Congress that the Department has begun to implement a so-
called comprehensive southern border security strategy and a southern
border fencing strategy, she can commence processing applications for
registered provisional immigrant status. In addition, the Secretary
must begin implementing these plans within 180 days of enactment of
this legislation.
I will clarify the legal talk: No later than 6 months after this bill
becomes law, those who came here illegally will be allowed to stay
legally.
I will clarify that further: That is amnesty.
The sequence is also noteworthy. No fence must be built before
amnesty is granted. No surge in Border Patrol must occur either. Those
things come after, not before.
So I return to the fundamental question: Will these measures as
structured stop illegal immigration? The Congressional Budget Office,
CBO, says no. Instead, CBO provides only a vague and uninspiring
assessment that the legislation will slow illegal immigration by some
amount greater than 25 percent--if, and only if, the dubious promises
of this legislation are fulfilled.
Perhaps that is the more salient point: We don't know what the impact
of this will be. We don't know what we are doing. We only know that
even the best outcome will not be nearly enough.
I believe we should know what we are doing. We should know the border
is secure before any discussion of legalization begins in the Senate.
But there are economic consequences to all of this too that people
need to think of. What we do know is that the economic consequences of
this massive amnesty will make struggling Americans struggle even
harder. By some estimates, this legislation will produce a surge of
more than 30 million immigrants in just the first decade after
enactment. Some people believe more.
CBO projects that passing this legislation brings grim news about
what this will mean for working Americans as well as those looking for
work.
For example, the unemployment rate, according to CBO, will accelerate
over the next 6 years; average wages for Americans will drop over the
next 10 years; meanwhile, average wages will rise for those granted
amnesty or legalization; economic output per capita will decrease over
the next 10 years; and the on-budget deficit will increase by more than
$14 billion over the next 10 years.
In short, this legislation is projected to increase Americans'
difficulty in finding a job and then reduce their paycheck when they
get one. In my judgment, that is reason enough to oppose any
legislation like this.
I understand that supporters of this legislation point to better
economic projections in the so-called outyears. However, even if those
projections prove accurate--which we don't know--we should never put
the economic well-being of Americans on hold.
Finally, I am deeply concerned that this legislation will further
strain our overcommitted entitlement and welfare programs. Our Nation,
as we all know, is over $17 trillion in debt. We should be working on a
long-term plan to put our Nation back on sound fiscal footing, not
adding to the burden.
There is also the issue of competitiveness. Long-term thinking would
also aggressively promote American competitiveness. Real immigration
reform presents a golden opportunity to advance that cause.
Unfortunately, this legislation misses the mark.
By some estimates, China and India together graduate nearly 1 million
engineers each year from their universities. The United States, by
comparison, graduates approximately 120,000 engineers. In addition, the
Manhattan Institute estimates that 51 percent of engineering Ph.D.s and
41 percent of physical sciences Ph.D.s who are foreign born are forced
to leave the United States once they get their degree.
I believe if we care about immigration reform, if we want to continue
to lead the world, we must attract and retain the best and the
brightest minds. Yet this legislation would cause a tectonic population
and labor market shift in the opposite direction.
Specifically, CBO projects that among the tens of millions of
immigrants who will come to America under this legislation, there will
be seven low-skilled workers for each high-skilled worker. It is little
wonder then that CBO projects that Americans' wages will fall.
Two provisions in the legislation will effect this change. First, the
current cap on family-based visas will be removed. This will create an
unlimited influx of low-skilled workers. Second, the cap on visas for
high-skilled workers will be increased, though not nearly enough to
meet the demand.
The legislation will also impose onerous new restrictions on
employers seeking to hire such workers. The authors of this legislation
claimed that it contains a merit-based approach, which will ensure that
more high-skilled immigrants receive visas. They emphasize that their
point system emphasizes higher education, consistent employment, and
English proficiency. Yet closer examination of the details reveals that
points would also be awarded on the basis of nonmerit factors,
[[Page S5254]]
such as family ties and civic involvement. In effect, this dilutes not
only the point system but also claims of a merit-based approach that
will promote American competitiveness.
I think we have some of the best universities in the world. They
attract a lot of the most gifted individuals from around the globe,
deepening our country's vast pool of talent. This, in turn, attracts
companies here and abroad, seeking the brightest minds in math,
science, and engineering. Graduates will go onto attain high-paying
jobs or even create jobs themselves if they are allowed to stay here.
I believe we must do more to allow such talent to stay, especially in
light of an increasingly global and competitive economy.
In closing, I would quote Mark Twain, who once cleverly observed:
``History does not repeat itself but it does rhyme.''
In the context of immigration reform, the promises we hear today
sound a lot like those we heard in 1986, but this time the amnesty will
be much bigger. I believe the consequences will be many: undermining
the rule of law, failing to secure the border, increasing economic
difficulties for American workers and job seekers, eroding our Nation's
finances, and weakening our competitive position internationally.
I believe one of our fundamental responsibilities as lawmakers is to
support policies that foster the conditions for job creation and
economic prosperity in America. I believe we must remain a welcoming
nation, but we must always put Americans first.
In my judgment this legislation fails in many corners, and it fails
most tests. Accordingly, I will respectfully but firmly oppose it, and
I urge my colleagues to do the same.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I want to speak to the underlying
legislation that we are debating in the Senate today. I want to
acknowledge that, like many of my colleagues in the Senate, I am a
descendant of immigrants. Only one generation separates me from a
grandfather who was born in Norway but came to America with his brother
in hopes of making a better life. My grandfather and great-uncle, when
they came through Ellis Island, their given name was not the name I
have today. It was Gjelsvik, and when they got to Ellis Island the
immigration officials there asked them to change their name because
they thought it would be difficult to spell and pronounce for people in
this country. So they picked the name of the farm near where they
worked near Bergen, Norway, which was the Thune farm. So Nicolai
Gjelsvik became Nick Thune, my grandfather.
When they got here they worked on the railroad, saved up enough money
to buy a merchandizing store, which eventually became a hardware store,
and there is to this day on the streets of Mitchell, SD, a Thune
Hardware. The family is not associated with it anymore, but that is an
example, like so many other cases, of people in this Chamber as well as
those all across the country who came here in search of the American
dream, in search of a better life for their children and grandchildren.
My grandfather raised three sons in the middle of the Great
Depression. The middle son, my father Harold, became an accomplished
basketball player, went on to star at the University of Minnesota, and
when World War II broke out he defended his country in combat. He
became a naval aviator, flew off the aircraft carrier Intrepid during
World War II. When he returned to South Dakota he started raising his
family in the small town of Murdo, which is where I grew up.
This country was built by immigrants like my grandfather, and our
future both economically and as a continued example of freedom
throughout the world will be maintained by future generations of
immigrants who come here with the respect for the rule of law and hopes
of starting a better life.
A lot has changed in the world since my grandfather came to the
United States. We face new threats from abroad that attempt to use our
porous borders to harm this Nation and to destroy our way of life. In
addition to these new national security challenges, we depend on a more
dynamic system of commerce, trade, transportation, and communication.
Our government is also larger and now offers a broad social safety net
to a growing and aging population. To maintain our system of
government, while encouraging future generations of immigrants to come
here, our immigration policy must provide a clear path for those who
wish to come legally while enforcing the rule of law. As lawmakers, we
have to look at each piece of legislation that comes to the Senate
floor based on its own merits and the impacts that it will have on our
Nation.
The immigration bill before the Senate has many aspects of it that I
can support, but there are elements of this legislation that cause me
concern. I appreciate the effort of those who have worked in drafting
this bill to find a way to address the 12 million undocumented workers
who are currently living in this country. However, if we are going to
fix the problem, we need to do so in a way that doesn't result in the
Senate having the same discussion again and again in years to come.
The solution to the problem of illegal immigration is not Congress
passing new laws every few years that provide for legalization without
securing our borders. That sends the wrong message to natural-born
citizens and those waiting outside of our country to enter legally.
What legalization before enforcement communicates is if they want to
come to America, don't play by the rules; it takes too long. Instead,
find a way to sneak in and wait for the next round of amnesty.
Before we get to the point of talking about what a path to
legalization might look like, as a country we first need to be at the
place where we can, No. 1, confirm our borders are secure; No. 2, know
when people have overstayed their visas; and, No. 3, have a system in
place where employment is limited to those who have played by the
rules.
Once we have these tools in place, then we can look at a path to
legalization. The bill before us today is legalization first and
enforcement second. That is a promise the American people have heard
before.
Last week I spoke several times on an amendment that I had offered to
this legislation for a border fence which, at the time, was voted down
by a majority in the Senate. I would prefer if we lived in a world
where a border fence was not necessary, but, unfortunately, we do not.
When I introduced that amendment I was surprised to learn from some of
my colleagues on both sides of the aisle that in their view it was a
waste of money and unnecessary. In fact, one of my colleagues even
called it a dumb fence. Yet the substitute amendment agreed to this
week now calls for 700 miles of fencing along the southern border.
With this new compromise, instead of the fence being a bad idea, now
all of a sudden--and I guess it is not unlike some of the evolutions
that occur around here--it is a good idea. I appreciate that some of my
colleagues appreciate that good fencing is a key component of border
security.
I would like to make clear that this 700 miles of fencing is not a
trigger that is a precursor to legalization. The amendment agreed to in
the Senate is still legalization first and the promise of border
security down the road.
What the amendment I offered called for was 350 miles of fence to be
completed prior to RPI status being granted. That would have meant
border security first, then legalization. Additionally, I had proposed
a double-layered fence to prohibit pedestrian traffic, which is
different than the single-layered fence in the current legislation.
It would be insincere to claim we want to discourage illegal
immigration and yet have a border that anyone can walk across, in some
places without even knowing that a border has been crossed. No border
fence will ever be 100 percent effective, we know that. But a physical
barrier along with increased use of technology will stem the flow of
pedestrian traffic. On the few sections of our border where a double-
layered fence is already in place, this is verifiably the case.
Another provision being touted as part of the compromise version of
this legislation is the inclusion of 20,000 additional Border Patrol
agents to secure
[[Page S5255]]
our southern border. Prior to this compromise, our colleague from Texas
Senator Cornyn was criticized for proposing 10,000 new agents. I would
hear people coming down on the floor saying: We can't have that. How
are we going to pay for it? We don't have the money to pay for this in
the bill.
Now the increase of 20,000--double the number proposed by the Senator
from Texas--is being defended and even celebrated by my colleagues who
were criticizing the increase only a week ago. I am still not sure how
these additional Border Patrol agents will be paid for, nor am I sure
how Customs and Border Patrol will be able to double in size in a short
period of time.
I want to point out that those who are proposing this--and, again,
when this was originally proposed, the underlying bill had about $8.3
billion in it for infrastructure and other things that were called for
in the bill. But adding 20,000 Border Patrol agents now, with all the
other spending in the bill, has driven the cost of this up from about
$8.3 billion, which was going to be paid for in the form of fees, to
now about $50 billion in costs. The argument is, that is OK because it
is going to be paid for. The CBO has said this is going to generate a
surplus over the next 20 years.
How is that surplus? How did they come up with that estimate? Of
course, first of all, it is a payroll tax number. They are assuming
that people who come here are going to start paying payroll taxes into
the Social Security trust fund and into the Medicare trust fund--all
probably fair assumptions. The only thing about that is when those
payroll taxes come into those trust funds, at some point their
assumption is they are going to be paid out in the form of benefits. So
they took payroll tax surpluses and counted those as the way in which
they would pay for the spending in the bill.
However, if we actually look at what the CBO said, if we take out
those Social Security and Medicare trust fund surpluses, the general
fund--or I guess you would say excluding the FICA payroll tax surpluses
amount on this--is a $70 billion deficit. If you back out Medicare, it
is only a $14 billion on-budget deficit, but it is still a deficit
under the bill.
To suggest this is all going to be paid for by savings that are going
to occur because of additional payroll taxes misses the point that
those are payroll taxes that go into those trust funds on the
assumption they are going to pay benefits at some point in the future.
These are temporary savings; these are not savings we can count. In
fact, when we do the on-budget analysis, we come up, again, with a
deficit of $14 billion. If we take out the Medicare surplus, payroll
tax surplus, we end up with a $70 billion deficit.
While I appreciate, again, the work of my colleagues to improve the
bill, the final product is still legalization first and promises of
border security down the road. The drafters of the legislation could
point to many specifics that they hope to see in place, but these
promises of additional fencing, E-Verify, electronic entry-exit, and
more Border Patrol agents could be years away--if they ever happen at
all. There are virtually no border security or interior enforcement
border security measures in place prior to the initial legalization of
12 million undocumented workers.
I would like to see a border security package that brings real border
security prior to legalization. Unfortunately, this bill is not it.
We are a nation of immigrants, but we are also a nation of laws. It
is important that these laws are respected and enforced in accordance
with the Constitution and with respect to our immigrant heritage. We
must have an immigration system that rewards those who play by the
rules and come to the United States through legal means. In considering
changes to our laws, we need to promote and reward lawful behavior
rather than providing incentives that would encourage even more illegal
immigration.
In 1986 Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act
offering amnesty to roughly 3 million people. Today the population of
illegal immigrants in the United States is estimated to be around 12
million.
Did the 1986 amnesty legislation solve the problem? No, it did not.
Yet today here we are again proposing a very similar package which
repeats the same mistakes made in the past. Lawful immigration makes
our communities, our economy and our country stronger. Our current
immigration system needs to be fixed in a manner that continues
America's great heritage as a nation of immigrants. Unfortunately, as
this bill currently stands it will not solve the problem. Unless we see
changes that emphasize border security and the rule of law before
legalization, I will not be able to support this bill. And that is not
because I oppose immigration reform. It is because this is not a piece
of legislation that will help our country in the long run. This
legislation will provide instant legalization, leaving in place many of
the same problems which led to the situation, while exacerbating other
problems.
I filed an amendment that would take many of the triggers being
touted as part of this latest substitute amendment and make them
prelegalization. If this amendment were to be accepted, the bill would
become enforcement first and legalization later. We may not get to the
point in the Senate where that type of change is going to be
considered.
As we wind up this debate and move to the finish line in terms of
final passage, it sounds as though additional amendments are probably
unlikely to be considered, which is unfortunate. We have a lot of
colleagues, as was talked about earlier, who have lots of good ideas
that would improve and strengthen this bill. We will not have an
opportunity to debate or vote on those amendments.
I am hopeful that as this bill moves out of the Senate sometime
tomorrow and gets to the House of Representatives it will be
strengthened in ways I can support. It is time we keep our promises to
the American people by securing our borders as we seek to reform our
immigration system. I hope before this is all said and done and this
process reaches the final finish line, which would be the President's
desk, it has the right types of enforcement that put border security
first and addresses what I think are the broken promises that have been
made to the American people too many times in the past.
The American people need to be assured once and for all that we are
serious about the issue of enforcement and the issue of border
security, and that the past promises and assurances which have been
given in the past are not all empty rhetoric and hollow talk and mean
something. We can do that, but unfortunately this bill fails to get the
job done.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I know many of my colleagues are very
talented attorneys. I am reminded of the adage that when you are a
lawyer, if you have the law on your side, you argue the law. If you
have the facts on your side, you argue the facts. But if you have
neither the law nor the facts on your side, you bang on the table and
create a diversion.
What I have heard a lot about here today is clearly a diversion
because it is not either the law we are promoting or the facts, which
seem to be pretty stubborn, but sometimes for people in this Chamber I
guess the facts are not an impediment toward their arguments.
I will try to get to what this law is and what the facts are. My
colleague from Alabama Senator Sessions likes to whip out the phrase
``welfare benefits.'' Let's make it clear to the American people we
have not permitted welfare benefits for anyone under existing law who
is undocumented in this country. We extend that and actually to some
degree enlarge it in this law we are promoting. So to throw that out
carelessly and suggest: Oh, there are welfare benefits--there are no
welfare benefits. The existing law stops welfare benefits for anyone
who is undocumented in the country, and we extend it in this law.
I must say I am chagrined when I hear my colleagues speak about
certain Americans who are part of civil society, part of our civic
fabric, part of national organizations such as La Raza and somehow are
spoken of as if they are second-class citizens and that I should bend
at the altar of some others who Senator Sessions believes are somehow
superior. They have every right, as a U.S. citizen, to voice their
opinions about what our government
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should do in this question of immigration reform. I don't care for the
categorization of people who are engaged as ordinary citizens of this
country to be treated as if they were some second-class citizen.
Only in Washington could we hear an argument that somehow public
safety will be ``endangered'' as a result of this legislation. There
are 20,000 additional border agents and more resources are going to
immigration enforcement than all other Federal criminal enforcement
agencies, and somehow that creates greater endangerment of the public
safety? So 20,000 more Border Patrol agents will somehow make the
Nation less secure? Only in Washington could some of the detractors of
this legislation suggest that 20,000 additional border agents and
doubling the Border Patrol makes us less secure. Only in Washington
could 700 miles of fencing make the Nation less secure. Only in
Washington could the suggestion be made that an entrance-exit visa
program to check who is coming in and making sure they leave or else
they can be pursued is making us less secure. Only in Washington could
we think about a mandatory universal E-Verify Program that has been
enhanced under this legislation and somehow that makes the public less
secure.
This comes from some of the very voices that for so long have said,
we need more Border Patrol agents and more fencing. When they finally
get the Border Patrol agents, fencing, and E-Verify system nationally
mandated so everybody who gets a job or seeks to get a job is going to
have to go through the system, as well as an entrance-exit visa program
that is going to be implemented, and they still say: Oh, no, it is
either not what we wanted or it is not enough.
And triggers--my God. Personally, from my perspective, we are trigger
happy in this bill. We have more triggers in this bill than I have seen
in virtually any other legislation. I believe we have up to five
triggers. We have five triggers that have to be pulled, which means
they have to be achieved before they can move forward to citizenship.
That is a pretty significant period of time.
Now to the suggestion about costs. Well, this is one of the elements
of where facts are a stubborn thing to overcome. Truth crushed to the
ground still springs back. So what does it say? Well, let's start off
with what it says about the deficit. This isn't me saying it as a
proponent of the bill, as the Gang of 8. The Congressional Budget
Office--the nonpartisan entity of the Congress that both Democrats and
Republicans rely on for an analysis of whether a piece of legislation
will cost money, what sort of economic impact it will have, and what
the consequences will be--came to their own independent conclusion.
They said the gross domestic product would ultimately grow by 3.3
percent in the first 10 years after enactment. What does that mean?
That means from all the output of this Nation, gross domestic product
would grow dramatically. When we see growth at that additional rate, it
means every American prospers as a result of it.
Then it went on to say an additional 5.4 percent of gross domestic
product increase would exist in the second 10 years. That means even
greater growth, which means greater opportunities for all Americans
here at home. It also means the bipartisan immigration reform we have
been debating in the Senate will actually grow our economy, not harm
it, as some of the most ardent opponents have tried to argue. I have
been saying that, as well as many others, all along.
What else did the Congressional Budget Office tell us? It told us we
are going to reduce the deficit. We are going to reduce the deficit
by--I think I have the wrong chart. Let me look. This is actually taxes
paid. We had a chart, but basically what it says is that it is going to
reduce the deficit by $197 billion over the first 10 years, and an
additional $700 billion over the second 10 years. That is $900 billion
of deficit reduction.
We will have nearly $1 trillion of deficit reduction as a result of
this legislation. That deficit reduction is critical for the Nation's
economic growth, prosperity, and to make sure the next generation
doesn't bear that burden. According to the Congressional Budget Office,
that is what we are going to get from achieving passage of this
legislation and ultimately moving it into law.
The report went on to say revenue will come in a whole host of ways,
such as payroll taxes, income taxes, fees, and fines estimated to be
about $459 billion in the first 10 years and $1.5 trillion in the
second 10 years. It also found there were fewer unauthorized
individuals coming into the United States under the bill.
One of the things the CBO said was: Well, there will be those whom we
are concerned will overstay future visas. Two things on that score, and
one point my colleagues have used consistently: No. 1, which visas are
they talking about? Are they talking about the visas our Republican
colleagues have largely championed for businesses in this country they
want to see grow? Some have amendments to grow it even more. Those are
the visas CBO talked about ultimately having the concern that people
may overstay. That is why the entrance-exit visa program is so
important to ensure that doesn't happen.
It is ironic, again, how they can argue all sides here. Because if we
look at what CBO said, they said the potential for overstay of those
new visas would be the issue. That is why this employment verification
system and the entrance-exit visa program is so important.
The bottom line of the Congressional Budget Office report is pretty
clear. It tells us the 11 million people who are living in fear in the
shadows are not, as some would have us believe, part of America's
problem, but by bringing them out of the shadows will be part of our
solution. It is the key to economic growth.
Also, immigration reform, according to their views, will also save
Medicare and Social Security trust funds. In so many ways these are so
incredibly important.
I heard that somehow this will create challenges on the question of
wages. Well, as I listened to some of my colleagues make their remarks
about the CBO's reports on wages, I don't think the numbers say what
they believe they say. They were talking about how American families'
wages would go down. The report explicitly says that is not the case.
In fact, Ezra Klein wrote in the Washington Post that the idea that
immigration would lower wages of already-working Americans is
``actually a bit misleading.''
As for folks who are already here, the Congressional Budget Office is
careful to note that their estimates ``do not necessarily imply the
current U.S. resident would be worse off in the first 10 years.'' And
in the second 10 years they estimate the average American wages will
actually rise as a result of immigration reform to the tune of about
$470 billion, an average annual increase in jobs of 121,000 per year
for 10 years. That is 1.2 million additional jobs to the United States.
It is $470 billion in increased wages of all Americans.
The truth is stubborn. Crush it to the ground and it springs back.
In addition to that, I have to remind my colleagues as they come
closer to having to cast a vote--and I hear some voices who say: Oh, I
would be open to vote for the bill if this or that. Immigrants
constituted 12 percent of the population in the year 2000, but they
accounted for 26 percent of the Nobel Prize winners based in the United
States. Twelve percent of the population, immigrants; 26 percent Nobel
Prize winners. They made up 25 percent of public venture-backed
companies that started between 1990 and 2005. The fact is immigrants
receive patents in our country at twice the rate of native-born
populations.
So the bill's overall effect on the overall economy is unambiguously
positive. One can try to distort it any way one wants, but that is
simply the case.
Those are the economic benefits refuting some of the things I have
heard here. Wages go up for all Americans, jobs get increased, GDP
growth takes place, the deficit is reduced. How many things will we do
in the Senate that can bring all of those elements together? Maybe some
pieces of legislation might be about job growth. Maybe some pieces of
legislation might be about GDP growth. Maybe some pieces of legislation
might be about how to reduce our deficit. But what singular piece of
legislation, according to the
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Congressional Budget Office, brings all of those elements together? I
would suggest not one that I have seen in the last 7 years.
I know there is a lot of thrashing and gnashing and banging on the
table because when a person doesn't have the law on their side and when
a person doesn't have the facts on their side, they create a diversion.
There have been a lot of crocodile tears related to the request for
amendments.
Let me just say, first of all, this whole process began with a
bipartisan group of Senators who had input from their colleagues. They
did not, in and of themselves, the Gang of 8, just say this is my view
of what needs to be done. They went back to their caucuses. They asked:
What are the foundations, what are the principles we need? There was a
lot of input during that whole period of time. I constantly heard from
my four Republican colleagues of the Gang of 8 how they had spoken to X
or Y Senator and how they believed this was necessary, what were some
of the essential elements, and those got incorporated through the
process. They got incorporated through the process in which the
legislation was ultimately devised and put forth. They got
incorporated, unlike the 2007 bill referred to by several of my
colleagues. The 2007 bill on immigration did not go through the process
of the Judiciary Committee. It didn't go through the Judiciary
Committee process. This bill did. It went through that regular order.
Over 212 amendments--212 amendments--were considered. Over 136 changes,
amendments, were accepted; 43 Republican amendments were adopted, and
all but 3 of those 212 votes, from what I understand, were bipartisan
votes.
So we had 136 changes to the law that the Gang of 8 proposed. Then we
came to the floor. What happened on the floor? This bill, which has
been on the floor for 20 days--this didn't just pop up. It has been on
the floor for 20 days, which is nearly 3 weeks of Senate floor time.
What happened at the beginning is that every time there was an effort
to offer unanimous consent requests on the question of amendments,
there were objections by the other side. There were objections against
amendments offered by their own Members because those who oppose this
legislation, no matter what, did not want to give Members an
opportunity for a vote on their side, because they believed if their
amendments were adopted, the Member would agree to vote for the bill
because they had made the improvement they sought to the underlying
bill they otherwise could support but with the change they were
offering.
So, strategically, they decided not to allow their Members to
ultimately have amendments because they were afraid they would join in
the growing cadre of Members who were supporting the bill. It wasn't
about who gets to pick or choose amendments; it was a strategic
decision and that took the better part of the first 2 weeks.
We did have nine amendments; overwhelmingly, they were Republican.
Then we had the Corker-Hoeven amendment, which of course had the most
dramatic, significant impact on border security. But there were an
additional nine amendments that were included in Corker-Hoeven. All of
them, I understand, were Republican. We would have had a 10th amendment
because, I understand, as has been said here--and I was asked as part
of the Gang of 8, can you accept this. The Portman amendment on E-
Verify would have been part of that package, and we wouldn't be
debating about whether that is here; it would have been part of that
package.
Then we had an offer by the majority leader of 17 additional
Republican amendments and that was rejected. A whole host of those
amendments were from some of the most ardent opponents of this
legislation.
So this thrashing and gnashing about process--look, I understand if
one doesn't want to get to a final judgment and they want to do
everything possible not to get there; they want to do everything
possible not to see the legislation move forward because they
fundamentally disagree. Let's be honest. Let me make my final point.
There is a universe of our colleagues in which no pathway to
citizenship would ever be accepted. That is the unseen elephant in the
room, but there is a universe of our colleagues--as a matter of fact,
some of them are more overt about it. They show it by virtue of even
some of the amendments they wanted to offer in which there would be no
pathway for citizenship whatsoever--trigger, no trigger, any set of
circumstances. We have seen the consequences of that in Europe. The
consequence of that is that we create unrest in the community.
It is not OK to exploit 10 or 11 million people and not let them have
the chance to make themselves right and earn their way into citizenship
in the United States. It is not OK to say there can never be a pathway
to citizenship when they are the ones who are bending their backs over,
picking up the crops my colleagues and I get to eat every day for
dinner or for breakfast. It is not OK to have that immigrant who is
taking care of a loved one with a tender heart and warm hand, helping
with their daily necessities, and say they can never get a pathway to
citizenship. It is not OK to have had chicken for dinner tonight and
not understand that this is from the cut-up hands of an immigrant
worker. It is not OK to say the country is somehow less secure by
virtue of what we are doing.
I have said it many times: I don't know who is here to pursue the
American dream versus who might be here to do it harm unless I bring
people out of the shadows and into the light. They go through a
criminal background check which they have to pass, and if they don't,
they get deported right away. If they do, then they have an opportunity
to earn their way after a decade in this country toward permanent
residency and then later on to U.S. citizenship.
So let's say it as it is. If you don't want a pathway to citizenship,
then stand in the Chamber and make a case, if a Member doesn't want a
pathway to citizenship under any circumstances. My colleagues have the
right to have that opinion. I would strongly disagree but don't hide
behind procedures and amendments. Tell me what legislation has come
before the floor grows GDP in our country, grows jobs in our country,
increases wages of all Americans, and reduces the debt by nearly $1
trillion. I haven't seen it.
That is what the opportunity is before the Senate. That is why no
diversion will ultimately sell with the American people. In poll after
poll after poll across the landscape of this country, Americans have
said across the political spectrum--Republicans, Democrats, and
Independents--they want to see our broken system fixed. When the
elements of this legislation--all of its elements--have been tested,
they have overwhelmingly won support.
That is why I am proud of our colleagues, both Democratic and
Republican, who have chosen to finally tackle a tough challenge and
actually do something to fix this problem and to show America this
institution can actually work. That is the other side benefit of
everything I have just talked about in terms of economics, of security,
of promoting our future, of creating greater jobs, of creating growth
and prosperity, of having the best and the brightest in the world be
able to help us continue to be a global economic leader, which is that
the Senate can actually function.
That is the opportunity before us: fixing our broken immigration
system, showing this institution can function in a bipartisan process,
and ultimately preserving our legacy as a nation of immigrants.
I always say that the greatest experiment in the history of mankind
is the United States, the greatest country on the face of the Earth. A
part of American exceptionalism is that experiment we have had, to
bring from different lands different people who have contributed
enormously to this country.
Tomorrow, I hope to show a series of Americans whom we have proudly
held up as examples of greatness, who, in fact, would not be here today
but for the opportunities--sometimes under a legal immigration system
and sometimes not through a legal immigration system--who have served
this country greatly, whom we admire and, at the end of the day, we
show as examples to our children of what a person can do for one's
country, what a person can achieve for one's Nation, and models to hold
up to the world. I can't wait to share that with the rest of my
colleagues in the Senate.
[[Page S5258]]
With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Heinrich). The Senator from Georgia.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I am going to begin my comments, but I
am told by the majority leader he may want to come in and do wrapup,
and I am perfectly comfortable with him coming in and interrupting me
if he does get to the floor to do that.
Mr. REID addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I would ask my friend from Georgia, through
the Chair, if I could do the closing script. It will take about 2 or 3
minutes.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. Certainly.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I do appreciate the Senator's courtesy very
much.
Unanimous Consent Agreement--Executive Calendar
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding
rule XXII, at 11:30 a.m. tomorrow morning, Thursday, June 27, the
Senate proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 179,
Anthony Renard Foxx, to be Secretary of Transportation; that there be 2
minutes for debate equally divided in the usual form; that following
the use or yielding back of time, the Senate proceed to vote without
intervening action or debate on the nomination; the motion to
reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no
intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order; that
any related statements be printed in the Record; that President Obama
be immediately notified of the Senate's action and the Senate then
resume legislative session.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that tomorrow, June
27, upon disposition of the Foxx nomination and the resumption of
legislative session, all postcloture time be considered expired with
respect to the committee-reported amendment, as amended; that the
pending amendments to the underlying bill be withdrawn; that I be
recognized for the purpose of raising points of order against the
remaining pending amendments to the substitute amendment; that after
the amendments fall, the Senate proceed to vote on the adoption of the
committee-reported substitute amendment, as amended; that upon
disposition of the committee-reported substitute amendment, the Senate
proceed to vote on the motion to invoke cloture on S. 744, as amended;
finally, if cloture is invoked, it be considered as if cloture had been
invoked at 7 a.m., Thursday, June 27.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, are we in a period of morning business now?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. No. We are on S. 744.
____________________