[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 21]
[Senate]
[Pages 27939-27940]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              IMMIGRATION

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, the majority leader has said that after 
the first of the year we would turn our attention to immigration, and 
well we should. Some estimates show that 10 to 20 million people living 
in the United States may be here illegally. Whatever one may think 
about immigration, one has to start with the idea that our Nation is 
based on a few principles, and one of the most important of those 
principles is the rule of law. This is a problem we need to address and 
the American people have a right to demand we address. The buck stops 
here. This is not something Governors can deal with or school districts 
can deal with. It stops here.
  Not long ago in Nashville I gave a speech in which I attempted to say 
I believe there are three parts to a comprehensive solution to 
immigration, the kind of comprehensive solution President Bush has 
talked about. Part No. 1 is border security. I had no more said the 
words ``border security'' than the whole room rose and began to 
applaud; they were not interested in the rest of the story. I would 
like to say a word today about the rest of the story, what our 
immigration debate needs to include in addition to border security.
  Let me turn to a lesson we are learning from across the ocean, from 
Great Britain and France. Last month, the British Government instituted 
a citizenship test that immigrants to Britain must pass before becoming 
British citizens. When he announced a number of related measures 
regarding British citizenship last August, Prime Minister Tony Blair 
said:

       People who want to be British citizens should share our 
     values and our way of life.

  These new rules were spurred by the terrorist attack in London last 
July in which four young men, three of whom were British-born children 
of Pakistani immigrants and the fourth who was a Jamaican immigrant, 
bombed the London subway system. In addition to taking new security 
precautions, the British Government recognized the need to

[[Page 27940]]

ensure that immigrants to their country, and especially those who 
become citizens, integrate into British society and demonstrate loyalty 
to their newly adopted homeland.
  France is similarly facing a period of self-examination on 
integrating immigrants and the children of immigrants following the 2-
week violent civil unrest that spread across many of France's poor 
suburbs last month. That violence resulted in 126 policemen being 
injured, 9,000 cars burned, and $250 million in damages, according to 
the French Government.
  Like their British neighbors across the English Channel, the French 
are trying to figure out how to integrate this dissatisfied 
population--the children of Muslim immigrants--into French society. 
According to the French Ambassador:

       [T]hese teenagers feel alienated and discriminated against 
     both socially and economically. They don't want to assert 
     their differences. They want to be considered 100-percent 
     French.

  We should learn a lesson from our friends across the ocean. As we in 
the Senate begin to debate our immigration policy next month in the 
Senate, we would be wise to consider their quandary. Too often 
discussions on immigration reform begin and end with securing our 
borders. Securing our borders is step No. 1, but there are two 
additional, essential steps to any comprehensive solution to our 
immigration problems.
  Step No. 2, once we have secured our borders, is to create a lawful 
status for those whom we welcome to work here and those we welcome to 
study here. We should remember who we are. This is a nation of 
immigrants. President Franklin D. Roosevelt began one of his addresses, 
``My fellow immigrants.'' Once we secure the borders, once we deal with 
the rule of law problem, we need then to remember step No. 2, which is 
that we have millions of people whom we welcome to work here in all 
aspects of our society. They need a legal status that respects our rule 
of law. We welcome the 572,000 foreign students who come here to study. 
We hope many of them stay here. They are helping to create a higher 
standard of living for us. If they go home they become ambassadors for 
American values. Recently, Dr. Steven Chu, an American who was the 
cowinner of the 1997 Nobel prize in physics, pointed out to me that 60 
percent of Americans who have won the Nobel Prize in physics are 
immigrants or the children of immigrants.
  That is a second point--a lawful status for workers, and a lawful 
status for students and researchers, whom we want to come here. We want 
them here because their being here helps raise our standard of living.
  The third part that is essential to comprehensive immigration reform 
is an examination of how we help new immigrants to this country become 
American.
  In short, we need to have a discussion about fulfilling the promise 
to the national motto that is right above the head of the Presiding 
Officer: E pluribus unum; from many, one. How do we do that? We do that 
by reminding ourselves that while we have all of this magnificent 
diversity in this country, that is not our greatest accomplishment. Our 
greater accomplishment is that we have turned that magnificent 
diversity into one nation; that while we are proud of where we came 
from, we are prouder of where we are. We are united by principles, not 
race. We are united by a common language, English, and by our history 
of constantly struggling to reach high ideals which our Founders set 
for us as a nation.
  We welcome new immigrants to join in that struggle toward becoming 
Americans. We have an advantage, therefore, over our European friends. 
We have been doing this through our whole history. We are unique in our 
world in our attitude toward welcoming others. We are different because 
under our Constitution, becoming an American can have nothing to do 
with ancestry. America is an idea, not a race.
  One can see that in the various naturalization ceremonies which occur 
in courthouses all around this country, as new citizens raise their 
hands and take an oath that George Washington first administered to his 
officers at Valley Forge when he declared that he had no allegiance or 
obedience to King George III, and he renounced, refused, and abjured 
any allegiance or obedience to him, and swore he would support, 
maintain, and defend the United States. That is what George Washington 
and his officers said. That is the standard for every American citizen 
who comes to this country.
  Once we secure our borders, once we establish a lawful status for 
workers and for students we welcome here, then we should set about 
helping prospective citizens become American.
  Senator Cornyn and I have introduced a bill that we hope will be 
included as part of comprehensive immigration reform legislation. Our 
bill, the Strengthening American Citizenship Act, would do the 
following: provide $500 grants for English courses; allow prospective 
citizens who become fluent in English to apply for citizenship 1 year 
early; provides for grants to organizations for courses in American 
history and civics, and authorize the creation of a foundation to 
assist in those efforts; codify the oath of allegiance that George 
Washington gave to his officers and took himself, and which is 
substantially administered to every new citizen today; direct the 
Department of Homeland Security to carry out a strategy to highlight 
the moving ceremonies in which immigrants become American citizens; and 
establish an award to recognize the contributions of new citizens to 
our great Nation.
  Real immigration reform must encompass all three important steps: 
First, securing our borders. Second, a legal status for guest workers 
and guest students. Third, I hope I have reminded us of the importance 
today of remembering that motto we see when we are here in the Senate 
chamber that indispensable to immigration reform is helping prospective 
citizens become American.

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