[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 6]
[Senate]
[Pages 8331-8372]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




              COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM ACT OF 2006

  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume consideration of S. 2611, which the clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 2611) to provide for comprehensive immigration 
     reform and for other purposes.

  The Senate resumed consideration of the bill.
  Pending:

       Kyl amendment No. 4027, to make certain aliens ineligible 
     for adjustment to lawful permanent resident status or 
     Deferred Mandatory Departure status.

  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I think we made good progress yesterday. 
We

[[Page 8332]]

just had a brief discussion in the well of the Senate. I believe we are 
prepared to proceed.
  I ask unanimous consent that we next take up the Kyl-Cornyn 
amendment, with no second-degree amendments in order, with 30 minutes 
equally divided.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection? Without objection, it 
is so ordered.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I further ask unanimous consent that the 
amendments beyond Kyl-Cornyn be as follows--Senator Sessions, Senator 
Vitter, Senator Obama, and Senator Inhofe. I ask unanimous consent that 
sequence be agreed to.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, will the manager yield for a question?
  Mr. SPECTER. Yes.
  Mr. McCAIN. How soon does the manager anticipate voting on Kyl-
Cornyn?
  Mr. SPECTER. At 10:01.
  Mr. McCAIN. I thank the Senator.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, may we proceed with the final argument on 
Kyl-Cornyn?


                           Amendment No. 4027

  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The amendment is pending. Who yields time?
  The Senator from Texas has 15 minutes.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, it looks like we are beginning to make 
some progress. About 4 weeks ago, this amendment was introduced in its 
original form, and unfortunately debate was derailed. We were 
unsuccessful in moving on for further amendments and debate. 
Fortunately, it looks as if things have gotten back on track. We are 
starting to see votes and debate on amendments. I don't necessarily 
like the way all of the votes are turning out, but this is the Senate 
and majority rules and I accept that.
  All of us who are interested in comprehensive immigration reform want 
to see this bill continue to move, to have amendments laid down, 
debated, and have them voted on. I am very pleased that it appears that 
we are very close to having, if not unanimous agreement, at least 
majority support on a bipartisan basis for the amendment that Senator 
Kyl and I laid down about a month ago and which has now been modified 
slightly to bring more people on board.
  This amendment, quite simply, is designed to make sure that convicted 
felons and people who have committed at least three misdemeanors do not 
get the benefit of the legalization track contained in the underlying 
bill, whatever it may be. There will be other amendments later on that 
perhaps won't share the same sort of bipartisan and majority support. 
But this one at least seems to have gathered a solid group of Senators 
to support it.
  In addition to convicted felons, those who have committed at least 
three misdemeanors would not be given the benefit of earned 
legalization under the bill. It would also exclude absconders. By that, 
I mean people who have actually had their day in court and have been 
ordered deported from the country but have simply gone underground, 
hunkered down in the hope they might be able to stay.
  There have been some motions made regarding this amendment for waiver 
by the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security for 
extraordinary circumstances. For example, if someone is able to 
establish that they didn't actually get notified, then as a matter of 
fundamental due process considerations they ought to be able to revisit 
that and to show that they did not get notice of the removal 
proceedings. We agreed that would be a fair basis to waive this 
provision.
  Finally, it also appears that the other basis for waiver would be if 
the alien's failure to appear was due to exceptional circumstances 
beyond the control of the alien--a very narrow exception; and, finally, 
if the alien's departure from the United States would result in extreme 
hardship to the alien's spouse, parent, or child who is a citizen of 
the United States or an alien lawfully permitted to have permanent 
status.
  We move it in the right direction. It is a fundamentally fair and 
commonsense amendment. I am pleased to support it and announce what 
appears to be a growing consensus that it should be accepted.
  I reserve the remainder of our time.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Who yields time?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield such time as the Senator from 
Arizona may need.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Arizona is recognized.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, for the benefit of my colleagues, I would 
like to point out that we spent the better part of yesterday 
negotiating with Senator Kyl and Senator Cornyn, along with Senator 
Kennedy and others, a group of us. We have been trying to modify the 
original Kyl-Cornyn amendment so that it would be broadly acceptable. I 
think we have succeeded, thanks to the goodwill of all parties 
concerned.
  Fundamentally, the purpose, which we are all in agreement with, is we 
don't want people who are convicted felons or criminals guilty of 
crimes to be eligible for citizenship in this country. We have enough 
problems without opening up that avenue. Yet, at the same time, we 
didn't want to go too far to exclude people from eligibility for 
citizenship who, frankly, may have committed incidental crimes or the 
crime was associated with their attempt to enter this country.
  For example, in order to obtain asylum, when people flee oppressive 
and repressive regimes in which their lives are at risk, and they had 
to use a bogus or counterfeit document in order to expedite their 
entrance into this country, of course, we don't think that should make 
them ineligible for citizenship or application for citizenship.
  I think we have reached a careful balance. There are categories of 
people under conditions of extreme hardship or danger who are seeking 
asylum and would be exempted, but at the same time the thrust of the 
Kyl-Cornyn amendment, which is the prevention of people who have 
committed felonies and numbers of misdemeanors and other crimes would 
not be eligible for a path to citizenship as outlined in the 
legislation that would apply to the others who have not committed 
crimes.
  I am aware there is some concern about this on both sides of this 
issue. I want to assure everyone that this is the product of a long, 
arduous series of negotiations and discussions among all involved in 
this issue.
  I hope there is an understanding that we have come up with what most 
of us think is a reasonable compromise to address very legitimate 
concerns on both sides. People who are fleeing oppression may have used 
a bogus document, and on the other side of the coin, obviously, someone 
who has committed serious crimes or a series of misdemeanors we would 
not want to have them eligible for citizenship.
  I thank Senators Kyl, Cornyn, Kennedy, and others who have actively 
negotiated and come up with what we agree is a reasonable compromise.
  By the way, that is the trademark of the progress of this 
legislation. That gives me optimism that we will be able to 
successfully conclude it in a reasonable period of time.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Who yields time?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield such time as the Senator from 
South Carolina needs.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I would like for a moment to showcase the 
staff of all Senators involved who have been working for hours to try 
to get this right. It is important to get this right. For me, this is 
sort of the model for where we go from here as a Nation and how we 
address immigration issues. Senator Kennedy and his staff have been 
terrific.
  The goal, as Senator McCain said, was to make sure that our country 
is assimilating people who potentially add value to our country. If you 
are a thug, if you are a crook, if you are a murderer or a rapist or a 
bunco artist or a felon, you don't really add any value, and the only 
person you can blame is yourself. So I have no sympathy for your cause 
because your misconduct, your mean, hateful, cheating

[[Page 8333]]

behavior has disqualified you--and too bad. You don't add value.
  With three misdemeanors, as defined in the bill and as we have it 
under Kyl-Cornyn, you have had one chance, two chances, and the third 
time you are out. You have nobody to blame but yourself.
  I think every Democrat and every Republican should come to grips with 
the idea that when we give people a second chance--whatever you want to 
call this process we are about to engage upon--there are certain people 
who do not get that second chance based upon what they did, either once 
or three times.
  I think that is a good addition to this bill. It expands the base 
bill, and Kyl-Cornyn has done a good service to the body in that 
regard. But there is another side of this story. It is a group of 
people who haven't committed crimes other than violating immigration 
laws--nonviolent crimes or who, as Senator McCain said, is one step 
ahead of a death squad in some bad part of the world and have come here 
to start a new life.
  On the civil side, there is a group that split--the absconders. If 
you have been given an immigration deportation order and you just 
ignore it, then you are not subject to being eligible either because 
you have had your day in court. You lose and there is no use retrying 
your case.
  However, if you fall into a category of people who had no knowledge 
or notice of the order for deportation, then it is not fair to hold you 
accountable to comply with something you didn't know about. So we are 
going to look at that case anew.
  Within that population of people who have been issued deportation 
orders, some of the people we are talking about come to our country one 
step ahead of death squads or repressive governments. A humanitarian 
argument could be made in a few cases that we are going to listen to. 
For that small group of people, we will have a waiver requirement. We 
will waive the ineligibility if to deport you would reenforce a system 
that would have led to a tragedy.
  If you had not gotten into the program using fraudulent documents--if 
I had to choose between my family's demise or forging a document to get 
away from a oppressive government, I would forge the document. I am 
willing to give those folks a chance to make the case that they add 
value.
  On the humanitarian side, if you have a child or a member of a family 
who is an American citizen and you receive a deportation order, I am 
willing to allow a case to be made that it is not in the best interests 
of this country or justice to break up that family. There is a limited 
class of cases. That is just as important to me as dealing with the 
criminal because if you can't deal with hard cases that have some a 
sympathetic element, then you have hardened your heart as a body.
  I don't mind telling a criminal: Too bad, you have nobody to blame 
but yourself. But I am proud of the body listening to people who 
deserve to be listened to and creating a waiver process that will bring 
about a just result and to allow people to add value to the country if 
they can prove they can.
  Senator Kyl and Senator Cornyn have been great to work with. I hope 
we get nearly 100 votes. I say to Senator Kennedy's staff, it would not 
have been possible without you.
  This body should be proud of this product because you break people 
into groups because of what they did in their individual circumstances. 
To me, that has been part of immigration reform. One size does not fit 
all.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from 
Illinois.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Vitter). The Senator from Illinois is 
recognized.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I thank Senators Kennedy, Kyl, and Cornyn, 
as well as Senator McCain and those who are responsible for putting 
this together.
  This is a dramatic improvement over the original version of this 
amendment.
  I associate myself with the remarks of the Senator from South 
Carolina. I think of these laws and amendments in human terms that we 
deal with every day in our Senate offices. Almost 80 percent of all of 
the case work requests for help that we receive in my offices in 
Illinois relate to immigration. Every day, we have new situations and 
new family challenges that we are forced to confront. Some of them are 
heartbreaking.
  I think specifically of the Benitez family in Chicago. Mr. Benitez is 
an American citizen. He works hard. He has lived in this country for 
many years. He is a wonderful man. I see him in downtown Chicago 
regularly when I am going around. It is always good to see such a fine 
man who has worked so hard and who really believes in his family. His 
wife came to this country on a visa, overstayed the visa, married him, 
and continued to live in the United States undocumented. They have four 
children. Mr. Benitez and his four children are all American citizens.
  The mother of his undocumented wife died in Mexico. She went back to 
Mexico to the funeral of her mother. When she came back into the 
country, she was stopped at the border. Because of that, she has had an 
outstanding order of deportation. She made it back to the United States 
in an undocumented status with an outstanding order for deportation.
  Is it justice in this case that this woman would somehow be deported 
from the United States at this moment if her husband and four children, 
all American citizens, are living here? They are good people, working 
hard, paying their taxes, speaking English, doing everything we ask of 
them. That is not fair.
  We have added in this amendment an opportunity for Mrs. Benitez to 
appeal for a humanitarian waiver for family circumstances. The language 
of this amendment bears repeating so the intent is clear. We give to 
those aliens who would be subject to deportation an opportunity to 
petition in cases of extreme hardship if the alien spouse, parent, or 
child is a citizen of the United States or an alien lawfully admitted 
for permanent residence.
  We have created a family unification, humanitarian waiver, 
nonreviewable, but at least it gives Mrs. Benitez and people like her a 
chance to say: Let me keep my family together. Let me stay in the 
United States. Give me a chance to become legal.
  That is sensible. That makes good sense. I am glad Senators Cornyn 
and Kyl have agreed to this and we have come together. There are some 
people who will not be protected, those subject to orders of 
deportation who are currently single and do not have any relatives 
within the United States who would qualify under these provisions. This 
may not apply to them. But certainly for the family circumstance I just 
described, this humanitarian waiver is on all fours. This affects these 
families in a very positive way and gives them the chance they have 
been praying for for so long.
  I commend Senator Kennedy and all who brought this together.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I yield myself 5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator will note that only 3 minutes 
remain. There was 15 minutes per side, and the time remaining is 3 
minutes on the Democratic side.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, would the Senator from Texas yield me a 
couple of minutes on his time?
  Mr. CORNYN. I would be happy to.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I thank the Senator.
  Mr. President, just so the membership has a good understanding of 
where we are, I will summarize this provision. I thank Senator Cornyn 
and Senator Kyl for working with us, and Senator Graham and Senator 
McCain for their great help and assistance, and my wonderful assistant, 
Esther, for all of her good work. Senator Durbin has illustrated the 
human terms which are involved in this issue as well.
  Let me very quickly point out what the language provides. People 
should understand now what the sense of this whole proposal is about. 
We want to keep those who can harm us, the criminal element, out of the 
United States

[[Page 8334]]

or for the consideration of being able to adjust status and be able to 
continue to work and live here. Those who can benefit the United States 
ought to be able to remain.
  This is what we were attempting to do with this particular language. 
That is more complicated than it might seem.
  Effectively, the Kyl-Cornyn amendment would make the various classes 
of aliens ineligible for the earned legalization program: Any person 
who is issued a removal order, failed to deport, or deported and 
subsequently returned; any person who was ordered to leave the country 
under the visa waiver program is subject to expedited removal; any 
person who fails to depart under a voluntary departure agreement; any 
person convicted of a serious crime inside or outside the United 
States; any person who has been convicted of a felony, or three 
misdemeanors.
  That is the operative aspect of the amendment. The compromise reached 
yesterday strengthens the waiver so that aliens under the final orders 
of removal will still be eligible for earned legalization if they did 
not receive a notice of their immigration hearing, obviously, through 
no fault of their own--we know what the agency itself has missed, as 
the GAO report indicated--or it is established they failed to appear at 
their hearing because of exceptional circumstances, which are certainly 
understandable; or, three, that they can establish extreme hardship to 
their spouse or child or parent who was a U.S. citizen or a lawful 
permanent resident. Senator Durbin gave the excellent examples of that 
provision. Those are the kinds of examples we are all familiar with in 
the Senate.
  The waivers are available to immigrants who entered without 
inspection or those who fell out of status or who used false documents 
but not to criminal aliens or aggregated felons. We believe the waiver 
will cover many of the current undocumented who otherwise would be 
excluded under the original Kyl-Cornyn amendment.
  We believe it is important progress. It is not the way, certainly, 
some Members would have drafted this proposal, but we understand the 
concerns that have been expressed by the proponents. We believe this is 
language which will for all intents and purposes treat individuals 
fairly, welcome those who should be welcome and exclude those who 
should be excluded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona is recognized.
  Mr. KYL. I ask unanimous consent Senator Landrieu be added as a 
cosponsor to this amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I will take a moment, before we vote to again 
thank the folks I thanked last night: Senator Kennedy; Senator McCain; 
my colleague, Senator Cornyn, who worked on this amendment for a long 
time; and Senator Lindsey Graham, among others, for working together to 
arrive at a consensus on how this amendment should be drafted, to 
achieve the things the Senator from Massachusetts was just talking 
about.
  We all agree on the significant benefits that can result from 
legislation of this kind, including, potentially, citizenship, for a 
lot of people. It should be limited to those who came here and 
otherwise worked honestly in this country, and it should never be 
available to those who have deliberately abused our laws, our process, 
or been convicted of serious crimes. As a result of this amendment, it 
will make certain that benefits of the legislation, however they are 
ultimately defined, are not available to that class of people we do not 
want to count as fellow citizens when this is all over with.
  I hope my colleagues will join in voting yes on the amendment. I 
thank my colleagues.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, Senator Kyl opened debate on this amendment 
last night by noting that when an earlier version of this amendment was 
offered a few weeks ago to S. 2454, it was a ``somewhat different'' 
amendment. I understand and appreciate this understatement, but I also 
appreciate that Senator Kyl and his lead cosponsor Senator, Cornyn, 
were willing to compromise and make improvements to their original 
text.
  I wish to express my appreciation to the Democratic leader, Senator 
Reid. He was right to insist that the original version of the Kyl-
Cornyn amendment--a much broader version that some Senators wanted to 
adopt almost immediately when it was introduced a few weeks ago--
deserved review and should not be rushed through the Senate to score 
political points. He was right, as the latest version of the amendment 
attests. In addition, in the immigration debate prior to the April 
recess, Senator Durbin recognized and described several drafting flaws 
in the original amendment that would have swept in hundreds of 
thousands of immigrants, perhaps unintentionally. With a little time, 
and thanks to a lot of hard work, the amendment has been significantly 
changed, narrowed, and improved.
  Among the modifications, the amendment now includes a waiver of its 
provisions. It allows the Secretary of Homeland Security to waive 
certain conditions of ineligibility to participate in the earned 
legalization program in title VI of the bill. A negative impact on 
family members, or humanitarian concerns such as harsh conditions in 
the immigrant's home country, should allow participation in the earned 
legalization program. An alien's failure to obey an order of 
deportation may be based upon the alien's trepidation over leaving 
behind his U.S. citizen children. An immigrant may have had to use 
false documents to gain entry into the U.S., such as the case of an 
asylum seeker who is fleeing persecution.
  There is a humane way to treat otherwise law-abiding immigrants. This 
is consistent with American values. I wish that the Kyl-Cornyn 
amendment could be modified further so that its exclusions were more 
specifically focused on criminals. That is what we have done in our 
bill and in underlying law.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent Senator Thune be 
added as an original cosponsor of the amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, we yield back the time on both sides, if 
Senator Kennedy is amenable.
  Mr. KENNEDY. We yield back the balance.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is the Senator from Texas yielding back all 
time?
  Mr. CORNYN. That is correct.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment.
  The yeas and nays have been ordered.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. 
Rockefeller) is necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 99, nays 0, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 125 Leg.]

                                YEAS--99

     Akaka
     Alexander
     Allard
     Allen
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Bennett
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Boxer
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burns
     Burr
     Byrd
     Cantwell
     Carper
     Chafee
     Chambliss
     Clinton
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Coleman
     Collins
     Conrad
     Cornyn
     Craig
     Crapo
     Dayton
     DeMint
     DeWine
     Dodd
     Dole
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Frist
     Graham
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagel
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Inouye
     Isakson
     Jeffords
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Lott
     Lugar
     Martinez
     McCain
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Mikulski
     Murkowski

[[Page 8335]]


     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Nelson (NE)
     Obama
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Roberts
     Salazar
     Santorum
     Sarbanes
     Schumer
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Smith
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Stevens
     Sununu
     Talent
     Thomas
     Thune
     Vitter
     Voinovich
     Warner
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--1

       
     Rockefeller
       
  The amendment (No. 4027) was agreed to.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that 
motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, under our sequencing, we are about to go 
to the amendment of the distinguished Senator from Alabama, Mr. 
Sessions. We are trying to get time agreements. Senator Sessions 
believes this is a very complex and important matter, which I agree 
that it is, so I propound a unanimous consent request for 3 hours 
equally divided.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, could I, just for a moment, ask the 
leader to withhold the request and see if I can clear this with the 
leadership here? Could you withhold the request?
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I do withhold the request. In the 
interim, while Senator Kennedy is reviewing the matter, we can start 
the debate with Senator Sessions and look forward to counting the time, 
which we start now, on Senator Sessions' ultimate hour and a half, if 
we may.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama is recognized.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, perhaps as we go forward, we can finish 
up in less time than that. Maybe our colleagues on the other side will 
yield back some time. I think this is an amendment that we need to talk 
about in some significant way. This amendment deals with barriers at 
the border. I think this is something for which there is a growing 
appreciation, and it is not in the bill today.
  Before I go into that, let me say to my colleagues and those who may 
be listening that we need to spend yet more time with this legislation. 
It is a 614-page bill. Few of our Senators have had the opportunity to 
study it or to understand in any significant degree the breadth of it. 
There are things in it that absolutely do not represent good policy and 
need to be reconsidered. I hope our colleagues will do that.
  The vote last night on the Bingaman amendment was a very important 
one. It took the maximum number of people who could enter our country 
under the so-called guest worker provisions from around 130 million 
over 20 years, at a maximum, down far below that to probably 9 million. 
That is in only one provision of the bill. However, I remind my 
colleagues that while that was one of the most egregious provisions in 
this entire legislation, this legislation still calls for massive 
increases of legal immigration into our country, even with that change 
we effected last night.
  My staff worked hard on this, and I don't think anybody has even 
considered the numbers until the last week or the last few days. That 
analysis concludes that as the bill is now written----
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, if I may interrupt the Senator from 
Alabama to propound a unanimous consent request.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I will yield if I can reclaim the floor.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we set a 3-
hour time limit, with an hour and a half under the control of Senator 
Sessions, 45 minutes under the control of Senator Kennedy, and 45 
minutes under my control, with the time of the vote to be determined by 
the leaders. I do not anticipate a 1:30 vote, which would be 
inconvenient. We will respect Senator Reid's position of taking the 
amendments one at a time and not setting them aside. But we can do that 
consistent with stacking the votes until later in the afternoon.
  Starting this morning, it was hard to get all of the people in, and 
we started the vote a little earlier than anticipated. So we did not 
maintain our time structure on the first vote. But we are going to 
insist on observing the rule of 15 minutes and 5 minutes over, or if 
votes are stacked, 10 minutes and 5 minutes over, to see if we can move 
the bill along. So I ask unanimous consent for that.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I add to that agreement no second-degree 
amendments.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Amendment No. 3979

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 3979.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Alabama [Mr. Sessions], for himself, Mr. 
     Santorum, Mr. Nelson of Nebraska, Mr. Vitter, and Mr. 
     Bunning, proposes an amendment numbered 3979.

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further 
reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

    (Purpose: To increase the amount of fencing and improve vehicle 
  barriers installed along the southwest border of the United States)

       Strike section 106, and insert the following:

     SEC. 106. CONSTRUCTION OF STRATEGIC BORDER FENCING AND 
                   VEHICLE BARRIERS.

       (a) Tucson Sector.--The Secretary shall--
       (1) replace all aged, deteriorating, or damaged primary 
     fencing in the Tucson Sector located proximate to population 
     centers in Douglas, Nogales, Naco, and Lukeville, Arizona 
     with double- or triple-layered fencing running parallel to 
     the international border between the United States and 
     Mexico;
       (2) extend the double- or triple-layered fencing for a 
     distance of not less than 2 miles beyond urban areas, except 
     that the double- or triple-layered fence shall extend west of 
     Naco, Arizona, for a distance of 10 miles; and
       (3) construct not less than 150 miles of vehicle barriers 
     and all-weather roads in the Tucson Sector running parallel 
     to the international border between the United States and 
     Mexico in areas that are known transit points for illegal 
     cross-border traffic.
       (b) Yuma Sector.--The Secretary shall--
       (1) replace all aged, deteriorating, or damaged primary 
     fencing in the Yuma Sector located proximate to population 
     centers in Yuma, Somerton, and San Luis, Arizona with double- 
     or triple-layered fencing running parallel to the 
     international border between the United States and Mexico;
       (2) extend the double- or triple-layered fencing for a 
     distance of not less than 2 miles beyond urban areas in the 
     Yuma Sector; and
       (3) construct not less than 50 miles of vehicle barriers 
     and all-weather roads in the Yuma Sector running parallel to 
     the international border between the United States and Mexico 
     in areas that are known transit points for illegal cross-
     border traffic.
       (c) Other High Trafficked Areas.--The Secretary shall 
     construct not less than 370 miles of triple-layered fencing 
     which may include portions already constructed in San Diego 
     Tucson and Yuma sectors and 500 miles of vehicle barriers in 
     other areas along the southwest border that the Secretary 
     determines are areas that are most often used by smugglers 
     and illegal aliens attempting to gain illegal entry into the 
     United States.
       (d) Construction Deadline.--The Secretary shall immediately 
     commence construction of the fencing, barriers, and roads 
     described in subsections (a), (b), and (c) and shall complete 
     such construction not later than 2 years after the date of 
     the enactment of this Act.
       (e) Report.--Not later than 1 year after the date of the 
     enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall submit a report to 
     the Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate and the 
     Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives 
     that describes the progress that has been made in 
     constructing the fencing, barriers, and roads described in 
     subsections (a), (b), and (c).
       (f) Authorization of Appropriations.--There are authorized 
     to be appropriated such sums as may be necessary to carry out 
     this section.

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my 
colleagues, Senator Santorum, Senator Ben Nelson, Senator Vitter, and 
Senator Bunning be made original cosponsors of the amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

[[Page 8336]]


  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, my colleagues need to know that we 
still, after the positive step we took last night, are looking at 
increasing immigration into our country by a significant amount. Those 
totals will range, depending on how it plays out, from a minimum of 63 
million to 93 million. That is 3 to 5 times the current number we now 
allow, and would expect to allow, over 20 years, which is 19 million 
people allowed to come into our country legally. This would raise that 
number to between 63 million and 93 million. It is better than where we 
were yesterday, but I still submit that it is a number that has not 
been carefully thought out. We have not analyzed how to do this with a 
number that is still too great, in my opinion.
  We hear over and over that this is a guest worker proposal, it is a 
guest worker plan. There is nothing ``guest'' about it. Every person 
who comes in under this legislation, as it is now written, as it is now 
on the floor of the Senate, will be able to enter for a significant 
period of time. They will be able to apply for a green card shortly 
thereafter. That means you are a legal, permanent resident. After 5 
years, you can apply for citizenship. So this is not temporary.
  As President Bush mentioned yesterday several times--a temporary 
worker program--it is not temporary. It is a permanent move for people 
to enter our country to become citizens, and that is a matter far more 
significant than some have suggested to us. I think it is important for 
us to all know that. Please, we need to know that. Anybody who says 
``temporary worker'' in discussions with the media or on the floor of 
the Senate ought to have their hand spanked a little bit.
  Next, the legislation continues and accelerates an emphasis on low-
skilled workers. All of the economists that we have heard testify in 
the Senate Judiciary Committee--and we have not had a lot--agreed that 
low-skilled workers tend to be a net drain on the economy and utilize 
more in Government benefits, welfare, and health care than high-skilled 
workers. Any program that we pass ought to emphasize high-skilled 
workers. This bill doesn't do that. This bill does nothing about the 
chain migration in which people who work their way to citizenship can 
bring in their parents, their brothers and sisters, adult children, 
regardless of the needs of the United States for workers, regardless of 
what skills they may have and whether we need them in the United 
States. Under this bill, citizenship is an automatic right. That ought 
to be confronted. The economists and public policy experts we have 
heard from raise that point and say other countries are not that way.
  So this is the Senate. We are supposed to be the thoughtful branch. 
This is one of the most important issues this Senate has faced in 
decades. The people of the United States really care about this. They 
are concerned about it. They want us to do the right thing. That will 
include creating a legal system that is enforceable and will increase 
the number of legal immigrants into our country.
  But how will we do it? Will we do it in a principled way that is 
helpful to our Nation's future or will we continue to willy-nilly 
provide, in effect, entitlements to people from all over the world to 
come here regardless of the needs of the United States?
  Some say: We just need to pass something. Don't be nitpicky, 
Sessions, just pass something. We will get it to conference and somehow 
it will be fixed there.
  I have my doubts about that, No. 1. No. 2, this is the Senate. We 
will be casting votes on this legislation, and we ought not vote for 
anything that we know is not good public policy.
  A critical part of the immigration reform that we need to effect for 
our country is to make sure that our legal system, which is so utterly 
broken on this issue, is repaired. It needs to work. Can anyone dispute 
that? Today, we understand that 1 million people come into the country 
legally each year. The estimates are that 500,000 to 800,000 will be 
coming in illegally each year--almost as many legal immigrants.
  I see Senator Vitter in the Chair, who is such a knowledgeable and 
articulate spokesman on this issue. I happened to see the mayor's 
debate in New Orleans last night, and Hard Ball asked them what about 
illegal immigrants? They had to have them to do the work in New 
Orleans. There was a discussion about it. What is the answer to that? 
Of course, you don't need illegal immigrants to do the work. Of course, 
if we craft a good immigration bill, when you have a crisis like 
Hurricane Katrina, we would be able to have temporary workers come in 
in whatever numbers are necessary to do that work. That is what a good 
bill would do.
  That is a crisis that calls for an unusual amount of workers. Why 
don't we draft something that would actually work in that circumstance? 
Not anybody, no one, should come in and justify illegality. If the law 
is not adequate, let's fix it. The truth is, I think it is adequate 
today.
  A critical part of moving us to an effective, enforceable, honorable, 
decent, legal immigration system is to send the message to the world 
that our border is not open, our border is closed. There are a number 
of ways to do that. I think that is important because we need to reach 
a tipping point where the people who want to come to our country know 
without doubt that coming here illegally is not going to be successful, 
and their best way to come here is to file the proper application and 
wait in line. Isn't that the right policy?
  So how do we go from this lawless system, a system that makes a 
mockery of the laws of this great Nation, the United States of America, 
to a system that works? We send some signals and we do some things 
appropriately. President Bush did one of them the night before last 
when he said we were going to use the National Guard. That is a signal 
to the world that business as usual has ended, that we are going to 
create a legal system that works. We want him to follow through on that 
and with all of the other requirements that go with it. But it is a 
good step and a good signal, and it will help us improve that system.
  Another way is to have more Border Patrol agents. We need that. We 
have authorized some more in this bill but not enough. It is a matter 
of critical importance, and we will need to fund that--the Senate and 
House--and not just to authorize it. Isn't that an essential part of it 
if we are going to change from a lawless system to a lawful system?
  Another thing that we absolutely need, and every expert knows, is to 
increase the retention space. We have to end the catch and release. 
When you catch someone who comes into this country through Mexico or 
Canada from a country that is other than Mexico or Canada, where they 
are not contiguous to the United States, how do you get them home?
  How do you return them? You have to put them on a boat or train or 
plane, and that is not always easy to do. So do you know what has been 
happening, friends and neighbors? They catch them around the border, 
and they are released on bail and asked to come back at a certain time 
so they can be taken out of the country. How many do you think show up 
to be deported? They violated the law to come here, so we release them 
on bail and ask them to show up so they can be deported. How laughable 
is that? One reporter did an analysis in one area of this system, and 
95 percent did not show up. Surprise, surprise. Why do we release them? 
Why do we not hold them until they can be deported? Because we don't 
have sufficient bed space.
  Part of reaching a tipping point in creating a legal system is to 
make sure we don't eviscerate the work of our law enforcement agents by 
having them turn loose the people they just went out in the desert to 
catch. How simple is that? But it is critical, and it is not there yet. 
So people who say they want a stronger border have to support, in my 
view, more detention spaces.
  This amendment also deals with a critical component of creating a 
legal system that works, and that is fencing. It sends a signal that 
open border days are over, and it will greatly enhance enforcement. It 
will pay for itself many

[[Page 8337]]

times over the years. It is a reasonable proposal. It does not 
overreach. It builds on the provisions that are in the bill.
  Senator Kyl in committee had a number of provisions dealing with 
Arizona and fencing along that border. It builds on those provisions 
and keeps that language in the bill but provides and directs that we 
have 370 miles of fencing and 500 miles of barriers sufficient to keep 
vehicles from crossing the border. We are at a point where we need to 
take this step if we are serious.
  The bill before us today, S. 2611, is the fundamental base bill from 
which we are working. Its language calls for repair and construction of 
additional fencing in very limited areas along the southern border, 
mostly in Arizona, as I just mentioned. But for the most part, this 
provision simply calls for the repair of fences that already exist in 
the Tucson and Yuma sections of Arizona.
  Other than this limited amount of fencing, provisions contained in 
title I of this bill call only for the Secretary of the Department of 
Homeland Security to develop a comprehensive plan for the systematic 
surveillance of the border, and section 129 calls for only a study to 
assess the necessity, feasibility, and economic impact of constructing 
physical barriers along the border. Just a study.
  This amendment attempts to go forward and create a real solution to 
the problem. It directs that the Secretary of Homeland Security 
construct at least 370 miles of triple-layered fencing, including the 
fencing already built in San Diego, and 500 miles of vehicle barriers 
at strategic locations along the southwest border.
  These are not extreme numbers in any way. In fact, they are the 
numbers given to a number of Senators in a briefing a few weeks ago by 
Secretary Chertoff himself, President Bush's Secretary of Homeland 
Security. He said this is what he believes at this point in time he 
needs. It directs that this be done. It sends a signal to our 
appropriators that it should be funded, and it authorizes the President 
and the executive branch to go further than this and build such other 
fences as they may find appropriate.
  We will have objections for reasons I am not sure why, but I suspect 
we will have objections. One of the points I have been making for some 
time when it comes to fixing our immigration system is that we have 
quite a number of Members of the House and Senate and members in the 
media who are all in favor of reforms and improvements as long as they 
don't really work. If it really makes a difference and will actually 
tilt the system from one that is illegal and will change the status quo 
and move us to a legal system, somehow, someway, there will be 
objections to it.
  I submit that we are going to have objections to this modest proposal 
to build 370 miles of fencing and 500 miles of barriers according to 
the request of the Secretary of Homeland Security because it is going 
to work. That is why. We will have a lot of other reasons, such as it 
might send a bad signal. But good fences make good neighbors. Fences 
don't make bad neighbors. Go to the San Diego border and talk with the 
people. There was lawlessness, drug dealing, gangs, and economic 
depression on both sides of the border. When they built the fence and 
brought that border under control, the economy on both sides of the 
fence blossomed, crime has fallen, and it is an entirely different 
place and a much better place. That is just the way it is. We have to 
do this, and it is time to move forward.
  A state-of-the-art border security system should be robust enough 
that it would not be easily compromised by cutting, climbing, 
tunneling, or ramming through with a vehicle, when combined with high-
tech detection devices, motion sensors, body sensors, and seismic or 
subterranean sensors. A good barrier should make intrusion time 
consuming enough that a border unit could respond to the attempted 
intrusion before they are successful. That is what a fence does. To be 
worth our efforts, it does not need to be 100 percent impenetrable; it 
simply needs to improve significantly the status quo, and I am 
confident this amendment will do that.
  Mr. President, it is great to see my colleague, Senator Ben Nelson, 
in the Chamber. He is dealing with a number of important issues today, 
but he has understood the importance of security at the border from the 
beginning. He has articulated clearly and effectively his vision for 
that and has recognized that unless we demonstrate to the world and to 
our own people that we have border security done first, then nothing 
else is going to be meaningful, and we will be right back where we were 
in the beginning.
  I know Senator Nelson has to leave, and I am pleased to yield to him 
such time as we have remaining to speak on this amendment. I have been 
pleased to work with him on this issue.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Graham). The Senator from Nebraska is 
recognized.
  Mr. NELSON of Nebraska. Mr. President, I thank my colleague, the 
Senator from Alabama, for his incredible work on this border-security-
first issue and his work on this particular amendment. It is a pleasure 
for me to join with him to support securing our borders.
  Senator Sessions has made a very strong argument as to why we need to 
secure the border first to pursue this whole question of how do we deal 
with border security and with the immigration issues of those who are 
already here illegally.
  The key is to prevent not only illegal pedestrian and vehicular 
traffic crossing the international border of the United States for 
people coming here to work, but it also includes a great concern, a 
growing concern about the number of people who are smuggling drugs into 
the United States, as well as those who are crossing the border for 
other illegal purposes, such as gang membership in communities across 
this country.
  We have a multisituation with which we have to deal, but it is all 
handled in the same way in terms of securing the border first. Whether 
it is to prevent illegal people coming for purposes of work or whether 
it is for other purposes, most of which would be criminal in nature, we 
need to secure that border.
  I never thought I would be proposing a security system that would 
include a border fence and a surveillance system that would protect our 
borders to the south or requiring a border study for the northern 
border as well. But I never expected that we would end up with the 
problem we have today.
  If we go back to 1986 when the first amnesty bill was dealt with and 
President Reagan signed it and promised that the U.S. Government would 
continue to enforce border security, we had between 1 and 2 million 
people in the United States illegally. Of course, that was, by 
comparison to the 11 to 12 million today, a much smaller number, 
obviously, but a much smaller problem in terms of the numbers to deal 
with.
  Today, the problem has continued to worsen, and as a result of the 
debate in the Senate and without action to secure the borders first 
from 3 weeks to 4 weeks ago, the number of border crossings is 
increasing percentagewise. The numbers continue to increase because 
there is an expectation that when they get here, somehow the U.S. 
Government, Congress, will find a way to bless it, find a way to excuse 
it, find a way to accept it, find a way to make it legal, and 
everything will be OK. That is because we haven't taken the opportunity 
to secure our borders first. Then, when we have those borders secured 
with this fence, with this barrier against pedestrian and vehicular 
traffic, we will be in a position to deal with the 11 to 12 million 
people in this country illegally and find solutions through a 
comprehensive approach.
  My colleague has made it very clear and I believe it is very obvious 
that if we continue to pursue a multiapproach in the Senate, as opposed 
to border security, and try to solve all the problems with a do-
everything bill, that if this bill then passes and goes to conference, 
it will be easier to square a circle than it will be to square the 
Senate bill with the House bill. I am not going to excuse the dealings 
we have

[[Page 8338]]

with the people already here, but if we can't put the proper order in 
place, we are not going to be able to solve this problem. I believe 
that is a given.
  When I first announced my border security bill last fall along with 
Senator Sessions and Senator Coburn, people across the country were 
talking about securing our borders, but there wasn't any action. The 
truth is, that was last fall, and here we are in the spring, and there 
is still no action, people are still coming across the border in 
significant numbers. We must, in fact, focus on how to deal with this 
problem in a commonsense and effective way.
  Sometimes it is great to talk about a comprehensive approach, and 
sometimes it makes a great deal of sense to talk about what might be 
involved in a comprehensive approach, but when we don't have a 
comprehensive approach on the House side--and we have to, through 
conference, be able to make the Senate bill work with the House 
version. We have to be practical and recognize that these are two, in 
many ways, diametrically opposed approaches and there is no real way to 
square them.
  I believe we ought to take the approach that makes the most sense, 
and that is to pass a border-security-first bill, adopt this amendment, 
and continue to work toward securing the borders so that once we get 
that done, we can get a bill to the House, to conference, and we can 
get that accomplished, and then we can spend the time necessary to 
figure out how we square the problems in the United States today with 
people who are here illegally. Before we jump to conclusions that will 
enable others to come here legally or illegally, let us figure out what 
the needs of the United States might be for workers before we decide to 
allow people to come on their own initiative, whether they fit the 
needs that exist for workers in the United States at the present time 
or the future.
  We don't have to be mean-spirited dealing with this issue. We don't 
have to be divisive among one another to solve this problem. What we 
have to do is apply some common sense as to what is going to work and 
how we can get that accomplished. If we do that, then we can sit down 
and work our way through the other problem we have of the President's 
points 1 and 2 in terms of border security. We can figure out a way, if 
we are going to close the back door to illegal immigration, to open the 
front door to legal immigration, whether it is through guest workers or 
emergency situations where we have emergency needs that would require 
workers to come in on a guest-worker basis. We can resolve those 
issues. We can resolve that. What we cannot do is we cannot resolve all 
of this at the same time in one package effectively and get anything 
done.
  I am an optimist on most occasions, but I have to tell you that I am 
very concerned what will happen is that the Senate will pass this 
comprehensive, do-everything version of a bill, and then it will go to 
conference and nothing will happen. Actually, nothing will happen on 
the legislation because it won't be able to be squared with the House 
version.
  But let me tell you what will happen. If we don't have that border 
secured sufficiently, there will be an influx of more illegal 
immigrants coming to get here while they can, while nothing occurs on 
the legislation. That is unacceptable to the American people. The 
American people want to secure the borders. They want to find a 
comprehensive solution. But they know it doesn't make any sense for the 
problem to get bigger in terms of the numbers while nothing happens on 
our legislation once it is passed by the Senate and goes to the 
conference committee.
  I wish it were different. I wish I could say all we have to do is 
pass a good version in the Senate and send it over to the House and 
somehow the whole process will work and everybody will come together 
and we will have a bill and then it will all be taken care of and we 
can all say: Well, we have solved that problem. It just doesn't work 
that way here. We all know that.
  Why don't we admit the practicality of where we are and resolve the 
border security first, and then we can begin the very laborious and the 
necessary task of working with the people who are here and do it in an 
appropriate fashion, rather than rushing our way through with one 
amendment after another amendment after another amendment, and see at 
the end of the day what we have? When you make a pie a slice at a time, 
it isn't necessarily a comprehensive approach.
  I appreciate and I thank my good friend from Alabama for the 
opportunity to speak on this issue today.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, the Senator from New Hampshire wanted to 
speak on a different subject, and I believe he has cleared that, and it 
would not count against the time on this amendment. I would be pleased, 
if there is no objection, to allow him to speak on that subject now.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I ask unanimous consent that I be able to claim the 
floor afterward.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 20 
minutes and the time not be charged to this amendment and that Senator 
Sessions be recognized upon completion of my statement.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I wish to talk about border security. 
Obviously it is a topic of hot discussion here in the Chamber, and I 
just wanted to try to put in perspective what has actually happened and 
what may happen, especially in light of the President's presentation on 
Monday night.
  I have the good fortune, I guess, to chair the appropriations 
subcommittee which has responsibility for border security. I took this 
over 2 years ago, a year and a half ago, I guess. When I took the 
committee over, it became immediately apparent to me that the 
priorities within the Department of Homeland Security were not 
necessarily focused on what I consider to be the primary threat. So we 
reoriented the funding within the Department to look at threat first, 
the highest level threat being, of course, a weapon of mass destruction 
which might be used against America. So we started to increase funding 
immediately in that account.
  In my opinion, the second highest level of threat was the fact that 
our borders were simply not secure. They were porous. We didn't know 
who was coming in. We especially didn't know who was leaving. We knew 
that we weren't in control of the southern border relative to those 
folks coming in, and we knew that on the northern border, although we 
don't have the human-wave issue of illegal immigrants coming into the 
country, we do have a very serious issue of people who might come 
across the northern border represent clear and present threats to us, 
probably even more so than across the southern borders, in some cases. 
So we reoriented funding within the homeland security programs through 
the first bill that I was in charge of.
  At that time, the administration sent up a proposal which essentially 
continued what I would call the benign neglect of the border security 
effort in our country. Their proposal in that budget was for 210 
additional border agents and essentially no increase in technical 
capability or in the capacity of infrastructure or the capacity of ICE. 
There was a proposal in the Coast Guard area, but it was anemic. So we 
took that proposal which came from the administration and we reoriented 
that, too. We said: We are going to increase the number of border 
security agents on the border by 8,000. We are going to spend about 4 
years to 5 years doing that. We had to begin slowly because the 
training facilities simply weren't there for this type of a huge 
increase in border security staff. So we began with a supplemental 
number of 500, and then we followed that up with 1,000 additional 
agents in the next regular bill that came through. So we added 1,500 
new agents.

[[Page 8339]]

  In addition, agents aren't the only issue. Boots on the ground is not 
the only issue. Technology is an issue, but probably even more 
important is the issue of what you do with an illegal immigrant who has 
come across our border once you capture that individual on our side of 
the border. Most of them are Mexican, on the southern border--about 85 
percent--and they are immediately put on a bus and taken back across 
the border. In many instances, they just come back the next day or a 
week later. But a number of them are non-Mexicans, and those folks were 
given what was called a catch-and-release status, where you essentially 
gave them an indictment which said they must return to be heard in a 
hearing 2 or 3 weeks later, maybe a month later, and then you released 
these individuals. Of course most of them never come back. Sixty-six 
percent never return to that hearing. That wasn't working, so we 
believed we should significantly increase the number of detention beds 
so we would have the capacity to actually hold people, especially non-
Mexicans, who were coming across our border and whom we couldn't 
immediately return by bus to their country, as we could with the 
Mexicans. So we started to expand the number of beds, and we increased 
the number of beds by about I think 2,000 in that first budget cycle.
  After having done that, it was ironic, and I guess appropriate, that 
the White House came forward and said: What a great idea. That is our 
idea. Let's take credit for this idea. So they held a press conference 
and said: What a wonderful idea you had to increase the number of 
border agents by 1,500 people and the number of beds by a couple 
thousand, and we would actually be taking the money and putting it 
toward border security. That was a year ago.
  Now the new budget came up again, and this time the administration 
sent up a budget which was oriented toward border security in that they 
represented that they were going to increase the number of agents by 
another 1,500 and the number of beds by another 6,000, and they were 
going to begin to put more money into the Coast Guard initiative called 
deepwater. But it is not really deepwater; it would be better called 
protecting our coastline from threat. ``Deepwater'' makes people think 
it is somewhere out in the middle of the ocean. It may occur in the 
ocean, but actually this is threat protection along our coast.
  So they made these commitments within the budget they sent up. What 
they failed to do, however, was fund those commitments because they 
sent up really a hollow budget in that they put in that budget a system 
for paying for these new Border Patrol agents and these new beds by 
increasing the fees on people who are traveling on airplanes by about 
$1.2 billion. Of course, that fee proposal had been rejected the year 
before. The Chairman of the committee that has jurisdiction over that 
proposal had rejected it out of hand this year when that budget was 
sent up, and everybody knows that it is not going anywhere, so it is 
what is called a plug. It happens around here. People send up a budget, 
and they will put a plug in it, which is basically a number they know 
they are never going to get, but they put it in to make the budget look 
correct. This was a plug. Clearly, airline fees, if they are going to 
be increased, that revenue should go toward airline traffic protection, 
which is basically TSA activity, maybe some visa activity, but it is 
not appropriate to put an increase on the airline passenger, on people 
using the airlines, and then take that revenue and put it on the 
border. If you want to use a fee on the border, put a fee on the 
border. Put a 50-cent charge as if you are going through a toll gate. 
If people want to come across the border, maybe it should cost people 
75 cents.
  But in any event, that wasn't proposed. What was proposed was to 
raise the airline fee, which everybody knew was not going to be done. 
It was a plug number. So even though they sent up a budget number to 
increase the Border Patrol agents by 1,500 and the beds by about 6,000, 
as a practical matter, it would be very hard for us to do that with the 
numbers they sent up to back up those commitments, but at least the 
commitment was there.
  As the chairman of that appropriations subcommittee, it put me in a 
very difficult position because basically I have to go out and find 
that $1.2 billion to fill that hole, to get the additional funding to 
get those agents, which we wanted to do or had intended to do. That 
means I have to convince the Chairman of the committee, Senator 
Cochran, to take money from some other subcommittee in order to do that 
within the confines of the budget--obviously a challenge to Senator 
Cochran and clearly a position he shouldn't have been put in, but he 
has been, as have I.
  Now, because of the fact that, as we looked hard at the border patrol 
issue and the securing of the border issue, it became very apparent 
that not only were boots on the ground an issue but actual physical 
capital assets were a huge issue--for example, the planes that are 
flown by the Customs Department, the Customs agents, are 30 to 40 years 
old and 20 years past their useful life. The helicopters being flown by 
the Border Patrol agents are 20 years past their useful life. The Coast 
Guard has a fleet which is very aged and which is not fast. They have 
one or two planes that are up to snuff, but most of their planes need 
to be refurbished. In addition, the unmanned technological activity 
along the border, specifically unmanned aerial vehicles--there was one, 
but regrettably it crashed 3 weeks ago. That has been discussed a lot 
on this floor. So there are actually none right now, and there won't be 
a new one until August. In fact, the surveillance fleet is so bad that 
about a month ago, the entire fleet was grounded, so we had no planes 
in the air.
  Then you have the vehicle issue. These vehicles wear out very quickly 
because they are used very aggressively in very difficult terrain. Then 
you have the issue of just simply the training facilities because as 
you dramatically expand the number of people you are trying to put in 
the Border Patrol, you need training facilities to do that. Those 
training facilities are being upgraded and have been upgraded, but they 
need to be upgraded further to handle the even more people we are going 
to put in there.
  So I suggested about a year and a half ago that we do a capital 
infusion into the border security effort which would essentially 
accelerate the Coast Guard refurbishment, taking it from completion in 
the year 2026, which I thought was a little long to wait for the Coast 
Guard to be refurbished, down to 2016. It would get the new planes for 
the Customs Agency; get new helicopters for the Border Patrol; and 
instead of having one Predator, which no longer exists, in the air on 
the border, have three or four Predators on the border. There are other 
technologies which are a lot cheaper, actually, than using that vehicle 
which probably should be pursued, and doing the technology along the 
border relative to land-to-land detection.
  In addition, the capital infusion would give the Border Patrol the 
physical facilities so that when we get all of these Border Patrol 
agents together in their various facilities, they have a place to sit 
down, they also have desks at which to work, and they have vehicles 
that allow them to go out in the field and do their job.
  To accomplish that kind of refurbishment was in, our estimation, 
about a $1.9 billion effort. So I initially put that forward in the 
Defense bill last year. It got knocked out. It went in on the Senate 
floor, went to conference, and it got knocked out. I then put it in the 
reconciliation bill, and it got knocked out. I then put it in, with the 
support of the Senate--the strong support of the Senate--actually 
Senator Byrd has been a pleasure to work with as the ranking member on 
this subcommittee. I then put it into the most recent supplemental that 
came across the floor, $1.9 billion for capital activity. Well, then we 
had a presentation by the President on Monday night which suggested we 
bring in the National Guard to basically, I guess, as I understand it, 
free up Border Patrol agents from desk jobs and get them out in the 
field--to simplify the statement

[[Page 8340]]

of what they will be doing, although they will be doing more than that, 
I am sure--essentially is funded by taking the $1.9 billion and moving 
it from capital refurbishment over to operational exercises. That, in 
my opinion, is not necessarily--well, I will let people assess where 
that is.
  In any event, it would mean the capital initiative would no longer 
exist and the dollars would go to pay for the National Guard and for 
other activities that are operational in nature, including adding an 
additional 1,000 Border Patrol agents on top of the 1,500, which we did 
plan to add this year. This would be good if we could actually 
accomplish that. However, there are technical restrictions on the 
ability to hire--it takes about 35,000 applications to get 1,000 
agents--and the capacity to train is extremely limited. It is limited, 
not extremely limited--but it is limited so you probably can't do 2,500 
agents in the timeframe this proposal has put forward. Maybe you can. I 
doubt it. The track record of this department in this area is not 
stellar.
  Essentially what is happening is that $1.9 billion which was supposed 
to go to capital improvements to get the planes, so they could fly the 
helicopters, fly the predators--so they could be up in the air, and the 
vehicle so they can drive around the border doesn't exist anymore. I 
was told by the Chairman of the conference yesterday: Good luck in 
getting this money. If you want to break the President's hard number of 
$94 billion and claim it as an emergency, you can get the money and get 
it that way.
  Of course, as the Chairman of the Budget Committee, when I put this 
proposal forward I hadn't actually paid for it, and that was the key. I 
took it out of the across-the-board cut from defense. It was not my 
first choice on how to pay for it, but at the request of Senators 
Stevens and Warner, I did that. But, obviously, I am not going to put 
forward a proposal that exceeds the $94 billion and is unpaid for and 
there is no way to pay for it from the money paid to the Defense 
Department in this supplemental as an add-on to the initial $1.9 
billion. We need, obviously, $3.8 billion at that point. So this 
capital improvement exercise is essentially dead as a result of the 
money being moved, migrated over to the operations side relative to the 
National Guard.
  The practical effect of that also will be that the out-year pressure 
on the budget, on the appropriations account relative to this account, 
will be significantly higher because we will be putting in place a 
budget item essentially paying for the National Guard, or the people 
who replace the National Guard, which will be at least $1.9 billion in 
costs annually on top of the present appropriated plan. So to do it 
correctly we should not only use this $1.9 billion for this operational 
activity, but there should have been a supplemental request for the 
budget of the homeland security agency, the Department of Homeland 
Security, to reflect what you might call the expense that is going to 
be generated by the ongoing cost of putting this type of initiative in 
the field, if you are going to be sure that initiative will continue 
and will be robust.
  I would be very much in support of that, obviously, because clearly 
that number is going to have to be paid for. As I mentioned earlier in 
this discussion, I already have a $1.2 billion hole in that budget 
which I have to pay for in order to get the full 1,500 complement in 
place of additional agents. Now I will have a $1.2 billion hole plus a 
$1.9 billion hole on the operational side. And in addition, of course, 
I will have a $1.9 billion hole on the capital expenditure side because 
we still have these airplanes that have to be replaced, helicopters 
that have to be replaced, unmanned vehicles that have to be put in the 
air, and a Coast Guard that really should not have to wait until 2026 
to adequately defend our coastline.
  I want to outline the specifics of where we are now on the dollars 
relative to border patrol and border security. When you get down to it, 
this is not a complex issue, securing our border. We all know that with 
8,000 more agents, about 10,000 more detention beds, with decent 
technology on the border relative to unmanned vehicles and sensors, 
with a Coast Guard that is up to snuff, with airplanes that are up to 
snuff, we can essentially control the border to the extent you can 
control it without a guest worker program in place. A guest worker 
program still, in my opinion, is critical to any long-term resolution 
of this program because human nature says people are going to cross the 
border if they are getting paid $5 in Mexico and $50 in the United 
States for a day's labor and they have a family to support. So that is 
an element of it.
  But the first element to which I think everybody has agreed is decent 
border security. Decent border security only requires resources. We 
have the capacity to do it; we have the technology to do it. It would 
be nice if the Defense Department would share a little more 
aggressively with Homeland Security, or Homeland Security would, on the 
other hand, go out more actively to try to get the Defense Department 
to share it, but we have all the parts sitting there in the box. What 
we have to do is pay the price of taking them out of the box and 
putting them in the places they should be.
  I just wanted to outline where we stand relative to the issue of 
resources because I think there has been considerable confusion, 
especially in light of the speech by the President on Monday.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator be good enough to yield for a question?
  Mr. GREGG. Of course, I am happy to yield to the Senator from 
Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. We have before us now an amendment in terms of building 
some 350 miles of additional fence. It is going to be a triple fence. 
The best estimates--the Senate, I am sure, will hear from the Senator 
from Alabama--but the best estimates we have been able to see is 
approximately $4 billion.
  I am just listening to the Senator talk about allocating resources to 
renew technology between border guards, between helicopters, unmanned 
aerial vehicles, other infrastructure improvements, and the pressure 
that we are under in terms of the appropriations. Having listened to 
the Senator from New Hampshire, and listened to how he had to allocate 
$1.9 billion, is he prepared to make any comment if we add another 
authorization for another $4 billion or $5 billion on fencing, where 
that money would be available?
  Mr. GREGG. In response to the Senator from Massachusetts, neither he 
nor Senator Sessions is going to like my response. I come down on the 
middle on this one. We can have, in that capital allocation, money for 
a fence. I believe additional fencing is important, especially in the 
urban areas where the crossing points are basically stepping across a 
street corner, and you have to put up significant fencing to accomplish 
that. I honestly don't know the number of miles. But clearly there is 
going to be a significant cost. I am of the view that we ought to 
listen to the department as to what the number is relative to the miles 
of fence that is needed. I would very much oppose a fence that ran the 
whole length of the border. I think that would be a waste of money, it 
would be inappropriate, and it would be extremely inhospitable to 
Mexico.
  But there are areas of the country that the only way you can do it is 
by fence. Certainly, the San Diego fence proved to us that fences do 
work in urban areas. What the distances should be and what the numbers 
should be, I don't know the answer to that question.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired.
  Mr. KENNEDY. If the Senator could yield for another question? Could 
the Senator have 3 more minutes to just yield for a question?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I must say I agree with the Senator--we will have a 
chance, when I have my own time, to talk about Secretary Chertoff--that 
there are appropriate areas. I agree with the Senator as well. But just 
extending a fence all along the border does not make sense. I think his 
response is certainly one with which I

[[Page 8341]]

agree, and I thank him for his comments.
  Mr. GREGG. I thank the Senator and yield the floor and appreciate the 
courtesy of the Senator from Alabama and the Senator from Massachusetts 
for allowing me to speak.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New Hampshire 
because it is very important that we have, as the chairman of our 
Budget Committee, someone who can add and someone who has a memory. We 
forget how things happen around here, and Senator Gregg has a way of 
reminding us of how we get in these fixes. It is very valuable to us.
  I would respond to my colleague from Massachusetts that $4 billion to 
$5 billion is an estimate for the fence across the entire 1,980 miles 
of border. This amendment calls for 370 miles, some of which has 
already been built. It is called for by the Secretary of Homeland 
Security. It does, indeed, focus mostly on urban areas, and it gives 
him great flexibility in deciding where to put it.
  Does it cost some money? Yes. But I want to tell every Member of our 
Senate community that the American people expect this. If it takes a 
sequester across the board and takes a half of 1 percent of every 
budget to get this thing done and fix immigration, that is what they 
want us to do.
  I am delighted that Senator Vitter of Louisiana is here and also 
wants to speak on this issue. He is an original cosponsor.
  I would also note, and add for the Record, that Senator Graham, our 
Presiding Officer, and Senator Inhofe wish to be original cosponsors, 
as does Senator Kyl from Arizona. I ask that be part of the Record.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I yield such time as Senator Vitter uses.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
  Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I rise in strong support of this 
amendment. First, let me congratulate my colleague from Alabama for 
putting together this very essential amendment. I am proud to be an 
original cosponsor, and I want to strongly support it.
  I also want to suggest that based on the discussion we just heard 
involving the chairman of the Budget Committee and the Senator from 
Massachusetts, everyone in this Chamber, based on their statements, 
should support this amendment. Based on what the Senator from 
Massachusetts just said, he should embrace this amendment because, if 
you look at the details of what this amendment does, it is perfectly 
consistent with those statements, and it is perfectly consistent with 
what the President said on Monday night. It is utterly consistent with 
what Secretary Chertoff says he wants and needs as a crucial element of 
border security. It is not the only element, not the only silver 
bullet, there is no magic wand, but it is a crucial element of border 
security.
  Unfortunately, the underlying bill does not provide enough 
authorization and demand for fencing in this regard. The underlying 
bill, particularly section 106, only calls for a very limited and 
modest repair and construction of fencing along very limited parts of 
the southern border of Arizona. That is basically fencing that largely 
already exists in the Tucson and Yuma sections of Arizona.
  What this amendment would do would be to expand that provision in a 
very reasonable and cost-effective way. What this amendment would say 
is that the Secretary of Homeland Security would construct at least 270 
miles of triple-layered fence, including the miles of fence already 
built in San Diego, Tucson, and Yuma, and 500 miles of vehicle barriers 
at strategic locations.
  Again, I underscore that this is not building a wall or a fence 
across the entire Mexican border. This is not the cost cited by the 
Senator from Massachusetts. This is something far more focused, that 
will be a great force multiplier as we put more agents at the border, 
and that is an absolutely critical part of truly defending the border.
  As the chairman of the Budget Committee said, in highly urban areas 
there is simply no way around the need for a fence. To avoid a fence in 
highly populated areas would literally require a border agent every few 
feet to monitor the border because you are talking about a border 
running through the middle, essentially, of an urban neighborhood. That 
is an impossible enforcement situation without some sort of physical 
barrier. These 370 miles would go into those highly populated areas.
  I underscore that this is exactly consistent with what virtually 
everybody has been talking about. Monday night the President talked 
about border security. He wasn't quite as strong on border security as 
I would have liked. He wasn't quite as focused on border security, 
first, before we move on to other elements of this bill, as I would 
have liked, but he explicitly mentioned the need for significant 
fencing for those highly populated areas. This amendment simply does 
that.
  The President's own Secretary, Mike Chertoff, has met with Members of 
this body, and he specifically talked about exactly the same need and 
specifically talked about 370 miles. That is where this number in this 
amendment comes from. This number didn't come from out of the blue. It 
wasn't just a wild guess. It wasn't just a pretty number. It came from 
discussions with Secretary Chertoff.
  The chairman of the Budget Committee, when asked by the Senator from 
Massachusetts would he support fencing, said we absolutely need it as a 
piece of our enforcement puzzle for highly populated areas--for urban 
neighborhoods.
  That is exactly what this amendment addresses. Again, the 370 miles 
is exactly focused on that type of need--highly populated areas where 
to patrol the border without any physical structure would literally 
require a border agent every several feet, which is completely 
impractical and cost prohibitive.
  I think this is an absolutely essential amendment to the bill. 
Really, this is the sort of amendment that will test how serious folks 
really are about enforcement.
  This whole immigration debate is pretty interesting. We have wildly 
divergent views and strong passions on the issue from one end of the 
spectrum to the other. Yet if you listen to speakers on this floor, no 
one is in favor of amnesty and everyone is in favor of border security. 
Of course, it depends on how you define ``amnesty'' and how you define 
``border security.''
  In terms of border security, this amendment is a simple test on 
whether you are really serious in what you say. This is a gut check 
that the American people can understand very simply. If border security 
means anything, it surely means, among many other items, this 370-mile 
fence. If a Member of the Senate votes against this really quite 
narrowly tailored, limited in some ways, modest amendment, I think the 
American people will get it. They will surely know that Member isn't 
serious in any way about border security.
  In closing, let me thank the Senator from Alabama again for this very 
necessary amendment. If border security is to mean anything, if it is 
to possibly work--and I have serious reservations about whether the 
plan in this underlying bill will be allowed to work, will be enforced, 
if the appropriations will happen to make it work, but if it is to have 
a chance to work, surely it has to include this modest 370-mile fence, 
the sort of fencing President Bush specifically talked about and the 
number of miles his Secretary of Homeland Security specifically 
mentioned in meetings with Members of this body.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, how much time do I have?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 45 minutes.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield such time as I might use.
  Over the course of the discussion and debate on immigration reform, 
those of us who have been strong supporters of it have pointed out what 
the President of the United States pointed out; that is, this is about 
four major aspects of

[[Page 8342]]

having this program work. They are all interrelated. That is what we 
call comprehensive. One of them is border security.
  Those of us who support strong immigration reform strongly support 
border security. We voted for the enhancement and the increase in the 
supplemental.
  We just listened to the Senator from New Hampshire who outlined how 
he allocated $1.9 billion. It is very interesting that we have some 
allocation for a San Diego fence in that, but he also talked about 
using new technology and using recent technological breakthroughs as 
being the most effective way to provide security at the border. He 
reiterated that today.
  The chart behind me illustrates border enforcement which is in S. 
2611 at the present time: 12,000 new border agents; high-technology, 
virtual fence which was favorably and positively commented on by the 
Senator from New Hampshire when he had responsibility to take the $1.9 
billion and look at how he was going to allocate it over the period of 
time.
  It talks about the new roads, vehicle barriers at the border, and 
about fencing in strategic locations.
  Do you understand fencing in strategic locations? That is a part of 
S. 2611.
  I was at the briefing with Mr. Chertoff. I understand he was talking 
about building a fence at strategic locations, but 400 miles of urban 
area is on the border.
  Let us be serious--400 miles. That is almost a quarter of the 
southern border stretching from California to the Gulf of Mexico. And 
we are trying to convince the Member from Massachusetts that is an 
urban area? Come on.
  We recognize there are going to be certain strategic areas for 
fencing. That is in this bill.
  Authorization for permanent highways in the legislation, and we are 
all familiar with that. Who can get that bumper sticker up the highest? 
Let us put up another 30,000 border guards. I dare you to vote against 
that and I will show that you are not interested in border security. 
Let us put another 1,800 miles of fence down there and triple wiring to 
show how tough we are on it.
  Is that the challenge out here when we are trying to deal with a 
comprehensive program? I don't think so.
  What we are trying to do is do what is necessary.
  The Senator from New Hampshire talked about the limitations in 
recruitment. You have to get 40,000 in order to get 1,000 in terms that 
will be qualified for border security. He talks about the limitations 
in training programs. He talks about the technological kinds of 
limitations.
  I thought he made a very responsible presentation.
  If there were additional needs, we were prepared.
  We have had the opportunity to work on this issue on border security. 
We have also recognized that part of border security is enforcement in 
terms of those who would be coming into the United States as guest 
workers to make sure we are not going to have exploitation. If they are 
not going to be able to get that job which they are able to get today, 
there will be less pressures on the border.
  All of that is entirely relevant. If they have the ability to go back 
and forth, there will be less pressure on the border as well. These are 
all entirely relevant. That is the result of the extensive hearings we 
had. These are all the items which we have included.
  I am for Secretary Chertoff working through those particular areas. 
With his charts and maps, he demonstrated areas where he thought it 
made some sense to put some fencing and other areas where he thought it 
was completely unnecessary. There is nothing in the current 
legislation. In fact, there is sufficient authorization. So if the 
Secretary wants to use resources that are allocated to him to meet the 
responsibility, he has the power today to do it. There is no suggestion 
that he does not have the power and does not have the flexibility in 
terms of the budget to be able to do that today in the selected areas.
  But the idea to effectively fence a quarter of the border on the 
south, that is the downpayment for fencing the whole border.
  There are Members of this body who believe that is the way to go. Let 
us put the fence all down there. Then we are going to have guards going 
all along that. We will back that up with the National Guard.
  I don't know whether we have enough men and women in the National 
Guard or if we are going to have a sufficient number of men and women 
in the military to do that.
  Then we are going to look at our northern border, as the Senator from 
New Hampshire pointed out and as we have heard in our committee. If you 
are looking at security issues, there is as much concern about the 
northern border as there is about the southern border--so 4,200 miles 
up there as well. It is unlimited. Let us get more border guards up 
there. Let us get 4,200 miles of fencing up there as well.
  We should secure our borders. To do that, you need a multidimensional 
approach. You need effective enforcement. You need enforcement in terms 
of here at home for employers that are going to bring undocumented 
aliens to their companies and corporations. And you need a process 
which is going to be vigorous in enforcement. We provide that as well.
  I wish to mention a couple of items in terms of the fencing we have 
seen that I think are also related. If we look at what has happened at 
the border crossings over the last several years, let us recognize that 
we are all committed to doing more on the border. But the idea that 
border security in and of itself with fencing or not is going to solve 
the problem just defies all recent history.
  Forty-thousand came across the border 20 years ago, and 400,000 10 
years ago. Mr. President, $20 billion--23 times the number of border 
agents we have put on in the last 10 years, and it is probably double 
that today. You just can't spend enough money on those. You can't get 
enough agents. You have to look beyond that. You have to look at what 
is happening here in U.S. in terms of employment and tough enforcement. 
That is what we are about in this legislation.
  Let me point out what this chart says. These are deaths due to 
unauthorized border crossings. You go from 1996 with 315 to 1998 with 
491. The list goes on, 391, 371, 412, 369, 443. These are the deaths 
primarily in the desert.
  We can ask ourselves, Why do we have a significant increase in 1997 
to 1998? Why did it go from 129 to 325?
  Do you know what happened during that period of time? The fence went 
up in southern California. There is 67 miles of fencing at the present 
time.
  In the legislation, there are key areas which have been identified as 
urban areas, and we also provide the resources for targeted areas in 
Arizona.
  That is what has happened. During the building and construction of 
that fence, we were driving these individuals who wanted to come to the 
United States to take the jobs which employers offered to them--and 
they shouldn't have offered it if we had an effective system--they had 
to travel across the great desert, they had to travel across the 
mountains at dramatically higher risk in terms of their own safety and 
in terms of their own security. The totality of the pressure for coming 
here was not reduced and the totality of the people who got in here was 
not reduced.
  There was a dramatic increase in the cost of lives. That may mean 
something to some people and it may not mean much to others.
  Again, as the Senator from New Hampshire pointed out, he talked about 
the new technology, and he talked about the unmanned aerial vehicles 
that we need to get and bring on board. He talked about new kinds of 
technology, which he pointed out, and which I believe, and as the 
testimony presents itself, is really effective in developing the 
virtual wall, the virtual wall of technology, the virtual wall that can 
provide the security which this Nation needs. I support that. I will 
support certainly the resources to be able to do it.
  But this is a feel-good amendment. We need to do things which are 
serious

[[Page 8343]]

and which are important in terms of the border. This doesn't happen to 
meet that particular requirement.
  I hope the Senate will accept it. I withhold the remainder of my 
time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, the time is under the control of Senator 
Sessions, who asked I take the floor next.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, let me first of all note that I very strongly 
support this amendment for one reason: It embodies the entirety of an 
amendment which I offered in the Senate Judiciary Committee which was 
agreed to. When the Senator from Massachusetts defends the underlying 
bill, he is defending that amendment.
  That amendment provides for about half of what we are talking about. 
In fact, all of the language of that amendment is also included in the 
amendment of Senator Sessions. Why do I know about that? It was my 
amendment because it deals specifically with the State of Arizona. What 
did we do? We went to the Border Patrol and we said: You will have 
aircraft, sensors, cameras, border patrol, vehicles, fencing, all of 
those things working in combination to try to secure the border.
  What do you need, specifically? What are you recommending for the 
fencing part of that? This is what they said: First of all, we need to 
tear down some of the existing fencing because it is not very 
effective. It is the old surplus landing mat. It is solid steel. It 
stood vertically. The National Guard built that fencing and that is 
what exists in the urban areas.
  I wish my colleague from Massachusetts could visit the border in 
Arizona and see how that solid-steel fencing has divided communities. 
It is an ugly eyesore. It is an ineffective way to prevent people from 
crossing, right in the middle of Nagales, AZ. On the other side from 
Naco-Sonora, separated by this fence, we have a huge 30-foot-high or 
20-foot-high barrier of solid steel. It is ugly. It is ineffective. 
People can climb up the other side, and our Border Patrol cannot see 
them because it is solid steel.
  What the Border Patrol would like is a double fencing that you can 
see through so they can see who is on the other side and what they are 
about to do. Moreover, the biggest part of violence now is the rock 
throwing that occurs. They cannot see what is on the other side of this 
steel barrier.
  The first point is they want to replace this landing mat fencing with 
modern, up-to-date fencing that is probably double. That is to say, 
there are two fences involved, as there are in California. That has 
been extraordinarily effective to keep people out because you have a 
patrolling in the middle. People may get over one fence, but by the 
time they get over that fence the cameras spot them and are able to 
direct Border Patrol to the area. They are not able to get over the 
second fence so they cannot quickly melt into the rest of our society. 
That is why this double fencing actually works.
  In the area of San Diego, I am told that still no one has crossed 
over the double or triple fencing. No one. In that sector of the 
border, the apprehensions have gone down. This is good news because it 
means there are not people crossing--from some 600,000 now down to 
100,000. And that is the entire sector of San Diego. In the specific 
area where there are 26 miles of fencing, no one gets across. That is 
what we are trying to achieve in the urban areas.
  The Senator from Massachusetts said all that has done is to drive 
them out into the desert, where it is more dangerous and deaths have 
increased. What is the point of that argument? Is the point that we 
should simply provide an invitation for those who would like to cross 
our border illegally, to do it in the same way as the urban area?
  What the Border Patrol says works is a combination of things. Fencing 
in the urban area, where large numbers of people congregate at one 
time. We have seen the pictures of them rushing the border through the 
San Diego port of entry, where 200 or 300 people at a time congregate, 
rush the border, rush through, intermingle with the cars waiting to get 
through. It is impossible to apprehend more than a handful of them. 
That is one of the techniques.
  We have to try to stop that. One way we do that in the urban area is 
to have this fencing. Frankly, if I can get my colleagues from New 
England or other States to come down, Members would agree it is not 
very sightly. From an environmental standpoint, it is not good. And 
from a good neighbor standpoint, it is not good to have this ugly 
fencing. We would like something that looks good and does the job.
  What the amendment in the underlying bill does, and it is the same 
thing in Senator Session's amendment, it says we are going to replace 
that landing mat fencing with the kind of fencing the Border Patrol 
believes would be more effective. That is part of the reason for the 
370 miles of fencing.
  The Senator from Massachusetts derided the amendment as suggesting 
that it was not just for the urban areas because, after all, 370 miles 
of fencing is a lot of fencing. That is a big piece of the whole 
border. Now, let's calm down and do the math. There are several hundred 
towns along the border. As one should not argue against oneself when 
one supports the underlying bill, here is what one is supporting. What 
you are supporting is fencing in the urban areas, approximately 10 
miles extended in either direction. The urban areas are maybe 5 or 6 
miles and 2 or 3 miles beyond that. That is what the underlying bill 
provides.
  I will read briefly from parts of the underlying amendment:

       (1) replace all aged, deteriorating, or damaged primary 
     fencing in the Tucson Sector located approximate to 
     population centers in Douglas, Nogales, Naco, and Lukeville, 
     Arizona with double- or triple-layered fencing running 
     parallel to the international boundary . . .

  To extend it for a distance of not less than 2 miles beyond urban 
areas except it shall extend west of Naco for a distance of 10 miles. 
Then we talk about the Yuma Sector of Yuma, Somerton, and San Luis, so 
there are 15 communities in the State of Arizona.
  If you proximate 10 miles on either side of the midpoint of the 
community, that comes out to 140 miles of fencing. If you add to that, 
there is at least 26 miles in the San Diego area. I don't know how much 
beyond that. If you add the 26 miles, that is 176 miles. There are many 
other communities in California, but let's say there are four or five. 
That gets you half of the 370 miles, and you have not even talked about 
the longest part of the border in New Mexico and Texas.
  My point is, if all you do is extend, to a modest degree, for more 
than 10 miles on either side of the communities that are on the border, 
you are easily up to 326 miles of fencing.
  Why did the Border Patrol say it needed 326 miles of fencing? Because 
they did the math. They counted up all of the communities and figured 
how much fencing they needed in each of these urban areas and that is 
what they asked for. This amendment simply takes the underlying bill, 
which my colleague from Massachusetts is supporting, and adds 
essentially the fencing for Texas, New Mexico, and California to that, 
and the sum total we get is about 370 miles to replace existing fencing 
and add fencing strictly in the urban areas, which will be effective as 
the fencing in San Diego has been.
  The Senator from Massachusetts says we need to secure the border, but 
we should do it in a serious way. I submit that a virtual fence is not 
a fence. A serious way means building some miles of actual fence. That 
is what keeps the illegal immigrants from crossing illegally into the 
United States. In combination with UAVs, helicopter, fixed-wing 
surveillance--there is surveillance actually in other ways, as well, 
which we do not need to get into--there are sensors, there are cameras, 
there are people on patrol on horseback, on three-wheeled vehicles, on 
four-wheeled vehicles, and you put all of those things together, and we 
can build a combination of actual and virtual fencing that creates the 
ability to control the border. This is what you do if you are serious 
about controlling the border.

[[Page 8344]]

  Finally, in the Judiciary Committee, we held hearings about what was 
necessary to secure the border. We heard from the head of the Border 
Patrol, David Aguilar. We heard from the former head of the Border 
Patrol, we heard from the U.S. attorney from Arizona, we heard from a 
couple of sheriffs on the border in Texas and Arizona. And we asked 
them what was going on at the border and what they need to control the 
border. Here are a couple of examples. David Aguilar said that over 10 
percent of the people now apprehended coming into the country illegally 
had criminal records. They were serious criminal records. We are not 
talking about defacing public property. We are talking about murder, 
rape, kidnaping, violent smuggling, drug crimes, and the like. More 
than 10 percent. These people are deterred by fencing, and they need to 
be stopped. So we are not talking about people trying to come into the 
country to work.
  The U.S. attorney for Arizona testified that crime, in the last year, 
in terms of assaults in the border areas, has increased by 108 percent. 
The reason is because the Border Patrol is finally getting to be a 
sufficient number, and the fencing is doing a good enough job that we 
are contesting the territory of the drug cartels, the smugglers, the 
coyotes, and the criminals are fighting back to try to regain the 
territory with weapons. Do not think rocks are not a lethal weapon. As 
a result, we are seeing that there is some progress being made, but it 
has increased the violence. The Border Patrol desperately needs more 
fencing in order to protect their agents from these criminals on the 
other side of the border.
  It is beyond me why someone would deride a recommendation of the 
Border Patrol for a little bit of fencing in the urban areas to protect 
our officers who are out there trying to do their job, among other 
things, to prevent violent criminals from entering the United States, 
to prevent contraband drugs from entering the United States.
  This is why we are adding a little bit of fencing. The border is 
2,000 miles, roughly, and we are talking 370 miles, representing 
essentially the area of urban communities on the border. Bear in mind, 
these are communities that straddle the border. In Douglas, until a few 
years ago, there was a corral in the middle of town, and the border ran 
through the middle of the corral. There was nothing but a corral. In 
places right outside of town, there is a barbed-wire fence that is old 
and rusty and now does not even have three strands. That is the border.
  These are communities in which people work and live on both sides, 
they cross frequently, and they are now subjected to a huge amount of 
crime because of the elements that have moved into those communities to 
transport drugs, to make a lot of money transporting illegal 
immigrants, and to come across the border from countries other than 
Mexico because they are criminals, and they figured out this is a good 
way to get into the United States to do their crime. Who knows what 
terrorists might be thinking.
  The point of this amendment is to add, simply, a little bit more 
fencing to what is already in the underlying bill in the urban areas of 
the country to effectively secure the border which, after all, is what 
we ought to be about here, to protect the people who live in the 
vicinity of the fencing and to protect the officers we have put into 
harm's way to do the job we want them to do.
  I will conclude with this point. It has become very fashionable now 
for everyone to say: We must secure the border. What this amendment 
says is, if you are serious, if you really mean that, here is a very 
modest little thing you can do, what the Border Patrol has recommended 
it needs, to have a modest amount of real fencing which they say 
protects themselves and protects American citizens.
  I don't have the statistics on the top of my head, and maybe Senator 
Cornyn does, but at the hearing we held in our subcommittee, the 
testimony was that crime in the San Diego area where this fencing had 
gone up had gone way down, but that San Diego and the Mexican citizens 
on the other side of the border, likewise, have been subjected to a 
huge increase in crime until that fence was built. Once the coyotes and 
the cartels knew they could not come across in that area, they left. 
And so did the crime.
  This is a great amendment. It should be supported by all Members. 
Crime in San Diego dropped by 56.3 percent between 1989 and 2000. If 
you can cut the crime in half in a community by building this double 
fence, and they did, and I don't hear anyone objecting to the double 
fence in the area of San Diego, why shouldn't the other communities? If 
anyone would like to come to the Senate and say that it was a mistake 
to build that double fence in the area of San Diego, I would like to 
ask them to please do it. I would love to hear the reason why that is 
not a good idea.
  All we are asking is that in the other urban areas along the border, 
the same kind of fencing be built to protect our law enforcement 
officials and the citizens of those areas and to help prevent this kind 
of smuggling across our border--nothing more, nothing less. This is a 
modest amendment, and it should be unanimously agreed to by the Senate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Senator from Arizona. There is no more 
harder working, no more knowledgeable Senator in this Senate on the 
issues involving the border than he. I thank him for his eloquent 
remarks.
  I am pleased to yield such time as he may consume to Senator Cornyn 
of Texas who, like myself, is one of the most knowledgeable people in 
this Senate who has been engaged in this debate from the beginning and 
whose advice and recommendations I have valued throughout. So I will 
yield to Senator Cornyn for such time as he may choose to use.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, may I inquire how much time remains on our 
side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Thirty-eight minutes.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I assure my colleagues, I will not use but 
a fraction of that time.
  I think one of the things that makes this issue of fences and walls 
along the border so controversial is because walls and fences are 
powerful symbols. Indeed, I know, in talking to some of our friends on 
the other side of the border, they worry what the message is America 
would send if we were to build, let's say hypothetically, a 2,000-mile 
wall between America and Mexico.
  Well, suffice it to say that I think, as we have had this debate both 
in the Judiciary Committee and now here on the floor of the Senate--and 
as a lot of us have been working to try to better understand what is 
actually needed by the Border Patrol to secure our borders--our 
thinking has evolved.
  Indeed, I was one of those who initially was somewhat skeptical of 
the idea of a wall or a fence. But now I find myself supporting this 
amendment. I would like to explain just for a minute why.
  We sometimes joke among ourselves that if, in fact, Congress was to 
authorize and the Department of Homeland Security was to build a 2,000-
mile wall, 50-feet high, across the border, it would probably see a 
boom in the sale of 51-foot ladders or what we would see is a lot more 
of those tunnels like we have seen in the news recently in California 
and elsewhere, people going through a tunnel.
  We all know, if you do not go over a wall or a fence, and you do not 
go under a fence, you might go around the sides of the fence. So I have 
wondered whether this is, in fact, the most effective way to deal with 
the problem.
  As I have told my colleagues, coming from a State that has 1,600 
miles of common border with the country of Mexico, I hope you will go 
look at it and see what we are talking about. I fear sometimes when 
people talk about the border they are relying more on their 
recollection, perhaps, of a movie they have seen or a novel they have 
read. It is a tough and difficult place to deal with, and you can 
appreciate, when you go to the border, the challenges the Border Patrol 
has and why it is so easy, relatively speaking, for

[[Page 8345]]

people who want to come across that border into the United States, 
notwithstanding our efforts to try to secure it.
  But I do not believe we ought to seal the border. I do not believe we 
ought to close the border. But I do believe we ought to secure the 
border. And I believe now that some strategic barriers--and, yes, even 
some fencing, such as Senator Kyl and Senator Sessions have described--
would be helpful.
  Now, how did I arrive at that conclusion? Well, because we held a 
number of hearings. As chairman of the Immigration and Border Security 
and Citizenship Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee, we have had a 
number of hearings, including the experts who have told us that, yes, 
it would be helpful in some areas along this 2,000-mile border to have 
some strategic barriers, some fences, some ways to funnel traffic so 
that the Border Patrol can have an easier job trying to actually detain 
people who come into the country illegally.
  I would point out that under Senator Sessions' amendment, it would 
authorize the building of up to about 370 miles of fence. About 70 
miles is already in place. So really we are talking about 15 percent of 
that 2,000-mile border which would be authorized to be built subject to 
the good judgment and discretion and professional decisions of the 
folks who are in charge. The Border Patrol, the Department of Homeland 
Security, they would be the ones deciding it because, frankly, I do not 
think we here in Washington are in any position to decide where it 
ought to go. We ought to leave it to the experts.
  But the fact is, it is expensive. This leads me again to remind my 
colleagues that we can pass some pretty expansive legislation here, we 
can talk in grandiose terms about border security, worksite 
verification, and dealing with this great challenge that confronts us, 
but sooner or later we are going to have to pay for it. And the $1.9 
billion the Senator from New Hampshire succeeded in getting 
appropriated in the supplemental appropriations bill is a mere 
downpayment on what it is going to cost. So I hope Senators who talk in 
very sincere terms, no doubt, about making sure this bill is 
enforceable will be just as emphatic when it comes to paying for these 
measures.
  Let me say that we are not just talking about putting up some fencing 
in order to secure our borders. We are talking about doubling the 
number of Border Patrol agents. This is the primary law enforcement 
agency that is responsible for providing border security. The President 
announced on Monday night that he was going to authorize up to 6,000 
National Guard troops to assist the Border Patrol on a stopgap basis, 
not to perform law enforcement per se but to provide support to the 
Border Patrol while we recruit and train more Border Patrol agents.
  Now, one thing I do not understand is why we are told that the Border 
Patrol can only train 1,500 Border Patrol agents a year. We need more, 
and we need them faster. In the last 3 years, the United States and the 
coalition partners have trained a quarter of a million Iraqi security 
officers and police and army. Why we can train, with the assistance of 
our coalition partners, 250,000 Iraqis but we can only train 1,500 
Border Patrol agents a year is beyond me. We need to find out why that 
is and fix it.
  But I sincerely believe what we need is a combination of more boots 
on the ground--we need human beings. We need to roughly double the 
number of Border Patrol agents to about 20,000. And just by way of a 
footnote, let me point out in New York City alone there are about 
40,000 police officers. So we are talking about half the number of law 
enforcement agents along our 2,000-mile border than they have in New 
York City. But they need some help.
  We need the force multiplier that comes with technology. I know 
others have talked about this, but a couple days ago I went out to Fort 
Belvoir, VA, out to the Army's night vision lab and their sensor lab 
where they actually develop this technology for use by our military in 
places such as Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere. What they 
demonstrated for me is some of the technology that is relatively 
inexpensive that is already being used by our military in places such 
as Afghanistan and Iraq that could be easily used by the Department of 
Homeland Security along the border. And this ranges from unmanned 
aerial vehicles that are airplanes, basically, with cameras on them 
that weigh about 10 pounds that can stay in the air for up to 4 hours 
at a time, which can also tie into ground sensors and cameras, thermal 
imagery, radar, and other things that could be used to be a force 
multiplier for our Border Patrol.
  I think what we need is a combination of things to provide that 
security along the border. I do not favor a 2,000-mile wall, but I do 
not see what the objection is to using the necessary tools that are 
required in order to provide some chance of stopping the flow of 
humanity across our border.
  Last year alone, 1.19 million people were detained coming across our 
southern border--1.1 million people. And people wonder why we have a 
problem? People wonder why we have a problem with controlling our 
borders when we do not have enough people, we do not have the 
technology, we do not have the strategic barriers there?
  Well, part of the problem is we only have about 20,000 detention 
beds--20,000. That is the reason the Department of Homeland Security is 
engaged in this flawed idea of catch and release. In other words, you 
catch 1.1 million people, you send people back home more or less 
immediately who come from Mexico, a contiguous nation. But if they come 
from other countries, then we have to make arrangements to send folks 
back where they came from. That requires them to be detained somewhere 
for a while.
  With only 20,000 detention beds, and 250,000, roughly, people coming 
from countries other than Mexico last year alone, you can see the 
problem. So people are released on their own recognizance and asked to 
come back for their deportation hearing 30 days hence. And guess what. 
Most of them do not show up. It makes you kind of wonder about the ones 
who do, knowing, as they must, that we do not have the people, the 
technology, and the infrastructure in place actually to enforce the 
law. Well, that is what we are trying to fix here.
  So let me say, in conclusion, I think we have all evolved in our 
understanding of what it is going to take to solve this problem. I 
believe we have seen some good movement across the aisle on a 
bipartisan basis to try to come up with solutions. And I have been led 
to conclude--as a result of all the discussions and debates we have 
had, the hearings we have had in the Judiciary Committee, listening to 
the experts who are in a position to know--that this is what they need.
  Secretary Chertoff of the Department of Homeland Security told a 
number of us this is what he needed in order to get the job done. I 
believe we have an obligation to give our law enforcement officials the 
tools they actually need to get it done, and to do otherwise would be 
some sort of cruel joke, to pretend we are actually serious about 
dealing with this problem but yet failing to provide those same 
officials the tools they need in order to get the job done.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Murkowski). The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I am not opposed to fences and vehicle 
barriers. They are included in the bill. It is our understanding there 
are some places where fencing can be effective to stop illegal 
immigration into America. But what we have here has become a symbol for 
the rightwing in American politics: the symbol of a fence, a fence 
between America and Mexico.
  If you have been a student of politics for a few minutes or a few 
days, you will know where this is going to end. This proposal by 
Senator Sessions would construct a fence of about 370 miles in length. 
The House Republicans want to build a fence that is 2,000 miles long. 
So what will likely happen, should this amendment pass the Senate and 
go to conference, is we will split the difference, and we will end up 
with a fence that is over 1,000 miles long on America's southern 
border. And perhaps, as Senator Kennedy has suggested, it will be the 
downpayment for

[[Page 8346]]

a fence that would stretch for 2,000 miles.
  They have come down from their original request of a 700- or 800-mile 
fence. That was going to be the first thing asked for, when somebody 
suggested that would be a fence the distance of which could stretch 
from the Washington Monument to the Sears Tower in Chicago. That is the 
distance we are talking about--700 or 800 miles--but that could be the 
ultimate result here.
  The obvious question we have to ask ourselves--I think two 
questions--No. 1, will it work? If you build a fence like this, will it 
work? Will it hold people back or will it become our ``Maginot Line''? 
The Maginot Line was the line of defense built by France after World 
War I to stop the Germans should they ever want to attack again. And 
the French invested a great sum of money and all of their national 
security in the idea they could build a line that the Germans could 
never cross. They waited, knowing they were secure, until World War II 
began and the German panzers just crushed the Maginot Line and came 
roaring over it, destroying all of their feelings that they were safe 
forever.
  I feel the same way about this fence. What fence is it that we will 
build that cannot be tunneled under, that you cannot go over or around? 
Is this really going to be an effective deterrent?
  What we have suggested in the bill, which is completely full of ideas 
on enforcement, is to use technology. It may not be this high fence 
they want to build is the best thing for us. The technology we have 
available might be much better. We can have a virtual fence which 
achieves much more than a fence, which would cost us millions of 
dollars and be easily overcome. So in the first instance, I am 
concerned where this will end, how long this fence will be, and 
whether, in the end, we will be safer in building it.
  The second thing is the image it creates of a country, that our 
relationship with Mexico would come down to a barrier between our two 
countries. I believe we should have a more positive outlook toward 
where we are going to be. Working with the Mexican Government, working 
with them toward the goal of stopping illegal immigration, is far 
better than the confrontation of a fence or a wall. I think it could 
bring us to a day when we will have our borders under control, with all 
we invest in this bill, with what we do by way of enforcement at the 
border and in the workplace, and with what we do with those who are 
currently here in the United States. It is a coordinated and 
comprehensive approach. It isn't just a matter of building a fence. It 
isn't a matter of enforcement alone. It is enforcement as a starting 
point.
  My concern about this fence, which is likely to end up being over 
1,000 miles long, is that it will not protect America. It will not stop 
the illegal flow of immigration. It would create an image of America 
which I am not sure we would be proud of in years to come. I will 
oppose this amendment.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I want to bring some relevant and 
important facts to the debate. As we have pointed out, we are for 
security of the border. We have outlined, in my earlier comments, the 
provisions in this legislation which would help to achieve that. I want 
to point out some of the history of the building of a fence and the 
cost of the building of a fence.
  When the first fence was going to be built, Congressman Hunter, the 
House's largest proponent of fencing, originally estimated the cost of 
completing the 14 miles of fencing in San Diego at $14 million, the 
same as the current estimate, I believe, of the Senator from Alabama. 
Fencing was completed over 11 miles, and the cost was more than 200 
percent over budget, costing $42 million. The real cost of construction 
ended up being more than $3.8 million per mile. At that rate, a 
complete fence across the U.S.-Mexican border would cost $7.6 billion.
  As was referenced, the House of Representatives position calls for a 
700-mile fence. Congressman Hunter boasts of securing an additional $35 
million for the last 3 miles of fencing in San Diego, approximately $12 
million per mile. These costs are significantly higher because of 
difficult terrain. Much of the U.S. border with Mexico crosses mountain 
terrain such as these 3 miles, potentially driving up the cost of 
borderwide security.
  Let's look at what happened in terms of people. Currently, there are 
70 miles of fencing along the U.S.- Mexican border, including 40 miles 
in California and 25 in Arizona. Partial fencing of the U.S.-Mexican 
border shifted migrant traffic from one area to the other. The 
apprehensions dropped in San Diego from a high of 450,000 in 1994, when 
fencing construction began, to a low of 136,000 in 2005, a reduction of 
70 percent. Over the same period, the apprehensions in the Tucson 
sector, covering most of Arizona, rose from 137,000 in 1994 to 489,000, 
almost an exact shift in migrant traffic from San Diego to Arizona. So 
the number of apprehensions along the U.S. border from 1994 to 2005 has 
barely fluctuated, ranging from 900,000 to well over a million per 
year.
  What the facts show is that having large-scale fences has been 
grossly inadequate, if we are talking about security. We need to have 
real, effective security, as we discussed earlier, the virtual fence, 
using the latest in technology, and also enforcement of laws in the 
workplace which will discourage people from coming and which those who 
have studied this believe to be the most effective.
  We are talking about a cost of billions of dollars for something that 
has not been shown to be effective in achieving an outcome. There are 
ways of securing the border, but this is not the way to do so, for the 
reasons I outlined earlier and the reasons I cited at this time. We 
have evaluations of fencing in our legislation. We ought to find out 
what is the most effective way, whether we use the virtual fence, the 
newer technologies, what is having the best and most positive result, 
and invest in that. That is what we ought to do.
  What we are doing this afternoon is a good-feeling vote, in terms of 
trying to give some assurances to the American people, which history 
has shown is highly costly, and in terms of the amount of resources we 
are likely to expend has not been effective.
  For the reason of raising the kinds of conflicts that we are going to 
have with our neighbors to the south rather than working with them 
effectively, there are better and more effective ways of securing the 
border.
  I hope this amendment will be defeated.
  As I understand it, there is a desire to vote at 2:30. I think I have 
used about all my time. I would be glad to yield back the time, maybe 
move on to another amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SPECTER. Madam President, we are talking about a possible 2:30 
vote. The day is badly fragmented with a signing ceremony at the White 
House at 1:45, a briefing by Director Negroponte at 3, and a social at 
the White House at 5. It is pretty hard to see how we get any business 
done when we dodge in and out of the raindrops in a hurricane. But we 
are talking about a 2:30 vote. If we are to have it, I wanted to stack 
three votes at that time. We are going to respect what Senator Reid 
wants to do, to take them up one at a time, but we are asking Senator 
Vitter to come over right now because we are about to wrap up. Senator 
Sessions wants 10 more minutes. I will speak briefly. Then we will 
yield back the remainder of the time. Then after Senator Vitter's 
amendment is heard--we have already argued Senator Inhofe's amendment--
we may be in a position to stack three votes at 2:30 or very close to 
that time. That is what we are looking toward.
  I yield to Senator Sessions for his final 10 minutes and yield back 
the remainder of the time to move on to Senator Vitter's amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, we are at a point where everybody in 
this body--and overwhelmingly, the American people--wants to see a 
lawful system of immigration in America. We

[[Page 8347]]

can all disagree about what to do about the people who have come here 
illegally already. There are a lot of ideas about that. We can disagree 
about what our policy should be in the future, but we pretty well have 
been unified on that point. The 370 miles of fencing that we are 
talking about, plus barriers for vehicle traffic in a larger amount, 
has the support of Secretary of Homeland Security Chertoff and the 
administration. They believe it is a good expenditure, and they are 
prepared to help find the money to fund it because it will save money 
in the long run. It is a one-time expenditure and will be a multiplier 
of the effectiveness of every single Border Patrol agent.
  As we have heard from Senators Cornyn and Kyl, who have visited the 
border on a regular basis, we have borders that run right through the 
middle of towns and communities. How could we possibly put enough 
agents at every corner, every street to guard it? We need to do better 
and we can do better.
  I am amused by my colleague from Illinois, Senator Durbin, saying 
there is going to be 1,000 miles of fencing. I had originally offered 
in committee 700 miles. That is what the House passed. We have now come 
in and listened to the administration and proposed a modest figure of 
370 total, counting portions of the fence already built in San Diego, 
and those being refurbished in Arizona. The House is at 700. So the 
argument that it is going to be a fence across the whole border or the 
argument that we are going to build 1,000 miles of fence is not very 
plausible. Frankly, if the Senate is at 370 and the House is at 700, we 
are not likely to come out with a compromise at 1,000. What kind of 
argument is that?
  Then we heard the argument that it is going to bankrupt America. We 
spend over $800 billion a year. We can't find a billion dollars to fix 
this problem? We certainly can. They ask: Will it work? I say let them 
go to San Diego. Let them go there and talk to the people on both sides 
of the border where the whole county showed a 56-percent reduction in 
crime, and on both sides of that fence the economy is booming. It is 
safe and secure. The smugglers and dope dealers are gone, and things 
are much better off. It is a positive development. Why are we having 
opposition to it?
  Senator Kyl came close to the truth when he said: Whenever anything 
gets proposed--I am paraphrasing--that might actually work, we get an 
objection to it. What about a good identifier card? They say something 
like that makes sense, but every time we get close to having a good 
biometric identifier card that would actually work, we get all kinds of 
objections.
  There is no doubt that some people believe in open borders. There are 
people who do not want to see this immigration system become a lawful 
system. I will repeat, we are a nation of immigrants. We are going to 
increase the number of immigrants. I will support increasing the number 
of lawful immigrants into our country by a reasonable amount, not three 
to five times the current level that is in this bill today, even after 
we reduced the numbers last night. Three to five times is way out of 
the range of what should be accepted. But we are going to increase 
immigration. We are not against immigration. I reject that. We want to 
travel across the border, particularly our Mexican border. It is a very 
busy place. Senators Kyl and Cornyn are familiar with that border, and 
they wouldn't support anything that would back that up.
  I am confident we are on the right track. We have checked with a 
series of contractors and looked at the numbers. The best estimate we 
get is that the kind of premier fence we are talking about would be at 
most $3.2 million per mile, and that would, at 296 miles of new fencing 
cost approximately $940 million, not $14 billion. Where did that come 
from? That is not so. It will probably cost around a billion dollars.
  Remember, as Senator Cornyn reminded us, 1.1 million people are being 
arrested each day at that border, 1.1 million. How much does it cost to 
detain and process those people and deport them and move them out of 
the country or release them or catch and release, in which they then 
abscond and don't show up to be deported? Is it not better to reduce 
the number of arrests by creating an effective system that prevents 
crossing the border rather than all the expense of detecting and 
apprehending and deporting?
  We have had some good discussion. We have talked about these issues 
in a number of ways. With regard to the San Diego fence, according to 
the FBI crime index, crime in that county dropped 56.3 percent between 
1989 and 2000, after the fence was erected. Vehicle drive-throughs in 
the region have fallen between 6 to 10 per day before the construction 
of the border infrastructure to only 4 drive-throughs in 2004 for the 
year. And those occurred only where the secondary fence is incomplete.
  According to the numbers provided by the San Diego sector of the 
Border Patrol, in February of 2004, apprehensions decreased from 
531,609. The American people need to hear this as well as Senators. In 
2004, the apprehensions on the San Diego, CA, sector of the border only 
were 532,689 apprehensions. How expensive is that? Those figures were 
in 1993. And in 2003, after the fence was built, it dropped to 111,000 
across that whole sector.
  So the idea that the fence had no impact and everybody went around it 
is not true. It sent a message that we were serious about creating a 
border that works, and it reduced by four-fifths the numbers of 
arrests. How much money did that save? How much time did that save? And 
it left the Border Patrol officers available to do a lot of different 
things.
  In 1993, authorities at the San Diego border apprehended over 58,000 
pounds of marijuana coming across the border from Mexico. In 2003, 
after the fence, the tide of drugs was reduced and only 36,000 pounds 
of marijuana were apprehended, and cocaine smuggling decreased from 
1,200 pounds to 150 pounds. That is some of the progress that was made.
  This is a narrow amendment, concentrating on the most important 800, 
500, or 350 miles of fencing, with 500 miles of barriers. It is focused 
and it is what the Department of Homeland Security says they need. It 
is reasonable in cost. It will save money considerably over the long 
run. It is a one-time expenditure, but it can save us from having 
thousands of permanent investigators, permanent prison bed spaces, and 
things of that nature. The key to it is to change the perception and 
the reality of how we are doing business.
  Let me conclude with that thought. It is important for this country 
to make clear to our own citizens and to the world that a lawful system 
is going to be created, that this is no longer any open border. Once 
that happens, and once that is absolutely clear, we are going to have 
fewer people attempt to come in. It is that simple. How do you do it?
  Well, the President's call out to the National Guard is one signal 
that things have changed. Business as usual is over. Utilizing fencing 
is important. Increasing bed spaces and increasing agents along the 
border are important. All those things can help us reach a tipping 
point, a magic point on the seesaw or the balance scale. When it tips, 
it is going to tip so that people will find out it makes more sense to 
apply to come here legally, according to our laws, rather than coming 
in illegally. It will add to the workplace enforcement on top of that, 
and you will become serious about immigration.
  We can do this. It is not hopeless or impossible. For a reasonable 
cost, we can tip the scales from illegality to legality. That is what 
the American people are asking us to do. A vote for this amendment is a 
step in that direction.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, when the Judiciary Committee met to 
consider a comprehensive immigration reform bill, we adopted an 
amendment by Senator Kyl on limited fences and barriers along the 
border. I supported that amendment. It called for replacing and 
repairing barriers in certain border towns.
  Now Senator Sessions is offering an amendment to correct what Senator 
Kyl had included in the Judiciary

[[Page 8348]]

Committee bill and that was incorporated in the underlying bill now 
before the Senate. I had thought that the Senator from Arizona had 
consulted with the administration and, in particular, with the 
Department of Homeland Security before offering his amendment and that 
the committee action would have been sufficient. Apparently Senator 
Sessions and his cosponsors, which include a number of Republican 
Senators on the Judiciary Committee, think that the Kyl amendment was 
inadequate. They say that their discussions with Secretary Chertoff, 
the Border Patrol, and Homeland Security lead them to seek a needed 
change and correction.
  As Senator Kennedy noted, the fact may well be that the Secretary and 
the administration have all the legal authority they need without this 
amendment to do what they think needs to be done. That they have not 
done more before now was not for the lack of authority as far as I 
know. Nor has Congress refused to provide such authority as may have 
been necessary or that has been requested by the administration.
  On this point, I quote a column from today's Roll Call authored by 
Norman Ornstein. He concludes:

       For nearly five years, we drastically have underfunded our 
     first responders while failing to coordinate plans across 
     state and regional lines. We still do not have interoperable 
     communications among first responders. We have underfunded 
     border security despite warnings that immigration issues were 
     intertwined with basic security issues. No wonder this issue 
     has exploded on the national scene, and no wonder we are 
     seeing this belated move to ``solve'' the problem with a 
     National Guard presence.
       Where has Congress been in all of this? For nearly five 
     years, absent without leave. It's been AWOL on oversight, 
     AWOL on serious legislation to deal with either the lapses in 
     the department or the broader problem of border security, 
     AWOL on serious deliberations about broader immigration 
     issues, AWOL on seeking bipartisan solutions for difficult 
     problems that need some consensus in the middle. And it's 
     been worse than AWOL in making sure that we have institutions 
     of governance after the next massive attack. Congress' 
     approval rating is 22 percent? That seems too high.

  Sadly, there is much truth in what Mr. Ornstein writes. During 
Republican congressional control they have slavishly taken their cues 
from the Republican administration and defended its every misstep.
  With respect to the Sessions amendment I have questions, questions 
about its value and whether it is meant to signal some kind of 
``fortress America'' approach to real world problems. I also have 
questions about its cost and how the Senator from Alabama intends to 
pay for its additional costs. He said during the course of the debate 
that he estimated that it would cost an additional billion dollars. On 
the day that the President is signing into law billions of dollars of 
additional tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans, I wonder whether we 
might not have been wiser to set aside a billion dollars from those tax 
breaks being provided millionaires to help fund enforcement measures 
for America's border security.
  The Congressional Budget Office says that this bill will require more 
than $54 billion in expenditures. The Sessions amendment will add 
additional costs. Is it several hundred million dollars, a billion 
dollars, as the Senator from Alabama has estimated, or more? The 
Senator from Texas has said that this bill is merely a downpayment on 
what it will cost to secure our borders. I wonder what the Senator from 
Texas believes this will eventually cost. I wonder how he intends to 
pay for these measures. Under Republican leadership we are already 
running the largest annual deficits in history and have turned a $5 
trillion surplus into a projected debt of somewhere between $8 trillion 
to $10 trillion.
  Earlier today the Republican chairman of the Homeland Security 
Appropriations Subcommittee came to the Senate to make an extraordinary 
statement. I am sorry he spoke to an almost empty floor. I urge all 
Senators to consider his remarks. The Senator from New Hampshire is 
someone I have worked with to provide interoperable communications to 
law enforcement along the shared border of our States. He is one of the 
most straight-talking Members of the Senate and he demonstrated that 
again today. He said today that the $1.9 billion capital account he had 
sought to establish for border security improvements is gone, that it 
has been transferred to operational needs. In addition, he expressed 
regret for having had to structure his amendment to the emergency 
supplemental appropriations bill to take funds from military accounts 
in order to allocate it to border security.
  In that regard, the Democratic leader has been proven right in his 
amendment that would have provided the $1.9 billion without taking 
funds from our troops. Now the Senator from New Hampshire says that he 
understands that his amendment will not survive the House-Senate 
emergency supplemental appropriations conference. The Democratic leader 
was right to offer his amendment and the Senate would have been wiser 
had it adopted it to fund border security with real dollars. As matters 
now stand, if Senator Gregg is correct, it appears there is no money in 
the budget or available to fund these measures. Let us not make false 
promises to the American people about border security. Let us not call 
for measures that we will not be able to pay for but wish to trumpet.
  I ask unanimous consent that the article to which I referred be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                     [From Roll Call, May 17, 2006]

       Congress' Neglect of Immigration Is Why We're Stuck Today

                          (By Norman Ornstein)

       Why do we need members of the National Guard patrolling our 
     borders? It is a question, frankly, that doesn't have a very 
     edifying answer. The National Guard is spread way too thin as 
     it is, and I am not sure how many members are eager to go 
     from two tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan to a new tour 
     in Nogales.
       If the response to that is, ``Well, we are just sending 
     token numbers''--6,000--the counter-response is, ``Why mess 
     with the Guard for token purposes when the results will 
     include sharper tension with Mexico over the issue of 
     militarizing the border and fodder for Hugo Chavez and our 
     other hemispheric adversaries to dump on the imperialist and 
     militaristic USA?'' Then there's the issue of whether 
     anything in the training of the National Guard prepares them 
     for border patrol work, whether on the front lines or back in 
     the office doing paperwork.
       Of course, we know the less edifying answers. The president 
     needed a symbol of his determination to toughen the borders 
     in order to pacify his base and to get conservatives in 
     Congress to consider the immigration plan advanced by Sens. 
     John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) to 
     legalize many of the illegals who have been in the country 
     for years without having to expel 12 million people or more.
       This is necessary because the House Republican leadership 
     will not move a bill that has broad bipartisan support if it 
     comes at the expense of losing even a sliver of the party's 
     ideological base. There is another reason. We need some 
     supplements for the undermanned border patrol forces who are 
     themselves spread way too thin. The failures of the border 
     patrol--not just caused by inadequate numbers but also by 
     dysfunction within their agency and a continuing set of 
     problems with coordinating responsibilities with federal 
     customs and immigration officials--have led to serious public 
     unhappiness in border states, especially Arizona, New Mexico 
     and Texas, and a need for some kind of governmental response.
       I find it more disturbing to dwell on the dynamics of this 
     issue after seeing the film United 93 over the weekend. It is 
     a superb movie, and the one-word description of it given by 
     virtually everyone who has seen it--``harrowing''--is 
     accurate. But to a student of government, the harrowing part 
     goes well beyond reliving the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist 
     attacks and watching a graphic portrayal of a suicide-
     hijacking mission. The movie portrays a government in near-
     chaos, with the limited communication between the Federal 
     Aviation Administration, air traffic controllers and the 
     military filled with misinformation and nearly inexplicable 
     delays. The military was unable to scramble any significant 
     force to protect the airspace around Washington, D.C., for a 
     long time after it became clear that the capital--and the 
     Capitol--were obvious targets of the terrorist attack.
       Perhaps others left the theater with a belief that the 
     chaos was understandable; after all, who would have imagined 
     a broad-based, concerted effort by suicidal terrorists to 
     kill thousands of people in coordinated attacks on American 
     soil? Most moviegoers probably felt a small sense of relief 
     that at least now, more than four years later, we have 
     learned some lessons, beefed up the communications among 
     these agencies and the rapid response necessary when another 
     attack occurs. But I did not.

[[Page 8349]]

       The response by the federal government since Sept. 11 has 
     been reluctant, halting and generally ineffectual in most 
     areas of homeland security. I have no reason to believe that 
     we have had a systematic effort to improve communications and 
     coordination--not just between the FAA and the Pentagon but 
     among other agencies that might be on the front lines in the 
     next attack, which is not likely to come from commercial 
     airliners.
       I also know that the creation of the Department of Homeland 
     Security--long after it was clear that the office setup in 
     the White House was inadequate to the task--was done in a 
     textbook fashion, specifically a textbook showing how not to 
     do a major reorganization. Instead of focusing on the 
     problems in border security by integrating the jobs of border 
     patrol, customs, immigration and the Coast Guard, and instead 
     of focusing intensely on crafting a strong bureaucratic 
     culture around their shared missions, the White House and 
     Congress brought together 20 disparate units in a massive 
     reorganization that hasn't come close to working and will 
     take many more years to become functional.
       We saw what happened with Hurricane Katrina, and the 
     problems with the Federal Emergency Management Agency are 
     manifest in the border area and many others. We are woefully 
     unprepared to deal with a biological attack, a pandemic, a 
     massive natural disaster or another broad-based terrorist 
     attack. One is coming--we just don't know when. United 93 
     underscores the ominous reality that al-Qaida takes a long 
     time doing its planning before making its move. It is surely 
     planning the next one as I write.
       For nearly five years, we drastically have underfunded our 
     first responders while failing to coordinate plans across 
     state and regional lines. We still do not have interoperable 
     communications among first responders. We have underfunded 
     border security despite warnings that immigration issues were 
     intertwined with basic security issues. No wonder this issue 
     has exploded on the national scene, and no wonder we are 
     seeing this belated move to ``solve'' the problem with a 
     National Guard presence.
       Where has Congress been in all of this? For nearly five 
     years, absent without leave. It's been AWOL on oversight, 
     AWOL on serious legislation to deal with either the lapses in 
     the department or the broader problems of border security, 
     AWOL on serious deliberation about broader immigration 
     issues, AWOL on seeking bipartisan solutions for difficult 
     problems that need some consensus in the middle. And it's 
     been worse than AWOL in making sure that we have institutions 
     of governance after the next massive attack. Congress' 
     approval rating is 22 percent? That seems too high.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania is recognized.
  Mr. SPECTER. Madam President, the issue of border security is 
obviously a vital matter. The assurances that we will be able to check 
the flow of illegal immigrants will materially aid in the passage of 
this bill, a comprehensive bill--if assurances can be given that the 
border is secure and also with employer sanctions.
  I think the Senator from Alabama has submitted a good amendment. It 
does not have the overtone of the enormous fence along the entire 
border, stretching 2,000 miles. It is targeted. We have been advised by 
the administration, by Secretary Chertoff, that there is support for 
the amendment of the Senator from Alabama. That is about what they are 
looking for. They have made a detailed analysis. Secretary Chertoff met 
with the Judiciary Committee on a very extensive briefing 2 weeks ago. 
We talked about this at length. For those reasons, I plan to support 
the Sessions amendment.
  Madam President, I am prepared to yield back all time if Senator 
Sessions and Senator Kennedy are prepared.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. SPECTER. If we can yield back time, we are prepared to go on to 
another amendment. We are trying to structure it so we will have three 
votes in the range of 2:30.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I have not yielded back my time. I may 
yield back my time. I will have to get a short quorum call if we are 
going to ask consent on establishing--unless our leaders have agreed to 
have the series, I would have a short quorum call until we can clear 
that.
  Mr. SPECTER. Madam President, while the Senator from Massachusetts is 
working out the questions, I have discussed with him setting aside 
temporarily the Sessions amendment so that we can proceed to the Vitter 
amendment and not waste any time. Madam President, I have discussed it 
with Senator Vitter, who is agreeable with an hour and a half equally 
divided. I have made that suggestion to Senator Kennedy. He is going to 
run it by his leadership to see if it is acceptable on his side. Why 
don't we proceed as if it is so that Senator Vitter is recognized now 
and starts to talk, and it will count against his time when we finally 
get the agreement.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is all time on the Sessions amendment yielded 
back?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, I yield back my time.
  Mr. SPECTER. I yield back my time and Senator Sessions yields back 
his time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time is yielded back.
  Mr. SPECTER. I think the record is closed on the Sessions amendment, 
and we are now proceeding to the Vitter amendment, and we will await 
Senator Kennedy's comment as to the unanimous consent request on an 
hour and a half. I thank the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana is recognized.


                           Amendment No. 3963

  Mr. VITTER. Madam President, I call up amendment No. 3963.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the Sessions amendment is 
set aside.
  The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter) proposes an 
     amendment numbered 3963.

  Mr. VITTER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that further 
reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

  (Purpose: To strike the provisions related to certain undocumented 
                              individuals)

       Strike sections 601 through 614.

  Mr. VITTER. Madam President, I bring before the Senate an important 
amendment, I believe, which goes to the heart of so many American 
concerns about the bill before us.
  I must say, in the beginning discussion of this amendment, that I 
have grave concerns about this bill. I think it is a mistake in many 
aspects. I think it ignores history and ignores very specific, concrete 
experience. Not too long ago, in 1986, Congress passed similar 
measures, albeit on a much smaller scale, which ultimately and clearly 
failed to solve the immigration problem.
  I am very fearful that we are repeating history, only on a much 
broader, much bigger, much more dangerous scale. My amendment goes to 
the heart of those concerns, goes to the heart of the matter, goes to 
the absolute heart of what so many Americans find most objectionable 
about the bill on the floor. That is what I would characterize what 
tens of millions of Americans characterize as amnesty provisions in 
this bill.
  In introducing this amendment, let me thank the many coauthors I have 
who are in strong support of it: Senators Grassley, Chambliss, and 
Santorum. Also, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Coburn be added to 
this list of original cosponsors.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. VITTER. All of us join together with tens of millions of 
Americans to simply say we cannot have amnesty provisions in this bill. 
We cannot have anything approaching amnesty in this measure. So my 
amendment would very clearly, very simply, withdraw those provisions 
from the bill.
  Madam President, as I noted while speaking on another amendment about 
an hour ago, this is an interesting debate. The country, including the 
Senate, is widely divided on the question in many respects. Passions 
run deep from one end of the argument to the other. Yet to listen to 
the debate, particularly on the Senate floor in the midst of a 
fundamental disagreement, it is interesting that nobody says they are 
for amnesty, and everybody says they are for enforcement.
  But, of course, the devil is in the details. Of course, it depends on 
what you mean by amnesty, what you mean by

[[Page 8350]]

enforcement. And what I mean by amnesty certainly covers many 
provisions of the underlying bill, which my amendment would strike. 
More importantly, what tens of millions of Americans know through 
common sense, basic reasoning is amnesty is included in this underlying 
bill and we must take it out.
  Maybe we can begin the discussion with what is amnesty. Well, the 
President, in his speech 2 nights ago, said that he is not for amnesty 
and ``they''--meaning illegal aliens--``should not be given an 
automatic path to citizenship.'' What is an automatic path to 
citizenship? The President himself, again, 2 nights ago, pointed to 
this distinction: ``that middle ground''--the one he is advocating--
``recognizes that there are differences between an illegal immigrant 
who crossed the border recently and someone who has worked here for 
many years and has a home, a family, and an otherwise clean record.''
  So what the President points to, in terms of why the provisions in 
this bill are not amnesty, is that distinction between folks who 
crossed the border illegally very recently and those who have been here 
for some time. I think it is very important, if we think about that 
distinction, to look at the details of the bill.
  I encourage my colleagues to actually read this bill. The devil is in 
the details. If that were ever true, it is true in terms of this 
legislation. It is important to read the bill and understand the 
details. Yes, this bill does make a distinction between those who have 
been in the country 5 years or longer and those who have been in the 
country less than 5 years, and some other distinctions, 2 years and 
between 2 and 5 years. But again, the devil is in the details.
  How does an illegal immigrant prove that he has been in the country 
over 5 years? You would assume the proof required is specific 
documentation which has been verified by the Government or other 
authentication sources. Those documents are certainly accepted, but 
they are not required, because if an illegal immigrant doesn't have 
those sources of documents--objective evidence--he or she can do 
something else. He or she can get a piece of paper, declare that he or 
she has been in the country over 5 years, sign his or her name to it, 
and that is it. That is all that is required.
  Well, if the President's argument that this is not amnesty in large 
part hinges on this big distinction that we are not giving a path to 
citizenship for those who have been in the country a shorter period of 
time, should it not matter what documentary evidence is required? 
Doesn't it make a farce of the whole distinction if that immigrant can 
simply sign a piece of paper declaring otherwise? That obliterates the 
entire distinction. That means, in fact, that we are making available 
this fairly automatic path to citizenship to virtually everyone in the 
country illegally.
  The President also points to four requirements: This is not amnesty 
because there is a penalty the immigrant has to pay because they have 
to pay their taxes, because they have to learn English, and because 
they have to be in a job for a number of years.
  Again, I say to my fellow Senators and everyone watching this debate, 
the devil is in the details. Let's look at this bill. Let's look at 
what it requires.
  No. 1, a penalty. It is true, the underlying bill means a person has 
to pay $2,000--$2,000--which is less, in some cases far less, than many 
legal immigrants pay to go through the legal process. Is it a penalty 
when the amount of money required is the same or, in many cases, less 
than a person who is following all the rules, doing everything we ask 
of them, following the law, living by the law, becoming a legal 
immigrant and a full citizen through the legal process?
  No. 2, pay all their taxes. Well, not all their taxes. A person 
doesn't have to pay all of their back taxes. They have to pay a certain 
number of years; they do not have to go back for the entire length of 
time that person was in the country. Again, they are being treated 
better than the folks who have lived by the rules from the word go than 
the folks who are citizens through the legal immigration process who 
have had to pay taxes every step of the way. Those folks who live by 
the rules have to pay all their taxes. These folks do not have to pay 
all their back taxes by any stretch of the imagination. The devil is in 
the details.
  No. 3, learn English. Well, not necessarily learn English. The actual 
requirement can be met simply by being enrolled in an approved English 
language and history program. Again, the requirement can be met simply 
by being enrolled in a program with no test at the end of the program 
about proficiency or anything else.
  And No. 4, work in a job for a number of years. Well, not the full 
period for a number of years, only 60 percent of the time for a handful 
of years.
  Again, the devil is in the details, and I suggest that when the 
American people look at those details and ask themselves, is this 
amnesty, is this a fairly automatic path to citizenship, the answer 
will clearly be yes.
  What does this sort of amnesty program do? We can debate about that, 
we can bring up hypotheticals, we can say I think it is going to do 
this, may do that, but the sure answer is to study history--and not 
ancient history, but recent history, going back only to 1986 because 
the last time Congress acted on this matter in a major way, it put 
together a package strikingly similar to this general package before 
us, which included an amnesty provision for agricultural workers.
  One of the most interesting exercises I performed in thinking about 
this issue, in getting ready for this floor debate, was to go back to 
that time period, the mid-1980s, and read some of the arguments made in 
this Chamber, including the arguments of the folks who were for that 
immigration reform proposal of 1986.
  The arguments they made are strikingly similar to the arguments being 
made by the proponents today: We need to do something comprehensive; it 
can't be enforcement only; we need to do this provision for earned 
citizenship, once, this one time, and then the problem will be solved 
forever because we will have border security and will have dealt with 
illegal immigrants then in our country.
  What is the bottom line on that experiment doing exactly what we are 
debating doing again? The bottom line is not very hopeful in terms of 
solving the problem once and for all. The bottom line is back then the 
flow of illegal aliens was 140,000 per year, and now the flow is 
700,000 per year. So it didn't exactly stop the problem.
  The bottom line is back then the number of illegal aliens in the 
country was perhaps about 3 million, and today, by conservative 
estimates, it is 12 million. It didn't exactly solve the problem.
  Mr. SPECTER. Madam President, will the Senator from Louisiana yield 
for a unanimous consent request?
  Mr. VITTER. I will be happy to yield.
  Mr. SPECTER. Madam President, we have now worked out that we will 
conclude Senator Vitter's amendment, then we will go to Senator Obama's 
amendment, which I believe we can accept.
  I ask unanimous consent that between now and 2 o'clock, the time will 
be equally divided between Senator Vitter on one side and Senator 
Kennedy and myself on the other.
  Mr. KENNEDY. That is fine.
  Mr. SPECTER. Senator Kennedy and I will divide the time evenly, and 
we are agreed we will have two votes at 2:30 p.m. or perhaps 3 p.m. if 
the Obama amendment is to have a vote, but I do not expect it. And we 
preclude second-degree amendments.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SPECTER. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. VITTER. Reclaiming my time, Madam President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
  Mr. VITTER. Madam President, there have been significant studies 
since 1986 that have looked specifically at the impact of what Congress 
did then. What do these studies show?
  A 2000 report by the Center for Immigration Studies states:


[[Page 8351]]

       INS estimates show that the 1986 amnesty almost certainly 
     increased illegal immigration, as the relatives of newly 
     legalized illegals came to the United States to join their 
     family members.

  Again, these are INS statistics, not some think tank on the 
conservative side. These INS statistics show that even though 2.7 
million illegal aliens were granted lawful citizenship through the 
amnesty program--and by the way, that was far more than anticipated--
within 10 years, a new illegal alien population had replaced all of 
those and had grown to 5 million. That growth only continued.
  Again, that growth today has gone from 140,000 illegal aliens 
streaming across the border per year back in 1986 to 700,000 per year 
today. That growth has been 3 million illegal aliens in the country 
going back to 1986 to at least 12 million today.
  There was another study in 1992, 6 years after the agricultural 
amnesty program was passed. The Commission on Agricultural Workers 
issued a report to Congress--so a specific report to Congress that 
studied the effects, again, of the 1986 agricultural amnesty program. 
First, the Commission found that the number of workers amnestied under 
the bill had been severely underestimated. So the numbers that were 
talked about, in fact, the true numbers were well more than that.
  Second, the Commission found that the agricultural worker amnesty 
only exacerbated existing problems:

       Six years after IRCA was signed into law, the problems 
     within the system of agricultural labor continued to exist. . 
     . . In most areas, an increasing number of newly arriving 
     unauthorized workers compete for available jobs, reducing the 
     number of work hours available to all harvest workers and 
     contributing to lower annual earnings. . . .

  Again, the bottom line is very clear. We had the same arguments back 
then as today: Let's do this once, the problem is solved forever; we 
will get tough with enforcement, we promise; really, we mean it. And 
what happened? That 140,000 per year increased to 700,000 per year. The 
problem of 3 million illegal aliens has increased to at least 12 
million. We do need to study history and see what the impact of this 
amnesty program in this bill will be.
  This threat is particularly grave, and I think it is absolutely 
certain that this will exacerbate the problem for the following simple 
reason: In terms of border security, everyone--everyone--on the floor 
of this body, everyone agrees that true border security cannot and will 
not happen overnight. The best case, if we are sincere about it, if we 
follow up this debate with adequate appropriations, the money, the 
manpower, the resources, the focus, the best case is that we will get a 
handle on our border in several years, perhaps 2 to 3 years, absolute 
minimum. But, of course, the other elements of this bill would be 
passed into law and would go into effect immediately. That is repeating 
the exact mistake of 1986. It would be one thing to consider an amnesty 
program down the road after we have acted on border security and proven 
that we have executed meaningful border security.
  I don't think I could be for it even in that circumstance. That would 
be one thing. But what this bill does is something far different and 
even far more dangerous. What this bill does is put that program into 
effect now, immediately, move forward with that amnesty track 
immediately, even though everyone agrees, best case, we will only have 
meaningful border security in several years. So we establish the magnet 
to draw more illegal aliens into the country before anyone pretends 
that we have adequate border security or workplace security.
  That is an even clearer reason that this is a big mistake and 
repeating the mistakes of the past, particularly in the era around 
1986, on a much grander and, therefore, more troublesome scale.
  Another point I wish to make is the overall numbers these provisions 
will lead to because I think there has been a lot of fuzzy math and a 
lack of attention to detail on this question. Again, the devil is in 
the details. Let's read this bill. Let's look at this bill and 
understand the full consequences of this bill, including the amnesty 
program.
  The number folks toss around most commonly on the floor of the 
Senate, as well as in the wider debate around the country, is 12 
million illegal aliens are currently in this country. Most experts seem 
to think that is a pretty minimum number. It could be significantly 
above that. Again, we need to look at the bill, and we need to 
understand the details because that is not the total number who may be 
eligible for citizenship.
  The bill is very liberal and very broad in granting this citizenship 
path to an extended definition of family members of these folks. So in 
fact, as a direct, immediate result of this bill, we could well have 
about 30 million folks on that citizenship path, getting on that path 
very quickly.
  Over an extended number of years, that number will be far larger. 
Estimates, for instance, by Robert Rector over a 20-year period after 
enactment of this underlying bill is that it would mean a minimum of 
103 million new folks gaining citizenship, possibly much higher. Again, 
the devil is in the details. Let's look hard at the numbers. Let's add 
it up. We are not talking about 12 million, we are talking about 30 
million immediately. We are talking about huge numbers, 100 million or 
more over 20 years.
  Finally, the argument that is most often put up against avoiding this 
sort of amnesty program is that we can't make felons of all these 
millions of illegal aliens in the country. We can't round them up and 
deport them. It is impractical. It may not be a good idea, even if we 
could do it. President Bush made this specific argument 2 nights ago. 
Many of my colleagues on the Senate floor have made the same argument.
  The truth is that is not the alternative. That is a straw man, an 
easy argument to push aside and defeat. That is not the practical 
alternative at all. The practical alternative to rushing toward an 
amnesty program is to do meaningful things with regard to enforcement 
and other measures in the country that on their own can decrease the 
illegal alien population in this country over time.
  Let me mention six items in particular: Secure the borders through 
Border Patrol agents, increase fencing, substantially increase 
detention space and do that before we do anything else. Some provisions 
are in this bill, but it is not being done before we move on to other 
aspects of the bill.
  No. 2: Implement strong and serious worksite enforcement measures 
and, again, do that before other aspects of the bill are implemented.
  No. 3: Eliminate document fraud through the use of biometrics, 
immigration documents, and secure Social Security cards.
  No. 4: Reform existing laws to reduce the incentive to work illegally 
by providing the IRS with increased resources to investigate and 
sanction both employers and illegal aliens for submitting fraudulent 
tax returns, requiring the Social Security Administration to share 
information with DHS when no match letters are sent to employers, and 
barring illegal workers from counting work performed illegally toward 
Social Security.
  No. 5: Encourage State and local law enforcement to enforce 
immigration laws themselves by giving them authority and by requiring 
the Feds to reimburse them for expenses directly related to that 
enforcement, and enhancing coordination and information sharing between 
the State and local law enforcement and Federal immigration 
authorities.
  No. 6: Provide the Department of Homeland Security and the Department 
of Justice with the necessary resources to perform their jobs.
  Madam President, these six things, without an amnesty program, would, 
in fact, lower the population of illegal aliens in this country over 
time. Why would it lower it? Because it would remove the incentives for 
those folks to stay here. It would remove the mechanism by which they 
can successfully stay in this country and gain employment.
  So again, it is a straw man to talk about making all of these people 
felons. My amendment doesn't do that. We are not proposing that on the 
floor of the Senate. It is a straw man to talk

[[Page 8352]]

about rounding up 12 million people around the country. It is a 
completely false argument to suggest that the only alternative to 
essentially amnesty is to have to do that and deport all 12 million of 
these people.
  The practical alternative, which we can absolutely do, is avoid 
amnesty while implementing steps such as these six things. And that 
will provide real border security and real workplace security by 
demanding absolute requirements that ensure that folks getting jobs are 
legal immigrants, not illegals. That is the practical alternative 
which, over time, can dramatically reduce the illegal population in the 
country.
  I don't know of any single aspect of this bill before us on the floor 
of the Senate that has Americans more concerned than these amnesty 
provisions. It goes to the heart of this debate. It goes to the heart 
of Americans' concerns that, once again, we are talking a good game 
about enforcement, but we are not demanding that it happen before 
considering other aspects of the bill. It goes to the heart of our 
experience in 1986, when that agricultural worker amnesty program 
clearly--clearly--was a huge part of the failure of that attempt to get 
our hands around illegal immigration. It was a huge part of the flow 
across our border, ballooning from 170,000 per year to 700,000 per 
year, and a huge part of the illegal population in our country 
skyrocketing from about 3 million to over 12 million.
  So this is an important amendment that goes to the heart of so many 
Americans' concerns about the bill which are reflected in townhall 
meetings and discussions I have all across Louisiana. It is also 
reflected in every major national public opinion poll on the subject. 
Over and over again, Americans make very clear the huge majority want 
enforcement. There is a legitimate debate about a temporary worker 
program, but a huge majority have fundamental problems with these 
provisions which they know, using common sense, particularly when they 
understand the details of the bill, amount to absolute amnesty.
  Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Thune). Who yields time?
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to yield myself 
such time as I may consume.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, if I could clarify the request to 
understand that under our previous unanimous consent agreement on this 
amendment, it will come out of the time of the opposition.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, in a moment of seriousness, what is the 
parliamentary situation? How much time on either side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time until 2 o'clock is divided between 
the Senator from Louisiana and the Senators from Massachusetts and 
Pennsylvania.
  Mr. McCAIN. Then I ask unanimous consent to be recognized for 10 
minutes, taken from the time of the opposition to the amendment, which 
is the time of the Senator from Pennsylvania and the Senator from 
Massachusetts.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the Senator from Arizona is 
recognized.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I appreciate the remarks of my friend from 
Louisiana. Of course, it is not amnesty. Of course, it is not amnesty. 
I urge my colleagues, as well as specifically my colleague from 
Louisiana--next time up, I am going to bring a dictionary out here to 
confirm the definition of the word ``amnesty.'' The definition of the 
word ``amnesty'' is forgiveness. We did that in the 1980s and it didn't 
work. And to call the process that we require under this legislation 
amnesty, frankly, distorts the debate and is an unfair interpretation 
of it. I might add that the President of the United States, in a very 
powerful statement to the American people, called it what it is, and 
that is earned citizenship.
  Now, I understand why the opponents of what we are trying to do would 
call it amnesty. That is a great idea. Call it amnesty. Call it a 
banana, if you want to. But the fact is that it is earned citizenship. 
The reason why the opponents of this legislation keep calling it 
amnesty is because they know that in poll after poll after poll, the 
majority of the American people say let them earn their citizenship. 
And when it is explained to the American people what we are requiring: 
A criminal background check, payment of back taxes, payment of a $2,000 
fine, 5 or 6 years before getting in line behind everyone else in order 
to get a green card and then another 5 years or more, depending on how 
this legislation comes out, before eligibility for citizenship, it is a 
perversion of the word ``amnesty.'' Frankly, I am growing a little 
weary of it. I am growing a little weary of it. We ought to be debating 
this issue on its merits and only on the merits and not by labeling it 
something it is not.
  Again, the definition of amnesty is forgiveness--forgiveness. We are 
not forgiving anything. We are trying to find the best option--the best 
option--for an untenable situation bred by 40 or 50 years of failed 
Government policies.
  What are the options we have with these 11 million or 12 million 
people? What are the options? One is the status quo. No one believes 
that the status quo is acceptable, to have 11 million or 12 million 
people washing around America's society with no protection of our laws, 
no accountability, no identity. It is terrible for America and our 
society. I believe the sponsors of this amendment and those of us who 
vehemently oppose it, because basically it guts the entire proposal, 
including the fact it is in direct contradiction to the leader of our 
party, the position of the President of the United States on it--but 
having said that, the status quo, I think my friend from Louisiana 
would agree, is unacceptable.
  So what is the other option? The other option is to round up 11 
million people and find some way to transport them back to the country 
from which they came. Many of them have been here since yesterday. Some 
of them have been here 50 or 60 years. Some of them have children who 
are fighting in Iraq. I am not interested--I wonder if the Senator from 
Louisiana is interested--in calling a soldier in Iraq and saying: By 
the way, while you are fighting today, we are deporting your parents. I 
don't think we want to do that. I don't think we want to do that.
  And by the way, the columnist George Will pointed out the other day 
it would take some 200,000 buses from San Diego to Alaska in order to 
transport these people at least back to Mexico, and then I don't know 
how you get them back to other places.
  So here we are with the option of the status quo, rounding up 11 
million or 12 million people, or making it very clear that because they 
have broken our laws, they must pay a very severe penalty--a very 
severe penalty. And according to the Hagel-Martinez compromise, those 
people who have been here less than 5 years will have to go back. And 
in the case of 2 to 5 years, they will have to go back to a port of 
embarkation. If they have been here since January 1, 2004, then they 
have to go back completely--completely. If they have been here more 
than 5 years, then obviously we have given them a way to earn 
citizenship.
  We passed an amendment that we supported that was the Kyl-Cornyn 
amendment, supported by me and Senator Graham and Senator Kennedy and 
others, that would prevent felons from ever being on the path to 
citizenship. So what does that say? What this proposal now says is 
anyone who came here innocently, who came here to work, which is the 
reason why the overwhelming majority of them did, will have a chance to 
earn their citizenship. And every time--every time--that the word 
``amnesty'' is mentioned, I am going to try to get back on the floor 
and refute that because the description in no way fits the word.
  So here we are now with a comprehensive approach to immigration 
reform which, probably, according to at least most polls, the American 
people are, overall, supportive of, and a President of the United 
States who gave what I think is one of the finest speeches of his 
presidency on this issue, and we are now considering an amendment which 
would fundamentally gut the entire proposal.
  I want to quote from the President, again:


[[Page 8353]]

       It is neither wise nor realistic to round up millions of 
     people, many with deep roots in the United States, and send 
     them across the border. There is a rational middle ground 
     between granting an automatic path to citizenship for every 
     illegal immigrant, and a program of mass deportation. That 
     middle ground recognizes that there are differences between 
     an illegal immigrant who crossed the border recently and 
     someone who has worked here for many years and has a home, a 
     family, and an otherwise clean record. I believe that illegal 
     immigrants who have roots in our country and want to stay 
     should have to pay a meaningful penalty for breaking the law: 
     To pay their taxes, to learn English, and to work in a job 
     for a number of years. People who meet these conditions 
     should be able to apply for citizenship, but approval would 
     not be automatic, and they will have to wait in line behind 
     those who played by the rules and followed the law. What I 
     have described is not amnesty. It is a way for those who have 
     broken the law to pay their debt to society and demonstrate 
     the character that makes a good citizen.

  I could not say it better than what the President of the United 
States says.
  Fundamentally, Americans are decent, humane, wonderful people, and 
they recognize that these are human beings. They recognize that 99 
percent of these people came here because they couldn't work, feed 
their families and themselves where they came from. As former President 
John F. Kennedy wrote, we are a nation of immigrants. We are all a 
nation of immigrants. I urge my colleagues to take a look at the words 
that were written back in the early 1960s by then-President Kennedy and 
that apply to the world today. It has a unique and very timely 
application. I intend to read from it as we proceed with the 
consideration of this bill.
  I understand that there are differing viewpoints about how to handle 
this issue of illegal immigration. There is no State that has been more 
burdened with the consequences of illegal immigration than mine. We 
have broken borders. We have shootouts on our freeways. We have safe 
houses where people are jammed in, in the most inhumane conditions. We 
have the coyotes who take someone across the border and say: Tucson is 
right over the hill. And more and more people every year are dying in 
the desert. We understand that. That's why we understand that there has 
to be a comprehensive approach to this issue and only a comprehensive 
approach will reach the kind of resolution to this issue which has 
plagued our Nation and, frankly, my State of Arizona, for a long period 
of time.
  I hope my colleagues will understand that this is basically an 
eviscerating amendment we are considering. Have no doubt about it. If 
you agree with the President of the United States and the majority of 
Americans--poll after poll shows that the overwhelming majority of 
Americans believe that we should allow people who are here illegally, 
after a certain period of time, to earn their citizenship--then you 
will vote against this amendment. If you believe that the only answer 
to our immigration problem is to build a bigger wall, then I would 
argue you are not totally aware of the conditions of the human heart 
and that is that all people, wherever they are, who are created equal, 
have the same ambitions for themselves and their families and their 
children and their grandchildren that we did and our forebears did. Our 
forebears, whether they came with the Mayflower or whether they came 
yesterday, all have the same yearnings to breathe free.
  I hope my colleagues will understand the implications of this 
amendment. I hope my colleagues on this side of the aisle will 
understand the implications for the Republican Party of this kind of an 
amendment. Because what this is saying to millions and millions of 
people who have come here is: I am sorry, you are leaving.
  I hope we can appeal to the better angels of our nature and turn down 
this amendment and move forward with a comprehensive solution to this 
terrible problem that plagues our Nation.
  I believe my time has expired.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time? The Senator from Louisiana.
  Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I ask for 5 minutes to respond to some of 
the arguments of the Senator from Arizona.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana is recognized.
  Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, what is amnesty? I'll tell you what 
Merriam-Webster's dictionary says:

       [T]he act of an authority (as a government) by which pardon 
     is granted to a large group of individuals.

  What we are talking about is a large group of individuals illegally 
in the country. And the main consequence of that, under present law, is 
to leave the country. Surely, under this provision, we are pardoning 
them from that main consequence. Surely, this is a pardon from what 
present law states must happen to folks who have come into this country 
illegally, who stay in this country illegally.
  The Senator from Arizona made several points, all of which I 
essentially rebutted in my comments before. There is a big distinction 
in this bill between those who have been here over 5 years and those 
under. There is on paper. And guess what. An illegal alien can satisfy 
the requirements of the bill that they have been here over 5 years and 
get all of the benefits of this amnesty program by simply signing a 
piece of paper himself that it is so. It makes a mockery of the 
distinction.
  The other requirements--a penalty. Yes, a penalty, which is less 
money than many immigrants pay to go through the legal process. Is that 
a penalty?
  Paying back taxes--well, not all of them. Paying some back taxes. 
That is certainly less than folks who have gone through the legal 
process have had to do.
  Learning English--well, not exactly. Being enrolled in a program is 
good enough, not proving any proficiency.
  And working in a job solidly for a number of years. Well, not solidly 
for a number of years; 60 percent of the time is good enough.
  The devil is in the details. I invite Members to look at the 
definition of amnesty. I invite Members to study the details of this 
bill because the American people certainly will and will come to the 
clear conclusion that is what it is and is a repeat of the mistake of 
past experience.
  I would now like to yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Georgia.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia is recognized for 10 
minutes.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, before I give my remarks, I would like 
to extend a thank you to the Senator from Arizona and to the Senator 
from Massachusetts. During the debate on this issue a couple of weeks 
ago, it became pretty obvious that there were some Members in this body 
who did not want to see the Senate function the way it always has, with 
respect to legislation, and that is to give all Members of this body 
the opportunity to debate an issue, to submit amendments, and to 
ultimately have a vote on those amendments and a vote on the 
legislation. Were it not for the efforts of Senator McCain and Senator 
Kennedy, we would have been at a deadlock, once again, and those of us 
who object to this underlying bill would not have had the opportunity 
to see the Senate work its will. So I do extend a thank you to these 
Senators for the very professional way in which they handled themselves 
during the course of the debate a couple of weeks ago, as well as right 
now.
  I rise in strong support of Senator Vitter's amendment, and I am 
proud to be a cosponsor of it. I think this amendment crystalizes the 
whole debate we are having in the Senate on this bill. It all comes 
down to the simple question of whether you oppose or you favor amnesty.
  I think the way Senators vote on this amendment will tell you where 
they stand on this issue, so I hope the American people will take 
careful note of how every Senator in this body votes on this amendment. 
I am in favor of a comprehensive immigration reform bill. The way I see 
it, there are three areas that must be addressed in accomplishing 
comprehensive reform. The first and foremost is border security. If we 
do not have operational control of our borders and serious interior 
worksite enforcement, then there is no point in trying to address the 
other

[[Page 8354]]

issues relative to comprehensive reform.
  The second key component we must address is to have a viable 
temporary guestworker program for those outside of the country who want 
to come to this country and work in a job that needs to be filled that 
cannot, or will not, be filled by an American worker.
  The third component we must address is the reality of the 11 million, 
12 million--whatever the number is--of illegal immigrants who are 
currently in the United States.
  I think we can address all three of these issues without providing a 
new path to citizenship for those who are currently here illegally. 
There have been a number of alternative approaches mentioned throughout 
this debate. I had one for agricultural workers, for example, which 
would have allowed those workers to remain working for a period of 2 
years before returning to their home country and have them reenter the 
United States on a valid and viable guest worker program. This would 
allow employers to structure their workforce in a way that they can 
send their illegal workers home and have them return in a manner that 
does not result in a complete work stoppage on our Nation's farms.
  My main opposition to amnesty is that it has been tried before and it 
has been proven that it does not work.
  As chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, my main focus in 
this debate has been on agricultural workers. I firmly believe that an 
amnesty is not in the best interests of agriculture in the United 
States. The agricultural amnesty in this bill is so similar to the 
Special Agricultural Worker Program that was enacted as the mechanism 
for the 1986 amnesty bill that it is really startling. We have heard 
many Senators talk about all that illegal aliens have to do in order to 
adjust their status. However, I don't think many people realize that 
the requirements are not the same for illegal agricultural workers, 
under the base bill. For illegal agricultural workers to take advantage 
of the amnesty in this bill, they must have worked at least 150 hours 
in agriculture over a 2-year period, ending in December of 2005. 
Meeting that threshold requirement will allow the illegal worker to 
obtain a blue card.
  Once in possession of a blue card--which is a new process, a new 
card--that currently illegal worker has a choice of two different paths 
to a green card. In addition to paying back taxes, he can work 100 
hours per year for 5 years or work 150 hours per year for 3 years and 
get a green card. There is not even a requirement to learn English for 
agricultural workers to take advantage of the amnesty provision in the 
base bill.
  I think the requirements for illegal workers to take advantage of the 
agricultural amnesty are so low that I fear a repeat of what happened, 
and failed, in 1986. We should not repeat the mistakes we made before.
  I am not the only one who feels this way. Several months ago, as we 
were ramping up toward bringing this bill to the floor, I had the 
opportunity to speak to 135 brand new American citizens who came from 
125 different countries. They were sworn in at the Federal building in 
Atlanta, GA. After my comments to them and their swearing-in ceremony, 
I had about two dozen of these 133 individuals come up to me, one at a 
time, and say: Senator, whatever you do, please don't allow those folks 
who came into this country illegally to get a pathway to citizenship 
that is different from the path I had to follow.
  In some instances, these individuals took 5 years; in some instances 
8; in some instances 12. In one instance, 22 years that individual had 
to work to become a citizen of the United States. For all 133 of those 
individuals who stood up that morning and raised their right hand and 
swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States, it was the 
proudest day of their lives. You can understand why they do not want 
somebody who came into this country illegally to get a leg up on people 
who were in the position that they were in for so many years, trying to 
earn citizenship.
  The people I saw at that naturalization ceremony truly did earn their 
citizenship, and it means something to them, as it should to everybody 
who becomes an American citizen. It does not seem fair to me to call 
the process those newly naturalized individuals followed earned 
citizenship and also call the provision for illegal agricultural 
workers in this bill earned citizenship. There is a fundamental 
difference between the two that should be recognized in the rhetoric of 
this debate.
  Another problem I have with the agricultural amnesty provision is 
that it does not remedy the problem with fraud that was prevalent in 
the 1986 Special Agricultural Worker Program. Under the 1986 program, 
illegal farm workers who did at least 90 days of farm work during a 12-
month period could earn a legal status. The illegal immigrants had to 
present evidence that they did at least 90 days of farm work, such as 
pay stubs or a letter from an employer or even fellow workers. Because 
it was assumed that many unauthorized farm workers were employed by 
labor contractors, who did not keep accurate records, after a farm 
worker had presented evidence that he had done qualifying farm work, 
the burden of proof shifted to the Government to disprove the claimed 
work.
  The Government was not prepared for the flood of SAW applicants and 
had little expertise on typical harvesting seasons. Therefore, an 
applicant who told a story such as: I climbed a ladder to pick 
strawberries, had that application denied, while those who said: I 
picked tomatoes for 92 days in an area with a picking season of only 72 
days was able to adjust.
  Careful analysis of the sample of applications from the 1986 worker 
program in California, where most applications were filed, suggests 
that most applicants had not done the qualifying farm work, but over 90 
percent were nonetheless approved.
  The propensity for fraud is not remedied in this bill and compounds 
bad policy with the ability for unscrupulous actors to take advantage 
of it.
  I think the most important lesson to learn from the 1986 program is 
that providing illegal immigrants who work on the farms of this country 
does not benefit the agricultural workforce for long. History shows 
that the vast majority of illegal workers who gain a legal status leave 
agriculture within 5 years. This means that under proposed agricultural 
amnesty, those who questionably performed agricultural work in the past 
will work at least 100 or 150 hours in agriculture per year for the 
next 3 to 5 years. But after that, particularly in light of the changes 
made to the H-2A program, I expect us to be in the same situation in 
agriculture that we are today.
  It is worth noting that the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 
1986 created a Commission on Agricultural Workers, an 11-member 
bipartisan panel comprised of growers, union representatives, 
academics, civil servants, and clergy, and tasked it with examining the 
impact the amnesty for special agricultural workers had on the domestic 
farm labor supply, working conditions, and wages.
  Mr. President, I ask for an additional 3 minutes.
  Mr. VITTER. I have no objection and will be happy to grant the 
Senator an additional 5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized for an additional 5 
minutes.
  Mr. KENNEDY. What is the time situation, Mr. President?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts has 12 minutes.
  Mr. KENNEDY. The other side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania has 12 minutes--
the other side has 6 minutes.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. Back 6 years after the Immigration Reform and Control 
Act was passed, the Commission found that the same problems in the 
agricultural industry persist; the living and working conditions of 
farm workers had not improved; wages remained stagnant; increasing 
numbers of new illegal aliens are arriving to compete for the same 
small number of jobs, thus reducing the work hours available to

[[Page 8355]]

each worker and contributing to lower annual earnings; and virtually 
all workers who hold seasonal agricultural jobs are unemployed at some 
point during the year.
  I think the experience of the SAW program should serve as a lesson to 
the Senate as we grapple with how to handle our current illegal 
population. I believe the amnesty in this bill is far too similar to 
the SAW Program in 1986 and will likely have the same result.
  We know from past experience that agricultural workers do not stay in 
their agricultural jobs for long, especially when they gain a legal 
status and have the option to work in less back-breaking occupations. 
Therefore, the focus on agricultural immigration should be on the H-2A 
program. This is the program that regardless of what the Senate does 
with amnesty, will be relied upon by our agricultural employers across 
the country in the near future.
  Let me conclude by saying that while I do support a lot of the 
provisions in the underlying bill, there is one basic concept in the 
underlying bill that is baffling to me; that is, why do we have to 
connect a pathway to citizenship for those who are here illegally to 
meaningful immigration reform? There are a lot of these people--whether 
it is 11 million or 20 million, whatever the number may be--who came 
here for the right reason, that reason being to improve the quality of 
life for themselves and their families. We need to show compassion for 
those individuals.
  Does that mean we ought to give them an automatic pass to citizenship 
that they may, or may not, want? We have no idea how many of these 
people will actually want to be citizens. Why do we grant that 
privilege which we cherish so much and those 133 individuals in 
Atlanta, GA, cherished so much on the day they were sworn in as 
American citizens? Why don't we simply leave the law on citizenship 
exactly the way it is today and let people who want to earn it earn it 
in the way that current law provides?
  Let us look out for these 11 million or 12 million or whatever the 
number is. We have methods by which we can deal with those individuals 
and at the same time accomplish real, meaningful border security, as 
well as provide our employers in this country with a meaningful, 
quality supply of workers that they know are here for the right reasons 
and that they know are here legally.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield 6 minutes to the Senator from 
Nebraska.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.
  Mr. HAGEL. Mr. President, thank you. I thank the distinguished 
Senator from Massachusetts for his continued leadership. I don't 
believe there is anyone in the Senate who has worked harder or done 
more or who understands the issue better than Senator Kennedy.
  We are dealing with a very complicated, difficult issue. It is 
complicated and difficult for many reasons. Partly it is complicated 
and difficult because we have deferred this issue for years. We have 
refused to take a responsible position on all the different aspects of 
immigration reform.
  I hear with interest from some colleagues that 11 million to 12 
million illegal aliens don't deserve a pathway to legal status and 
ultimately citizenship. They, however, do not come forward with 
alternatives. Obviously, border security is the core, the beginning of 
immigration reform. I am not aware of any Senator who has questioned or 
contested that point.
  In fact, the underlying bill that we are debating today is replete--
absolutely--in its focus on border security, enforcement of that 
border, doubling the border agents, doubling the budget, doubling the 
unmanned vehicles, doubling the technology, doing more in the fencing 
and physical protection of those borders.
  That is not the debate. The debate, of course, resides around the 
difficult issues, the 11 or 12 million illegals now in this country.
  This debate elicits great and deep emotions and passion--and it 
should. We were sent here to deal with the great challenges of our 
time, to resolve the issues, find solutions, not give speeches, not go 
halfway--just if we had a better border, if we could enforce our border 
in stronger or more effective ways, and the rest of it just sorts its 
way out. It doesn't sort itself out. That is leadership. That is what 
you saw from President Bush Monday night in his speech of 17 minutes; 
he laid it out clearly, succinctly. The American people could 
understand it.
  It is a national security issue. It is an economic issue. It is a 
societal issue. You can take pieces of each and pick and choose which 
might make you more comfortable politically, but it doesn't work that 
way. It is all wrapped into the same enigma. It is woven into the same 
fabric. That is what we are dealing with.
  On this issue of amnesty, I find it astounding that my colleagues who 
are straight-faced would stand up and talk about amnesty. Let me tell 
you what amnesty is. Some of you might recall 1978 when President Jimmy 
Carter pardoned those who fled this country, who refused to serve their 
country in Vietnam--unconditional forgiveness. That, my friend, is 
amnesty. This is not amnesty. So let us get the terms right.
  The American people deserve an honest debate and exchange. Come on, 
let's stop the nonsense. If you have a better answer, step forward and 
give me a better answer for it. But let us at least be honest with the 
American people in what we are talking about. This is not amnesty. You 
all know what we are talking about. This is dealing with a set of 
criteria that people would have to follow in order to just get on a 
pathway.
  Let me ask this question: Are we better off just to continue to defer 
this and not allow the illegals in this country an opportunity to step 
out of the shadows? Who wins? Is it really protecting the security of 
this country? Is it really doing more in the way of enhancing our 
economy and our society to keep pushing these people back into the 
shadows? Where are we winning? How is this getting to the point, to the 
issue? How is this dealing with the issue that we must deal with? It is 
not. It is not.
  I said this is a complicated, difficult issue. It is. There is not a 
perfect solution, or any solution we can come up with which is 
imperfect. Most solutions are imperfect. Most are imperfect. But it is 
going to take some courage from this body.
  I don't think the American public sees a great abundance of courage 
in this town, in this Congress, in politicians today. Read the front 
page of the Washington Post today and read any poll.
  But in this case, the President and the Congress are showing some 
courage to step forward in the middle of a difficult political year, 
where my own party, the President's party, is divided on this issue. 
But this is courage and leadership. It is leadership to take on the 
tough issues. What we are trying to do today and tomorrow and next week 
is find the common ground of responsible governance to deal with this 
issue.
  This is one of those issues which tests and defines a society. It 
tests and defines a country. And the precious glue that has been 
indispensable in holding this country together for over 200 years has 
been common interests and mutual respect. I don't know of an issue that 
is facing our country today that is more important, that is framed in 
that precious glue concept more precisely than this issue.
  I hope my colleagues will vote against the Vitter amendment. It is 
irresponsible. It doesn't present an alternative. I think what we have 
before us is an alternative.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Nebraska for his 
excellent presentation. He laid out as effectively as one could the 
reasons against this amendment. Effectively, the Vitter amendment 
undermines the whole concept of a comprehensive immigration bill. But 
having said that, it

[[Page 8356]]

is not a constructive or positive solution to the challenges we are 
facing with the 11 million or 12 million undocumented individuals who 
are here at the present time.
  First of all, our bill says if you are going to be able to earn 
citizenship, you have to pay a penalty. So you have to pay the penalty. 
You have to be continuously employed. You have to meet a security 
background check. You must learn English. You must learn U.S. History. 
You must pay all back taxes, and then you get in the back of the line 
of all of the applicants waiting for green cards. Effectively, it takes 
11 years for them to be able to earn citizenship. That is the earned 
legalization program.
  For those who say this is 1986, they are either distorting the record 
or haven't read it clearly. This is what we are talking about for those 
11 million or 12 million people: They have to earn it--the end of the 
line, pay the penalty, work hard.
  We have seen some of them join the Armed Forces of our country. That 
is the earned legalization.
  What is Senator Vitter's answer? Do you know what is going to happen? 
You are going to have the 11 million or 12 million individuals continue 
to be exploited in the workplace. You are going to drive down the wages 
and, therefore, undermine working conditions for Americans. They are 
going to be exploited. They are going to be threatened in the 
workplace: If you do not do this job that I am asking you to do, I am 
going to call the immigration service and have you deported.
  They are threatened. That is happening every single day all across 
this country to these individuals.
  Third, if you are a woman you are going to suffer exploitation, you 
are going to suffer abuse, and you are going to suffer sexual 
harassment. That is the record. Those are the things that are 
happening, and at the end of the day you are going to have a two-tiered 
society. That is something that we, as Americans, have avoided. We take 
pride that we are a singular society and we struggle to create equality 
for all the people of our society.
  If you accept the Vitter amendment, you are going to have a two-
tiered society; that is, a permanent underclass. That is the United 
States of America. That is going to be the result if we are going to 
follow the recommendations. There is even the suggestion it was going 
to be for deportation.
  We have heard different approaches to these 12 million. Our friends 
in the House of Representatives have effectively wanted to criminalize 
every 1 of these 12 million. We are going to criminalize them and stain 
them for the rest of their lives. We have rejected that.
  We have, on the one hand, people prepared to play by the rules. By 
and large, these are the people who are devoted to their families, who 
want to work hard, who want to play by the rules. There are 70,000 
permanent residents now serving in the Armed Forces in Iraq and 
Afghanistan and around the world, willing to do so. Many of them have 
died in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are prepared to do so. They want to 
be part of the American dream, as our forebears from other 
nationalities have been part of the American dream. They want to 
participate. We are saying to them, that is the choice: a permanent 
subclass, permanent underclass, permanent exploitation of 11 million or 
12 million, or have them earn their way, go to the back of the line, 
show they are going to be good citizens, learn English, pay their back 
taxes, and demonstrate they are committed to the American dream.
  That is the choice we have made. That is the choice which is clearly 
in the interest of our country. That would be altered and changed and 
dramatically undermined with the Vitter amendment. I hope it is not 
accepted.
  I withhold whatever time remains.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from 
South Carolina.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, quickly, while Senator Vitter is speaking 
for a lot of people who believe we should not do this together, we 
should have border security and come back and look at a different way 
of doing this with 11 or 12 million people, that does not mean you are 
hateful, that does not mean you don't understand there is a problem. 
They have a problem with the citizenship path, and I understand that.
  I agree with the President, Senator Martinez, Senator Hagel, Senator 
Specter, Senator Kennedy, 70 percent of the American people--we have to 
do both. We are not going to put everybody in jail. That is off the 
table. It is not going to work. We are not going to deport 11 million 
or 12 million people. What do we do? Of these 11 or 12 million people, 
how many have children who are American citizens? How do you get them 
out of the shadows effectively to get control of the problem?
  If we want to control the borders, control employment. If we do not 
control employment, we can build the biggest fence in the world, and it 
will not work. People will keep coming here until we get a grip on 
employment.
  How do you control employment? Make sure you know who is being 
employed, and punish employers who cheat. Give them a chance to 
participate in the system that will work. The way to control employment 
is get people out of the shadows, sign up for a system we can control.
  If you make them felons, they are not going to come out of the 
shadows. If you deport the parents and leave the children behind, they 
are not coming out.
  If you think it is silly not to beef up the border, you are right. If 
you think it is wise to separate these issues and have a system where 
no one will participate by punishing people for coming out of the 
shadows, you are dead wrong. You can punish them in a fairminded way 
after they come out of the shadows, with an incentive for them to come, 
put them on probation. We are talking about a nonviolent offense.
  We need the workers. We have 4.7 percent unemployment. We have 11 
million people here working. They are not putting people out of work; 
they are adding value to our country. Some will make it to citizenship, 
some won't. Those who make it will have learned to speak English and 
will always have a job for 45 days. They will have a hard road but will 
have earned it if they get to the end. And some will not make it.
  To deny they exist and to have a solution that will not get control 
of employment is just as irresponsible as not doing something about the 
border. That is why the President has chosen to get involved with a 
comprehensive solution that does two things at once--controls the 
employment and does something about the 11 million in a fairminded 
way--and also controls the border. If we separate these issues, we will 
fail again as a country.
  I look forward to passing a bill that does both--deals with the 
employment problems, the border problems, and treats people fairly, 
punishes them fairly, and makes them pay their debt to society fairly. 
But I believe deep in my heart that some of the 11 million people will 
make it and some won't. They can add value to my country. And my friend 
from Florida is a value to my country, and he was not born here.
  Mr. SPECTER. I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from Florida.
  Mr. MARTINEZ. Mr. President, I rise in agreement and opposition to 
the Vitter amendment.
  I must say I am delighted that the President on Monday sort of laid 
out the game plan. He laid out the vision. The vision is of a strong 
border, one that secures admittance into the country and does not 
permit illegal entry but understands we have a dynamic country, that we 
have a growing economy, that we have employment needs which today are 
being met by what is largely, in terms of this force, illegally here.
  The fact is, we have tried to craft a compromise, which is what 
Senator Hagel and I added to what was excellent work by Senator Specter 
in his work, and Senators McCain and Kennedy, who earlier than that 
came up with a concept to create a two- or three-tier system for those 
already here.
  For those 10 million people who are in our country illegally working, 
those

[[Page 8357]]

people need to be treated differently. We set up a three-tier system. 
Five years and more, and you are more established, you have been here a 
long time. The President talked about this on Monday night. He spoke of 
this very concept. Those people would have one path to permanency and 
to earn legalization very much along the lines of what Senator Kennedy 
described--step after step after step.
  Those who have been here less than 5 years but more than 2 years have 
to reenter the country legally. They have to go to an entry point and 
come back in legally. We will then know who they are. As a matter of 
fact, when those people do that, they then go back in and have the same 
requirements of those who have been here more than 10 years before they 
get a green card or before they become citizens. Then there are those 
more recent arrivals, and they do not get a benefit from the bill. 
Those are people who presumably have only come in the last couple of 
years to take advantage of what is currently perceived to be an 
opportunity.
  As to all of those people, who are they and what are they doing? In 
my State of Florida, they are working in agriculture, they are working 
in construction, and they are working in a number of other enterprises. 
They are working in the tourism industry. They are building homes. If 
you are a home builder in Florida, you depend on this labor force and 
these workers to be there. You depend on them for you to make a good 
living, for your company to prosper, for your economy to continue to 
grow. In Florida, we virtually have no unemployment. In fact, we have 
labor shortages in some sectors of our economy. These demands are being 
met by this illegal system.
  What we seek to do in this bill is to create a legal system, a system 
that can be compatible with our ideals and concepts of a nation of laws 
and also a nation that has for so many years been a nation that has 
welcomed immigrants. I am proud to be among them.
  I understand the opportunity the American dream can provide to us 
all. I am very mindful of the openness and the love I felt in this 
country by the welcoming of people here who allowed me to make a way 
myself. This is what we are seeking for these people. After a long and 
projected trajectory, they have a path to citizenship. They, too, will 
have a stake in this country. They will have a stake in the outcome. We 
are not relegating them to a second-class citizenship; we are welcoming 
them as part of the whole.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. SPECTER. How much time remains?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania has 5 minutes 45 
seconds.
  Mr. SPECTER. That is all the time that remains?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana has 2 minutes 45 
seconds.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I oppose the amendment by the Senator 
from Louisiana because it makes enormous changes in the committee bill 
by eliminating the citizenship track.
  I understand the point of the Senator from Louisiana. He does not 
want to see the 11 million undocumented immigrants on the citizenship 
track. But I believe we should not have a fugitive class in America, 
that it is necessary, in order to bring these immigrants out of the so-
called shadows--they are out of the shadows for many purposes, and they 
are identifiable, working constructively in the American economy--to 
have them come forward, we are going to have to provide incentives for 
them to do so.
  We have had a great deal of debate on whether there is amnesty in the 
committee bill. My own view is that we ought to tone down the rhetoric 
on that subject, not accuse one side of amnesty, trying to give away 
something that ought not to be given away, and in return not charging 
that amnesty is an evil argument.
  We ought to deal with what the facts are. The issue is whether it is 
in our national interest, considering all the factors, to grant 
citizenship to these 11 million undocumented immigrants when they go to 
the end of the line if they perform certain tasks, if they meet certain 
criteria. The criteria are substantial and onerous: the payment of a 
fine, the payment of back taxes, the criminal background checks, 
learning English, the learning of American history, working a 
substantial period of time, and then 6 more years at the end of the 
line.
  In a very realistic way, there is not really a lot of choice as to 
what we are going to do. It is totally impractical and unrealistic to 
think about deporting 11 million people. The question is, What do we do 
with them? How do we handle them?
  It has been said in the Senate repeatedly but not too often that we 
are a nation of immigrants. Many of the Senators who speak start off by 
referencing their own backgrounds, as I have.
  My father came to this country in 1911 at the age of 18. He came from 
czarist Russia. The czar wanted to send him to Siberia. As I have said 
in the past, he chose Kansas. It was, perhaps, a close call, I say in a 
facetious way. My mother came at the age of 6 with her family, settled 
in St. Joe, MO, and my parents have contributed to the American way of 
life. My father served in World War I and was wounded in action. In my 
Senate office, I proudly have their wedding picture. He was in uniform, 
and she was a beautiful bride of 19. They raised four children who 
contributed to our country and many grandchildren and many great-
grandchildren and many great-great-grandchildren, so far.
  This situation is a test of our humanity as a nation and the values 
in which we believe in the United States. We do not condone the 
breaking of the law, the breaking of the rule of law, but we are 
dealing with a very difficult situation in the best way we can.
  With respect to the Senator from Louisiana, if his amendment were 
agreed to, we would not have comprehensive immigration reform. I 
believe comprehensive immigration reform is what is needed.
  I yield the floor and reserve the final minute for perhaps some 
rebuttal.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
  Mr. VITTER. In closing the debate on this amendment, I thank all of 
the Members who have participated on both sides. It is a very important 
debate.
  I wish to make three closing points.
  First of all, I find it a little bit amusing and quite telling, the 
extreme reaction that erupted from some of the Senators at my 
suggestion that this is amnesty. It sort of reminds me of the famous 
line ``Thou doth protest too much.''
  I offered a textbook definition of amnesty, and I heard no rebuttal 
to the fact that these provisions match that definition. Here is an 
even better definition from ``Black's Law Dictionary,'' which 
specifically cites as an example:

       The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act provided 
     amnesty for undocumented aliens already present in the 
     country.

  What is the comparison between that 1986 act and this bill? The 
comparison is laid out, and it is very striking. Penalties were there 
in both cases. Learning English? Guess what. That was required in 1986. 
Working in a job for certain periods of time? Guess what. That was in 
1986 as well. The parallels, the comparison is striking.
  Second, again, it is a straw man to suggest there is absolutely no 
way to deal with the 12 million illegal aliens presently in the country 
but the provisions of this bill. There are alternatives. I laid out an 
alternative. Senator Chambliss laid out an alternative offering these 
folks the ability to work as temporary workers but not an automatic 
guaranteed path to citizenship.
  This is not about whether we deal with the problem; this is about how 
we deal with the problem. And amnesty, in my opinion, is exactly the 
wrong way to deal with the problem. Recent history has proven that.
  Third, and finally, I do not offer this amendment ignoring the values 
behind American citizenship, ignoring the enormous devotion to those 
values that so many Americans have, perhaps most of all those who have 
recently become American citizens. I offer this amendment because of 
those values and my

[[Page 8358]]

commitment to honor them because I truly believe the provisions of this 
bill, which amount to amnesty, will erode the concept of citizenship 
and will erode those very values.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  The Senator from Pennsylvania has 1 minute.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, the essence of the argument from the 
Senator from Louisiana is when he says ``automatic guaranteed path to 
citizenship.'' Well, it simply is not so. There is nothing automatic 
when you have to fulfill the requirements of paying a fine and learning 
English and paying back taxes and working for a protracted period of 
time. There is nothing guaranteed about it. It is earned. And that is 
the hallmark of American values: to earn it.
  That concludes my argument, Mr. President.
  Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  At the moment there is not a sufficient second.
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, as soon as Senator Kennedy returns to the 
floor, I will make it official on asking unanimous consent locking in 
the two votes at 2:30.
  I am informed there is agreement by authorized representatives of the 
leader of the Democrats. And we are now awaiting the arrival of Senator 
Obama, who is reportedly due here momentarily.
  So until he arrives, 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. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sununu). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be able to 
speak for 2 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the Senator is recognized 
for 2 minutes.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, on the Vitter amendment, I thank Senator 
Vitter for his amendment. Yesterday, Senator Dorgan offered an 
amendment to remove the guest worker program in its entirety, and I 
supported that because I believed it was flawed. Eventually, last 
night, we came back with an amendment that pretty much fixed it, that 
whole guest worker program, which I thought was good.
  I think Senator Vitter's amendment points out and allows us to focus 
on the fact that this amnesty provision in the bill or regularization 
provision in the bill--whatever the fair way to describe it is--also 
has serious flaws. By supporting this amendment, it would be my 
intention to say let's make it better because I do believe we are not 
going to reject the people who are here and try to eject all of those 
people who have come illegally. We need to treat them in a decent and 
fair and caring way.
  But also the rule of law is important. I think we ought not to 
develop a procedure that essentially provides every benefit to someone 
who came illegally that we would provide to those who come legally. So 
I will be supporting the amendment.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, when we complete debate on Senator 
Obama's amendment, we will then have two votes at 2:30. And then, after 
the votes, it is our desire, subject to Senator Inhofe's agreement, to 
come and debate his amendment. That may take a substantial period of 
time. I am advised by Senator Kennedy they would like 2 hours equally 
divided. So that will take us fairly far into the afternoon. We will 
stay in session even though Director Negroponte will be having a 
session upstairs. This bill needs to be moved, so we will stay in 
session on the Inhofe amendment during that period of time.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Idaho be 
given 2 minutes to debate the Vitter amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Idaho is recognized for 2 minutes.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I do have to stand in opposition to the 
Vitter amendment and hope my colleagues will oppose it. We are all 
finding out that what we are attempting to do is phenomenally 
complicated, with all the different kinds of categories of work status 
and reality that we as the Senate and the American people are awakening 
to.
  There is one reality. We have a lot of undocumented foreign nationals 
in our country. By definition, they are illegal. Some--and many--have 
been here 5 and 6 years or more or less. They are law abiding. They are 
hard working. They have not violated the laws, other than they walked 
across the border. And they did violate a law when they did that.
  Earned adjustment is an attempt to bring some reality to this by 
saying, if you have been here and you worked a while, then you can stay 
and work: You will pay a fine, you will have a background check, but we 
will provide you with a legal status to stay and to work--not 
citizenship. If you want citizenship, you go to the back of the line 
and you qualify.
  But we are talking about a legal work status. Some call that amnesty. 
I call it earned adjustment because we are beginning to find out who is 
here, why they are here. There is a background check. Are they legal in 
the sense, did they violate laws, other than walking across the border? 
And I do not mean to take that lightly.
  The Vitter amendment wipes out all of that. It wipes out the work of 
the committee. It wipes out how you deal with 10 million undocumented 
people in our country in a systematic, legal, and responsible fashion.
  I urge my colleagues to oppose the Vitter amendment. There may be a 
better idea than earned adjustment. But after having worked on this 
issue for 5 years and attempting to work with all of the interest 
groups to bring about some equity, stability of workforce--assuring 
that those who are out in the field now working or in our processing 
plants working can stay and work and keep our economy moving--I ask my 
colleagues to oppose the Vitter amendment.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 2:30 we 
proceed to the Sessions amendment for a 15-minute vote, and thereafter 
we proceed to the Vitter amendment for a 10-minute vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, we have Senator Obama on the floor ready 
to offer his amendment. There is some issue as to whether it has been 
worked through on all of the aspects of being modified. But I think we 
are very close. So what I would suggest we do is proceed to consider 
the Obama amendment, subject to some minor change which may be made on 
modification. And I ask unanimous consent that the time be equally 
divided between now and 2:30.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered. The time between now and 2:30 
will be equally divided.
  The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. OBAMA. Thank you very much, Mr. President.


                    Amendment No. 3971, as Modified

  Mr. President, while the staff is consulting--we thought that the 
modifications had been agreed to--what I would like to do is tell you 
the essence of the amendment that I plan to offer. As soon as we get 
the go-ahead, we will offer it for immediate consideration.
  Mr. President, I rise today to discuss amendment No. 3971, which 
pertains to

[[Page 8359]]

the guest worker provisions in the bill. I have some significant 
concerns with respect to the guest worker provisions. I am concerned 
that the guest worker provisions are premised on the idea that American 
workers are not available to fill the jobs that are currently being 
filled by undocumented workers or foreign guest workers. I am not 
certain that is the case.
  Recently, I was on vacation in Arizona. I was staying at a hotel, and 
I noticed that all the individuals who were serving drinks and lunch at 
the swimming pool appeared to be from the West Indies. So I asked one 
of them: Where are you from? He said: I am from Jamaica. I asked: Are 
all the guys here from Jamaica? He said: Yes. I asked: How do you come 
here? He said: Well, I work for a company that essentially brings us in 
for 9 months during the high season. Then during the low season of 
vacation we will go back. And they take care of all their paperwork and 
handle all their immigration issues.
  And he said: Did you notice that all the women who are cleaning the 
rooms are from China? I said: You know, I happened to notice that.
  It turned out they have the same arrangement.
  What it indicated was essentially you have a situation in which 
international temp agencies are being set up where workers will come in 
for 9 months, doing jobs that I think many Americans would be willing 
to do if they were available.
  Now, having said that, there are some industries in which guest 
workers and agricultural workers are absolutely necessary. So the 
question is: How do we create this program but make sure it is tight 
enough that it does not disadvantage workers? To do that we are going 
to have to make the prevailing wage requirements of this bill real for 
all workers and all jobs.
  We have to ensure that communities where American unemployment rates 
are high will not experience unnecessary competition from guest 
workers. So to that end, I will be offering an amendment, as modified, 
along with Senators Feinstein and Bingaman, to strengthen the 
prevailing wage language and to freeze the guest worker program in 
communities with unemployment rates for low-skilled workers of 9 
percent or greater.
  This amendment would establish a true prevailing wage for all 
occupations to ensure that guest workers are paid a wage that does not 
lower American wages. The bill on the floor requires that employers 
advertise jobs to American workers at a prevailing wage before offering 
that job to a guest worker. And it requires that employers pay guest 
workers a prevailing wage. But the bill, currently, without the 
amendment, does not clarify how to calculate the prevailing wage for 
workers not covered by a collective bargaining agreement or the Service 
Contract Act of 1965, which governs contracts entered into by the 
Federal Government. That leaves most jobs and most workers unprotected.
  The bill currently before us simply states that an employer has to 
provide working conditions and benefits such as those provided to 
workers ``similarly'' employed. So as a consequence, a bad employer 
could easily game the system by offering an artificially low wage to 
American workers and just count on those workers not taking the job. 
The employer could then offer that job at below-average wages to guest 
workers, knowing they would take it to get here legally.
  That is not good for American workers, and it is not good for guest 
workers.
  My amendment fixes that language. It directs the employer to use 
Department of Labor data to calculate a prevailing wage in those cases 
in which neither a collective bargaining agreement nor the Service 
Contract Act applies. That would mean an employer would have to make an 
offer at an average wage across comparable employers instead of just an 
average wage that she or he is willing to pay. The amendment also would 
establish stronger prohibitions on the guest worker program in high 
unemployment areas. The bill currently bars use of the program if the 
unemployment rate for low-skilled workers in a metropolitan area 
averages more than 11 percent. Our amendment would lower that 
unemployment rate to 9 percent of workers unemployed with a high school 
diploma or less. There is no reason any community with large pockets of 
unemployed Americans needs guest workers.
  This is a good, commonsense amendment which is endorsed by SEIU, the 
Laborers Union, the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades 
Department, and the National Council of La Raza. I urge my colleagues 
to support it.
  I will actually call up the amendment to be read as soon as it comes 
back. I think there are some discussions taking place right now.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, we are still working on a modification. I 
am advised that it is a minor modification, but until we get it, I 
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. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Illinois for 
bringing this to the attention of the Senate. I rise in strong support 
of the amendment. One of the dynamics of a comprehensive approach is 
legality and fairness. What we want to make sure is that when jobs are 
advertised for Americans first, Americans should be able to take 
advantage of the opportunity. But if they are going to go, by and 
large, to Hispanic individuals who come here, they ought to be treated 
at fair wages. There are protections that are included in the bill at 
the present time. The amendment offered by the Senator from Illinois 
addresses that issue and strengthens it. I hope we will find a way to 
accept it.
  I 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. OBAMA. 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. OBAMA. Mr. President, we have been having some discussion. My 
understanding is that the concerns that have been raised have to do 
with the underlying bill and not my amendment. As a consequence, I ask 
unanimous consent to send to the desk amendment No. 3971, as modified, 
and ask for its immediate consideration.
  I also ask unanimous consent to add Senators Lieberman and Landrieu 
as cosponsors of the amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to setting the pending 
amendments aside?
  Without objection, the pending amendments are set aside. Does the 
Senator have a modified version?
  Mr. OBAMA. Yes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Illinois [Mr. Obama], for himself, Mrs. 
     Feinstein, Mr. Bingaman, Mr. Lieberman, and Ms. Landrieu, 
     proposes an amendment numbered 3971, as modified.

  Mr. OBAMA. I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be 
dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

            (Purpose: To amend the temporary worker program)

       Beginning on page 266, strike line 13 and all that follows 
     through 267, line 3, and insert the following:
       ``(C) Prevailing wage level.--For purposes of subparagraph 
     (A)(ii), the prevailing wage level shall be determined in 
     accordance as follows:
       ``(i) If the job opportunity is covered by a collective 
     bargaining agreement between a union and the employer, the 
     prevailing wage shall be the wage rate set forth in the 
     collective bargaining agreement.
       ``(ii) If the job opportunity is not covered by such an 
     agreement and it is in an occupation that is covered by a 
     wage determination

[[Page 8360]]

     under a provision of subchapter IV of chapter 31 of title 40, 
     United States Code, or the Service Contract Act of 1965 (41 
     U.S.C. 351 et seq.), the prevailing wage level shall be the 
     appropriate statutory wage.
       ``(iii)(I) If the job opportunity is not covered by such an 
     agreement and it is in an occupation that is not covered by a 
     wage determination under a provision of subchapter IV of 
     chapter 31 of title 40, United States Code, or the Service 
     Contract Act of 1965 (41 U.S.C. 351 et seq.), the prevailing 
     wage level shall be based on published wage data for the 
     occupation from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, including the 
     Occupational Employment Statistics survey, Current Employment 
     Statistics data, National Compensation Survey, and 
     Occupational Employment Projections program. If the Bureau of 
     Labor Statistics does not have wage data applicable to such 
     occupation, the employer may base the prevailing wage level 
     on another wage survey approved by the Secretary of Labor.
       ``(II) The Secretary shall promulgate regulations 
     applicable to approval of such other wage surveys that 
     require, among other things, that the Bureau of Labor 
     Statistics determine such surveys are statistically viable.

       On page 273, line 7, strike ``unskilled and low-skilled 
     workers'' and insert ``workers who have not completed any 
     education beyond a high school diploma''.
       On page 273, line 9, strike ``11.0'' and insert ``9.0'', 
     and on line 4, after ``immigrant'', add ``is not agriculture 
     based and''.

  Mr. OBAMA. I already explained the amendment, Mr. President. My 
suggestion would be that if the manager of the bill has no objection, 
we go ahead. I want to make sure I am going in the appropriate order, 
given the manager's fine job of keeping this process moving.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have no objection to proceeding to 
consider the amendment, as modified. There are still Senators on this 
side of the aisle reviewing it. We are not yet prepared to take a 
position. I think it is entirely appropriate to consider the 
discussion. I believe, as I said to Senator Obama privately, that we 
will work it out.
  I yield to the Senator from Illinois for further debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. OBAMA. As I indicated, this amendment essentially says that the 
prevailing wage provisions in the underlying bill should be tightened 
to ensure that they apply to all workers and not just some workers. The 
way the underlying bill is currently structured, essentially those 
workers who fall outside of Davis-Bacon projects or collective 
bargaining agreements or other provisions are not going to be covered. 
That could be 25 million workers or so which could be subject to 
competition from guest workers, even though they are prepared to take 
the jobs that the employers are offering, if they were offered at a 
prevailing wage. My hope would be that we can work out whatever 
disagreements there are on the other side. This is a mechanism to 
ensure that the guest worker program is not used to undercut American 
workers and to put downward pressure on the wages of American workers.
  Everybody in this Chamber has agreed that if we are going to have a 
guest worker program, it should only be made available where there is a 
genuine need that has been shown by the employers that American workers 
are not available for those jobs. Without this amendment, that will not 
be the case, and we will have a situation in which we have guest 
workers who are taking jobs that Americans are prepared to take, if, in 
fact, prevailing wages were provided for. I don't know anybody here--
and I have been working closely with those who are interested in 
passing a bill--who wants to see a situation in which we are creating a 
mechanism to undermine the position of American workers.
  I ask that this amendment be considered, and I will hold off on 
asking for the yeas and nays until we have had a chance to discuss it 
further.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the hour of 2:30 
having arrived, the vote is to occur in relation to the Sessions 
amendment No. 3979.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, have the yeas and nays been ordered?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The yeas and nays have not been ordered.
  Mr. SPECTER. I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There is a 
sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  Mr. SPECTER. Have the yeas and nays been ordered on the Vitter 
amendment?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Yes, the yeas and nays have been ordered on 
the Vitter amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment 
of the Senator from Alabama, Mr. Sessions.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. 
Rockefeller) is necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 83, nays 16, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 126 Leg.]

                                YEAS--83

     Alexander
     Allard
     Allen
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Bennett
     Biden
     Bond
     Boxer
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burns
     Burr
     Byrd
     Carper
     Chafee
     Chambliss
     Clinton
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Coleman
     Collins
     Conrad
     Cornyn
     Craig
     Crapo
     Dayton
     DeMint
     DeWine
     Dole
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Feinstein
     Frist
     Graham
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagel
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johnson
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Landrieu
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lincoln
     Lott
     Lugar
     Martinez
     McCain
     McConnell
     Mikulski
     Murkowski
     Nelson (FL)
     Nelson (NE)
     Pryor
     Reid
     Roberts
     Salazar
     Santorum
     Schumer
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Smith
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Stevens
     Sununu
     Talent
     Thomas
     Thune
     Vitter
     Voinovich
     Warner
     Wyden

                                NAYS--16

     Akaka
     Bingaman
     Cantwell
     Dodd
     Durbin
     Feingold
     Inouye
     Jeffords
     Kennedy
     Lautenberg
     Lieberman
     Menendez
     Murray
     Obama
     Reed
     Sarbanes

                             NOT VOTING--1

       
     Rockefeller
       
  The amendment (No. 3979) was agreed to.
  Mr. SPECTER. I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. BOND. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, for 1 minute.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania is recognized.


                    Amendment No. 3971, as Modified

  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, before moving on to the next vote, we 
have the pending amendment by the Senator from Illinois, Mr. Obama, 
which we are prepared to accept. I ask for a voice vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Under the previous order, the yeas and nays have been ordered on the 
Vitter amendment, and it is scheduled for a vote at the conclusion of 
this vote. The Senator from Pennsylvania has asked unanimous consent 
that prior to that vote the Obama amendment be considered by a voice 
vote. Is there objection? Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The question is on agreeing to Obama amendment No. 3971, as modified.
  The amendment (No. 3971), as modified, was agreed to.


                           Amendment No. 4018

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, a vote will now 
occur in relation to the Vitter amendment.
  The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we call up the 
Stevens, Leahy, Murkowski, Jeffords, Coleman, Stabenow, Collins, and 
Levin amendment No. 4018 to extend the implementation deadline for the 
Western Hemisphere initiative by 18 months. I ask unanimous consent 
that it be allowed to be called up. It will simply be a voice vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:


[[Page 8361]]

       The Senator from Vermont [Mr. Leahy], for Mr. Stevens, for 
     himself, Mr. Leahy, Ms. Murkowski, Mr. Coleman, Mr. Jeffords, 
     Ms. Stabenow, Ms. Collins, and Mr. Levin, proposes an 
     amendment numbered 4018.

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

  (Purpose: To extend the deadline given to the Secretary of Homeland 
   Security for the implementation of a new travel document plan for 
                   border crossings to June 1, 2009)

       At the appropriate place, insert the following:

     SEC. __. TRAVEL DOCUMENT PLAN.

       Section 7209(b)(1) of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism 
     Prevention Act of 2004 (8 U.S.C. 1185 note) is amended by 
     striking ``January 1, 2008'' and inserting ``June 1, 2009''.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to amendment No. 
4018.
  Mr. DOMENICI. What is the amendment?
  Mr. LEAHY. The amendment simply extends for 18 months the Western 
Hemisphere travel initiative on the northern border.
  Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I object to proceeding with the amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, the amendment has been called up. There is 
to be a voice vote by consent. A voice vote is still allowed to go 
forward. The Senator can vote against it, of course.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the amendment has been 
considered. Under the previous order, a vote is now to occur in 
relation to the Vitter amendment on which the yeas and nays have been 
ordered.
  Mr. LEAHY. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. President: What happens to the 
amendment that was brought up by unanimous consent, amendment----
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That amendment is the pending amendment.
  Mr. LEAHY. I thank the Chair. So does that mean that amendment 
becomes the pending amendment following the disposition of the Vitter 
amendment?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
  Mr. LEAHY. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: Isn't it true that 
we have the unanimous consent agreement to take up the Inhofe amendment 
after we have the vote on the Vitter amendment?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. No. The Inhofe amendment has not been agreed 
to be considered under any previous order.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, then I ask unanimous consent that the 
Inhofe amendment be taken up following the amendment referenced by the 
Senator from Vermont.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Reserving the right to object, as I understand, at the 
time they are going to have the consideration of the Inhofe amendment, 
there may be a side-by-side amendment, and I hope that perhaps we would 
move to Inhofe. I would also hope that the Senator might withhold his 
unanimous consent request, at least until we have the full package, so 
that the Senate understands exactly the way we are going to proceed.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, that is agreeable.


                       Vote on Amendment No. 3963

  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Martinez). The question is on agreeing to 
the Vitter amendment No. 3963. The yeas and nays have been ordered. The 
clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. 
Rockefeller) is necessarily absent.
  The result was announced--yeas 33, nays 66, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 127 Leg.]

                                YEAS--33

     Allard
     Allen
     Bennett
     Bond
     Bunning
     Burns
     Burr
     Byrd
     Chambliss
     Coburn
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     DeMint
     Dole
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Grassley
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Kyl
     Lott
     McConnell
     Nelson (NE)
     Roberts
     Santorum
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Talent
     Thomas
     Thune
     Vitter

                                NAYS--66

     Akaka
     Alexander
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Brownback
     Cantwell
     Carper
     Chafee
     Clinton
     Cochran
     Coleman
     Collins
     Conrad
     Craig
     Dayton
     DeWine
     Dodd
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Frist
     Graham
     Gregg
     Hagel
     Harkin
     Inouye
     Jeffords
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Lugar
     Martinez
     McCain
     Menendez
     Mikulski
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Obama
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Salazar
     Sarbanes
     Schumer
     Smith
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Stevens
     Sununu
     Voinovich
     Warner
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--1

       
     Rockefeller
       
  The amendment (No. 3963) was rejected.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I would like to explain my reasons for my 
vote on the Vitter amendment No. 3963.
  It is estimated that there are currently around 12 million illegal 
immigrants in this country. And I do not support the proposition that 
everyone of those 12 million illegal immigrants currently in the United 
States should be given the right to a green card and eventual 
citizenship.
  However, there are certain cases where illegal immigrants have been 
here for a very long time--in some cases, for decades. Some of these 
people have families here and deep ties to their local communities.
  The Vitter amendment would have made no exception for such cases at 
all. And I do think that we need some flexibility for humanitarian 
reasons.
  For this reason, I voted against the Vitter amendment. But I would 
like to emphasize that I am not in favor of a broad, blanket amnesty 
for illegal immigrants.


                           Amendment No. 4018

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I think we are ready to go on the 
amendment.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, if I could ask the distinguished 
manager if I, along with Senator Cornyn, could be added as cosponsors 
to Senator Leahy's amendment since it applies to both the northern and 
southern borders?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I have no objection to that. It fairly 
states it. This would apply to both borders and, of course, simply 
extends the time after which we have to have the kind of ID that would 
be called for in previous legislation. It would extend to both the 
northern and southern border. I will be glad to have both Senators from 
Texas as cosponsors.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. I thank the Senator.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I offer an amendment to the Western 
Hemisphere Travel Initiative. This initiative is based on the 9/11 
Commission's recommendations and was authorized in ``The Intelligence 
Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004.'' It requires the 
Department of Homeland Security--DHS--to implement a new documentation 
program by January 1, 2008. Once this program is in place, all U.S. 
citizens crossing the Canadian or Mexican border into our country must 
have a passport or other accepted documentation, such as a passcard, in 
order to verify their citizenship.
  The Department of Homeland Security and the State Department are now 
in the process of developing the rules needed to implement this 
initiative. The air and sea portion of this initiative could be 
implemented as early as next January.
  The Department of Homeland Security and the State Department are 
evaluating two options for this initiative. The first would require a 
person entering the United States to present a passport. However, 
passports are expensive and require weeks to acquire. The second option 
is a passcard, which would be slightly cheaper, but would

[[Page 8362]]

still require a background check and could only be used for travel 
between our country, Canada, and Mexico.
  We must tighten our border security, but many have raised serious 
concerns about both of these options. It is unlikely the State 
Department will be able to process the flood of requests for passports 
and passcards that will come from this initiative by the deadline. The 
travel and business activities of millions of people will be adversely 
affected.
  Take a military family reassigned from the lower 48 to Eielson Air 
Force Base, Alaska. They must drive from the lower 48 through Canada 
with all of their belongings, and they may not have the opportunity or 
funds to acquire the passports this initiative will require.
  Our State is the only State in the Nation which cannot be accessed by 
land without passing through a foreign country. Alaskans are very 
concerned about the impact this initiative will have on travel to and 
from our State.
  Every year, a large number of people travel to Alaska from the lower 
48 on the Alaska-Canada highway, Also known as the Al-Can. Each summer 
we routinely see RVs on the road with license plates from New York, 
Pennsylvania, Florida, California, and elsewhere. These visitors will 
now need a passcard or a passport to drive to our State. I worry about 
how this will affect our tourism industry and the challenges it will 
create for Americans who want to visit one of the most beautiful places 
in our country.
  These are just some of the issues which must be considered before 
implementing this plan. I believe the department of homeland security 
and the State department are operating under an unrealistic timeframe. 
We must ensure they have enough time to properly test and implement 
this system, which includes biometrics and new border security 
equipment.
  Those of us in Alaska share a special relationship with our friends 
in Canada. It would be unfortunate if a hastily imposed initiative 
negatively affected movement in and out of Canada, or negatively 
affected our relationship with our neighbors.
  The deadline Congress gave the Department of Homeland Security is 
fast approaching. Little progress has been made. We must pass this 
amendment to give them more time.
  There is just too much at stake to rush this, and I urge my 
colleagues to support this amendment.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, when the Congress passed the intelligence 
reform bill in 2004, it included measures that were intended to help 
secure our borders. These provisions, called the Western Hemisphere 
Travel Initiative, require that any person, including a U.S. citizen, 
present a passport or its equivalent, when they enter the United States 
from neighboring countries, including Canada or Mexico.
  We have long enjoyed less-formal immigration policies with our 
neighbors, and especially with Canada. These policies encourage tourism 
and trade and promote goodwill between our nations.
  The impact of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative on Northern 
Border states could be extremely harmful. Last year, Vermont exported 
$1.516 billion worth of products to Canada. And in 2003, more than 2 
million Canadians visited Vermont, spending $188 million while here. 
Other northern border States enjoy similar trade and tourism benefits 
with Canada and face what could be significant downturns in their 
economies if this law is not implemented smoothly.
  States like Alaska and Minnesota have unique challenges under the law 
because in Alaska all or in Minnesota some residents have to cross into 
Canada before entering the continental U.S. by land. In addition, 
several southern States could experience negative impacts. Florida and 
Nevada welcome significant numbers of Canadian tourists. Other States 
have strong economic ties to Canada and depend on the efficient 
movement of products across international borders.
  We all know that the economic health of many small towns along the 
border depends upon their access to neighboring Canadian towns. In some 
cases, these towns share emergency services, grocery stores and other 
basic services. Residents sometimes cross the border on foot several 
times a day. This is true in Vermont, and I am sure that it is true for 
communities in many border States.
  The State Department is developing a lower cost passport 
alternative--called the PASS Card--but that program has serious 
problems and potential for delay. The two Government agencies 
responsible for these PASS Cards are still arguing over what technology 
to embed in the card.
  This issue alone indicates that DHS cannot meet the January 1, 2008 
deadline when all U.S. citizens will need this card, or the more 
expensive traditional passport, to cross the northern border at land 
ports of entry.
  I have worked in recent months with Senators Stevens, Jeffords, 
Coleman, Stabenow, Murkowski, Cornyn and Levin to extend the 
implementation date for this program to June 2009. That would give the 
U.S. and Canada an extra 18 months to prepare for a smooth transition. 
The bipartisan amendment we offer today should be non controversial and 
I hope all Senators will support it.
  No one is suggesting that we should repeal the Western Hemisphere 
Travel Initiative altogether, but in order to protect our economy and 
to preserve community ties, we should intervene now to ensure that the 
Government can implement this law in a rational manner. An extension is 
the sensible way to proceed. We need to be smart about border security, 
not just to sound ``tough'' about it.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, we are ready to have a voice vote on the 
pending Leahy-Stevens amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment.
  The amendment (No. 4018) was agreed to.
  Mr. SPECTER. I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that 
motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.


                           Amendment No. 4000

  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I will now ask for consideration of the 
Santorum amendment, amendment No. 4000, which has been cleared on both 
sides.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. Santorum], for himself, 
     Mr. Frist, and Ms. Mikulski, proposes an amendment numbered 
     4000.

  Mr. SANTORUM. I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be 
dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

  (Purpose: To allow additional countries to participate in the visa 
waiver program under section 217 of the Immigration and Nationality Act 
                     if they meet certain criteria)

       On page 306, strike line 13 and insert the following:

     SEC. 413. VISA WAIVER PROGRAM EXPANSION.

       Section 217(c) (8 U.S.C. 1187(c)) is amended by adding at 
     the end the following:
       ``(8) Probationary admission.--
       ``(A) Definition of material support.--In this paragraph, 
     the term `material support' means the current provision of 
     the equivalent of, but not less than, a battalion (which 
     consists of 300 to 1,000 military personnel) to Operation 
     Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom to provide 
     training, logistical or tactical support, or a military 
     presence.
       ``(B) Designation as a program country.--Notwithstanding 
     any other provision of this section, a country may be 
     designated as a program country, on a probationary basis, 
     under this section if--
       ``(i) the country is a member of the European Union;
       ``(ii) the country is providing material support to the 
     United States or the multilateral forces in Afghanistan or 
     Iraq, as determined by the Secretary of Defense, in 
     consultation with the Secretary of State; and
       ``(iii) the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation 
     with the Secretary of State, determines that participation of 
     the country in the visa waiver program under this section 
     does not compromise the law enforcement interests of the 
     United States.
       ``(C) Refusal rates; overstay rates.--The determination 
     under subparagraph (B)(iii) shall only take into account any 
     refusal rates or overstay rates after the expiration of the 
     first full year of the country's admission into the European 
     Union.

[[Page 8363]]

       ``(D) Full compliance.--Not later than 2 years after the 
     date of a country's designation under subparagraph (B), the 
     country--
       ``(i) shall be in full compliance with all applicable 
     requirements for program country status under this section; 
     or
       ``(ii) shall have its program country designation 
     terminated.
       ``(E) Extensions.--The Secretary of State may extend, for a 
     period not to exceed 2 years, the probationary designation 
     granted under subparagraph (B) if the country--
       ``(i) is making significant progress towards coming into 
     full compliance with all applicable requirements for program 
     country status under this section;
       ``(ii) is likely to achieve full compliance before the end 
     of such 2-year period; and
       ``(iii) continues to be an ally of the United States 
     against terrorist states, organizations, and individuals, as 
     determined by the Secretary of Defense, in consultation with 
     the Secretary of State.''.

     SEC. 414. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.

  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I congratulate my cosponsor, Senator 
Mikulski, for the excellent work we did as a team on this amendment. It 
took a long time to work this through the process, but we are very 
pleased today this amendment will be accepted.
  Mr. President, when a country is a staunch defense ally and partner 
in the war on terror, they should have the opportunity to participate 
in the Visa Waiver Program on a probationary basis while they work to 
come into full compliance. I previously introduced and called up a 
similar amendment, No. 3214, cosponsored by Senator Mikulski. After 
consultation with the Judiciary Committee and the Department of State, 
this modified version seeks to address some of the concerns that have 
been raised.
   I believe it is time that we allow average citizens from our allies 
in the war on terror to come to the U.S. for weddings, birthdays and 
funerals without the arbitrary determination of an embassy bureaucrat. 
This amendment provides an opportunity--just an opportunity--for our 
allies to allow their citizens to visit here for average events that we 
all take for granted. It does not provide an open-ended opportunity, 
just a 2-year window.
  Any country that meets the probationary criteria then must come into 
full compliance within 2 years--if not, they are terminated from the 
program. This amendment also addressed a particular concern related to 
certain countries with a Cold War history where even in the post-Cold 
War era is held accountable for decades-old problems. This provision 
ensures that overstay and refusal rates are based on current issues 
after the country's admission into the European Union, and not its past 
history.
  Finally, the amendment provides a one-time option to the Secretary of 
State to extend a country's probationary status under certain specific 
criteria. After researching countries that could meet the criteria of 
the amendment, my staff indicates that the only country currently 
meeting the eligibility requirements is Poland.
  Poland has been a strong ally to the United States at a critical time 
in history. Poland was a staunch ally to the U.S. in Operation Iraqi 
Freedom. Poland has committed up to 2,300 soldiers to help with ongoing 
peace efforts in Iraq, and currently assumes command of the Multi-
National Division--MND--Central South in Iraq. Poland demonstrated its 
commitment to global security by becoming a member of NATO. Poland also 
just recently became a member of the EU. And in 1991, Poland 
unilaterally repealed the visa requirement for U.S. citizens traveling 
to Poland for less than 90 days. Today, more than 100,000 Polish 
citizens travel to the United States annually.
  On February 10, 2005, I introduced S. 348 designating Poland as a 
visa waiver country, with Senator Mikulski. This bill designates Poland 
as a visa waiver country. Under this amendment, Polish citizens 
visiting the U.S. within a 90-day period would not need to apply for a 
visa. Representative Nancy Johnson introduced identical legislation 
March 8, 2005 in the House, H.R. 635. Cosponsors of the bill are 
Representatives Crowley, Jackson-Lee, Hart, LaHood, Shimkus, Lipinski 
and Weiner.
  I wrote a letter on February 9, 2005 to Secretary of State Rice 
urging the State Department's support for this legislation. Following 
up on that letter, I had conversations with Secretary Rice in the 
Spring of 2005. Then in February 2006, I again wrote to Deputy 
Secretary Zoellick urging his support for this legislation and offering 
to address any concerns the State Department may have. To date, and 
despite my staffs continued outreach, they have failed to take us up on 
the offer.
  So instead of working for a compromise, we continue not to move 
forward on a bill to support the allies that have supported us. On 
August 31, 2005 Poland celebrated the 25th anniversary of the 1980 
shipyard strikes in Gdansk and the creation of the Solidarity Trade 
Union. I was an original cosponsor of the Senate-passed resolution. The 
Senate passed a resolution commemorating this anniversary. I had the 
incredible privilege of meeting with Lech Walesa in October 2004 upon 
introduction of my bill designating Poland as a member country of the 
Visa Waiver Program. He is ``the symbol of the solidarity movement.'' 
Since the demise of communism, Poland has become a stable, democratic 
nation. Poland has adopted economic policies that promote free markets 
and economic growth.
  When President Bush and then-Polish President Kwasniewski met in 
February 2005, they affirmed the goal of Poland entering the Visa 
Waiver Program--VMP, and agreed to a ``roadmap'' of mutual steps to 
advance this goal in conformity with U.S. legislative criteria. Through 
pressure from Congress and advocacy groups this issue has been advanced 
further than ever before, making this ``road map'' possible. Although 
the State Department has assured me it is working hard to implement a 
``clean slate'' so immigration violations before 1989 will not render 
them ineligible for a U.S. visa, we know that a key element will be the 
2006 review of visa overstay rates based on new 2005 data from Poland's 
first year in the EU. Another part of the agreement includes the U.S. 
working with Poland to meet the visa waiver requirements, particularly 
with regard to refusal and overstay rates, and exploring the provision 
of technical assistance to bring Poland's passports in compliance. I 
hope the cooperation that has begun will continue in earnest to ensure 
that Poland comes into full compliance in the 2-year window under this 
provision.
  The current roadmap is a step in the right direction, but it 
continues to move at a very slow pace. We can and should do more for 
those that have stepped up to the plate and been incredible allies in 
the war on terror. Today, as we consider who should be allowed to 
immigrate to our country and how, we are focused on how to ensure 
security and the rule flaw for those that have come into our country 
illegally. For a moment I propose to turn the discussion to how to help 
those who have stood with us--indeed those who have fought and died 
with us--a preferred legal way to obtain a visa to come to this 
country.
  I am here to stand with the Polish people in asking each of you to 
support bringing Poland into the Visa Waiver Program. Why is it that 
countries such as Brunei, Liechtenstein and San Marino are in the Visa 
Waiver Program, but not Poland or other allies in the war on terror? 
Polish troops have fought alongside American and British and Australian 
troops from day one of the war in Iraq. Just like Congress did in 1996 
when it legislatively brought Ireland in as a full participant in the 
Visa Waiver Program, it is time for us to take a stand and support our 
allies in the war on terror.
  As a country, we look forward to continuing our strong friendship 
with Poland and its new President Lech Kaczynski. Is this then a 
country that we don't want to allow its citizens to come to this 
country? Is this a country we want to say ``thanks for your help'' but 
we won't help your citizens come to the U.S.? I think there is a better 
course of action. Colleagues, this is an to opportunity for us to 
strengthen that relationship in a real and substantial way. Open a 
pathway for those that have supported us to come visit our country. In 
that way--in this small way--we can reach back the hand of an

[[Page 8364]]

ally that has reached out to help us in the War on Terror. I urge my 
colleagues to support the Santorum-Mikulski-Frist amendment.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise today to continue the fight to 
right a wrong in America's visa program. It is time to extend the Visa 
Waiver Program to Poland. I am pleased to have formed bipartisan 
partnership with Senator Santorum and Senator Frist to introduce this 
amendment to get it done.
  In September 2004, Senator Santorum and I met with a hero of the cold 
war, Lech Walesa. When he jumped over the wall of the Gdansk shipyard, 
he took Poland and the world with him. He told us that the visa issue 
is a question of honor for Poland. That day we introduced a bill to 
once again stand in solidarity with the father of Solidarity by 
extending the Visa Waiver Program to Poland.
  Two months ago, I had the honor of meeting with Poland's new 
President, Lech Kaczynski. We reaffirmed the close ties between the 
Polish and American peoples. And we heard loud and clear that the Visa 
Waiver Program remains a high priority for Poland.
  The people of Poland don't understand, and frankly neither do I, why 
France is among the 27 countries of the Visa Waiver Program but Poland 
is not. Poland, whose troops joined us in the opening days of war in 
Iraq. Nine hundred Polish troops stand with us there today. Seventeen 
Polish soldiers have been killed in Iraq and 27 wounded. Poland, whose 
troops are preparing to deploy to Afghanistan, sending 1,000 Polish 
soldiers to help lead NATO's mission there. The United States is 
blessed with few allies as stalwart as Poland. But we tell a 
grandmother in Gdansk she needs a visa to visit her grandchildren in 
America.
  This amendment will allow Poland and any other European Union country 
with troops in Iraq or Afghanistan today to join the Visa Waiver 
Program for 2 years on probationary status. It will allow Polish 
citizens to travel to the U.S. for tourism or business for up to 60 
days without needing to stand in line for a visa. Shouldn't we make it 
easier for the Pulaskis and Marie Curies to visit our country?
  We know our borders will be no less secure because of this amendment. 
But we know our alliance will be more secure. I thank my colleagues for 
their support.
  I am glad the Santorum-Mikulski amendment is being considered. It 
shows that when we work together we can get a lot done. I thank both 
Senators from Pennsylvania for their help and cooperation to get this 
amendment agreed to.
  This amendment rights a wrong in America's visa program.
  It is time to extend the visa waiver program to Poland. I am pleased 
to have formed bipartisan partnership with Senator Santorum and Senator 
Frist to get it done.
  In September 2004, Senator Santorum and I met with the hero of the 
cold war--Lech Walesa. When he jumped over the wall of the Gdansk 
shipyard he took Poland and the world with him. He told us that the 
visa issue is a question of honor for Poland. That day, we introduced 
bill to once again stand in solidarity and with the father of 
Solidarity by extending the visa waiver program to Poland.
  Two months ago, I met with Poland's new President, Lech Kaczynski. We 
reaffirmed close ties between the Polish and American peoples. We hear 
loud and clear that the visa waiver program is a high priority for 
Poland.
  Why is it important?
  The people of Poland don't understand, and frankly, neither do I, why 
France is among the 27 countries of the visa waiver program but Poland 
is not. Poland, whose troops joined us in the opening days of war in 
Iraq, has had 900 troops stand with us there today. Mr. President, 17 
Polish soldiers have been killed in Iraq and 27 were wounded. Polish 
troops are preparing to deploy to Afghanistan. One thousand Polish 
soldiers help lead NATO's mission there.
  The United States is blessed with few allies as stalwart as Poland, 
but we tell a grandmother in Gdansk she needs a visa to visit her 
grandchildren in America.
  What will it do?
  This amendment will allow Poland and any other EU country with troops 
in Iraq or Afghanistan today to join the visa waiver program for 2 
years on probationary status.
  It will allow Polish citizens to travel to the United States for 
tourism or business for up to 60 days without needing to stand in line 
for a visa.
  Shouldn't we make it easier for the Pulaskis and Marie Curies to 
visit our country? We know our borders will be no less secure because 
of this amendment, but we know our alliance will be more secure.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment.
  The amendment (No. 4000) was agreed to.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. SPECTER. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SPECTER. 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. SPECTER. 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. SPECTER. Mr. President, I think we are prepared to go with the 
amendment by the Senator from Texas, Mr. Cornyn. I ask unanimous 
consent that we have a 2-hour time agreement on the Cornyn amendment 
equally divided.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, it is my 
understanding that we have under unanimous consent my amendment and 
then a Democratic amendment and then the Ensign amendment. Is the 
Senator talking about changing that order?
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I am talking about changing the order. 
When the Senator from Oklahoma and I last talked, Senator Kyl had asked 
for more time and there were discussions. It is my understanding that 
we were trying to work through to simplify the action once it got to 
the floor. My interest is finding an amendment which I can bring to the 
floor and debate and vote. I am prepared to go any direction 
practicable to achieve that. We now have Senator Vitter on the floor 
who has another amendment. But may we hear from the Senator from 
Oklahoma as to what his concerns are?
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I believe we are ready with our amendment, 
and under the unanimous consent we would be next. We are making some 
modifications right now. We could use a little time. We are ready to go 
in our place in line, unless it works out by unanimous consent that 
Senator Ensign and I change places so that my amendment would come up 
after the next Democratic amendment. That is what I will be willing to 
do.
  I ask unanimous consent that we stay on the current unanimous consent 
request, with the exception that Senator Ensign's amendment be traded 
with mine, and I will take his place after the next amendment.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, we have 
been ready to go, urging relatively short time agreements. We have a 
whole series of proposals from that side and virtually none from here. 
This has been sort of a jump ball. We are trying to adopt to that. We 
have a Democratic amendment that we are prepared to go to. I am more 
than glad to work out with the floor manager as to time limits. The 
Cornyn amendment we had not expected would come up. It reaches the 
heart of the issue, and our side needs at least an hour for it. I know 
the Inhofe amendment has been a matter that has been discussed. We were 
trying to work out a time agreement for consideration of a side-by-
side. There has been a good deal of discussion and desire to try to 
work out a relatively limited amount of time. We are not interested in 
prolonging that discussion and debate. I

[[Page 8365]]

think people would like some time to try to figure that out. I think 
when they have that, we could have a relatively short period of time 
for the consideration of it. I am familiar with the Ensign amendment. 
Senator Vitter and Senator Cornyn have amendments. We are prepared to 
have a short time agreement.
  Our concern is that we have a whole series of Republican amendments, 
and we are not having Democratic amendments. We want to try to work 
this thing through. We have had a short time. I have every intention of 
suggesting to our side that we have short times. But we need to at 
least try to work out with the floor manager some opportunity for the 
consideration of our side.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, do I understand the Senator from 
Massachusetts to mean he would be prepared to go, if we revert to the 
original schedule, with Senator Inhofe and take the Inhofe amendment 
now under a time agreement?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I am glad to do the Inhofe amendment. I 
understand there is going to be a side-by-side, but I can't enter into 
a time agreement on that until that thing is finished. I know what the 
Senator's amendment is. I know people want to debate it. But in terms 
of limiting the time, until we have the side-by-side, I cannot enter 
into a time agreement. When we have a side-by-side, we would enter into 
a short time agreement--I think an hour or an hour and half evenly 
divided. There isn't any desire to prolong this. We are going to be on 
this bill--I understand there are 16 more amendments on that side which 
are serious amendments. We are going to be on this legislation. We made 
good progress today. I am glad to make some progress. That happens to 
be the reality on this. Maybe later in the afternoon we could get a 
short time agreement. But until we work out the side-by-side language 
on it, I would not be able to enter into a time agreement at this time 
on the Inhofe amendment.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, it would be my suggestion, if we can't 
work out a time agreement on the Inhofe amendment, subject to an 
agreement on all sides, that we try to get the side-by-side before the 
afternoon is up so we can take up the Inhofe amendment first thing 
tomorrow morning, hopefully, on a limited time agreement. Would that be 
acceptable?
  Mr. INHOFE. No. I respectfully say to the chairman that we are ready 
to go with our amendment, and the unanimous consent request propounded 
by the minority leader has a Democratic amendment prior to mine. I 
don't know. Is that still in the order? I ask if it is. If it is not, I 
ask for regular order.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, is there a unanimous consent agreement 
setting up the Inhofe amendment?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The previous agreement has been negated.
  Mr. SPECTER. Will the Chair repeat that?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The previous agreement has been negated.
  Mr. INHOFE. The previous unanimous consent has been negated; is that 
my understanding?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
  Mr. INHOFE. How, might I ask, did that happen?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By a subsequent unanimous consent request.
  Mr. SPECTER. 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. SPECTER. 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. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we proceed 
to the Cornyn amendment with a time agreement of 2 hours, equally 
divided. There has been a suggestion by Senator Cornyn that he can take 
less time. Perhaps Senator Kennedy can take less. But the consent 
agreement is for 2 hours, equally divided, with no second degrees.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coburn). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. SPECTER. Then I ask unanimous consent that we proceed to the 
Vitter amendment for 45 minutes, equally divided, with no second-degree 
amendments.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I am glad, when we get to the Vitter amendment, to go 
for 45 minutes, but I think it is our turn after disposing of the 
Cornyn amendment. Senator Lieberman has an amendment, the Lieberman-
Brownback amendment. We can agree to a short time limit on that. We 
would want to go back and forth.
  Mr. SPECTER. Can we have a time agreement on Lieberman-Brownback, 45 
minutes equally decided?
  Mr. KENNEDY. I suggest an hour. I think we can get it done in 45.
  Mr. SPECTER. One hour equally divided, no second-degree amendments.
  Mr. ENSIGN. Reserving the right to object, may I hear the unanimous 
consent request?
  Mr. SPECTER. The unanimous consent request is to go next to the 
Lieberman-Brownback amendment for 1 hour, equally divided, with no 
second-degree amendments.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. CORNYN. Reserving the right to object, we already have a 
unanimous consent to go to the Cornyn amendment.
  Mr. SPECTER. We already had the unanimous consent to go to the Cornyn 
amendment.
  Mr. President, I ask consent that we then lock in the Vitter 
amendment next in sequence, for 45 minutes, equally divided.
  Mr. INHOFE. Reserving the right to object, the problem is, I say 
respectfully to our chairman, we are being left out of this queue. If 
we are going right now to a Democratic amendment, under the regular 
order I should be the next amendment. As it is now, it would be the 
Cornyn amendment and then the Democratic amendment.
  Mr. SPECTER. I modify the request. Senator Vitter is moved. After 
Lieberman, we go to the Inhofe amendment, and perhaps by that time we 
can have them laid down, side by side, and before we begin debate, have 
a time agreement.
  Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, we have been trying to get in the 
amendment queue for a couple of days. We would love to get locked in, 
along with this.
  Mr. SPECTER. We will move to get Senator Ensign in the queue, but we 
can start on the Cornyn amendment, and we will talk about this in the 
cloakroom.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I have no objection. I think for the time 
being we have an order now for the next three. I have no objection to 
going at sometime to Ensign. I expect that would be the regular order. 
But for all intents and purposes, we agree to the three outlined here. 
I can understand they will probably follow along, but for all intents 
and purposes, we agree to the three.
  Mr. SPECTER. Senator Kennedy is correct. May we proceed?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The 
requests are agreed to.
  The Senator from Texas.


                    Amendment No. 3965, as Modified

  Mr. CORNYN. I send a modification to amendment 3965 to the desk for 
consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Texas [Mr. Cornyn], for himself and Mr. 
     Kyl, proposes an amendment numbered 3965, as modified.

  Mr. CORNYN. I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the 
amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment (No. 3965), as modified, is as follows:

       On page 295, strike lines 14 through 16 and insert the 
     following:
       ``(B) by the alien, if--
       ``(i) the alien has been employed in H-2C status for a 
     cumulative period of not less than 4 years;
       ``(ii) an employer attests that the employer will employ 
     the alien in the offered job position; and
       ``(iii) the Secretary of Labor determines and certifies 
     that there are not sufficient United States workers who are 
     able, willing, qualified, and available to fill the job 
     position.


[[Page 8366]]

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, the bill in the Senate is a massive piece 
of legislation creating a number of new programs within our immigration 
system. Obviously, we have talked a lot about border security and ways 
we can tighten our border to make sure we know who is coming into the 
country and why they are here.
  Second, we also need to make sure we have a successful worksite 
verification program to make sure people who present themselves for 
employment in the United States are, indeed, legally authorized to work 
in the United States.
  This is an enormously important comprehensive approach. While I hope 
it is clear that there are some segments of the approach I differ with 
and we are trying to improve, from my perspective, I do support the 
approach of comprehensive immigration reform because we need to deal 
with the security demands of this problem, and we also need to deal 
with the economic demands of the problem.
  One of the ways the underlying bill purports to do that is by 
creating what is called a guest worker program. One component of the 
guest worker program is as follows. For people who are not yet in the 
United States but who want to come in the future, this plan creates a 
guest worker program, but what it fails to do is to match up willing 
workers who want to qualify within this program with an actual job. In 
other words, what it does is creates a phenomenon whereby individuals 
who participate in the program can literally self-petition without 
having an employer sponsor that petition for them to get a green card--
in other words, to become a legal permanent resident and be put on a 
pathway to American citizenship.
  This amendment strikes that position of the underlying bill which 
would allow individuals participating in this guest worker program to 
self-petition; that is, without an employer being there to sponsor them 
and acknowledge and attest that no American worker is willing or has 
indicated a willingness to perform that job.
  This is a fundamental worker protection provision which I hope my 
colleagues will support. If we don't agree to this amendment, it means 
individuals can come to the United States as a guest worker and then 
self-petition without having an employer there to sponsor their 
application for legal permanent residency and can thereby be on a path 
to become an American citizen and end up competing with American 
workers for those jobs.
  We all understand America is a compassionate country. We want to make 
sure we do this immigration reform plan correctly. One of the things we 
do not want to do is actually hurt American workers. Unless we strike 
the self-petition provision, we will be doing exactly that. We need to 
make sure before someone can come in and get a job that, No. 1, they 
have a job and have not just self-petitioned and then become self-
employed and perhaps even become a burden on the American taxpayer 
through various welfare benefits they might receive. We need to make 
sure before someone gets a job that the employer acknowledges and 
attests that they put it up, they advertised it, and they sought 
American workers to fill that job, but, in fact, no American worker has 
come forward. Only under those circumstances do I believe a guest 
worker ought to be able to fill that job. This underlying bill does not 
provide for that.
  This amendment would say that after 4 years of cumulative employed 
status as an H-2C worker, before someone can apply for and receive a 
green card, they must do two things: No. 1, they have to find an 
employer willing to sponsor them; and No. 2, they have to attest that 
no American worker has stepped forward when that job has been offered 
to the public at large; otherwise, we will find this guest worker 
program in direct conflict with the needs of native, American-born 
workers and otherwise legal immigrants. That would be a terrible 
direction for us to head down.
  This is one of those provisions of the bill with which, since it is 
600 pages long, many Members may not be intimately familiar. I hope by 
filing this amendment and by having this debate they can inform 
themselves and hopefully agree to support this amendment which is 
designed to protect American workers and to put the interests of 
American workers first. Then and only then can a participant in this 
guest worker program get the job that an American had an opportunity to 
get but decided not to apply.
  I reserve the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I yield such time as I might use.
  We will look at exactly who these individuals are who are going to 
come into the United States and what the process is.
  First, we will find out that an employer needs a particular kind of 
function to be able to continue their business--maybe it is related to 
the employment of other individuals. They search around to try, for 
some 60 days, to see if there is an American prepared to take that job 
at that salary. They cannot find an American prepared to take that job, 
and they still need to have that particular function filled. So they 
find out there is a willing person from overseas prepared to take that 
particular job, get paid the particular wages mentioned for that 
particular profile, and that individual then comes to the United States 
and works for that particular employer.
  Under the current legislation, we are saying that after a period of 4 
years--or even before the 4-year-period--if the employer wants to 
petition for a green card for that particular employee, they can go 
ahead and do that. That is in the law at the present time.
  Senator Cornyn's amendment does not do that. We provide after 4 years 
that if the individual wants to make a petition for that particular 
job, they ought to be entitled to do so. They will still have to wait 
the 5 years in order to become a citizen. That is a total of 9 years to 
be able to become a citizen. Senator Cornyn does not want that 
particular right for that particular worker.
  One of the things we have seen over the period of years, going back 
to the Bracero issue in question where we had individuals who came into 
the United States and were extraordinarily exploited--they were 
exploited all the way through by unscrupulous employers because those 
particular workers did not have any rights in order to be able to 
protect themselves. In the 1960s, we got rid of the Bracero because it 
was such a shameful aspect in this country's employment history.
  We want to avoid the same circumstance with this new legislation. We 
have tried to learn from 1986, when we had amnesty. We also should have 
had the prosecution of employers employing individuals who should not 
have been employed, but that was never enforced.
  Now we have the earned citizenship. Now we have protections for 
workers to come in here.
  Now, we have strengthened border security. We have learned from the 
past. One of the important experiences of learning from the past is not 
to permit these workers to be exploited. One of the best ways to ensure 
that is to give them--at least after 4 years of working in the United 
States--the opportunity of getting on the path for a green card and 
eventually citizenship.
  Now, the Senator from Texas does not want that. He wants to leave all 
of the power with the employer. Well, I do not buy that. The employer 
starts out saying: Look, I need a worker. I can't get a worker. I 
really need you. You come on in here. I will really look out after you. 
But I want to tell you something: unless you are going to work those 
extra hours--and I might not pay you overtime--unless you are going to 
do this or unless you are going to do that, I will never petition for 
you. And you are not going to be able to petition for yourself.
  So I think it is an issue about whether we are going to respect 
individuals and have as much respect for employees as we have for the 
employers.
  It is interesting that under this legislation, if an employee comes 
in, and the employer likes that person, they can go ahead and make the 
petition

[[Page 8367]]

now for the green card. They have the power to do that in the first 
year, the second year, the third year, and the fourth year. So we are 
just swinging all of this power into the hands of the employers.
  If you accept the Cornyn amendment, you are effectively leaving 
people high and dry on that. I do not think that is what we are trying 
to do.
  We are trying to have fairness in the legislation. We are trying to 
have legality, strong border security. We are trying to have an 
employer-employee relationship where the employer is going to know that 
employee, has the documents and, therefore, will not go out and hire 
other employees who are here illegally and give them depressed wages, 
which will depress the wages on Americans and American workers, which 
is the current case.
  We are saying we want to stop the exploitation of both those 
individuals and what is happening to American workers. But we want to 
at least say that after 4 years, where this individual has filled an 
important slot that no American worker was prepared to fill, and they 
want to be a part of the whole American dream, play by the rules, pay 
their taxes, do what any citizen would do in the United States but the 
employer said: No, I am not going to do it, and then they have to go 
back to their country, it leaves all the power with the employer and 
denies the employee respect, which I think will invite further kinds of 
exploitation.
  We do not want to go back to the Bracero period. And this is starting 
us back down that road. I think it is the wrong way to resolve this 
particular issue. I hope the amendment will not be accepted.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I want to make sure our colleagues 
understand exactly what this amendment does. It is very short. Let me 
read from it. What it says is one can qualify for a guest worker 
program if ``the alien has been employed in H-2C status'' and 
maintained that ``for a cumulative period of not less than 4 years. . . 
.''
  Let me make clear, that was part of a negotiation that Senator McCain 
and Senator Graham and others and I entered into before we offered the 
modification because they felt it would be fairer. I agreed that was a 
reasonable request on their part. I would hope that others would feel 
the same way.
  But the second and third parts are the guts of this amendment. It 
also requires that:

       An employer attests that the employer will employ the alien 
     in the offered job position; and--

  And this is the most important part. This is the American worker 
protection--

     the Secretary of Labor determines and certifies that there 
     are not sufficient United States workers who are able, 
     willing, qualified, and available to fill the job position.

  Now, this underlying bill provides a lot of protection for guest 
workers who qualify under this program. And I agree that they should be 
protected from exploitation. That is one of the reasons this law has 
been created. But it does not create exploitation at the hands of an 
employer any more than any other employee in America is subjected to 
exploitation by their employer. In other words, this does not bind the 
guest worker to a particular employer. Indeed, they can get this 
certification from any employer who has a job they want to fill subject 
to the requirement that the Secretary of Labor provide this attestation 
that there are not sufficient U.S. workers ``able, willing, qualified, 
and available to fill the job position.''
  This amendment does not say these individuals cannot eventually get a 
green card if they otherwise qualify, having been sponsored by an 
employer, and for a job that no American has stepped forward to fill. 
So it does not tie a worker to a particular employer. It does not limit 
that. It does not say these guest workers cannot ultimately get a green 
card.
  Ultimately, this is not so much about protections for the guest 
worker as it is protections for the American worker. Indeed, one of the 
attributes of sovereignty is that the United States has to regain some 
control not only of our borders but of our broken employment system 
which, right now, employs millions of people who cannot legally work in 
the United States. We are trying to fix that. But it does not fix the 
problem to say that individuals can continue to come into the United 
States and compete with American workers.
  We ought to be all about trying to work out a system that protects 
American workers and yet allows guest workers who qualify to fill the 
gaps that American workers cannot fill. I suggest to my colleagues if 
you believe the rights of this guest worker are paramount and the 
rights of the American worker are subservient--if you really believe 
that, then you ought to vote against the amendment. But if you believe 
we ought to protect the rights of American workers first, and then, in 
the event the Secretary of Labor certifies there are not sufficient 
American workers, allow guest workers to work--if you think that is a 
better system, then you should vote for this amendment.
  In no sense does this subject any guest worker to exploitation. They 
are protected under this bill by the labor laws that protect all 
American workers. All it does is protect American workers from having 
to compete against guest workers for jobs that would be rightfully 
theirs and available except for the fact that someone has self-
petitioned and taken a job that an American would otherwise want and 
would be able to do.
  I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of our time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I have difficulty following the logic of 
my good friend from Texas because American workers are protected when 
the temporary worker is protected.
  Now, let me give you a possible factual situation: An employer has 
one of these temporary workers. They have gone out and petitioned and 
can't find an American to do this job. They can't find an American to 
do the job. Then they have the foreigner who comes in and works for 
them, and works for them for 4 years.
  Now, under our proposal, after the 4-year period, if they have paid 
their taxes, if they have not gotten into trouble with the law the rest 
of the way, they can petition for a green card. Then, if they follow 
all the procedures, pass the naturalization exam, they can become a 
citizen 5 years after that--9 years.
  Now, this is what Mr. Cornyn, the Senator from Texas says: Look, 
after the 4 years, we are going to take away the right of that person--
unless the employer is going to petition for them, unless the employer 
is going to do it.
  Now, you tell me what is going to happen in a lot of the workplaces. 
The employee says: Look, Mr. Employer, when are you going to petition 
for me? I have worked for you for 4 years. Under the old bill, they 
used to be able to say I could petition. But they passed the Cornyn 
amendment, and it says, no. I am completely dependent upon you.
  Well, the employer says: Don't ask for a raise. Take a wage cut. Take 
a wage cut for a couple of years. Don't complain about unfair working 
conditions. Don't complain about it. Don't complain about working a 
little longer, working Saturdays, maybe a few hours on Sunday. If you 
complain about it, I am not going to petition for you. You are going to 
be left high and dry.
  You tell me how that protects American workers. Once you get the 
exploitation of the temporary worker, we see what happens, as we have 
seen today: Employers are employing the undocumented and they are 
paying them a good deal less. That is an adverse impact and effect on 
American wages. If you raise those wages and give them the protections 
we have under our legislation, that is going to protect American 
workers.
  I fail to understand--when you give the whole deck of cards to the 
employer, and tell the employer he can do anything he wants with that 
employee--how that employee is protected and how an American worker is 
protected. I just do not get it. I just do not see it. It defies 
history. It defies

[[Page 8368]]

the history of the old employment. It can work very well for that 
particular employer because he has that employee right by the throat 
because if that employee complains, does not do what the employer says, 
that person is on their way back to whatever country they came from, or 
they will disappear into the community. That is not good. That is what 
we are trying to avoid--exploitation.
  I think this is what we have tried to do throughout the bill both in 
terms of the exploitation of workers, in terms of the legal system, the 
legal structure, and in terms of the border security, and the others. I 
have difficulty in following the rationale and the reasoning that if 
you give one person in the employer-employee relationship all of the 
cards, that somehow inures to the benefit of the employee. It never has 
in the history of the relationship between workers and employers, and 
it will not. And it will not if that is the outcome of the Cornyn 
amendment.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Sure. Yes.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask the distinguished Senator from 
Massachusetts whether there is a requirement that an employer sponsor a 
guest worker when they first enter the country under the H-2C program?
  Mr. KENNEDY. The answer to that is affirmative, yes.
  Mr. CORNYN. I would ask, if I may, Mr. President, if the Senator will 
yield for one more question, whether it is true that, for example, 
high-skilled workers, H-1B workers--people with math, science, 
engineering degrees, and the like--whether there is a requirement that 
there be an employer who actually sponsors those workers before they 
can receive one of those types of visas?
  Mr. KENNEDY. The answer is affirmative, yes.
  Mr. CORNYN. I thank the Senator very much.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, it is a very fundamental reason why. You 
are talking about the H-1B. You are talking about the most highly 
skilled, highly educated, and highly competent individuals in the 
world--H-1B--going on to universities, going into the high-tech areas, 
individuals for which the world is their oyster. They do not suffer the 
kind of exploitation, the kind of humiliation that other workers 
suffer. These workers are taking jobs that American workers will not 
take.
  There is a big difference between that and going to the top companies 
of America and working for the CEO, when you have all the education, 
the professional degrees. Those individuals are not the ones being 
exploited. They never have been, and they are not today. It is an 
entirely different situation.
  We are talking about the tough, difficult work that no American will 
take. We are talking about the history of these kinds of jobs. We have 
seen it. We have read about it. We have experienced it. I did, 
certainly, in the early 1960s, going across the Southwest in the 
Bracero Program. Exploitation is one of the sad aspects of American 
employment history. We do not want to go there.
  The H-2Bs in my State are doing very well at universities and 
colleges and enormously successful businesses. The idea behind the H-
2Bs was getting the very able and gifted people. As history has shown, 
that results in the hiring of additional people because of their 
abilities. They end up, as a result of these programs, adding key 
elements of success to various businesses and employment expands. 
Generally, those are good jobs with good benefits and good retirement. 
That is an entirely different situation. I am glad we were able to 
clear that up.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I appreciate the Senator from 
Massachusetts candidly responding to the questions I asked. What his 
answers established was that in order for guest workers under his 
proposal to come into the country in the first place, they have to have 
an employer, someone who has indicated that there is a job available 
for them. Under the amendment, they could work in that job for a 
cumulative period of up to 4 years. But for some reason, under the 
current bill, after 4 years, you would no longer have to have an 
employer who would certify that they had a job available for that guest 
worker to do and that no American was available to do it.
  I also appreciate the Senator's candor in answering the question 
about highly skilled workers. As his answer indicated, highly skilled 
workers cannot come into the country unless there is an employer who is 
willing to sponsor them. My point is that we ought to make our 
immigration law uniform across the employment spectrum, whether you are 
a high-skilled worker or whether you are a low-skilled worker.
  The Senator mentioned the Bracero Program and reports of exploitation 
of workers in America's past. I won't debate that with him. I have read 
of reports of problems with the Bracero Program. While the program as a 
whole was pretty good, I won't debate whether there were some problems 
associated with it. But America, in 2006, is not America in the 1950s. 
The legal protection that is available for guest workers under this 
program, the vigilance of the media and advocacy groups, will make it 
virtually impossible for the kind of exploitation the Senator talks 
about to occur. What happens is, in spite of the protections offered to 
the guest workers under our labor laws and despite the vigilance of the 
media and advocacy groups that would likely disclose any problems with 
a relationship between a guest worker and that employer, what we are 
finding out is that the one who ultimately has to pay the price for 
this concern, that I believe will not be realized and is not real, is 
the American worker who can't find a job because we have offered that 
job to a guest worker who has come into the United States.
  At bottom, we ought to be as sure as we possibly can that whatever we 
do doesn't create more problems for American workers. The answer is, 
let's give American workers every opportunity to find jobs and then, if 
we can't find a sufficient workforce, let's give guest workers an 
opportunity to fill in those gaps. That is a worthy objective. But we 
should not be blind to the potential dangers to American workers losing 
jobs to guest workers under this program, unless the protections in 
this amendment are adopted--that an employer attest that the employer 
will employ the alien in the offered job position and the Secretary of 
Labor determines and certifies that there are not sufficient U.S. 
workers who are able, willing, qualified, and available to fill the job 
position.
  I don't know whether there are others who want to speak either for or 
against the amendment. I know we agreed to an hour between us. 
Depending on whether the distinguished manager of the bill on the 
minority side would be interested in yielding time back, I think we 
have had a chance to cover the merits of this particular amendment. I 
am prepared to yield the remainder of our time back, if he is likewise 
prepared to yield the remainder of his time.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I 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. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Massachusetts is recognized.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I believe the Senator from Texas, before 
he went to a necessary meeting at the White House, indicated he was 
prepared to yield back his time if I yielded back my time. I am 
prepared to yield back my time.
  Mr. President, I withhold my request. I yield 5 minutes to the 
Senator from Nebraska, if I have it.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska is recognized for 5 
minutes.

[[Page 8369]]

  (The remarks of Mr. Hagel are printed in today's Record under 
``Morning Business.'')
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, the time has been yielded back by Senator 
Cornyn and Senator Kennedy on the Cornyn amendment. We are now ready to 
proceed with the Lieberman-Brownback amendment. If they will come to 
the floor, we can move ahead.
  In the absence of any Senator seeking recognition, Mr. President, I 
suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SPECTER. 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. SPECTER. Mr. President, we had expected the Cornyn amendment to 
take 2 hours, which was the time agreement. Time was yielded back. 
Senator Vitter has now come to the floor. We are unable to proceed with 
the amendment in regular form, but I do think it would be appropriate 
to have Senator Vitter discuss his amendment, which could abbreviate 
the time which we would need when he lays it down. So, if I may, I 
would like to yield the floor to the Senator from Louisiana for 
purposes of having him discuss his amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana is recognized.


                           Amendment No. 3964

  Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished chairman of the 
committee for creating this opportunity to begin to discuss this 
amendment.
  This is amendment No. 3964. This amendment would close some very 
serious invitations for fraud that are contained in the bill as it now 
stands.
  I said on the floor before that I have some very serious reservations 
with this bill. One of those is that it is riddled with loopholes and 
invitations for fraud. There are many of these, in my opinion. As I 
have said many times over, the devil is in the details. Senators need 
to read this bill. Senators need to look at the details and understand 
how it would work, or more accurately how it would not work in 
practice, because this is not just an esoteric debate on the Senate 
floor. This would be law which would be put into practice, and we need 
to think about the hard nuts-and-bolts issues of how this would work or 
how it would not work in practice.
  Unfortunately, I believe these loopholes, these invitations to fraud, 
and these other detail problems are numerous in the bill. My amendment, 
No. 3964, simply highlights and hopefully will correct, if adopted, a 
couple of these specific provisions. These are among the most important 
invitations for fraud and problems. In particular, there are glaring 
loopholes contained in section 601 of the bill.
  We have heard over and over how this bill does not contain amnesty. 
It is not amnesty, the proponents say. And one of the reasons they say 
that illegal aliens are put into different categories is according to 
how many years they have been in the country. They are treated 
differently according to how many years they have been in the country. 
President Bush made this point on Monday night specifically, that folks 
should be treated differently if they have been in the country for many 
years, if they have put down roots, if they have family here, et 
cetera, versus if they have just come into the country and have been 
here a clearly shorter period of time. That is a reasonable argument.
  The problem is, when you look at the details of the bill, when you 
actually read the bill, again the devil is in the details. The details 
of this bill make a mockery of that distinction. Why do I say that? It 
is because under the provisions of the bill that say how an illegal 
alien may prove how long he has been in the country, there are many 
different types of proof which are acceptable--certain documents, 
certain sworn affidavits from employers, certain records. But another 
form of acceptable proof is nothing more than a statement by that 
illegal alien himself, signed by that person, a piece of paper saying: 
I have been in the country some years, under these circumstances; here 
is my signature.
  Again, for this to be an acceptable method of proof to put an illegal 
alien in the best category that offers the best track to citizenship, a 
program I would absolutely characterize as amnesty, obviously means 
that these distinctions, depending on how long you have been in the 
country, are meaningless. In practice, all a person has to do to put 
himself in the best category, the most lucrative category that will 
lead to this amnesty, is to sign a piece of paper saying it is so. That 
is an enormous invitation to fraud. That is a huge loophole which will 
make all of the related provisions of this bill completely unworkable.
  There are other aspects of the bill that are similar. There are other 
distinctions between having been in the country 2 years, less than 2 
years versus between 2 and 5 years. Again, the devil is in the details. 
When one looks at the proof required for these various categories, 
again a simple affidavit signed by any third party is acceptable in 
that case. Again, that makes the whole system unenforceable. That makes 
all of these distinctions meaningless and, in fact, ridiculous.
  We need to close these loopholes. We need to require more significant 
proof and documentary evidence than a simple affidavit signed either by 
the illegal alien himself or any third person. That is what my 
amendment would correct. If a Senator wants to be half serious about 
making this work, if a Senator wants to put any meaning behind his or 
her words in favor of enforcement, clearly we need to fix these glaring 
deficiencies in the bill.
  In summary, my amendment would close just some of the loopholes in 
section 602 of the underlying bill. These loopholes would not only 
allow fraud but create incentives for illegal aliens to commit fraud.
  My amendment would strike the language allowing an alien to prove 
employment history by providing a self-signed sworn declaration--
nothing more than a piece of paper with the illegal alien's own 
signature.
  My amendment would require that sworn affidavits from nonrelatives 
who have direct knowledge of the alien's work be corroborated by the 
Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and include contact 
information of the affiant, the nature and duration of the 
relationship, his name and address, and the phone number of the 
affiant's relationship. In other words, these types of affidavits can 
at least be checked. At least the Secretary of the Department of 
Homeland Security and his personnel can put some rigor into the process 
to see if these statements by third persons are true.
  My amendment would make the types of other documents provided to 
prove work history the same for those illegal aliens who have been 
living in the United States for over 5 years and those who have been 
here between 2 and 5 years, bringing some more rigor, some more demand 
for objective evidence into the enforcement mechanism.
  My amendment would clarify that the alien has the burden of proving 
his or her employment history by a preponderance of the evidence.
  Again, I am very fearful that the Senate is doing on this matter what 
we do all too often. We have these debates. We get very involved in 
words and arguments. Yet we ignore where the rubber really hits the 
road--the details, the practicality of enforcement: is this system 
really going to work? Are these promises really going to be borne out 
to the American people? The devil is in the details. We need to have a 
system that is workable.
  We have lived this history before. The 1986 experience was an utter 
failure because the enforcement mechanism was completely unworkable. 
Are we going to repeat that history or are we going to have enforcement 
that is workable, that is meaningful?
  If we are going to make these distinctions, they have to be able to 
be meaningful in practice. If an illegal alien can put himself in the 
best category on that path to amnesty versus the category in which he 
truly belongs based

[[Page 8370]]

on the number of years he has truly been in the country, then all of 
these promises by the proponents of the bill are utterly meaningless 
and the enforcement mechanism will be utterly unworkable. We need to 
fix these sorts of glaring loopholes and invitations to fraud in the 
bill.
  Let me not oversell my amendment. My amendment does not fix all of 
those loopholes, it does not close down all of those outright 
invitations to fraud, but it does address two of the most important, 
two of the most serious. I invite all Senators on both sides of this 
debate to come together to pass this amendment.
  Again, I think this is one of these gut-check amendments. This is one 
of the basic threshold test amendments, like the security fence 
amendment was. If a Senator isn't willing to close this sort out of 
outrageous loophole, then that Senator, in my opinion, is not serious 
in the least about making enforcement work. This is an absolute minimum 
to begin closing these serious loopholes.
  I look forward to coming back to this amendment tomorrow when I will 
be able to present it formally on the floor and have the entire Senate 
take it up. I look forward to Senators from both sides of the aisle--in 
fact, both sides of this debate--coming together in support of my 
amendment because it is a basic gut-check amendment. It is an absolute 
minimum that needs to be done to begin to close these outrageous 
loopholes and invitations to fraud in the bill.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I oppose the Cornyn amendment because I 
believe it undermines the careful balance between American workers and 
business that is contained in the bill.
  The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act, S. 2611, allows guest 
workers under the new H-2C visa to work initially on a temporary visa 
and to apply later for a green card if their work is needed over a long 
period of time. Under the program, after 1-year the employer of the 
immigrant guest worker could petition for a green card. Alternatively, 
after 4-years the immigrant guest worker could petition on his or her 
own for permanent resident status.
  The Cornyn amendment would strike the right of immigrant guest 
workers to self-petition. This is a dangerous proposal. One of the 
reasons that guest worker programs have failed in the past is that 
prior programs did not provide labor rights to the temporary workers. 
By placing the rights of petition exclusively in the hands of 
employers, unscrupulous actors have the ability to manipulate or abuse 
workers by controlling the workers' access to legal immigration status.
  The bill before us is a compromise package that seeks to balance the 
rights of American business and labor, and that enhances our economy 
and national security by bringing illegal workers out the shadows. The 
balance depends in part on treating all workers equally, including 
giving immigrant workers the same labor rights that are available to 
U.S. citizens. If all workers possess the same rights, then employers 
cannot depress wages by preying on illegal workers, or workers whose 
status is held hostage by their employers. The business community 
understands this issue and therefore the Essential Worker Coalition, a 
broad coalition of employers and associations calling for comprehensive 
immigration reform, is opposed to the Cornyn amendment.
  Under the bill, immigrants who decide to self-petition will have to 
meet all of the other requirements for a green card. In the new guest 
worker program, these requirements include a work requirement, passing 
security and background checks, demonstrating that the immigrant is 
learning English and civics, and undergoing medical exams.
  The self-petition provision in the bill is not a backdoor or a short 
cut to citizenship. It should not be stricken by the Cornyn amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. VITTER. 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. SPECTER. 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. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask consent that the vote in relation 
to the Cornyn amendment occur at 6 o'clock this evening; provided 
further that the amendment be temporarily set aside to allow Senator 
Inhofe to offer an amendment; and finally, I ask consent that Senator 
Cornyn be recognized for up to 2 minutes on his amendment prior to the 
vote.
  Mr. CONRAD. Reserving the right to object, I am not the manager of 
this bill, but I have been called into service because the manager on 
our side is not immediately available. I apologize for that.
  Senator Kennedy's staff informs me apparently Senator Lieberman will 
not go forward with his amendment and Senator Kennedy would like to 
have an amendment on our side before we go back to the other side. 
Perhaps that can be worked out with the managers.
  At this point, I am constrained to object to setting the amendment 
aside.
  Mr. SPECTER. In light of that objection, perhaps we can start with 
some discussion by Senator Inhofe in the absence of setting aside the 
amendment and having him lay down the amendment so we do not waste more 
time.
  I ask consent the vote be set at 6 o'clock.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.
  Mr. INHOFE. If I could ask the acting majority leader a question, it 
is my understanding the Lieberman amendment that was to be the 
Democratic amendment between the two Republicans amendments is now not 
going to be offered, at least at this time; that being the case, would 
the Senator object to setting the current amendment aside for me to 
bring mine up for consideration? Is this what the Senator is objecting 
to?
  Mr. CONRAD. Yes, the Senator is correct. I apologize to the Senator. 
I'm not the manager of this bill. I am simply standing in for the 
manager of the bill on our side who is not available at this moment. 
That is what I have been asked to do on behalf of the manager.
  Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. CONRAD. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. KENNEDY. The Kennedy amendment you are talking about putting up 
now, would that be considered next after this vote takes place on the 
Cornyn amendment?
  Mr. CONRAD. That is my understanding.
  Mr. INHOFE. Is there any time that has been scheduled for his 
amendment?
  Mr. CONRAD. Not that I know of.
  I apologize to the Senator. We are in this bit of a situation where 
we have to have a manager of our bill here before those agreements can 
be made.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is currently 
recognized.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, in an effort to not lose any more time, 
we had an amendment by Senator Lieberman, which he decided not to 
offer. It is more time to discuss the rules as to whether that 
constitutes the Democratic amendment, but the suggestion has been made 
that the Democrats are be agreeable to setting aside the Cornyn 
amendment on the condition that a Democratic amendment will be 
considered before Senator Inhofe's amendment is considered further, but 
Senator Inhofe would be permitted to lay down his amendment and speak 
for a few minutes. Is that acceptable?
  Mr. CONRAD. With that understanding, that is entirely acceptable on 
this side.
  Mr. SPECTER. I ask consent for that.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I would like to ask one more question. 
After the Cornyn amendment, we will go to the Kennedy amendment. I am 
locked in after that; is that our understanding?

[[Page 8371]]


  Mr. CONRAD. It is the understanding of this Senator.
  Mr. INHOFE. And this Senator.
  It is our understanding, then, after we dispose of the Kennedy 
amendment, then we come to my amendment; is that correct?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Amendment No. 4064

  Mr. INHOFE. I ask unanimous consent to set aside the current 
amendment and bring up amendment No. 4064.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Oklahoma [Mr. Inhofe], for himself, Mr. 
     Byrd, Mr. Sessions, Mr. Enzi, Mr. Chambliss, Mr. Coburn, Mr. 
     Burns, and Mr. Bunning, proposes an amendment numbered 4064.

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further 
reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

 (Purpose: To amend title 4 United States Code, to declare English as 
the national language of the United States and to promote the patriotic 
                integration of prospective US citizens)

       On page 295, line 22, strike ``the alien--'' and all that 
     follows through page 296, line 5, and insert ``the alien 
     meets the requirements of section 312.''.
       On page 352, line 3, strike ``either--'' and all that 
     follows through line 15, and insert ``meets the requirements 
     of section 312(a) (relating to English proficiency and 
     understanding of United States history and Government).''.
       On page 614, after line 5, insert the following:

     SEC. 766. ENGLISH AS NATIONAL LANGUAGE

       (a) In General.--Title 4, United States Code, is ``amended 
     by adding at the end the following:
                ``CHAPTER 6--LANGUAGE OF THE GOVERNMENT
``161.  Declaration of national language
``162.  Preserving and enhancing the role of the national language

     ``Sec. 161. Declaration of official language

       ``English is the national language of the United States.

     Sec. 162. Preserving and enhancing the role of the national 
       language

       ``The Government of the United States shall preserve and 
     enhance the role of English as the national language of the 
     United States of America. Unless specifically stated in 
     applicable law, no person has a right, entitlement, or claim 
     to have the Government of the United States or any of its 
     officials or representatives act, communicate, perform or 
     provide services, or provide materials in any language other 
     than English. If exceptions are made, that does not create a 
     legal entitlement to additional services in that language or 
     any language other than English. If any forms are issued by 
     the Federal Government in a language other than English (or 
     such forms are completed in a language other than English), 
     the English language version of the form is the sole 
     authority for all legal purposes.''.
       (b) Conforming Amendment.--The table of chapters for title 
     4, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end of the 
     following:

  ``6. Language of the Government............................161''.....

     SEC. 767. REQUIREMENTS FOR NATURALIZATION.

       (a) Findings.--The Senate makes the following findings:
       a. Under United States law (8 U.S.C. 1423 (a)), lawful 
     permanent residents of the United States who have immigrated 
     from foreign countries must, among other requirements, 
     demonstrate an understanding of the English language, United 
     States history and Government, to become citizens of the 
     United States.
       b. The Department of Homeland Security is currently 
     conducting a review of the testing process used to ensure 
     prospective United States citizens demonstrate said knowledge 
     of the English language and United States history and 
     government for the purpose of redesigning said test.
       (b) Definitions.--For purposes of this section only, the 
     following words are defined:
       (1) Key documents.--The term ``key documents'' means the 
     documents that established or explained the foundational 
     principles of democracy in the United States, including the 
     United States Constitution and the amendments to the 
     Constitution (particularly the Bill of Rights), the 
     Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers, and the 
     Emancipation Proclamation.
       (2) Key events.--The term ``key events'' means the critical 
     turning points in the history of the United States (including 
     the American Revolution, the Civil War, the world wars of the 
     twentieth century, the civil rights movement, and the major 
     court decisions and legislation) that contributed to 
     extending the promise of democracy in American life.
       (3) Key ideas.--The term ``key ideas'' means the ideas that 
     shaped the democratic institutions and heritage of the United 
     States, including the notion of equal justice under the law, 
     freedom, individualism, human rights, and a belief in 
     progress.
       (4) Key persons.--The term ``key persons'' means the men 
     and women who led the United States as founding fathers, 
     elected officials, scientists, inventors, pioneers, advocates 
     of equal rights, entrepreneurs, and artists.
       (c) Goals for Citizenship Test Redesign.--The Department of 
     Homeland Security shall establish as goals of the testing 
     process designed to comply with provisions of [8 U.S.C. 
     1423(a)] that prospective citizens:
       a. Demonstrate a sufficient understanding of the English 
     language for usage in everyday life;
       b. Demonstrate an understanding of American common values 
     and traditions, including the principles of the Constitution 
     of the United States, the Pledge of Allegiance, respect for 
     the flag of the United States, the National Anthem, and 
     voting in public elections;
       c. Demonstrate an understanding of the history of the 
     United States, including the key events, key persons, key 
     ideas, and key documents that shaped the institutions and 
     democratic heritage of the United States;
       d. Demonstrate an attachment to the principles of the 
     Constitution of the United States and the well-being and 
     happiness of the people of the United States; and
       e. Demonstrate an understanding of the rights and 
     responsibilities of citizenship in the United States.
       (d) Implementation.--The Secretary of Homeland Security 
     shall implement changes to the testing process designed to 
     ensure compliance with [8 U.S.C. 1423(a)] not later than 
     January 1, 2008.

  Mr. INHOFE. I know we will have a vote at 6 o'clock, so I will 
paraphrase a few things so everyone will know in advance what we are 
doing.
  This is English as the national language amendment. We talked about 
it at length last night. It has been very popular and enjoyed the 
support of most of the Members in the Senate today.
  We heard the other night when the President made his speech, among 
other things:

       . . . an ability to speak and write the English language is 
     very significant . . . English allows newcomers to go from 
     picking crops to opening a grocery . . . from cleaning 
     offices to running offices . . . from a life of low-paying 
     jobs to a diploma, a career, and a home of their own.

  He also said:

       Every new citizen of the United States has an obligation to 
     our customs and values, including liberty and civic 
     responsibility, equality under God and tolerance for others 
     and the English language.

  I recall President Clinton standing on the floor and making the 
statement about the responsibility of new people coming into this 
country. He said:

       . . . they have the responsibility to enter the mainstream 
     of American life. That means learning English and learning 
     about our democratic system of government.

  Many others have been quoted, going all the way back to Teddy 
Roosevelt, that we must also learn one language. That language is 
English.
  This has been aired quite a number of times. In 1997, Senator Shelby 
offered the amendment and never got a vote on the amendment, but he did 
have a number of Democrats and Republicans as cosponsors of the 
amendment. We currently have Senators Byrd, Bunning, Burns, Chambliss, 
Coburn, Enzi, and Sessions as cosponsors of this amendment, and we have 
not made an effort to get more cosponsors which we will do prior to 
bringing it up after the Kennedy amendment.
  The time has come to go ahead and do it and quit talking about it. 
This time is now.
  There has been a lot of polling data that shows that the vast 
majority of Americans, the most recent one being the Zogby poll only a 
couple of months ago, 84 percent of Americans want this as the 
language. Interestingly enough, when they segregate out the Latinos who 
responded to the polling, over 70 percent in many polls--which I will 
go over when there is more time--support this as our national language.
  Mr. CONRAD. Will the Senator yield for a question, briefly?
  Mr. INHOFE. Of course.
  Mr. CONRAD. Could the Senator share with this Senator and colleagues, 
what is the upshot of the Senator's

[[Page 8372]]

amendment? What is the force and effect that would be provided in law 
if the Senator's amendment were agreed to?
  Mr. INHOFE. We would be joining 51 other countries that have English 
as their language; 27 States have used this language in the State 
legislature to make this their language.
  Mr. CONRAD. Would it be that English would be the official language 
of the country?
  Mr. INHOFE. The national language, yes.
  Mr. CONRAD. Are there legal requirements as to how that would apply?
  Mr. INHOFE. There are, yes. There are some.
  First of all, there are some exceptions. Our language says ``except 
where otherwise provided in law.'' There are some exceptions. For 
example, before the Court Interpreters Act, passed in 1978, defendants 
did not have the right to an interpreter. It was up to the court's own 
discretion. In 1978, they said that they did. This has not changed 
that. This leaves that in place. We also have the bilingual ballots 
requirement, Voting Rights Act. That is not changed by this. Maybe it 
should be changed, but that should take special legislation that 
addresses the Voting Rights Act.
  The national disaster emergency evacuation provides if you had 
something in California, for example, where there was a tsunami, you 
could use the Chinese language in Chinatown, in places where it is 
appropriate. It leaves those common sense things in place.
  Mr. CONRAD. Could I say to the Senator, speaking for myself, I am 
very interested in his legislation. If he could provide a copy of that 
legislation and an interpretation to my office, I might well be a 
cosponsor of the Senator's legislation.
  My family came here as immigrants from Scandinavia. The first thing 
they wanted to do was to learn English. My wife's family came here as 
immigrants from Italy. The first thing they wanted to do was learn 
English. I don't think we do people any favors by not having a 
requirement in place.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the time of 6 
o'clock has arrived, and the Cornyn amendment is the matter before the 
Senate. It will be brought to a vote.
  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, again, I thank the Senator.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I thank the Senator. I also would like to 
say, our family came from Germany, and that is the first thing they 
did, too.


                    Amendment No. 3965, as Modified

  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 1 
minute on the amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Arizona is recognized for 1 minute.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I wish to tell my colleagues that we had 
some good-faith negotiations with Senator Cornyn. I am sorry I was 
unable to talk to him before this vote. I know he had a previous 
engagement down at the White House. But the Kennedy amendment will 
probably be a side-by-side since there are still areas of the Cornyn 
amendment we have difficulty agreeing to.
  So I wish I could have talked with Senator Cornyn since I think our 
differences are minimal, but we still have not resolved them.
  Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the question is on 
agreeing to the Cornyn amendment.
  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Wisconsin (Mr. Kohl) and 
the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Rockefeller) are necessarily 
absent.
  The result was announced--yeas 50, nays 48, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 128 Leg.]

                                YEAS--50

     Alexander
     Allard
     Allen
     Bennett
     Bond
     Bunning
     Burns
     Burr
     Byrd
     Chambliss
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Coleman
     Collins
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     DeMint
     Dole
     Domenici
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Frist
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagel
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Kyl
     Lott
     Martinez
     McConnell
     Murkowski
     Nelson (NE)
     Roberts
     Santorum
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Smith
     Snowe
     Stabenow
     Stevens
     Sununu
     Talent
     Thomas
     Thune
     Vitter
     Voinovich
     Warner

                                NAYS--48

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Brownback
     Cantwell
     Carper
     Chafee
     Clinton
     Conrad
     Craig
     Dayton
     DeWine
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Graham
     Harkin
     Inouye
     Jeffords
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kerry
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Lugar
     McCain
     Menendez
     Mikulski
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Obama
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Salazar
     Sarbanes
     Schumer
     Specter
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Kohl
     Rockefeller
       
  The amendment (No. 3965), as modified, was agreed to.
  Mr. CORNYN. I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, the Senate is coming in at 9 o'clock 
tomorrow, as I understand it. As soon as we go on the bill tomorrow, 
the first amendment will be offered by Senator Kennedy. Then the second 
amendment will be offered by Senator Inhofe. The third will be offered 
by Senator Akaka. The fourth will be offered by Senator Ensign. The 
fifth will be offered by Senator Nelson. The sixth will be offered by 
Senator Vitter. The seventh will be offered by Senator Durbin. The 
eighth will be offered by Senator Kyl. And then our next amendment, 
after a Democratic amendment, will be by Senator Chambliss.
  What we would like to do is have the Senators present promptly, and 
we would appreciate it if we get people down here about a half hour 
before their amendment comes up. We had some dead time today because we 
had nobody on deck. But we want to give people notice so we can proceed 
expeditiously. We have a great many amendments, and we want to move on 
them.
  I ask unanimous consent that the time agreement on Senator Kennedy's 
amendment be 10 minutes equally divided.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SPECTER. So we will have an early vote tomorrow morning to get us 
started.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I 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. CHAMBLISS. 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. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be 
allowed to speak for up to 10 minutes as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________