[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Pages 8939-8958]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




        COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM ACT OF 2006--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Chambliss.) The Senator from New Mexico is 
recognized.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I want to speak briefly this afternoon 
about two amendments that I intend to offer, and I hope can be 
favorably considered by the Senate before this bill is completed. The 
first will just take a moment. It relates to forestry workers.
  This is amendment No. 4055. It would make H-2B guest workers who are 
invited here to work in our forestry sector eligible for limited legal 
aid. I believe this amendment should be noncontroversial. Under current 
law, agricultural guest workers are eligible for legal aid with respect 
to employment rights provided for in their H-2A contract. This 
amendment would provide H-2B forestry workers with the same eligibility 
for legal aid. We have had hearings in our Energy Committee on the 
issue. We had a recent hearing where we heard that making H-2B forestry 
workers eligible for legal aid is the single most effective thing 
Congress could do to address the problem of exploitation of forestry 
workers.
  These guest workers have been asked to come to the United States 
because of a labor shortage that was certified by our Government. They 
are here legally. They pay U.S. taxes. Currently, the law prohibits 
legal-services-funded organizations from providing them with any legal 
aid to enforce their rights under their guest worker contract. The 
amendment would correct this issue, and I hope that this amendment can 
be adopted when it is appropriate to take action on it.
  Mr. President, I also want to talk about another amendment which goes 
to the issue of the number of employment-based immigrant visas admitted 
each year--the number of employment-based immigrants that we admit each 
year under the current version of this immigration bill as it stands in 
the Senate today. Let me first describe the big picture as I see it, as 
far as people becoming legal permanent residents under our laws.
  First, let me preface this entire discussion by saying that none of 
what I am talking about relates to the people who are here on an 
undocumented basis today. There are other provisions of the law that 
apply to them and that give them rights under this proposed legislation 
to adjust their status and become legal permanent residents at some 
stage down the road. So that is separate. I am not in any way talking 
about that. I know that has been a subject of great controversy in the 
Senate and in the Congress in general, but that is not the purpose of 
my proposed amendment.
  When you talk about people who are not here illegally today, there 
are basically two major ways that a person can become a legal permanent 
resident under our immigration laws. The two ways are through the 
family-based visa program or through the employment-based visa program. 
This chart shows the numbers that have been admitted into the country 
up until the end of 2004 through the family-based and employment-based 
programs combined, under both of those. You can see that those two 
together--it comes out to somewhere around 800,000. That is a total 
annual figure I am talking about for people coming and getting legal 
permanent residency through both of those major avenues.
  Now, this legislation we are talking about would, according to the 
Congressional Research Service, substantially

[[Page 8940]]

increase those numbers. You can see that their projection--and this is 
an estimate because, in fact, we are eliminating some caps that have 
been in the law previously, and I will discuss that in a minute. But 
these estimates from the Congressional Research Service are that we 
will get closer to 2 million legal permanent residents that we are 
accepting each year under this legislation. So that is the overall 
picture.
  The amendment I am talking about does not try to deal with this 
entire picture. It just looks at the employment-based legal permanent 
resident visas.
  Let me go to a different chart in order to describe the concern I 
have. Current law says there is a cap of 140,000 persons, or 140,000 
visas, that can be issued under the employment-based LPR categories of 
our laws. That has been the case now for some time--140,000 per year. 
This includes family. These are people who come here and seek legal 
permanent status in order to take work. But it also includes their 
families. Each member of the family, of course, uses a visa as well. So 
the total number of employees under this system, and family, spouse, 
and children, does not exceed 140,000. That is what the law currently 
provides.
  Now, when Senators McCain and Kennedy--this is my understanding of 
the history, and I am sorry that neither Senators McCain or Kennedy are 
here so they could correct me in case I misstated anything, but my 
understanding is that they concluded that we needed to reform the law, 
and part of the reform that we should adopt was to clear out the 
backlog and make more room for additional immigration under this 
employment-based LPR system. I agree with that. Clearly, that is one of 
the purposes of this legislation and one of the effects of this 
legislation.
  They set out to do this in several different ways. Let me mention the 
three main ways that they set out to do it. First of all, they said 
let's clear out the backlog. By that, it is meant in the legislation 
that any visa that was available to be issued in the last 5 years that 
was not issued because the immigration service could not get the 
processing done--that any of those visas would be once again made 
available. And the estimate we have from the Congressional Research 
Service is that there are about 140,000 of those.
  So we are going back for the last 5 years and saying: OK, are there 
visas that should have been or could have been issued? Let's bring 
those forward and issue them and make them available again. Clearly, I 
support doing that.
  They also said: OK, in order to help clear out the backlog, we need 
to encourage some groups to come here and exempt them from any of this 
cap. This idea that we only allow 140,000 people to come should not 
apply to people we are particularly interested in bringing to this 
country, for whatever reason. One idea is to allow students who come 
here to be exempted from the cap so they can remain here and become 
legal permanent residents--scientists, technicians, engineers, people 
with careers in mathematics. We need those people to create a strong 
economy. Let's allow them to come.
  They said also let's eliminate some of these schedule A groups; that 
is, people who have specialty occupations we need to bring here. So 
let's take them out from under the cap. Again, I have no problem with 
that approach.
  The one other thing they said, which is a major change in the law--
this was the bill they introduced last May, the McCain-Kennedy 
legislation--is that we should raise the cap, that we have outgrown 
that. Let's raise it to 290,000, so the total number of people who are 
being allowed to come each year--employees and their spouses and 
children--will be 290,000, in addition to the ones permitted to come 
because of our bringing these visas forward from previous years and in 
addition to the people who come not subject to any cap at all.
  That is how the McCain-Kennedy legislation was introduced. Frankly, 
my own reaction was that it sounded like a fairly reasonable approach. 
Then the Judiciary Committee decided to proceed with legislation, and 
the Judiciary Committee began to mark up the chairman's bill--Senator 
Specter's bill--and as I understand what occurred there, and in reading 
the record of those hearings, the Specter bill agreed with the effort 
to clear out the backlog that I have described, agreed with the effort 
to exempt certain groups from the 290,000-person cap. It agreed to keep 
the number 290,000, but they changed the definition of what the 290,000 
applied to.
  Under McCain-Kennedy, it had been a cap on the number of workers, 
along with their accompanying family members. Under the Specter 
legislation, it was defined as a cap on the workers themselves, and 
there was to be no cap on the spouses and family members.
  If you look at this chart, you can see the progression. Current law 
is the first column. The second column is S. 1033, which takes it up to 
290,000. Then the third column is the one that is the chairman's mark 
that was marked up and reported by the Judiciary Committee, and that is 
the one that keeps the 290,000 but says: OK, on top of that we are 
going to allow spouses and family members.
  On this chart, you see an estimated 638,000. The reason I put that in 
is because the Congressional Research Service was asked how many 
spouses and family members they expect to come along with these people? 
They said, looking back at past history, they estimate perhaps at least 
1.2 people per employee. So you would be talking about 638,000, 
roughly, under that legislation. But that is an estimate. This is the 
first time we have not had a cap. We have an estimate instead of a cap. 
So the obvious question we have to deal with is whether that is the 
right level.
  As we all know, the legislation that came through the Judiciary 
Committee was changed once it got to the floor, and we then began to 
work on what is called the Hagel-Martinez legislation. That is the 
legislation pending today. That is the legislation about which we are 
having a great deal of discussion.
  Let me recount what the Hagel-Martinez legislation does. That is the 
fourth of these columns. The Hagel-Martinez legislation says that we 
agree with the proposal to clear out the backlog, just as McCain-
Kennedy did. They are saying they agree with the proposal to exempt 
certain categories from the cap. That was also in the McCain-Kennedy 
proposal. And they agree with the Specter proposal that the definition 
of who should be covered should not include spouses and family members. 
But they also believed the 290,000 was too low a figure, and they 
raised it to 450,000. What we have now is 450,000 workers permitted to 
come and no limit on the number of spouses and family members who can 
accompany them. That is the legislation pending before us. That 
continues under the bill, as it is before us, for a 10-year period, 
through 2016. After 2016, for the period from then on, it drops back to 
290,000, plus their spouses and family members, rather than the 
450,000.
  Why did Hagel-Martinez insist upon going to this 450,000 instead of 
290,000? That is the obvious question. They did it for a very logical 
reason. They did it because they were providing that a certain group of 
those who are currently in the country--that is, people who have been 
here at least 2 years and fewer than 5 years--that group of individuals 
would have to go through this same system, so they had to increase the 
amount of that cap as they saw it.
  What I am suggesting we ought to do first and what my amendment will 
propose, once I have the opportunity to offer my amendment, is we 
should put a cap on the total number of people we are allowing into the 
country under this employment-based legal permanent residency visa 
program.
  We have always had a cap on the number of immigrants coming into this 
country on an employment-based system. We have done that now for well 
over half a century. I think we have done it for over a century. I 
think it would be a fairly radical change for us to say we are giving 
up on having any cap on this group and instead we are going to an open-
ended system, and we will work on estimates.

[[Page 8941]]

  Part of the debate we have had in the Senate, frankly, is the result 
of the fact that we don't have a hard cap for how many people will 
actually be admitted each year. I believe that is not good public 
policy. It is not fair to the Immigration Service, which has to plan 
for the number of employees they will need and the number of 
applications they will receive each year. We are much better off having 
a cap.
  I also believe we should make it clear that whatever cap we have on 
this group excludes those aliens who are adjusting their status because 
they have been here from 2 to 5 years. If they are in that category, 
they should not be counted in the numbers we calculate.
  My amendment would try to exclude that group and would basically 
otherwise take the numbers that are estimated by the Congressional 
Research Service and say: OK, let's go ahead and put a cap, and let's 
make it a 650,000-person cap each year. That is slightly more than the 
Congressional Research Service estimated would be required or would be 
expected to apply. It is a substantial increase over current law, more 
than four times, nearly five times the current level. It is 
substantially more than twice what Senators McCain and Kennedy proposed 
in their legislation.
  I think, frankly, it would be a major liberalization of our laws. I 
know there are those who will argue that we shouldn't have any cap at 
all, but I think that is not a wise course. This legislation will be 
improved if we can assure our constituents that we have a cap on the 
number of people who are coming in under this employment-based system. 
That is what the amendment will do.
  I hope to be able to explain it further when we get closer to 
actually offering the amendment. I am told we cannot offer an amendment 
today. This would be a very useful change and improvement in the 
pending legislation.
  I hope my colleagues will take the time to look at this issue and 
will educate themselves on what the effect of the current proposed 
legislation would be and the reasons we should put some cap on that 
number. I believe it would be a wise course to follow.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I compliment the Senator from New Mexico. 
He has approached this very contentious and very complicated issue in a 
very thoughtful way, looking at realities and numbers. I appreciate his 
observations today. His proposal, and an amendment he offered that was 
adopted last week, changes the numbers. I am not going to stand here on 
the floor as an advocate of the legislation and suggest we have gotten 
it right, but we spent a great deal of time attempting to get it right, 
recognizing the importance of the migrant labor force inside the 
American economy and, at the same time, recognizing the wishes of the 
American people to make it a transparent legal process with secured 
borders. That is what they are asking of us. I hope, as we finalize 
this legislation this week, that is the outcome of it before we send 
the bill to the President for his signature.
  I have come to the Chamber this afternoon to talk once again about an 
issue that is before us. The Presiding Officer is the author of the 
amendment. Again, it is one that, in part, is a bit technical. I 
suggest this afternoon in my opposition to the amendment that it is 
predicated on what I hope are appropriately the unforeseen consequences 
of this amendment and the impact it would have on American agricultural 
employment.
  Last Thursday night, Senator Chambliss opened the debate on his 
amendment, and I talked about its impact on the users of the H-2A 
agricultural guest worker program. To get right to the bottom line, my 
argument is that the Senate should keep the provision that is in the 
bill now and deny Senator Chambliss the success of his amendment. Why? 
A deal doesn't necessarily have to be a deal, but at the same time, 
over the course of the last 4 years, in negotiating with agricultural 
employees and agricultural employers, we attempted to bring some 
rationale to a method of compensation under the H-2A program that 
simply in most opinions was out of touch with reality. It was 
escalating on an automatic basis every year, and it simply was not 
fitting the need, especially when more and more in agriculture were 
illegal and were not under that program.
  Now a small minority actually, some 40,000-plus a year, are under the 
H-2A program and identified with the wage set by that program. It is 
possible--and we are not sure--but a million-plus are not and are 
simply out there in the marketplace bidding for a salary that, in most 
instances, is below the H-2A adverse wage that is proposed.
  So what did we do? Recognizing that disparity, we reached back, with 
the agreement of all of the parties involved, and said that one of the 
pieces of getting this puzzle right was to freeze that wage in 2003 at 
the 2002 level, and that is what is in the bill. So that pushes that 
wage scale back substantially for a period of 3 years while we look at 
what Senator Chambliss has attempted to do in his legislation in 
developing a prevailing wage for American agricultural employers and 
employees that fit into this guest worker category.
  I don't know that we, with all of the different categories of wages, 
can automatically put it all under one at this time. Of course, that is 
what the Senator attempts to do. The agriculture section of S. 2611, as 
I said, immediately drops that wage down, and then over a period of 3 
years, we look at it and adjust as the program is adjusting because we 
are not going to have everybody inside the program once it becomes law 
for a period of several years as the program adjusts and as we work our 
way through and people begin to qualify under the blue card system that 
we proposed to become legal workers and have permanent visas for the 
purpose of moving back and forth across the border as guest workers to 
work in American agriculture.
  What I have attempted to do and what I am attempting to understand is 
what in the bill is now the best deal for American agriculture. That is 
one reason I believe a vote on the Chambliss amendment is not a good 
deal for American agriculture at this moment. But that is not the only 
reason. Let me talk about the rest of agriculture, the million-plus who 
will now be affected by the Chambliss amendment if it is to become law, 
because I see that as the rest of the story, and the rest of the story 
deals with the blue card and the blue card transitional program, the 
earned status which is a part of the whole of this program. It isn't 
just a matter of putting in a wage; it is a matter of how that wage 
ultimately affects the transition into a blue card status.
  We have done a pictorial chart tonight that I think better explains 
what we are talking about.
  We believe the blue card built within the agricultural jobs is that 
transitional tool which allows American agriculture to cross the chasm, 
if you will, and allow a reformed H-2A program, a guest worker program, 
to come into being. It won't happen overnight, but it will happen under 
the law, and it will happen with a wage scale that is pushed back as we 
make sure we get it right. That is under the reform program.
  The second part of the agricultural jobs is a one-time-only program, 
right here, a blue card. It will last for a specific period of time 
while we are transitioning the illegals here today into a legal status 
so they can continue to work and move back and forth across the border 
in a guest worker program.
  The blue card program is a critical piece of the agricultural job 
solution. It is an essential transition program. Let me repeat, 
agriculture needs this blue card if we don't want to throw it 
immediately into havoc because agriculture, whether we like it or not, 
based on an H-2A law that didn't work at all well and a very 
transparent border, has grown increasingly dependent on an illegal 
workforce. There are no wage requirements for blue card workers in the 
bill. It is only the 40,000-plus H-2A we shove back. They are paid 
whatever the farmer is paying, whatever the current wage is in the 
area,

[[Page 8942]]

and other workers are gaining. And those wages would differ from place 
to place and job to job, farm to farm.
  What the Chambliss amendment does, however, is it says that blue card 
workers must be paid a prevailing wage. It pushes the base up 
substantially. The Chambliss amendment doesn't just deal with the wages 
of the H-2A program, the 40-plus, it applies the same fix to every 
farmer who employs a blue card transitional worker.
  Now, why is that significant? Here is why: By definition, the 
prevailing wage is neither the lowest nor the highest wage; it is just 
about in the middle or between the two. It is the 51st percentile in 
wages. So even if a farmer is paying a lower wage for a particular job, 
if he hires a blue card worker, if the Chambliss amendment becomes law, 
he is going to have to pay the blue card worker a higher wage than he 
is currently paying today. And if the Chambliss amendment is adopted, 
the lower 50th percentile of wages, that is the figure that becomes the 
calculating base for the next year. While you freeze for 3 years and 
let the wage scale work as it is, the Chambliss amendment begins to 
ratchet the wages up, setting them at a 51st percentile level. I don't 
think American agriculture has that one figured out yet.
  What could ultimately happen is that we lose the value of the 
transition of the blue card, especially when it comes to vegetable 
crops and crops that can move very quickly out of this country that 
aren't mechanized and are labor intensive. Already, we are beginning to 
lose those farmers because the worker isn't there. If all of a sudden 
that wage scale shoots up under the Chambliss bill, as I propose it 
will, to a prevailing status, my guess is not only will you not have 
the worker but you will not have the producer out there in the field 
simply because they will not be able to afford to pay that wage in a 
competitive way. More and more of our production, tragically enough, I 
believe will go south of the border in some of these areas. Much of 
that production today happens outside the United States.
  So I think when we are talking about what sounds like a good idea, we 
better put it in the context of what the bill is really about; that is, 
the transitional time of 2 to 3 years of blue card workers who are in 
the market today working at a variety of wages, depending upon the 
particular job, the particular type of agriculture, and all of a sudden 
establishing a whole new wage base substantially above where they are 
being paid but, as the Senator from Georgia would argue, below H-2A. 
But remember, once again, only about 45,000 workers are in H-2A, and 
there are well over a million who are all of a sudden going to be 
affected by the blue card status and by the Chambliss amendment. So it 
is tremendously important that we bring this into context.
  Now, that is not going to be just a couple of workers, as I said. 
That is nearly 70 percent of the current agricultural workforce we 
believe to be undocumented. Not all of those workers are going to 
qualify for the blue card program, but a lot of them will. Our blue 
card program envisions that it could go as high as, over a 3-year 
period, 1.5 million, and if I am not mistaken, those higher wages won't 
be limited to the blue card worker.
  But what the Senator from Georgia is doing is setting a new, higher 
floor for all agricultural employment. Somehow, you are talking about 
inflating the wages of a large percentage of the American agricultural 
workforce. I am not against higher salaries. I am for a fair salary. 
What I am concerned about in particular is labor-intense areas, and 
those crops will simply cease to exist and they will go south of the 
border, to Chile or somewhere else. In areas of agriculture that are 
highly mechanized, there will be limited to no effect. And it is that 
which I believe we have to put into context.
  So what is the result? The result is that employers, in my opinion, 
won't be able to afford blue card workers. Is that the intent of the 
Senator from Georgia? I don't think so, but I believe it is the 
unintended consequence we are talking about and something I think my 
colleagues need to understand.
  Part of that was the discussion over the last 4 years. This is 
something which didn't just come up yesterday. There were 4 years of 
negotiation between the employer and the employees as to how to get an 
H-2A wage right. We had the adverse wage for a lot of reasons, such as 
because of where agriculture was located and because housing wasn't 
available. There were a lot of things that were brought into that 
discussion. We know our country has changed since the creation of the 
first H-2A law. And while there are still other benefits tied to the 
wage, that is why we could effectively negotiate rolling that wage back 
and allowing American agriculture and the employers in American 
agriculture to effectively look at what we were doing and strike the 
kind of balanced margin that is necessary.
  What happens? What happens if the blue card is removed? I am going to 
argue tonight that the Chambliss amendment has the effect of removing 
the blue card substantially because it inflates that lower wage base 
significantly. What happens if it is removed? The bridge that is the 
chasm we cross as we transition with American agriculture into a 
legal--a legal--guest worker program goes away. That is what I am 
worried about, dramatically worried about, and that is why I am urging 
my colleagues to vote against the Chambliss amendment because I think 
if that goes away, there is no transition. Within a very short time, 
even under tight labor conditions today, because our borders are 
getting tighter and because of shifts in the workforce, this drives 
that workforce even further out of the ability to be hired by much of 
American agriculture. I think it is tremendously important that we look 
at all of that and understand it.
  Here is something else that is ironic. The Chambliss amendment 
creates a federally mandated wage base for American agriculture. Some 
will argue that we have done it in a couple of other areas, but most of 
us will say the market ought to work. It was only in the unique status 
of H-2A that we had a different kind of wage base. I will argue today, 
and I think appropriately so, that we are setting an entirely new 
standard for 70 percent of the American workforce. Instead of allowing 
us to make sure that it fits right in the program, looks at the 
diversity, looks at the kind of representation that is reflected all 
over the United States when it relates to where you are working, how 
you are working, the type of work you are doing--is it piecework, are 
you doing it by the amount produced instead of by the hour of work--all 
of that kind of thing works today, and I am not so sure it is not 
effectively distorted by the proposal which is being offered by the 
Senator from Georgia.
  That is why I hope my colleagues would stay with us and stay with 
what is in the bill and in the provision that we call AgJOBS, that 
rolls back--on 40,000-plus workers qualified under the H-2A program, 
rolls their wage back to the 2002 level, freezes it for 3 years, while 
the Department of Labor, working with American agriculture, can get 
this right because I am convinced that the unintended consequences of 
now mandating a Federal floor, if you will, to American agriculture is 
not where we want to go.
  If we want American agriculture to transition across this chasm, to 
get its workforce legalized, as it wants and as the Senator from 
Georgia and I want, then we have to make sure the transition which 
allows that to happen effectively uses this tool, the blue card, which 
will allow that kind of transition to go forward in a way that causes 
us to adjust.
  We can't take the blue card off the table. I will argue that in the 
end, if the Chambliss amendment passes, we have taken that worker out 
of the workforce. That is not going to be good for American 
agriculture. That is not going to be good for the crops that are 
rotting in the fields today if, by that action, we now have a Federally 
mandated prevailing wage which brings that wage rate up across the 
board in a way that disallows American agriculture from being 
competitive.
  I believe those are the critical points involved in the difference 
between

[[Page 8943]]

where we are and where we know we need to get. We need to get there in 
a way that allows the worker to be treated fairly, the producer to be 
treated fairly, and most importantly that we have an available, legal 
workforce to meet the needs of American production agriculture. That 
workforce is at risk today, and with the passage of the Chambliss 
amendment, significantly changing the base rate, it will be at even 
greater risk as production agriculture looks where it needs to farm to 
be competitive in a world market. It may not be on the soil of this 
great country, and that would be the wrong thing for us, the wrong 
thing for our country, and certainly for our consumers. So I hope my 
colleagues will look at that and consider it as we deal with this 
issue.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Martinez). The Senator from Georgia is 
recognized.
  Mr. HARKIN. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. President.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. I am happy to yield to the Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, my inquiry is, is the Senate under a 
unanimous consent agreement that it would go from one side to the other 
in this debate or is it just jump ball? It is just whoever gets 
recognized by the Chair to speak?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
  Mr. HARKIN. I thank the Presiding Officer.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I appreciate very much the arguments 
made by the Senator from Idaho, but there are a couple of very obvious 
faults in the argument relative to the wages farmers should pay to the 
folks who work for them.
  First of all, the adverse effect wage rate, which is in the current 
law and is in the current bill, and is supported by Senator Craig, is 
the only provision in the labor laws of this land that uses the adverse 
effect wage rate, and we both recognize that this is a flawed system. 
By his own admission, the Senator from Idaho recognized it, and I 
recognize it. It is a flawed system because it was never intended to be 
used by the Department of Labor as a means by which wages would be set. 
So my response to that is, let's take what all other labor laws utilize 
in determining wages, and that is a prevailing wage.
  You come up with a method whereby the skills that are attached to the 
individual laborer, the location where that laborer is going to work, 
and the type of job for which that person is to be hired determine how 
much that person is going to be paid. What happens now is there is 
simply a rollback in the current bill of the adverse effect wage rate 
to the year 2002. That is 4 years ago. And by rolling it back 4 years, 
there is an admission that there is a significant problem there.
  I don't want to misquote my friend from Idaho, but the other night, 
Thursday night, when we were arguing about this on the floor--I might 
add, in a way that moves both of us to the same conclusion, which is to 
make sure we provide that quality workforce--the Senator from Idaho 
said that at the end of the day, what he wants to get is a prevailing 
wage. I am going to talk about that again in a minute. But if we want 
to get to a prevailing wage, let's get to it now.
  Mr. CRAIG. Would the Senator yield?
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I don't think he and I disagree. My concern 
is you are affecting 1.5 million workers by your immediate action, and 
I am affecting 40,000-plus in rolling them back. And we are giving a 
period of transition of 3 years to get right what you have proposed. My 
concern is that in getting right what you proposed, you have an 
immediate effect on the next phase of agricultural jobs, and that is 
the transitional period of time in qualifying the blue card worker to 
become a permanent worker or a permanent legal worker, and that 
immediately inflates the wage base. And then immediately upon inflating 
it once, you inflate it again the next year and the next year because 
you have lifted the base, ratcheted it up by each year's calculation. I 
think that is a very legitimate concern. So I ask you, is that not the 
impact of what you do? I am affecting 40,000-plus; you are affecting 
1.5 million.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. I reclaim my time, Mr. President.
  Here is the deal. The deal today is that a farmer in America, 
wherever he may be, whether he is in Idaho or Georgia, who goes out and 
hires workers to come here legally, pays the adverse effect wage rate. 
In my State, that happens to be about $8.37 an hour right now. In 
addition to that, they pay for their transportation, they pay for all 
their consular fees, they provide housing, so the $8.37 an hour is a 
little bit misleading. It is actually more in benefits than that. The 
neighbor next door to that farmer, which is that category of blue card 
worker that you address in your comments, he is paying probably $5.15 
an hour to that individual. So the farmer who is trying to be legal is 
paying a fair wage rate, or paying a wage rate with benefits that is 
significantly different than the gentleman that he is competing with on 
the farm next door.
  What the proposed legislation does is continue that difference. It 
takes those individuals who are here illegally today and says we are 
not going to guarantee them the adverse effect wage rate or the 
prevailing wage rate. We are going to continue to treat them as a 
second class citizen, and we are going to allow farmers who use them to 
have an advantage over farmers who use legal workers.
  All my amendment says is that everybody ought to use legal workers. 
We ought to give farmers across America the opportunity to choose from 
a pool of workers to plant, tend, and harvest their crops. During the 
whole course of the time that they are here in a legal manner, working 
under that contract, before they have to go home, we want to make sure 
they are paid a fair wage. That wage is determined as the prevailing 
wage rate by the Department of Labor, and it is based, again, on the 
skill of that worker, on the job for which that worker is hired, and on 
the wages that are prevailing in the area in which that worker is 
hired. That is exactly what my amendment does.
  We don't eliminate the blue card. You still have the blue card. The 
folks who hire blue card workers under the current bill are going to 
have an advantage over those employers, those farmers who have been 
legal and utilized H-2A and who want to utilize H-2A in the future.
  It is a very skewed way of arriving at a wage rate that we both agree 
upon. The question is, How do you get from today, from May 22, 2006, to 
a prevailing wage rate?
  I say let's do it now. What the underlying bill says is let's take 
35,000 or 40,000 workers who are here currently under H-2A, and let's 
allow them get to a prevailing wage rate down the road, within some 
certain period of time. But let's take this other 1.5 million and let's 
keep them depressed. Let's let farmers who hire that blue card worker 
continue. And it is not going to go away. You better believe they will 
be here working because they are going to pay them a lower wage rate. 
It is not fair.
  My amendment is all about fairness, and it requires farmers to pay a 
reasonable wage rate. They don't mind paying a reasonable wage rate to 
get an honest day's work out of an employee.
  This amendment is not about numbers either. We had a lot of 
discussion the other night about numbers which, frankly, were developed 
by the American Farm Bureau. The American Farm Bureau has access to 
every farm in America. They have the ability to come up with what are 
the wage rates that are being paid by every farmer in America. That is 
how we arrived at our numbers. It is not about how Senator Craig 
arrived at his numbers for the adverse effect wage rate. That is not an 
argument on our part. This amendment is simply about fairness.
  The AgJOBS portion of the underlying bill is simply not fair. It is 
not fair to the employers across the United States, and it is not fair 
to those who work on our farms--whether they are illegal, whether they 
are in a temporary worker program, a legal permanent resident, or a 
U.S. citizen.
  Why? Because the underlying bill provides wage guarantees only to 
those

[[Page 8944]]

foreign workers who come in under the temporary H-2A program. At 
present, those workers do number in--I don't know whether it is 35,000 
to 40,000 or 45,000 to 50,000 this year, but that is the range it will 
be. The 1.5 million workers who will be legalized under the AgJOBS blue 
card program do not receive a wage guarantee. This is a tremendous flaw 
in the AgJOBS bill, in my opinion. If these blue card workers are 
willing to work for $5.15 an hour, then that is all their employers 
have to pay them. Those folks who are here legally are going to be 
required to be paid the adverse effect wage rate, which is 
significantly above that minimum wage rate of $5.15.
  What is ironic to me is that these workers, whether here on a blue 
card or on a H-2A visa, are essentially the same. Most come from the 
same country, Mexico; and many from the same villages. Most are here 
because of the poverty that exists in their home countries. All are 
here to earn money to support their families and improve the quality of 
their lives.
  Many will work in the same occupations. Shouldn't they be treated the 
same? I believe they should. Under the AgJOBS bill, they are not. The 
distinguished Senator from Idaho might argue that they are different 
and should be treated differently. He does, in a way, say that because 
those who are legalized with the blue card program will be here 
permanently. However, legalized blue card workers do not have permanent 
status. The blue card program simply allows these legal workers to stay 
here, employed in agriculture, until they meet all the requirements for 
legal permanent status.
  No one can calculate how many of these transitional workers will ever 
become legal permanent residents. Until they achieve legal permanent 
resident status they should be considered temporary foreign workers and 
treated similarly.
  From the employer's side, no difference exists between employers who 
utilize the H-2A program and those who use the blue card program. This 
applies across the board to all commodities produced and livestock 
raised production methods and for their need of dependable workers. 
There is a major difference though. H-2A workers, many of whom have 
been coming to the same employers for years in this country legally--
the vast majority did not bring their family members, and they returned 
home at the end of their periods of employment, just as the law 
requires.
  These H-2A workers were not exploited while they were here because 
the employers played by the rules. Playing by the rules was expensive. 
The adverse effect wage rate is expensive. But those employers did it 
to their competitive disadvantage with a neighbor who employed illegals 
at a significantly lower rate, who did not pay the transportation costs 
of those workers, and did not provide those workers with housing.
  On the other hand, illegal workers who will benefit from the blue 
card program broke our laws when they came here, even though they came 
here for the same reasons as the H-2A worker. The employers who hired 
them, perhaps some out of absolute necessity--and I understand that--
but, by doing that, they also broke our laws. Regardless of the 
circumstances under which those illegal workers are employed in 
agriculture now, I would be willing to bet that many were exploited, 
underpaid, and indentured along the way.
  That is why I do not understand why the underlying bill fails to 
protect the illegal workers, who adjust their status, and guarantee 
them a fair wage.
  I also don't understand why the AgJOBS bill fails to protect U.S. 
workers who do farm work by neglecting to require employers who use 
foreign labor, whether they access via the H-2A program or the blue 
card program, to pay all workers in that occupation a prevailing wage.
  Mr. CRAIG. Will the Senator yield on that point?
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. I will be happy to.
  Mr. CRAIG. Inside the AgJOBS Act there is a U.S. labor pool 
established. They would pay the going wage. They have to make sure that 
pool is exhausted so U.S. citizen agricultural workers are protected. 
You go there first before you go to hire a blue card worker or a H-2A-
qualified worker.
  I hope the Senator understands that they are protected in that sense, 
as it relates to making sure that they are the first in line, if you 
will, for a job that is available if they would choose to work in that 
field at the wage that exists at that point.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. I guess the question is, though: How many U.S. workers 
are out there who do take advantage of that now, or would in the 
future? I think you and I both know the answer. It is minimal at best.
  Reclaiming my time--I am about to run out of time.
  Mr. CRAIG. OK.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. We are going to have our time split at 5:15. 
Agricultural employers who utilize blue card workers must only pay the 
blue card workers the minimum wage and are not required to pay U.S. 
workers any more than the minimum wage. I think we can agree on that.
  The H-2A program requires that employers who utilize H-2A pay all 
workers in the same occupations in which they employ H-2A workers the 
same wage guaranteed to every other H-2A worker.
  Throughout this immigration debate we have heard that widespread use 
of foreign workers will depress wages and that employers will reject 
U.S. workers in favor of foreign workers who are willing to work for 
less. In fact, the Senate passed by a voice vote an amendment that was 
put forward by the distinguished Senator from Illinois, Mr. Obama, 
addressing this very issue.
  Rather than trying to make the same argument that Senator Obama made, 
I simply want to quote him because it was on the same issue of 
prevailing wage for another program, the H-2C program. Here is what he 
said. It was a very good explanation. Senator Obama said that his 
amendment essentially says:

       . . . 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.

  That is exactly what I am saying because, if we have a prevailing 
wage, American workers are going to be more inclined to take those jobs 
rather than blue card workers coming in and being willing to take $5.15 
an hour. That is exactly what is going to happen if we set the 
prevailing wage, which is where it ought to be, rather than utilizing 
your blue card program, which is going to wind up in millions, or 
hundreds of thousands of agricultural workers being hired at minimum 
wage.
  Let me close by saying, here is the reason that the adverse effect 
wage rate is so skewed. This is the chart that shows which States are 
used in calculating the adverse effect wage rate. In my case we use the 
southeast region: Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina. A farm worker job, 
or a worker at the State farmers market in Atlanta, GA, is compared to 
the same agricultural worker at the farmers market in Thomasville, GA. 
They are 225 miles apart. One is a very urban area, Atlanta, GA. The 
other is a very rural area, Thomasville, GA. It is pretty easy to see 
why the Senator from Idaho says this is a skewed way to calculate 
wages. With that we agree.
  The prevailing wage rate method of calculating wages says individuals 
who work at the farmers market in Atlanta will be paid a wage 
comparable to other farm workers in the Atlanta area. That wage earner 
in Thomasville, GA, will receive a wage that is comparable to 
agricultural workers who are paid in the Thomasville, GA, region.
  I am prepared to yield back, assuming that we have approached the 
hour

[[Page 8945]]

where we are going to divide these last 30 minutes?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the time until 5:30 
shall be equally divided between the Senator from Georgia and the 
Senator from Massachusetts or his designee.
  Who yields time?
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I have had an opportunity to listen to 
the discussion between Senator Craig and Senator Chambliss on this 
provision of AgJOBS which we put in as part of the blue card. I 
congratulate Senator Craig on one of the most colorful charts that we 
have seen.
  The labor provision of this bill is a compromise that was negotiated. 
I think it makes sense to leave it that way. It is left that way for 3 
years. This has been the subject of long negotiations. After many 
attempts to try to find the right balance, Senators Kennedy and Craig 
struck an agreement that was supported by both growers and farm workers 
across this Nation. That is the language in this bill.
  Under AgJOBS, H-2A workers are paid the greater of the prevailing 
rate or the adverse effect wage rate. As Senator Craig has said, the 
standard is frozen at 2003, and growers will be required to pay the 
prevailing wage, or what the adverse wage rate was over 3 years ago. 
The compromise states that this will be the wage rate just for the next 
3 years. And during that time, the GAO and a commission of agricultural 
and labor experts will perform two studies examining H-2A wage rates 
and making recommendations to Congress. If at the end of the 3 years 
Congress fails to enact a new adverse effect wage rate, the adverse 
effect wage rate would be adjusted by the cost of living.
  While changing AgJOBS isn't, alone, a disqualification, I think we 
have to be very careful before we upset what has been a very carefully 
crafted compromise that is supported by a broad coalition of Members 
from all sides of the debate.
  If I might, I would like to ask Senator Craig a question. Since he 
was the one who negotiated this, is it not true that this is a broadly 
agreed upon solution for both farm workers as well as growers?
  Mr. CRAIG. I believe it is fair and balanced. The reason it is is 
because we pushed a wage scale that is already there back 3 years. We 
do it this time to get right what the Senator from Georgia has 
proposed. He has shown the disparity that already exists out there--and 
it exists in all formulations when it relates to agriculture and 
agricultural jobs. We have never focused on agriculture except in the 
H-2A area. We believe it did get out of line, and that is why it is 
shoved back. Then we proceed, just as the Senator mentioned, in a 
methodical way to examine the country and get the wage scale rate 
right.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Is it not true that when I introduced the blue card 
program in the Judiciary Committee I just took that part of the H-2A 
program which the Senator and Senator Kennedy had put together in the 
AgJOBS bill?
  Mr. CRAIG. That is correct.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. This has been a longstanding compromise that has been 
out there, which is a negotiated compromise.
  If I might ask one other question, in the negotiations that the 
Senator had on AgJOBS, how long did it take to come up with this 
negotiated compromise?
  Mr. CRAIG. Frankly, the adverse wage issue was one of the more 
contentious, for a variety of reasons--first of all, because producers 
saw it as being complicated with a lot of requirements other than just 
a wage, and obviously employment saw it as an advantage but limited. As 
a result, we were able to agree to shove it back.
  As I say, that rarely happens in American history, to actually by law 
push the wage scale back but to do so with the understanding that we 
would get equity and fairness through the approach that the Senator has 
outlined. That was the approach we used. A coalition of well over 500, 
including agriculture, a lot of agricultural producers.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. How long has this agreement been in place?
  Mr. CRAIG. About 3 years--2\1/2\ years, actually, as we formulated 
it.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I thank the Senator. My time has expired.
  I urge the Senate to vote no on the Chambliss amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  The Senator from California was not involved in those negotiations, 
and I chair the Agriculture Committee. I do not know how to respond to 
that other than by saying that certain segments of agriculture were 
involved in the negotiations, I assume. My dear friend from 
Massachusetts was involved, and I daresay that I have more farmers in 
my home county than we have in the vast majority of Massachusetts.
  My point is not that these discussions did not take place over a long 
period of time between farmers--I don't know who they were. But I can 
tell you this: The American Farm Bureau has looked at the AgJOBS 
provision. They have looked at my amendment. They have looked at the 
bill that I submitted which was somewhat contrary to AgJOBS. The 
American Farm Bureau--which, as I said earlier, has access to virtually 
every farm in America, particularly from the standpoint of the 
calculation of wages--has concluded that my amendment is fair and 
reasonable. And the American Farm Bureau is recommending a ``yes'' vote 
on the Chambliss amendment.
  To say that this has been discussed over a period of time by a group, 
or a large group--whatever the term was--of farmers across America, my 
farmers were not involved in those negotiations. Senator Craig and I 
have had any number of conversations about the bill and about our 
various amendments. But we were not involved in those negotiations.
  I see my friend from Iowa, Senator Grassley. He comes from the Farm 
Belt of America. I daresay that his farmers were not involved in those 
negotiations. Let us be very clear about this. There was not a 
discussion or a negotiation by America's farmers for what they thought 
was best.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. I would be happy to yield.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I can speak for California, and California's Farm 
Bureau has signed off on this. I can tell the Senator that no State has 
as many farmers and growers as California does. This is the accepted 
agreement.
  I thank the Senator.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. I thank the Senator from California for her comments, 
and I tell her that I dialog with many farmers in her State on a 
regular basis, particularly as chairman of the Agriculture Committee. I 
am hearing from a large number of her farmers in strong support of my 
amendment.
  Again, when you say that a majority number of farmers in America 
think this is the way to go, you can't say that. That is simply not 
right. There are only--by Senator Craig's numbers--less than 50,000 
farmers in America--and I happen to agree with him on this--who 
currently utilize H-2A. I daresay the rest of the farmers in America 
don't even know what ``adverse effect wage rate'' means. But I can tell 
you they know what ``prevailing wage rate'' means. They know when they 
hire a tractor driver in the southwest part of Texas what their 
neighbors are paying for a tractor driver. And that is how you 
calculate a prevailing wage. That is not how adverse effect wage rate 
says you will pay that tractor driver.
  Whether farmers in California or farmers in Georgia or the northeast 
part of our country, the market should dictate, and the market dictates 
under the prevailing wage rate. It simply does not dictate under the 
adverse effect wage rate.
  That is why, in the Senator's bill, the adverse effect wage rate is 
rolled back 4 years. There is a flaw in the way the wage rate is 
calculated. If you are going to roll back the wage rate, which is 
actually going to move toward the utilization of the prevailing wage 
rate, let's do it now. Let's require that all farmers in America pay a 
reasonable

[[Page 8946]]

wage rate for their employees based upon what other farmers in that 
region pay for employees.
  For example, I know in northern California there are different crops 
grown than in southern California. There are different types of jobs. 
But today, under the AgJOBS bill, a farmer in northern California will 
pay exactly the same wage rate as a farmer in southern California.
  Here is the chart. This shows how wage rates under this bill are 
calculated. They use the entire State of California. It is a different 
type of farming. There is a different skill required in northern 
California than there is in southern California. There is a different 
skill required in a tractor driver versus somebody who goes into the 
field and cuts lettuce or cuts cabbage or cuts squash or whatever it 
may be.
  Under the adverse effect wage rate in the base AgJOBS bill, that is 
not taken into consideration. Under the prevailing wage under my 
amendment, it is taken into consideration.
  If anyone says it is difficult to determine, how do I know in my 
example of Thomasville, GA, what it takes to hire that worker? Let me 
tell you what you have to do. You simply have to go to the computer and 
plug into a Web site, the Department of Labor. And you designate the 
area. You put into the computer where you are located, what the job is, 
and the computer immediately gives you what the Department of Labor has 
determined to be a prevailing wage. It is very simple and very easy. It 
ensures that one farmer next door to another farmer is paying employees 
the same wage rate. You don't have a farmer who is paying $8.37 
currently required by the adverse effect wage rate and the farmer next 
door paying $5.15 an hour for the same job.
  This is about fairness. It is about equity. It is about ensuring that 
farm workers who come here under the base bill, which I, frankly, don't 
agree with, but if we are going to pass this, then let us be fair to 
those employees who come here and work in agriculture. Let us pay them 
the rate that is prevailing in the area in which they work.
  I reserve the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, standing in opposition to the amendment, it 
is fascinating to me that we now want to play a game of what groups and 
whose associations. I find it fascinating that the California Farm 
Bureau, which supports the position, isn't quite good enough. The 
California Apple Commission, the California Avocado Commission, the 
California Association of Nurseries and Garden Centers, the California 
Association of Wine Grape Growers, the California Canners and Peach 
Association, the California Citrus Mutual--we have nearly 500 groups 
that have endorsed this.
  The reason they have endorsed it is because they see the need to do 
it right and get a reasonable transition.
  The Web site the Senator from Georgia is talking about has to be 
right. It has to be effective and reflective. It doesn't do that today. 
That information is now not available in that context.
  Let me go back to the transition. We are talking about those who are 
illegal today and wanting them to come forward, get a background check, 
show us their credentials, qualify for a transitional status, called 
earned adjustment status, and a blue card, and to do so in a fair and 
responsible fashion.
  They can stay and continue to work. While they are doing that, we are 
going to work to get the wage scale right. In our work over the last 
good number of years, literally hundreds and hundreds of agricultural 
groups and associations have stepped forward and said: Help us fix 
this. Help us use this blue card to get across, in a transitional way, 
for a legal workforce, in a reformed H-2A program. The compromise that 
the Senator from California talked about was just that. It was a 
transitional wage to get this fair and equitable.
  What the Senator from Georgia is doing is not affecting the 40,000-
plus of H-2A under adverse wage. We are doing that. We are shoving 
those wages back. He is affecting the 1.5 million that may cause 
agriculture to become noncompetitive if we don't get the wage scale 
rate right and involve agriculture along with the Department of Labor, 
as our studies would do, to make sure we get an equitable and fair 
wage. Fair means two sides. For the worker, it means certainty; for the 
producer, absolutely, the product that is produced--especially in the 
vegetable crops, in the intensified labor crops--has got to be 
competitive against a world market crop, or we will shove those 
producers and that kind of production out of the country.
  We have to do it in a balanced way. What we have offered allows the 
Senator from Georgia, as the chairman of the Agriculture Committee, to 
participate. He did not participate in these negotiations because he 
did not agree with them. He did not agree with the transition of 
getting through what we attempted to do in AgJOBS. That was his choice. 
In the end, both he and I agreed on many of the provisions except this 
one. It is important we stay with the work product.
  Literally hundreds and hundreds of farm groups and associations 
across the Nation that deal with this type of workforce recognize the 
need of the transitional period of time and the legality of the 
workforce, as do we. It is reflected in the bill. I hope our colleagues 
continue to support it.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act 
includes a subtitle known as AgJOBS, a bill that has long been 
championed by Senator Craig, Senator Kennedy, and a broad bipartisan 
group of Senators. I strongly support this bill because it will help 
both farmers and farm workers in Vermont and around the Nation.
  AgJOBS contains a package of reforms that are badly needed in the 
seasonal agricultural worker program, called H-2A visas. AgJOBS was 
negotiated with the full participation of agribusiness and farmworkers' 
unions, and it reflects a fair and thoughtful balance of the needs of 
both farmers and workers.
  The version of AgJOBS contained in S. 2611 protects business by 
ensuring a steady flow of legal workers. It assists agricultural 
workers by preventing wage stagnation in a growing economy and by 
providing labor protections. It helps both business and labor by giving 
trained and trusted foreign agricultural workers a path to permanent 
immigration status if they meet the requirements in the bill, such as 
paying fines and taxes, keeping a clean criminal record, and working 
the requisite number of hours.
  The Chambliss amendment is an attack on wages for agricultural 
workers who are among the lowest paid laborers in America. By unfairly 
favoring the growers over foreign workers, the Chambliss amendment 
would upset the careful balance on wages and labor protections that 
were negotiated with the participation of agribusiness and unions in 
the AgJOBS bill.
  The Chambliss amendment requires employers to pay workers the highest 
of two wage rates: the prevailing wage in the area of employment, which 
may be determined by an employer who conducts his own local survey, or 
the applicable State minimum wage. Basing wages on the higher of these 
two rates could result in deep cuts to wages. Some State minimum wages 
are very low, such as Kansas, which requires only $2.65 per hour. 
Senator Chambliss previously acknowledged that farm wages could fall by 
roughly $3 per hour under his proposal. His proposal almost guarantees 
that no U.S. workers could afford to accept agricultural jobs and that 
foreign agricultural workers, who are already among the most poorly 
paid workers in America, would be paid miserly wages for their labor.
  The Chambliss formulation does not include the well-balanced 
provisions of AgJOBS. Under AgJOBS, an employer must pay the highest of 
three wage rates: (1) the prevailing wage, (2) the Federal or State 
minimum wage, (3) or the ``adverse effect wage rate,'' or AEWR, a 
regional weighted average hourly wage rate for agricultural workers. 
The AEWR was established under the Bracero guest worker program for 
Mexican workers that ended in the 1960s. It was created to ensure that 
guest workers would not adversely affect American workers by depressing

[[Page 8947]]

wages. Removing AEWR from the wage equation drives wages downward, 
which hurts all workers--American and foreign. It is no secret that our 
agricultural industries depend on cheap labor, and some estimate that 
70 percent of agricultural workers presently working in the U.S. are 
undocumented. For all the of national security reasons I have cited 
throughout this debate, we need to bring agricultural workers out of 
the shadows. But we must also recognize that vulnerable populations 
deserve our support and protection. Farm workers are among the most 
vulnerable laborers in the Nation and I cannot support an amendment 
that would slash their wages further.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. How much time remains?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia has 7\1/2\ minutes. 
The Senator from Massachusetts has 6\1/2\ minutes.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I yield myself 4 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I thought there were certain values in 
this Senate upon which we could agree. If you work hard in this 
country, you shouldn't live a life of poverty. We have been trying to 
raise the minimum wage--which is $5.15 an hour--trying to raise that 
for over 9 years, and our Republican friends, including the Senator 
from Georgia, have been opposed to it.
  Look what this bill does. The current farm wage is $10.11; for an 
agricultural job, it is $7.86; and the Chambliss amendment is below the 
minimum wage. Not only is it below the minimum wage, but he 
specifically writes in his amendment that it will be below the minimum 
wage and State minimum wages will apply when they apply. But Georgia 
does not have a State minimum wage.
  I don't know what the Senator from Georgia has against someone 
working for $7.86 an hour. The cost of gas has gone through the roof. 
The cost of food has gone through the roof. A gallon of milk is $3.09 a 
gallon; eggs, $1.39; a loaf of bread is $3.29; a pound of hamburger is 
$3.99. And the Senator from Georgia, if we follow his suggestion, is 
driving wages down, not up.
  This is $7.86 an hour to try to get along. What we are trying to do 
is reduce the disparity. The Senator from Georgia said we were not 
involved in this. Well, we have 400 different organizations indicating 
to the Senate their support. We have broad support. More than 60 
Members, Republicans and Democrats, cosponsored it, to bring it up to 
$7.86. But no, the Senator from Georgia wants this down to what some 
people have said is paid to pieceworkers, $3 or $4 an hour. Three or 
four dollars an hour? We might not have many farmers in Massachusetts, 
but whoever we have in Massachusetts understands below poverty wages, 
and $3 or $4 an hour for piecework is a poverty wage. It is wrong.
  If it is so troublesome that they are going to get paid $7.86, if 
Members are so worked up about that, if Members think that is too much 
for someone who works hard, for someone who does some of the most 
difficult work in this country, go ahead and vote for the Chambliss 
amendment.
  Mr. President, $7.86, when these workers have to pay $3 to get a 
gallon of gasoline? Talk about fairness. I listen to the Senator from 
Georgia. Let's talk about fairness. Let's talk about equity. Let's talk 
about treating everyone the same. They will be treated the same, but 
they will be treated mighty shabbily. This is a question of respect for 
those workers. Do you respect them in the United States, these hard-
working people? Finally, about 20 percent of agricultural workers are 
Americans. You will depress their wages, too? Evidently. I hope we are 
not going to be about that at this time in this debate and discussion.
  I noticed that on page 2, the Senator talks about the prevailing 
wage, the occupation, and the applicable State minimum wage. Is there a 
State minimum wage in Georgia, I ask the Senator?
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. The minimum wage in Georgia is $5.15 an hour.
  Mr. KENNEDY. In agriculture?
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. Yes.
  Mr. KENNEDY. The State minimum wage in agriculture is $5.15 an hour. 
Am I right that there is no way that even those who are picking per 
bushel would go below $5.15 an hour?
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. What happens is these wage earners in the fields in 
Georgia and all over the country go out and they take a bucket out into 
the field. They cut squash, cucumbers, or they cut whatever the crop 
may be, they put it in that bucket, they dump that bucket in a bin, and 
they are given a chip. At the end of the day, those chips add up to 
dollars. They are required to be paid the minimum of either the minimum 
wage or, in this case, the adverse effect wage rate.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I understand I may be wrong, and I wish the Senator from 
Georgia would correct me, the State minimum wage does not apply to 
agricultural workers. That is my understanding. If I am wrong, I hope 
the Senator will correct me. My understanding is the State minimum wage 
does not apply to agricultural workers.
  I withhold the remainder of my time.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from Georgia, my 
colleague, Senator Isakson.
  Mr. ISAKSON. Let me respond to the distinguished Senator from 
Massachusetts.
  Something he said--I am sure unintentionally--was very incorrect. He 
said we are going to force people, by what the Senator is trying to do, 
to earn less than the minimum wage. What we are, in fact, trying to do 
is to ensure that those who are working in the fields, who are illegal 
and are being abused and are not being paid the adverse effect wage 
rate, prevailing rate, or anything else, all those--maybe 1.8 million--
will now get a pay raise under what the Senator is trying to do. He is 
saying they will be paid the higher of the minimum wage or the 
prevailing wage.
  I ran for the Senate in the years 2003 and 2004. Although I worked 
farms in the 1950s, I had not been on a farm in a long time, and I 
spent a lot of time in south Georgia, slept in a lot of barns on farms. 
I got to know the onion folks, the peanut folks, and the row crops.
  I spent the night in a farmer's barn--a mighty nice barn, I might 
add, with a nice double bed--I spent the night in the barn, and he 
complained about what happened. He hired H-2A workers, as he should, 
legal workers. According to the law, he paid them the adverse effect 
wage rate, and the farmer down the road from him hired illegals and 
paid them the minimum. They got away with paying much less for picking 
the same crop he was because he was obeying the law.
  The circumstances the Senator has right now in the United States of 
America are the following: The unintended consequence of the adverse 
effect wage rate is that you are driving farmers to hire illegally 
rather than hire legally and pay them at adverse effect wage rates. 
That is what the Senator is trying to correct.
  But it is absolutely incorrect to allege or to say that the bill of 
the Senator from Georgia, the chairman of the Agriculture Committee, 
would force people to be paid below the minimum wage. It will, in fact, 
ensure that workers will be paid the higher of the minimum wage or the 
prevailing wage; is that not correct?
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. That is correct.
  Mr. ISAKSON. Facts are stubborn things. We can argue about a lot of 
things, but treating people right is something Senator Chambliss has 
been doing in Georgia, what I have grown up in Georgia doing, and I am 
sure what the Senator from Massachusetts does. The argument here is 
about repealing a law that has the unintended consequence of making it 
attractive to hire illegal aliens to work. What this bill is supposed 
to be doing is fostering legal immigration and equitable treatment for 
all.
  I commend the distinguished Senator from Georgia. I commend the 
chairman of the Agriculture Committee. I pledge my support to this 
amendment and congratulate him on this effort.

[[Page 8948]]

  I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. KENNEDY. How much time do we have?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 1 minute 34 seconds.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I yield a minute to the Senator from Idaho. I will 
reserve 34 seconds for myself.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, as of April of 2006, the average 
fieldworker in the United States was paid $8.96 an hour. The average 
livestock worker was paid $9.30 an hour. The minimum wage is $5.15. Do 
the math. That is why, when we put this bill together, we said we have 
to get it right for all parties involved.
  I agree with the Senator from Georgia, producers are willing to pay a 
fair wage. And they should. And workers who work as hard as 
agricultural workers ought to be paid a fair and good wage. At the same 
time, we compete in a world market, and I hope we stay there.
  I don't think you can meet with one farm organization and establish 
what the prevailing wage is going to be. That is why we mandated in our 
bill that the Department of Labor work with agriculture to get it right 
because we conclude that the H-2A adverse effect wage rate got out of 
line. I don't know what the right wage is. I wager that the Senator 
from Georgia probably doesn't know where it ought to be, either, in 
every segment of agriculture in our country.
  I wish the Senators would stay with the bill and vote down the 
Chambliss amendment because in the end we want to get it right for all 
involved. We want to keep American agriculture competitive in a world 
market.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, no matter how you slice it, this is a 
major cut for workers with the Chambliss amendment, No. 1.
  No. 2, we are trying to remedy the situation between documented and 
undocumented workers. We hear we have to do this because we are forced 
to have illegal workers. We are changing all of that. We are putting in 
place a system so we will have verification.
  We do believe this figure, the $7.86, for workers who work hard, play 
by the rules, and are trying to provide for their families, is not 
unfair, at a minimum. That is why I hope the Chambliss amendment will 
be defeated.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia has 4 minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I simply say to my friend from 
Massachusetts, I hear what the Senator is saying relative to the 
numbers the Senator just addressed, but here is what you are doing. You 
are taking 40,000 agricultural employees who now operate under H-2A and 
you are reducing their wages immediately. The chart Senator Craig had 
up here Thursday night showed what the numbers are. I don't remember 
what they are, but it is a significant reduction because you are 
rolling that wage back to what it was 4 years ago. Now, that is 40,000 
agricultural workers.
  Here is what you are doing to 1.5 million agricultural workers under 
your bill. You are going to allow farmers across America who do not 
participate in H-2A to pay those blue card workers $5.15 an hour. We 
can argue whether minimum wage is high enough, whether it ought to be 
more, but that is the effect of what you are doing with your blue card 
workers. So if the $7 number is good enough for H-2A or not good enough 
for H-2A, whatever it is, it ought to be good for those 1.5 million 
workers who will have a blue card. That is what fairness in my 
amendment is all about.
  When Senator Craig says let's get it right, let's do get it right. We 
agree the adverse effect wage rate is wrong. There is no disagreement 
about that. The question is, How do we correct it? How do we get to the 
point where it is fair? The way we get to the point where it is fair is 
we take the same method of calculation we do under every other labor 
bill, including the one we just passed last week, the H-2C bill that 
Senator Obama said: Let's put a prevailing wage rate on H-2C. I say 
let's put a prevailing wage rate on H-2A.
  We understand we are not the ones to calculate that. It is calculated 
by the Department of Labor. It is calculated by the Department of Labor 
based upon the fair and accurate wages paid to individuals in different 
parts of the country who perform different jobs within agriculture. It 
is very easy to ascertain by the farmer what that wage rate ought to 
be.
  It will remove the ability of the next door neighbor to come in and 
undercut that farmer, whether he is a blue card worker or whether they 
continue to be here illegally. It will depress the wages for those 
farmers rather than raising the standard for all workers to be paid a 
fair wage. It will encourage farmers--this is what we want to do--to 
participate in the H-2A program. If we had every farmer in America 
doing that, they would have a quality supply of labor from which to 
choose. They would have to pay those workers a reasonable rate, and 
America would never be in a position of being dependent upon foreign 
imports for our food supply.
  We cannot afford to get there. This is a national security issue. We 
need to make sure farmers have those workers from whom to choose to 
make sure their crops are harvested.
  Mr. President, I yield back my time, and I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I move to table the amendment, and I ask 
for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The question is on agreeing to the motion.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. The following Senators were necessarily absent: the 
Senator from Wyoming (Mr. Enzi), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain), 
and the Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Sununu).
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Biden), 
the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Dayton), the Senator from New Jersey 
(Mr. Menendez), and the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Rockefeller) 
are necessarily absent.
  I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from 
Delaware (Mr. Biden), would vote ``yea.''
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Thune). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 50, nays 43, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 136 Leg.]

                                YEAS--50

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Byrd
     Cantwell
     Carper
     Chafee
     Clinton
     Conrad
     Craig
     Crapo
     DeWine
     Dodd
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Hagel
     Harkin
     Inouye
     Jeffords
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Martinez
     Mikulski
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Obama
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Salazar
     Sarbanes
     Schumer
     Shelby
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Voinovich
     Wyden

                                NAYS--43

     Alexander
     Allard
     Allen
     Bennett
     Bond
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burns
     Burr
     Chambliss
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Coleman
     Collins
     Cornyn
     DeMint
     Dole
     Ensign
     Frist
     Graham
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Kyl
     Lott
     Lugar
     McConnell
     Murkowski
     Nelson (NE)
     Roberts
     Santorum
     Sessions
     Smith
     Snowe
     Stevens
     Talent
     Thomas
     Thune
     Vitter
     Warner

                             NOT VOTING--7

     Biden
     Dayton
     Enzi
     McCain
     Menendez
     Rockefeller
     Sununu
  The motion was agreed to.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, 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.

[[Page 8949]]




                    Amendment No. 4076, as Modified

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the pending question 
is now amendment No. 4076, as modified, of the Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, have the yeas and nays been ordered?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. They have not.
  Mr. ENSIGN. 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. ENSIGN. I thank the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is now 2 minutes equally divided for 
debate on the amendment.
  The Senator from Nevada is recognized.
  Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, very briefly, to inform my colleagues, 
this amendment is basically the President's proposal to use the 
National Guard to secure our borders as an interim step as we are 
adding to our Border Patrol agents on our southern border.
  We all know we cannot have a commonsense, comprehensive immigration 
policy without having secure borders. It is going to take us years to 
get enough Border Patrol agents down there. In the meantime, we need to 
have the National Guard to supplement and to multiply the force of the 
Border Patrol agents down there. That is what this amendment does. I 
believe it is an important step toward making sure we know who is 
coming into this country, making sure terrorists are not coming into 
this country.
  Mr. President, the Ensign amendment would codify the President's 
proposal to deploy the National Guard to the border. The President's 
proposal strikes a careful balance.
  Over the next year, they would send up to 6,000 guardsmen. The 
following year, they would decrease this to a maximum of 3,000 
guardsmen. As the guardsmen stand down, the Border Patrol would stand 
up, and in the end, we would have 6,000 more Border Patrolmen securing 
the border.
  I remain concerned about the strain on the Guard. It is reassuring 
that the deployment will be limited in number and duration. I hope the 
administration will work closely with the Pentagon to ensure that we 
are not putting greater strain on those specialties that are needed in 
Iraq and Afghanistan.
  Also, I applaud the President's decision to use the Guard in a 
supporting role and not for direct law enforcement missions. The Guard 
is not trained for the civilian Border Patrol missions and its complex 
combination of law enforcement, civil rights, and human rights issues. 
Nor should we ask them to be, for this is not their mission. They 
should provide support to the Border Patrol.
  We must also ensure that any Guard activity is coordinated with the 
Governors. I agree with the border State Governors that securing our 
borders, particularly for the long term, is a law enforcement function. 
We should not militarize the borders. And, in the short term, we should 
respect the desires of the border State Governors regarding the 
utilization of the Guard along the border.
  I urge that my colleagues support this amendment.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I rise to add my support to this very 
important amendment offered by my good friend and colleague from 
Nevada, Senator Ensign.
  Last Monday evening, a week ago, the President addressed this Nation, 
forcefully and articulately making the case that one of the necessary 
steps in undertaking comprehensive immigration reform is to secure our 
national borders, particularly along our Southwestern States.
  Following the President's speech by little more than a day, the Armed 
Services Committee held a hearing during which we closely questioned 
senior members of the Department of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, the 
Chief of the Border Patrol, and the Chief of National Guard Bureau on 
the President's plan.
  I strongly support the President's plan, and, on the basis of our 
hearing and subsequent discussions, I strongly believe that the 
National Guard is capable of providing this temporary support to the 
Bureau of Customs and Border Protection without degrading either its 
readiness for combat or its ability to respond to domestic emergencies.
  I also believe that this amendment is important to show that the 
Congress is behind this effort to secure our borders as part of 
comprehensive immigration reform, and that we will provide the 
resources and legislation to do so. This amendment provides specific 
authority for deployment of the National Guard, and does so in a way 
that is careful to authorize both the types of activities, the duration 
of the training rotations, a limit on the authority to use the Guard 
for direct participation in law enforcement consistent with the 
President's intent, and a sunset date for the authority.
  I commend my colleague from Nevada, who serves with me on the Armed 
Services Committee, for this important amendment that puts the full 
force of Congress behind the President's initiative to secure our 
borders and support our Border Patrol with the National Guard.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I intend to vote in favor of the Ensign 
amendment to authorize the National Guard to assist in securing the 
southern border of the United States. The National Guard has been used 
in a State status to perform Federal missions in the past--for 
counterdrug and counter-
terrorism missions--but Congress provided express statutory 
authorization for these efforts.
  I believe that it is essential that we provide a similar statutory 
authorization here. This authorization gives Congress an appropriate 
opportunity to define the circumstances in which it is appropriate to 
provide Federal reimbursement for the National Guard in State status 
and the types of activities for which Federal reimbursement will be 
provided.
  The key to the Ensign amendment, in my view, is that it makes it 
clear that the National Guard of a State will perform this mission only 
if ordered by the Governor of the State to do so. This provision makes 
it clear that the Governors retain control of the National Guard when 
it acts in a State status. For these reasons, I support the Ensign 
amendment and urge my colleagues to support it as well.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, the Senate will soon vote on an amendment to 
authorize the use of the National Guard along the Southwest border of 
the United States. Last week, in hearings before the Appropriations 
Committee and the Armed Services Committee, I asked senior 
administration officials from the Department of Defense, the Border 
Patrol, the National Guard Bureau, and other military leaders about my 
concerns that this mission would detract from the ability of the 
National Guard to respond to emergencies in their home States.
  Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Chief of the National Guard 
Bureau General Steven Blum, and other witnesses gave their assurances 
that this plan to deploy troops to the border would not create a new, 
strenuous deployment of the Guard, it would not leave our States in a 
bind should a disaster strike while troops were on deployment, and it 
would allow Governors to make the final call as to whether National 
Guard units from their States should be used in support of the Border 
Patrol. Those witnesses also testified that National Guard units would 
only be used in missions and roles for which the troops are already 
trained.
  I expect the administration to hold firm to these assurances, and the 
amendment before the Senate would help to limit the scope of the 
missions for which the Guard may be deployed.
  While I still have questions about how the National Guard will carry 
out the missions that are assigned to it, we must not overlook the fact 
that the administration has missed many opportunities to tighten 
controls at our borders without depending on our citizen-soldiers to do 
the job. Since September 11, I have offered nine amendments to provide 
more funds to hire more Border Patrol agents, strengthen security at 
our borders, and stop the flow of illegal immigrants and contraband 
into our

[[Page 8950]]

country. The administration opposed each one of my amendments, labeling 
them to be ``extraneous,'' ``unnecessary'' spending that would ``expand 
the size of government.'' If my amendments had been approved and 
supported by the administration, there would be thousands more Border 
Patrol agents on the job today.
  Real homeland security cannot be found in a patchwork of quick fixes. 
Sending troops to the border is at best a Band-Aid solution to a 
serious problem. I will support this amendment, but I will also 
continue my efforts to provide the funds that are needed to provide 
lasting improvements to our border security.


                action consistent with president's plan

  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, the Bush administration has announced a 
plan that includes the use of National Guard forces to temporarily 
support Federal border patrol operations. While I support additional 
efforts to secure our borders, it is disappointing that nearly 5 years 
after the attacks of September 11, 2001, there are still insufficient 
U.S. Border Patrol personnel to adequately maintain the southern land 
border.
  I appreciate the efforts by the Senator from Nevada to clarify the 
role of the National Guard in implementing the President's plan to 
secure the border. It is my understanding that the National Guard is 
being utilized under title 32 of the United States Code, which means 
that command and control rains with the Governor and the State or 
territorial government even though the Guard forces are being employed 
in the service of the United States for a Federal purpose. I also 
understand that under title 32, the Federal Government will reimburse 
States for costs, including the logistical costs, incurred during the 
mission. Finally, I understand that the National Guard will not 
directly participate in any law enforcement function, including search, 
seizure, arrest or similar activity.
  Does the Senator from Massachusetts share my understanding that the 
Ensign amendment is consistent with the President's plan?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, the Senator from California is correct.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President I ask unanimous consent that the following 
letter be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                     May 18, 2006.
       Dear Senator: We the undersigned write to strongly oppose 
     the Chambliss amendments aimed at gutting the ``AgJOBS'' 
     compromise contained in the Hagel-Martinez bill before the 
     Senate. The AgJOBS language is the product of the hard work 
     of Senators Craig, Feinstein and Kennedy in collaboration 
     with agribusiness employers, farmworker organizations, and a 
     bipartisan group of Members of the House. We strongly support 
     these needed reforms for the agricultural industry and its 
     workers and we oppose changes that would turn this balanced 
     package into a Bracero program.
       In particular, we oppose the Chambliss amendment to lower 
     the wages for farmworkers. Amendment 4009 would change the 
     AgJOBS compromise on wage rates and slash the H-2A program's 
     already inadequate wage rates by eliminating the protection 
     of the adverse effect wage rate and the federal minimum wage 
     from H-2A workers.
       Currently, H-2A employers must pay the highest of three 
     wage rates--the state or federal minimum wage, the ``Adverse 
     Effect Wage Rate'' (AEWR), or the local prevailing wage. The 
     AEWR was created under the Bracero guestworker program as a 
     necessary protection against depression in prevailing wages 
     (wage rates often stagnate because the guestworkers have 
     little ability to demand higher wages). Sen. Chambliss 
     himself described the effect of his provision as cutting H-2A 
     program wage rates by roughly $3.00 per hour!!
       The AGJOBS compromise already addresses the H-2A wage 
     issue. AgJOBS would reduce the adverse effect wage rates for 
     each state by about 10% by setting them at the rates in 
     effect on January 1, 2003, and would then freeze the AEWR's 
     for three years, while two studies are performed to examine 
     H-2A wage rates and make recommendations to Congress. If 
     Congress were to fail to enact an adverse effect wage rate 
     formula within 3 years, the AEWRs would be adjusted at the 
     end of 3 years by the cost of living. The AEWR issue is a 
     complex one and is best left to the studies agreed to in the 
     AgJOBS compromise.
       Congress should not approve amendments that will encourage 
     the agricultural industry to hire guestworkers at depressed 
     wages--and that is exactly what the Chambliss amendments 
     would do. This will harm both foreign workers and U.S. 
     workers)and the effort should be opposed.
       Thank you for your consideration of this matter.
           Sincerely,
       American Federal of Labor-Congress of Industrial 
     Organizations (AFL-CIO); American Federation of State County 
     and Municipal Employees (AFSCME); Catholic Charities USA; 
     Change to Win; Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; 
     Farmworker Justice; Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS); 
     International Brotherhood of Teamsters; The International 
     Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural 
     Implement Workers of America (UAW); Laborers' International 
     Union of North America; League of United Latin American 
     Citizens (LULAC); Mexican American Legal Defense and 
     Educational Fund (MALDEF); National Council of La Raza 
     (NCLR); National Farm Worker Ministry; National Immigration 
     Forum; National Immigration Law Center; Service Employees 
     International Union (SEIU); UNITE HERE; United Farm Workers 
     of America (UFW); United Food and Commercial Workers 
     International Union (UFCW).

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri is recognized.
  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I believe most of us strongly support 
deploying the National Guard to our borders. I appreciate very much the 
sentiment and the direction this amendment goes. Unfortunately, it 
limits their ability and puts limitations on the time and on the 
mission the Guard provides. When you are sending troops into a 
difficult assignment, whether it is war or not, we should not be saying 
the Guard can only stay so long, the Guard can only do this or the 
Guard can only do that.
  The President has outlined how he wishes to use the Guard. I support 
that. I believe it is a bad idea for Congress to say how we should be 
using our troops, whether it is in national security or homeland 
defense. Therefore, I urge a ``no'' vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont is recognized.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I wholeheartedly support what the Senator 
from Missouri has said.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada is recognized.
  Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for an additional 
30 seconds to respond.
  Mr. LEAHY. I ask unanimous consent that Senator Bond also have an 
additional 30 seconds.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, briefly, regarding the limitations the 
Senator from Missouri has brought up, a third of the forces the 
President has envisioned would not have any limitations. Two-thirds 
would basically be on their annual missions of 21 days, and they are 
specifically for the perception that they are there for police 
enforcement and are doing what the Border Patrol agents do. We put in 
the bill specifically what they would be doing.
  There is all the flexibility in the world for the Guard to do the 
mission they are being sent down there to do. I think the concerns 
being raised are unfounded.
  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I appreciate the effort the Senator from 
Nevada is making. The problem is, some on the training missions may 
have to spend longer than that. They may want to spend longer than 
that. It may have the effect of having a different percentage of the 
Guard used for more than 15 days. It specifies limits on it.
  I believe that while we support the general purpose of using the 
Guard, Congress should not be putting limitations on how it is used. I 
disagree with my colleague.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment 
of the Senator from Nevada. The yeas and nays have been ordered.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. The following Senators were necessarily absent: the 
Senator from Wyoming (Mr. Enzi), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain), 
and the Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Sununu).
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Biden), 
the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Dayton), the Senator from New Jersey 
(Mr.

[[Page 8951]]

Menendez), and the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Rockefeller) are 
necessarily absent.
  I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from 
Delaware (Mr. Biden) would have voted ``yea.''
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 83, nays 10, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 137 EX.]

                                YEAS--83

     Akaka
     Alexander
     Allard
     Allen
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burns
     Burr
     Byrd
     Cantwell
     Carper
     Chafee
     Chambliss
     Clinton
     Coburn
     Coleman
     Collins
     Cornyn
     Craig
     Crapo
     DeMint
     DeWine
     Dodd
     Dole
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Ensign
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Frist
     Graham
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagel
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Inouye
     Isakson
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Lott
     Lugar
     Martinez
     McConnell
     Mikulski
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Nelson (NE)
     Obama
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Roberts
     Salazar
     Santorum
     Sarbanes
     Schumer
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Smith
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Talent
     Thomas
     Thune
     Vitter
     Warner
     Wyden

                                NAYS--10

     Bennett
     Bond
     Cochran
     Conrad
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Jeffords
     Leahy
     Stevens
     Voinovich

                             NOT VOTING--7

     Biden
     Dayton
     Enzi
     McCain
     Menendez
     Rockefeller
     Sununu
  The amendment (No. 4076), as modified, was agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the 
Senate resumes the bill tomorrow morning, there be 60 minutes for the 
Feinstein amendment, with Senator Feinstein in control of 30 minutes, 
20 minutes to the chairman, and 10 minutes for the ranking member; 
provided further that on the expiration of that debate, the Senate 
proceed to a vote on the Feinstein amendment No. 4087, with no 
intervening action or debate or second-degree amendments. We will vote 
on the Feinstein amendment at 10:45 a.m. tomorrow, since the Senate 
will be coming in at 9:45 a.m.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I would like 
to ask of the chairman of the committee, Senator Cantwell and I have an 
amendment that has been pending. We were willing to move forward last 
week, we were willing to move forward today, and we are willing to move 
forward tomorrow. I am wondering if the chairman can give us a sense of 
when our amendment can be brought up so we can be heard and whether we 
can get a commitment from the chairman that we will have a reasonable 
amount of time, if not an excessive amount of time to debate it--say, 
an hour or 2 hours.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, my sense is we will be able to reach it 
tomorrow. We are juggling a great many considerations. I had discussed 
the issue with the Senator from New Hampshire earlier. We talked about 
1 hour equally divided.
  Mr. GREGG. That would be fine with me if the other side is agreeable 
to that.
  Mr. SPECTER. That would be my proposal when we come to it. I know the 
Senator from New Hampshire is waiting, and he is entitled to have his 
amendment heard. We will try to get to it tomorrow, and we will try to 
work out a time agreement of 1 hour equally divided.
  Mr. GREGG. I appreciate the chairman making that representation. My 
concern, of course, is that it not end up in a vote-arama, should we 
get to a vote-arama, and that we have time to debate it. With that 
representation, I will not object.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I do not expect vote-arama on this bill. 
This is not the budget resolution. The Senator from New Hampshire is 
familiar with budget resolutions.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from California.


                           Amendment No. 4087

     (Purpose: To modify the conditions under which aliens who are 
   unlawfully present in the United States are granted legal status)

  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 4087.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from California [Mrs. Feinstein], for herself 
     and Mr. Harkin, proposes an amendment numbered 4087.

  (The amendment is printed in today's Record under ``Text of 
Amendments.'')
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, this is an amendment to modify the 
conditions under which aliens who are lawfully present in the United 
States are granted legal status. It is submitted on behalf of Senator 
Harkin and myself. We have a half hour to argue the amendment tomorrow, 
but I would like to just raise a few points about it tonight. I did 
have the opportunity to speak about it earlier, but I recognize many 
Members were not yet back and available.
  This amendment creates an orange card, a replica of which is on my 
left. This would streamline the process for earned legalization. It 
would create a more workable and practical program than exists in the 
Hagel-Martinez compromise, and it would dedicate the necessary dollars 
to cover the costs of administering this program. This amendment builds 
on compromises already agreed to under the McCain-Kennedy and Hagel-
Martinez proposals, and it incorporates the amendments already adopted 
on the floor, but it eliminates what I consider to be a very unworkable 
three-tier program. This amendment only deals with the earned 
legalization parts of the bill. It does not change any of the border 
security provisions, the guest worker program, or any other component 
of the bill. It would simply eliminate the program created by Hagel-
Martinez and replace it with this orange card program.
  Under Hagel-Martinez, there are three tiers. Now, note this: We have 
not voted on Hagel-Martinez. Hagel-Martinez was an arrangement put 
together by Members of this body and it was brought up by using rule 
XIV. We have not voted on it. It essentially takes the 11.1 million 
people now in this country--working in this country, living in this 
country, raising their families in this country, but doing so in a 
clandestine way--and divides them into three different categories. For 
the 6.7 million who have been here more than 5 years, it would provide 
a transition to achieve earned legalization. For the 1.6 million who 
have been here less than 2 years or the 2.8 million who have been here 
from 2 to 5 years, it creates two different tiers, and this is the bone 
of contention, these two different tiers.
  I would say for anyone here as of the first of the year, we should 
provide this orange card process which I will describe in a moment. The 
problem doing it the Hagel-Martinez way is that it opens the door for 
fraud and for manipulation because you essentially have 4.4 million 
people here less than 5 years who would come forward and produce, in 
all likelihood, fraudulent documents, or simply remain in a clandestine 
status because they are working and they have families here.
  The 2.8 million who have been here 2 to 5 years are then subject to 
leave the country, to touch back and enter into the country through a 
visa program, most likely the H-2C worker program which has 200,000. We 
lowered the cap for the H-2C program from 325,000 to 200,000 in an 
earlier amendment offered by Senator Bingaman and myself. But what 
people haven't realized is that the cap would be waived for individuals 
coming in from this tier, which would raise the guest worker program to 
3 million people. And then here is the rub with the guest worker 
program: they would have to return after a period of time to their 
country. Therefore, there is no automatic path to earned legalization 
for these people, unless they can get an employer to petition for them 
for a green card. I think that is an unusual responsibility

[[Page 8952]]

placed on an employer for so many people, and I think it is not fair 
for the employee, either.
  Therefore, we have put forward a three-step process under the orange 
card amendment, which has received the support of 115 organizations and 
groups.
  Under this amendment, all undocumented aliens who are in the United 
States as of January 1 would immediately register a preliminary 
application with the Department of Homeland Security.
  At the time of the registration, they would submit fingerprints to 
the Customs and Immigration Services facility so that criminal and 
national security background checks could commence. It would create a 
more precise registration that would allow this to proceed 
electronically. That is a major key--proceed electronically so that DHS 
would have time to do the necessary processing and vet the application 
in an orderly manner. Then they would submit a full application for 
their orange card.
  Once they have passed the security background check, they have paid 
their back taxes, they have paid the $2,000 fine, then they would be 
issued the orange card. The orange card would have biometric 
identifiers, would have the history of the individual, and would have a 
number, and this number would be designed so that those who have been 
here the longest would be first in the line for the green card at the 
end of the work period.
  As everyone recalls, there are 3.3 million people back in their own 
countries waiting for green cards. None of this goes into play until 
that green card list is expunged. It is estimated that could take 
anywhere from 6 to 11 years. So during that period of time, individuals 
in this country would have an identifier: the orange card. This would 
be their identification. They could come and go with it. It is fraud-
proof, it is biometric, it has a photo, it has a fingerprint, and 
therefore provides a safe methodology. As long as individuals fill out 
the annual reports required by the program which attest to their work 
history, pay the fine, and pay their back taxes, they would keep the 
orange card effectively in place.
  I wish to comment that first of all, Senators Hagel and Martinez have 
done a service. They have tried to work out a compromise. I find fault 
with that compromise only when you read the small print of the bill 
language. When you read the bill language, you see that it is a huge 
program with 4.4 million people having to be found, having to be sought 
out. If they are here for less than the 2 years, they are deported. Who 
would deport them? How would they be found? You are going to find 2 
million people? I think that is very difficult to do. We know employer 
sanctions haven't worked. In 2004, total convictions under employer 
sanctions for the tens of thousands of employers who employ these 
people was a total number of 47.
  So I believe the orange card would serve us well. It is a streamlined 
process. It has the ability to consider all people to avoid the problem 
of deportation but to create a system which is secure, where people are 
checked out, where they are held accountable for their work, held 
accountable for their payment of back taxes, held accountable for the 
payment of a fine so they can then come out of the shadows and live a 
more normal and more productive life.
  This goes back to the original McCain-Kennedy formula, but in essence 
it essentially provides that there is an orderly process connected with 
this.
  As I said earlier, I think there is a critical flaw in Hagel-
Martinez, and that is those people who fall into the second tier can 
remain in the United States legally for up to 3 years, and then they 
must leave the country and find a legal program from which they may 
reenter the United States. This is the flaw because this would subject 
people to, once again, going back into a clandestine lifestyle rather 
than running the risk that they leave their families, go home, can't 
get into a program, and then can't come back again.
  The other problem with the Hagel-Martinez program is that if an 
individual doesn't work for 60 consecutive days, they are out. There is 
no provision for injury, there is no provision for illness, and when 
you are dealing with 6 million people, that is a problem. Some people 
are going to be the victims of bona fide injuries or bona fide 
catastrophic circumstances and not able to work for a period of time. 
So if they become injured or ill and effectively can't be on the job 
for 60 consecutive days at any given time during the year, they are 
then subject to deportation.
  I believe we have an opportunity, through the border patrol with 
12,000 additional agents, 2,500 additional inspectors, the money in the 
supplemental appropriations bill for the border, the National Guard 
doing logistical support and physical work on the border, and the fence 
to be built on the border, to make a major step forward in securing our 
borders. The next step and the most important part of the bill is what 
is the proper handling of the 10 million to 12 million people who are 
here illegally in our country at this time.
  I would respectfully submit to this body that the fair handling of 
these people is creating a pathway to an earned--not an amnesty--but an 
earned legalization where people have to document over a consequential 
period of time that they are working, they are good citizens, they are 
learning English, they are paying their taxes, and they are paying the 
fine. All of the proceeds from this fine would go to support the costs 
of the program. If there are 10 million people, at $2,000, that 
produces $20 billion for the additional hires that are necessary to run 
this program and hopefully run it well.
  So we will continue to argue this tomorrow, and I ask that the 
amendment be set aside at this time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from New Hampshire is recognized.
  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I would like to speak briefly on my 
amendment, which will hopefully be reached at some point here in the 
next day or so. It is an amendment I sponsored with Senator Cantwell 
from Washington, and it addresses what we see as an issue that, 
although not major in the context of the overall immigration debate, 
remains rather significant.
  There is today something called a lottery system. It is 
euphemistically called the diversity lottery system, which really I 
don't understand why it has picked up that name because it is really 
nothing like that. It is simply a lottery system. It says essentially 
that 50,000 people will get the right to become American citizens if 
they win a lottery and they are from countries which are deemed 
underrepresented. Most of those countries represent Eastern Europe and 
Africa. They don't have to do anything other than have a high school 
education or, alternatively, have worked for 2 out of the last 5 years 
in order to participate in this lottery. So the essential effect of 
this lottery system is that we are taking from around the world 50,000 
people who simply got lucky. There is no real reason we should take 
them. There is no policy reason to take them.
  There is no such thing as an underrepresented country really in our 
immigration system because of the fact that there are so many illegal 
immigrants in the country already. For example, if you were to take 
Poland, there are 47,000 people in this country who under this bill are 
presently illegal--that is the estimate--who may become legal. From 
Russia, there are about 46,000 people who qualify in that area. From 
Africa, there are 120,000 people who fall into that category. So these 
countries have a lot of people already here--some legally, a lot 
illegally, and they don't need representation.
  Mr. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, may I interrupt the Senator just for 
one brief change?
  Mr. GREGG. As long as I will not lose the floor.
  Mr. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I ask that instead of setting aside the 
amendment, it will be continuing in a pending status.

[[Page 8953]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment is pending.
  Mr. FEINSTEIN. Thank you very much.
  Mr. GREGG. So this lottery system, which was created back a while 
ago--I think in the early 1990s--in a sense of good will or political 
correctness, really is not all that productive to us as a nation. So 
Senator Cantwell and I have taken a look at it and said: Listen, if we 
are going to have a lottery system, why don't we at least apply it to 
people we actually need in this country to assist us in being a 
stronger nation, a more vibrant nation, a more economically successful 
nation?
  We know that in our Nation today, we are missing--or not missing, but 
we know we are not producing and creating enough people in the sciences 
which are energizing economic activity in this world: the maths, math 
doctorates, the science doctorates. We know we have a real lack of 
technical ability in many arenas and that we are falling well behind 
other nations, such as China, in our ability to produce people in the 
sciences and math subjects.
  Why not take this lottery system and say, rather than making it 
available to the cabdriver in Kiev, whom we may or may not really need 
in the United States, let's make it available to the physicist in Kiev. 
Why not say to the doctor in Poland or the doctor in Nigeria: You will 
have a chance to become an American citizen and have the opportunity to 
participate in this lottery, rather than saying to the street sweeper 
in Poland or the miner in Nigeria: It is your chance to participate in 
the lottery. So we have taken this proposal, which is 50,000 names 
thrown in a hat from these countries which are allegedly underserved, 
which are not underserved, and we changed it so that two-thirds of the 
names thrown in this hat will be of people who have advanced science 
degrees, which our Department of Commerce and Department of State 
determine are in need here in the United States. Two-thirds of those 
lottery winners will have those degrees. The other third will remain 
people who only need to have a high school education or have worked 2 
out of the last 5 years.
  Basically the lottery system will be changed from being one of, we 
don't know who is coming in the country and we don't know what they are 
going to contribute to our society as they come in--we hope they will 
be people who will be hard-working and committed people, but they may 
actually be people who are not. In fact, if a person has only worked 2 
out of the last 5 years and doesn't have a high school education, they 
can literally qualify for the lottery. Now I ask you, is that the kind 
of person we want to have qualified for the lottery? A person who may 
have been unemployed for 3 of the last 5 years, doesn't have a high 
school education, but they can get into the United States under the 
lottery. I think it makes much more sense to say let's have folks who 
have shown their energy, shown their commitment, shown their 
willingness to strive within their own communities by obtaining these 
advanced degrees, let's have those folks participate in the lottery.
  Some will say the H-1B program already solves this because it is 
greatly expanded in this bill, and that allows people with advanced 
degrees to come into this country. That is true. That is good. This 
bill is excellent in that manner. But as a practical matter, this 
lottery would go to people who do not qualify for H-1B. In other words, 
to get an H-1B visa, you have to have a sponsor or, in other words, an 
employer here in the United States who is going to hire you or you have 
to have a family member who will sponsor you to come into the country.
  There are a lot of people out there in these allegedly underserved 
countries who do not have somebody who is going to employ them because 
the groups that employ foreign nationals who have advanced science 
degrees don't go to those countries. They don't recruit in those 
countries, for all intents and purposes. And they don't have a family 
member here. So they are out of it. They can't get in. So it makes 
sense to take the lottery system and convert it to something that is 
going to be an add-on to America's success.
  We hear a lot in this Chamber, especially from some of our 
colleagues, that we are outsourcing jobs, we are outsourcing our jobs 
to other countries. What this proposal does is it insources people who 
will create jobs in our country. It says let's go out and find the best 
and the brightest people around the world and say: Listen, we would 
like to have you live in the United States and create jobs in the 
United States, use your ability to produce in the United States. If you 
don't have a person who wants to employ you and you don't have a spouse 
here who is willing to sponsor you or a family member who is willing to 
sponsor you, we still would like you to have a shot at coming here, 
because most would like to, and we have a lottery system that says you 
can win it and get into this country.
  I note that under the present lottery system, we have seen abuses. In 
fact, the report of the inspector general of the State Department found 
significant fraud and mismanagement of this program and the fact that 
people were coming into the country who really should not have come 
into the country, but they won the lottery or they were relatives of 
people who won the lottery. Obviously, the most egregious example of 
that was the terrorist individual who attacked the L.A. airport and 
shot up the El Al counter. He was in the United States because his 
spouse had won the lottery. Not a good decision for us.
  It seems to me that rather than just flipping a coin and saying: Hey, 
listen, if you are out there and you want to come to work and you are 
from one of these countries which are allegedly underserved--which, by 
the way, they are not underserved, as I pointed out in the early part 
of my statement--you have a chance to come here. Let's at least say for 
the majority of the people who have won the lottery that you have to 
have done something, you have to have shown something, you have to have 
produced something, you have to have been willing to go out there and 
show you have the character and the energy and the intelligence to 
actually be an addition to our society, an add-on, a creator of jobs in 
our society, a creator of economic activity, a creator of a stronger 
society rather than just have the good fortune of having drawn a lucky 
number.
  That is what this bill does. I cannot really understand the 
opposition to it. A lottery system--I am not sure it ever really had a 
good time to exist, but clearly now is not a good time for it to exist. 
We have 12 million people in this country who arguably won the lottery 
by coming into this country illegally. I guess you could say that. 
Under this bill, some of them are really going to win the lottery 
because they are going to go to the back of the line, but they are 
getting on the line and obtaining what is called earned citizenship, as 
the Senator from California was saying. But the simple fact is, we 
don't need to add to that great mass of people. They are here already. 
If we are going to add people to our culture from the immigration 
standpoint, let's add people who we know on the face of it are likely 
to contribute significantly to making us a stronger and more vibrant 
nation, especially economically.
  If we are going to have a lottery, let's just not make it an 
arbitrary event. Let's make it something that assists not only the 
person who wins but also our Nation, so that both sides are winners 
under the lottery, not just one side.
  The House took a look at the lottery. In their bill, they determined 
it was so inappropriate, they simply abolished it altogether. So it 
seems to me if we take this position we will be strongly positioned in 
conference to present the case that the lottery can work for us as a 
nation, rather than be a loss leader. That is why this amendment has 
picked up considerable support. It is bipartisan support.
  I look forward to having a more extensive debate on it with my 
cosponsor, Senator Cantwell, who understands. She comes from Washington 
State where they understand the need to get some top-quality people in 
our country in the area of science, as the

[[Page 8954]]

home of Microsoft, which is clearly the engine of the Internet, the 
engine of the expansion of technology over the Internet and in computer 
science that has driven the world, not only the United States. They 
understand uniquely in Washington State, as we all hopefully do, the 
need to bring smart, intelligence people from across the world into our 
Nation and keep us competitive with countries such as China that are 
turning out four or five or six times the number of scientists we are 
turning out annually.
  That is why this is important. It is not, obviously, the biggest vote 
on this stage. There have been a lot of votes dealing with the 
substance of this bill which has huge implications relative to the 
numbers of people who come into this country and how they come into 
this country and how we protect our borders, but it is one part of the 
system we have to make more rational, better, but to be a system where 
not only does the immigrant win but America wins.
  With that, I make a point of order that a quorum is not present.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I wish to speak in support of the 
amendment of Senator Gregg to deal with the lottery provision that is 
currently in the code involving immigration. We have many odd and 
curious provisions in our immigration law, but I suppose the lottery 
provision is one of the most odd and most curious. It seems to me to be 
unprincipled, without any real thought as to how it would effect a 
policy that is good for America. What kind of thing is this, that you 
do a lottery to let people come in from around the world?
  His approach would be to say: Let's focus two-thirds of those slots 
on people with higher skills and higher education. I want to speak in 
favor of that and say, really, we need not only to do this two-thirds, 
but it would be better, in my view, to do the whole lottery program in 
this fashion. In addition, we need to reevaluate entirely this bill 
which is before us today to ask ourselves with some thoughtfulness how 
we can make future immigration policy beneficial to our country. It 
ought to benefit us. Everybody who comes here, no matter how poor or 
uneducated, according to the witnesses we heard at our one hearing, is 
benefited economically.
  The poorer they are the more they benefit. They benefit, but the 
question is, What about the United States? Do we benefit? Is it a net 
gain for the United States?
  We had a number of professors who testified--Professor Freeman, 
Professor Siciliano, Professor Chiswick, and others whose names escape 
me--and talked about this quite openly. These are the fundamental facts 
that should be part of any thoughtful, comprehensive reform of 
immigration in America.
  The facts are these: People with college credit, people with a 
college degree uniformly contribute more to this country in taxes than 
they take out in benefits. The people who come to our country with less 
than a high school education, a high school dropout or somebody who 
just didn't have the opportunity, they don't have a high school 
degree--and over 50 percent of illegal immigrants entering our country 
today are without a high school degree--those people, it is uniformly 
agreed by professional economists who studied this issue, most of whom 
testified at our committee, strongly favor immigration but they all 
agree they will on average--not every single one but on average--draw 
more from the U.S. Treasury and U.S. coffers than they put in.
  Does that tell us anything? What is happening in Canada? What is 
happening in France right now? What has already happened in Britain, 
Australia, Switzerland, and the Netherlands? These countries have 
reevaluated their immigration policy. They are focusing on bringing in 
people who benefit the country.
  We cannot accept everybody. Isn't it a simple principle? There is no 
way this country can accept everybody who would like to come.
  The leading expert on immigration--I think universally agreed on 
immigration--such as Professor Voorhas from the Kennedy School at 
Harvard, he himself is an immigrant. He immigrated here from Cuba. The 
name of his book, probably the most authoritative book on the entire 
subject, is entitled ``Heaven's Door.'' What is that? ``Heaven's Door'' 
is entry into the United States.
  For a poor person in the Third World who has been abused by a legal 
system that does not work, who does not have clean water, who does not 
have a legitimate job, who does not have electricity, getting to the 
United States, the title of his book, is like going through Heaven's 
door. It is a tremendous thing.
  But the world has a lot of people in it. We already have a lot of 
people in the United States. We have to ask ourselves: How many can we 
welcome? What people will achieve their dreams and aspirations most 
successfully here, people who are high school dropouts or people who 
have a greater education?
  We also need to ask, as Canada does: Do they speak English? Australia 
does. They ought to speak English before they come here.
  What is it about letting in hundreds and hundreds of thousands of 
people on the theory that they might one day learn English, and that 
would be a requirement for citizenship. But if we have gotten more 
applicants than we can accept, why would we not want to ask ourselves 
whether we should give extra points, a higher listing on the list, if 
they already speak English? They would be guaranteed to be more 
successful here and more likely to assimilate, more likely to be 
promoted, more likely to be a boss over other people. If you can't 
speak the language, how can you ever rise to be a supervisor?
  Those are important things, I submit, and not considered in the 
legislation before us at all.
  Senator Craig's amendment is a very good amendment. It focuses on a 
critical matter. Let me tell you what my staff has concluded from their 
careful study of the bill. We believe that as it is presently written 
today only 30 percent of the people coming into this country will come 
in as a result of their skills or education. That is a pretty stunning 
number. Only 30 percent coming into our country will have their entry 
evaluated, their skill level or their education level, whereas 70 
percent will come into our country for other reasons.
  For example, if a young man came to our country under the new guest 
worker program that would be made law today, and that guest worker 
program would allow him to come into the country to file for a green 
card the first day he arrived here, within 5 years from that he can 
apply for and obtain as of right his citizenship in the United States. 
That will happen under the bill. Within 6 years, the person could 
possibly be a citizen of the United States coming in under a program 
which the bill says is a temporary guest worker provision. They say it 
is a temporary guest worker section of the bill. It has big letters, 
``Temporary Guest Worker.''
  But on the first day they get here, their employer can ask for a 
green card. A green card means you have legal permanent residence. 
Within 5 years of getting that card, they can become a citizen. A legal 
permanent resident means if you never seek citizenship you can stay in 
the country once you get that green card for the rest of your life.
  What I am saying is, under this provision a young man can come in--
and he is 20 years of age. If he works 5 or 6 years, he becomes a 
citizen. Now he is 30, and he has a 50-year-old brother, a 60-year-old, 
a 70-year-old mother and father. They can be brought into this country 
under chain migration, whether or not they have any skills or any 
education that would be relevant to their success in the United States 
of America.

[[Page 8955]]

  Think about this: Let us say they are both from Honduras. Let us say 
this is a young man who was valedictorian of his school in Honduras, 
who had a chance to take an English course and took English and learned 
it well, was able to go to a technical college and became skilled in 
electricity, and he applies at age 21 to come to the United States. 
Would he not have the advantage over a 50-year-old brother or a 70-
year-old mother of someone who is already here when those people who 
may or may not have any skills which would be beneficial to the country 
could likely became a drain on the Nation's resources?
  That is how we have 70 percent of the people coming into our country 
under the new provision who are supposed to be in a comprehensive 
reform of the immigration system? That does not make sense. We need to 
focus more on providing opportunities for people to enter our country 
who have the greatest potential to succeed. It is perfectly proper and 
legitimate for us to ask: What is the worker status, the wages that are 
being paid in a given area, and do we have a shortage?
  In my view, the Department of Labor should not allow surging 
immigration when we have certain fields in the United States where 
there are more workers than there are jobs and you let a bunch of 
people come in from out of the country to take what few jobs there are 
leaving Americans unemployed.
  We need to consider all of those things. But, fundamentally, when you 
make a choice between two individuals--a younger person, a person who 
speaks English, a person who has skills--who is going to be far more 
successful? If they are successful here themselves, and if they benefit 
and if they are blessed by the great freedoms and economic prosperity 
and the free market we have in America, if they are blessed by that, 
they will pay more taxes to the Government than they draw from the 
Government. That is a pretty good thing, I submit.
  One reason I have been so critical of this legislation--and I remain 
steadfastly convinced that it is not worthy of the Senate of the United 
States--is the legislation seems to have given no thought to these 
issues whatsoever. We certainly never had a hearing to deal with it, to 
my knowledge. A lot of things we haven't done that we could have done. 
We could have studied more, we could have had more experts come in and 
testify and help us craft the legislation. We should have brought in 
immigration people who work for the Government of the United States to 
find out what is working and what is not working.
  I talked to the person in the Dominican Republic, the American 
consulate official who meets with those people in the Dominican 
Republic who would like to come to the United States. He seemed like a 
very nice guy. He made some mention about sham marriages. So we talked 
about that.
  As a U.S. attorney prosecuting a case where people created a sham 
marriage for immigration purposes, he said they won't even talk about 
prosecuting a case in the Dominican Republic. And he has seen lots and 
lots of sham marriage cases that were never prosecuted.
  Why do they have a sham marriage? Because if you are married to 
somebody who is in the United States, they can take their wife and 
their children. That is the way to get people here. So they create a 
sham marriage.
  But he told me that 95 percent of the people in the Dominican 
Republic who were approved to come to the United States were approved 
under the chain migration or family connection provisions in our code.
  Fundamentally, almost no one coming from the Dominican Republic to 
the United States is coming because they have a skill that would 
benefit us and that would indicate their likely success in our society. 
They come in because some other family member of a qualified relation 
is here as a citizen or even a green card holder. That is how they get 
to come. They are creating a false document to show these are relatives 
or their spouses and they are married when it is not so.
  As I have said a number of times on the Senate floor, 60 percent of 
the people in Nicaragua in a recent poll said they would come to the 
United States if they could, and I understand 70 percent of the people 
in Peru, when polled, said they would come to the United States if they 
could.
  What does that mean? Think about it.
  Mexico, all of Central America, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, 
Jamaica, Morocco, all of the African nations, the Middle East, 
Bangladesh, China, India, Taiwan, the Philippines--all these nations 
around the world with great people in them--wonderful people but in 
each one of those countries are significant numbers of people, I 
submit, who would come to the United States if they could. Wouldn't it 
be a good policy for our Nation? Wouldn't it be the right thing to 
think seriously about who should come, like Canada and Britain, and as 
France did last week, and refocus our attention on accepting a certain 
number of people but making sure those people bring skills and talents 
with them to indicate they would be a positive benefit to our society 
rather than a net drain on society?
  That is a challenge. We simply cannot accept everyone who wants to 
come. It is painful to bring people who are not able to speak English 
or effectively take advantage of the opportunities our country has. 
When they do not do that, they do not do well. They tend to pull 
themselves apart and continue to speak their own language. They do not 
advance and assimilate and become part of the great melting pot we are 
so proud of as Americans.
  It is a big step forward to take this lottery, to put two-thirds of 
those people who are in it, who are now chosen by random chance, 
without any regard to skills or abilities or language or those matters, 
to at least set them aside for high-skilled positions for education, 
science, mathematics. It would be a great benefit to our country.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, when the Senate resumed its consideration 
of comprehensive immigration reform last week I began by expressing my 
hope that we would finish the job the Judiciary Committee started in 
March and the Senate began in April. We need to fix the broken 
immigration system with tough reforms that secure our borders and with 
reforms that will bring millions of undocumented immigrants out of the 
shadows. I have said all along that Democratic Senators cannot pass a 
fair and comprehensive bill alone. Last week we got some help.
  We got some words of encouragement from President Bush last Monday 
night when he began speaking out more forcefully and in more specific 
terms about all of the components needed for comprehensive legislation. 
For the first time, he expressly endorsed a pathway to earned 
citizenship for the millions of undocumented workers now here. I thank 
him for joining in this effort. We will need his influence with the 
recalcitrant members of his party here in the Senate, and especially in 
the House, if we are ultimately to be successful in our legislative 
effort. Without effective intervention of the President, this effort is 
unlikely to be successful and the prospects for securing our borders 
and dealing with the hopes of millions who now live in the shadows of 
our society will be destroyed. Those who have peacefully demonstrated 
their dedication to justice and comprehensive immigration reform should 
not be relegated back into the shadows.
  Last week the Senate made progress. We made progress because 
Democratic and Republican Senators working together rejected the most 
strident attacks on the comprehensive bill that we are considering. We 
joined together in a bipartisan coalition in the Judiciary Committee 
when we reported the Judiciary Committee bill. Democratic Senators were 
ready to join together in April and supported the Republican leader's 
motion that would have resulted in incorporating features from the 
Hagel-Martinez bill, but Republicans balked at that time and continued 
to filibuster action. Last week, Republicans joined with us to defend 
the core provisions of that bill, and we defeated efforts by Senators 
Kyl and Cornyn to gut the guest worker provisions and to undermine the 
pathway to

[[Page 8956]]

earned citizenship. Instead, we adopted the Bingaman amendment to cap 
the annual guest worker program at 200,000 and the Obama amendment 
regarding prevailing wages in order to better protect the opportunities 
and wages of American workers.
  I spoke last week about the need to strengthen our border security 
after more than 5 years of neglect and failure by the Bush-Cheney 
administration. A recent report concluded that the number of people 
apprehended at our borders for illegal entry fell 31 percent on 
President Bush's watch, from a yearly average of 1.52 million between 
1996 and 2000, to 1.05 million between 2001 and 2004. The number of 
illegal immigrants apprehended while in the interior of the country 
declined 36 percent, from a yearly average of roughly 40,000 between 
1996 and 2000, to 25,901 between 2001 and 2004. Audits and fines 
against employers of illegal immigrants have also fallen significantly 
since President Bush took office. Given the vast increases in the 
number of Border Patrol agents, the decline in enforcement can only be 
explained by a failure of leadership.
  The recent aggressive and well-publicized enforcement efforts to 
detain illegal immigrants seem to be election-year posturing that does 
little to improve the situation. We need comprehensive reform, backed 
up by leadership committed to using the tools Congress provides, not to 
piecemeal political stunts.
  Once again the administration is turning to the fine men and women of 
National Guard. After our intervention turned sour in Iraq, the 
Pentagon turned to the Guard. After the government-wide failure in 
responding to Hurricane Katrina, we turned to the Guard. Now, the 
administration's longstanding lack of focus on our porous Southern 
border and failure to develop a comprehensive immigration policy has 
prompted the administration to turn once again to the Guard. I remain 
puzzled that this administration, which seems so ready to take 
advantage of the Guard, fights so vigorously against providing this 
essential force with adequate equipment, a seat at the table in policy 
debates, or even adequate health insurance for the men and women of the 
Guard.
  I have cautioned that any Guard units should operate under the 
authority of State Governors. In addition, the Federal Government 
should pick up the full costs of such a deployment. Those costs should 
not be foisted onto the States and their already overtaxed Guard units.
  Controlling our borders is a national responsibility, and it is 
regrettable that so much of this duty has been punted to the States and 
now to the Guard. The Guard is pitching in above and beyond, balancing 
its already demanding responsibilities to the States, while sending 
troops who have been deployed to Iraq. The Guard served admirably in 
response to Hurricane Katrina when the Federal Government failed to 
prepare or respond in a timely or sufficient manner. The Vermont Guard 
and others have been contributing to our national security since the 
immediate aftermath of 9/11. After 5 years of failing to utilize the 
authority and funding Congress has provided to strengthen the Border 
Patrol and our border security, the administration is, once again, 
turning to the National Guard.
  It was instructive that last week President Bush and congressional 
Republicans staged a bill-signing for legislation that continues 
billions of dollars of tax cuts for the wealthy. Instead of a budget 
with robust and complete funding for our Border Patrol and border 
security, the President has focused on providing tax cuts for the 
wealthiest among us. Congress has had to step in time and again to 
create new border agent positions and direct that they be filled. 
Instead of urging his party to take early and decisive action to pass 
comprehensive immigration reform, as he signaled he would in February 
2001, the President began his second term campaigning to undercut the 
protections of our Social Security system, and the American people 
signaled their opposition to those undermining steps. While the 
President talks about the importance of our first responders, he has 
proposed 67 percent cuts in the grant program that supplies bulletproof 
vests to police officers.
  Five years of the Bush-Cheney administration's inaction and misplaced 
priorities have done nothing to improve our immigration situation. The 
Senate just passed an emergency supplemental appropriations bill that 
allocated nearly $2 billion from military accounts to border security. 
The Democratic leader had proposed that the funds not be taken from the 
troops. But last week the President sent a request for diverting a like 
amount of funding, intended for capital improvements for border 
security, into operations and deployment of the National Guard. The 
Republican chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on 
Homeland Security came to the Senate floor last week to give an 
extraordinary speech in this regard.
  In addition, last week the Senate adopted a billion-dollar amendment 
to build fencing along the Southern border without saying how it would 
be funded. We also adopted amendments by Senators Bingaman, Kerry, and 
Nelson of Florida to strengthen our enforcement efforts.
  Border security alone is not enough to solve our immigration 
problems. We must pass a bill--and enact a law--that will not only 
strengthen the security along our borders, but that will also encourage 
millions of people to come out of the shadows. When this is 
accomplished we will be more secure because we will know who is living 
and working in the United States. We must encourage the undocumented to 
come forward, undergo background checks, and pay taxes to earn a place 
on the path to citizenship.
  Last week we defeated an Ensign amendment to deny persons in legal 
status the Social Security benefits to which they are fairly entitled. 
I believe that most Americans will agree with that decision as fair and 
just. It maintains the trust of the Social Security trust fund for 
those workers who contribute to the fund.
  The opponents of our bipartisan bill have made a number of assaults 
on our comprehensive approach. Senators Kyl, Sessions, and Cornyn 
opposed the Judiciary Committee bill. Senators Vitter, Ensign, and 
Inhofe have been very active in the amendment process, as well. I hope 
that they recognize how fairly they have been treated and the time they 
have been given to argue their case against the bill and offer 
amendments. We have adopted their amendments where possible. A narrowed 
version of the Kyl-Cornyn amendment disqualifying some from seeking 
legalization was adopted. The Sessions amendment on fencing was 
adopted. The Vitter amendment on documents was adopted. The Ensign 
amendment on the National Guard is being considered. Over my strong 
objection and that of the Democratic leader, Senator Salazar and 
others, a modified version of the Inhofe amendment designating English 
as our national language was even adopted. This amendment is wrong and 
has understandably provoked a reaction from the Latino community as 
exemplified by the May 19 letter from the League of United Latin 
American Citizens, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational 
Fund, the National Association of Latino Elected Officials Educational 
Fund, the National Council of La Raza, the National Puerto Rican 
Coalition, and from a larger coalition of interested parties as 
reflected in a May 19 letter from 96 national and local organizations. 
I will ask copies of these two letters be printed in the Record 
following my statement.
  I trust that with so many of their amendments having been fairly 
considered and some having been adopted, those in the opposition to 
this measure will reevaluate their previous filibuster, that they will 
vote for cloture, and, I will hope, support the compromise bill.
  Immigration reform must be comprehensive if it is to lead to real 
security and real reform. Enforcement-only measures may sound tough but 
they are insufficient. The President has acknowledged this truth. Our 
bipartisan support of the Senate bill is based on our shared 
recognition of this fact. In these next few days, the Senate has an

[[Page 8957]]

opportunity, and a responsibility, to pass a bill that addresses our 
broken system, with comprehensive immigration reform.
  I ask unanimous consent that the aforementioned letters be printed in 
the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                     May 19, 2006.
       Dear Senator: On behalf of the undersigned national Latino 
     organizations, we are writing to express our grave concern at 
     the passage of the Inhofe Amendment to the immigration reform 
     bill currently under consideration in the Senate. We believe 
     this amendment jeopardizes the health and safety of all 
     Americans by undercutting federal, state, and local 
     government's capacity to provide vital information and 
     services to immigrants and Americans who are speakers of 
     other languages. This amendment has nothing to do with 
     immigration reform, and it does nothing to help immigrants 
     learn English. We believe it has no place in this bill and 
     urge you to reconsider it.
       Upon review of the language of this amendment, we have 
     reached the conclusion that it would undercut policies that 
     facilitate communication with people who are speakers of 
     other languages. If this amendment becomes law, it would 
     jeopardize the delivery of public health and safety messages 
     that are intended to protect all Americans. The amendment 
     would make it more difficult for agencies like the Federal 
     Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Centers for 
     Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to respond to a flu 
     pandemic, another hurricane disaster like Katrina, or another 
     terrorist attack. If some portion of the community does not 
     receive information about immunizations or other health 
     threats in a language they can understand. then the entire 
     public is at risk.
       We are also offended by the premise reflected in the 
     amendment and the debate which took place on the Senate floor 
     that the English language is somehow ``under attack'' in the 
     United States. Immigrants and all Americans understand that 
     English is our common language. If there is a challenge to 
     the integration of immigrants. it is that there are 
     insufficient English classes available to meet the demand 
     from immigrants who are eager to take them; the Inhofe 
     Amendment does not help a single immigrant learn English. We 
     stand ready to join in a debate on how to create new 
     resources and options to facilitate English classes and the 
     full integration of immigrants into our society. We deeply 
     regret that the Senate failed to choose this course of action 
     and instead voted on a counterproductive proposal that would 
     do real harm while doing nothing to promote English-language 
     acquisition.
       The presence of this amendment in the immigration reform 
     bill calls into question our community's support of the 
     immigration reform package. We urge you in the strongest 
     possible terms to reconsider this damaging vote.
           Sincerely,
       Hector Flores, National President, League of United Latin 
     American Citizens (LULAC).
       John Trasvina, Interim President and General Counsel, 
     Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF).
       Arturo Vargas, Executive Director, National Association of 
     Latino Elected Officials Educational Fund (NALEO).
       Janet Murguia, President and CEO, National, Council of La 
     Raza (NCLR).
       Manuel Mirabal, President and CEO, National Puerto Rican 
     Coalition (NPRC).
                                  ____

                                                     May 19, 2006.
       Dear Senator: We, the undersigned 96 national and local 
     organizations, understand that the Senate voted yesterday to 
     approve an amendment offered by Senator Inhofe which affirms 
     English as the nation's national language and which could 
     undercut policies which facilitate communication with people 
     who are speakers of other languages. We are alarmed at this 
     development and urge you to reconsider this ill-advised vote.
       There is no question that English is the common language of 
     this Nation; many of our organizaions offer English-language 
     classes and can testify to the fact that the demand for 
     instruction far exceeds the supply. If there is one single 
     issue that stands in the way of immigrants learning English, 
     it is a lack of resources to provide sufficient classes for 
     those seeking to take them. We are sorely disappointed that 
     the Senate debate on language focused on a proposal to limit 
     communication with immigrants rather than on increasing 
     access to programs that can actually assist immigrants as 
     they attempt to learn English while working, raising 
     families, and contributing in multiple ways to the vibrancy 
     of this country.
       In addition, the Inhofe Amendment undermines the health and 
     safety of all Americans by undercutting federal, state, and 
     local government's capacity to provide vital information and 
     services to immigrants and Americans who are speakers of 
     other languages. It would jeopardize the delivery of public 
     health and safety messages that are intended to protect all 
     Americans. The amendment could make it more difficult for 
     agencies like the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) 
     and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to 
     respond to a flu pandemic, another hurricane disaster like 
     Katrina, or another terrorist attack. If some portion of the 
     community does not receive information about immunizations or 
     other health threats in a language they understand, then the 
     entire public is at risk.
       This amendment has nothing to do with immigration reform, 
     and it does nothing to help immigrants learn English. We 
     believe it has no place in this bill and urge you to 
     reconsider it.
           Sincerely,
       ACORN; American Immigration Lawyers Association; Americans 
     for Democratic Action, Inc.; Arab Community Center for 
     Economic and Social Services; Asian American Justice Center; 
     Asian American Institute; Asian and Pacific Islander American 
     Health Forum; Asian Pacific Islander Coalition of King 
     County; Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice; Asian Law 
     Alliance; Asian Law Caucus; Asian Pacific American Legal 
     Center of Southern California; ASPIRA; Bell Policy Center-
     Denver; Break the Cycle; Carter and Alterman; CASA of 
     Maryland, Inc.; Center for Justice, Peace and the 
     Environment; Center for Law and Social Policy; Central 
     American Resource Center/CARECEN-L.A.; Centro de la 
     Comunidad, Inc.
       Centro Hispano of Dane County; Chinese for Affirmative 
     Action/Center for Asian American Advocacy; CHIRLA; Coalition 
     of Limited English Speaking Elderly; Community Legal 
     Services, Inc.; Cross-Cultural Communications, LLC; Cuban 
     American National Council; District of Columbia's Fellowship 
     of Reconciliation; Escuela Tlatelolco Centro de Estudios; 
     Fuerza Latina; Greater New York Labor-Religion Coalition; 
     Immigrant Legal Resource Center; Immigration Law Office of 
     Kimberly Salinas; Institute of the Sisters of Mercy of the 
     Americas; Korean American Voters Alliance; Korean Resource 
     Center--Los Angeles; La Causa Inc.; La Clinica del Pueblo; 
     Latino and Latina Roundtable of the San Gabriel Valley and 
     Pomona Valley; Latino Leadership, Inc.;
       Law Center For Families; Lawyers' Committee for Civil 
     Rights Under Law; League of United Latin American Citizens; 
     Legal Momentum; Luther Immigration and Refugee Service; 
     Mary's Center for Maternal and Child Care, Inc.; Mexican-
     American Council; Migrant Legal Action Program; Minnesota 
     Immigrant Freedom Network; NAACP; National Advocacy Center of 
     the Sisters of the Good Shepherd; National Association of 
     Latino Elected Officials; National Association of Social 
     Workers; National Council for Community and Education 
     Partnerships; National Council of La Raza; National Health 
     Law Program; National Immigration Law Center; National Korean 
     American Service & Education Consortium; National Latina 
     Health Network National Organization for Women.
       National Network for Arab American Communities; National 
     Network to End Domestic Violence; National Network to End 
     Violence Against Immigrant Women; National Partnership for 
     Women & Families; National Puerto Rican Coalition; New York 
     Asian Women's Center; New York Immigration Coalition; OCA 
     Greater Seattle Chapter; PeaceAction Montgomery; People for 
     the American Way; Presbyterian Church (USA); Resource Center 
     of the Americas; Rio Grande Centers, Inc.; SEIU Local 21--
     Louisiana; SEIU Local 32BJ; Service Employees International 
     Union; Sexual Assault Services Organization; South Florida 
     Jobs with Justice; Southeast Asia Resource Action Center; 
     SSG/PALS for Health Program--SSG/ALAS para tu Salud.
       Tahirih Justice Center; Teachers of English to Speakers of 
     Other Languages, Inc.; The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination 
     Committee; The California Pan-Ethnic Health Network; The Fair 
     Immigration Reform Movement; The Korean American Resource & 
     Cultural Center--Chicago; The Mexican American Legal Defense 
     and Educational Fund; The National Asian Pacific American 
     Women's Forum; The National Capital Immigration Coalition; 
     UFCW Region One; UNITE HERE; United Methodist Church, General 
     Board of Church and Society; WA State Coalition Against 
     Domestic Violence; Women's Committee of 100; YKASEC--
     Empowering the Korean American Community--New York.

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, we have had a good process to this point on 
the immigration bill. I thank the bill managers for their hard work. We 
are now, as I outlined this morning, in our final week prior to our 
recess. We have a lot of legislative and executive items we need to 
complete before that recess. Therefore, in a moment, I will be filing 
cloture on the immigration bill to ensure we will complete action 
before the Memorial Day recess, by the end of this week. In doing so I 
hope we can still have a fair process and continue to work through 
amendments.
  There are a number of germane amendments that may be in order 
postcloture. I hope Senators will have the opportunity to have votes on 
them.

[[Page 8958]]

  Having said that, we also have a lengthy list of important executive 
nominations that I will be discussing with the Democratic leader. It is 
my hope we can reach time agreements on these so we can schedule those 
nominations for votes this week, as well.
  One of the nominations we will consider is the nomination of Brett 
Kavanaugh to be a U.S. circuit court judge. I understand we would not 
be able to reach a time limit for that nomination for this week. 
Therefore, it is my intention to file cloture on that nomination, as 
well.


                             Cloture Motion

  I now send a cloture motion to the desk on the comprehensive 
immigration bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under 
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     do hereby move to bring to a close debate on Calendar No. 
     414, S. 2611: a bill to provide for comprehensive immigration 
     reform and for other purposes.
         William H. Frist, Arlen Specter, Larry Craig, Mel 
           Martinez, Orrin Hatch, Gordon Smith, John Warner, Pete 
           Domenici, George V. Voinovich, Ted Stevens, Craig 
           Thomas, Thad Cochran, Judd Gregg, Lindsey Graham, Norm 
           Coleman, Mitch McConnell, Lamar Alexander.

  Mr. FRIST. I ask that the live quorum under rule XXII be waived.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________