[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 17615-17621]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              IMMIGRATION

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I say to my colleagues, the process has 
not been a pretty one to date. It has been particularly ugly in the 
last few hours in that we had an amendment yesterday of nearly 400 
pages. The people who wrote it apparently found that they made numerous 
errors which even they were not happy with. They filed another 
amendment which our Senators don't have a copy of, I don't think even 
to this moment. At least an hour ago, Senator DeMint was asking for a 
copy of the amendment so people could see it and actually read what is 
to be voted on. It is not good, on a matter that almost every American 
is watching, a matter that is important to our country, to stumble and 
bumble into this process, and part of the reason, as my good friend and 
former chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter, said, it 
would have been better probably had we gone through the committee 
process. When he was chairman of the committee, it did go through the 
committee process. It didn't do a lot of good, but at least it was 
looked at in some of the areas that are inevitably fixed when we go 
through that kind of process. So I am worried about this process.
  The procedure the majority leader has chosen, and he says he has 
support of some kind from the Republican leadership side--I assume he 
does--he has chosen to utilize a procedure never before used in this 
Senate. That procedure will allow the majority leader, Senator Reid, to 
have the power to approve every amendment that will be offered to this 
legislation. If it is not part of his clay pigeon, you are not in. If 
some other amendment is offered and accepted, it is because he decided 
it is appropriate. He could well accept amendments that he knows are 
going to fail. He could well accept amendments that he doesn't mind 
passing. But he picks the amendments. That has never happened in the 
history of the Senate, never happened in this fashion before.
  We must not allow that procedure to happen now. There will be 
opportunities for us, before this process is over, to execute votes 
that will demonstrate we don't accept this process, and it should be a 
big part of any Senator's vote as we go forward with this process.
  Mr. President, I have to say to my colleagues, as I indicated to the 
majority leader earlier, what would Paul Wellstone say, that great 
liberal advocate, a Senator who enjoyed standing alone, or Senator 
Jesse Helms, that great conservative who enjoyed standing alone, both 
doing what they believed was right, something we take great pride in as 
an institution.
  We do not have a lot of power here, but if you don't agree to 
unanimous consent requests and you are consistent in your advocacy of 
positions you deeply believe in, you can get a vote. Under this 
procedure you do not get a vote. I offered amendment after amendment 
before when this bill was before the Senate. As a result, the 
leadership on the other side objected. I could not get those amendments 
pending, and that leaves us unable to get a final vote postcloture.
  I am not exaggerating. It has never been done before. It allows the 
majority leader, under the procedure that is being used today, to 
completely approve or disapprove of whether an amendment gets voted on. 
So I object to that process. It is not right. We should not be doing 
it, and we shouldn't be doing it on a bill that is 750 pages with a 
300- or 400-page amendment that goes to some issues that are important 
to America.
  Let me share with my colleagues my concerns about this legislation. I 
will try to summarize it and go right to the point.
  Senator Reid, the President, the President's Cabinet members, leaders 
of the coalition, this grand bargain group--I call them affectionately 
the masters of the universe--they all tell us this bill is going to fix 
illegality, and if we don't vote for this legislation, somehow legality 
will not happen. A group of us have written to the President asking him 
to utilize 13 special powers he already has under law that will 
dramatically reduce illegality in immigration. We have not heard from 
him.
  We could do additional legislation that would help enforcement. I 
believe that is so. But the bill will not stop illegal immigration and, 
in fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office, June 4, they 
rendered their report and they concluded that instead of 10 million 
people coming into the country illegally as they project under current 
law, 8.7 million people would be entering our country illegally.
  What kind of legislation is this? We have been promised it is going 
to stop illegality and it only reduces illegality by 13 percent, a 
fundamental failure, a fundamental misrepresentation to the American 
people about what this bill will do. It is shocking.
  This chart shows that situation. The blue, according to the CBO score 
over 20 years, the blue shows that 10 million people would be coming 
into our country at the current rate over the next 20 years. If we pass 
the bill, the red will occur, 8.7 million people.
  Every Senator ought to know what our own Congressional Budget Office

[[Page 17616]]

has reported. Every Senator who is aware of that cannot go home to 
their constituents and say: I voted for comprehensive immigration 
reform to make sure we create a legal system in the future. How can you 
do that? This can't be done. It is an important issue.
  The legislation would double legal immigration. I don't think that is 
what the American people want or expect. The blue represents current 
law. The red represents the new bill--and it could be more--and the 
number of legal permanent resident statuses, the green cards, will 
double in the next 20 years under this legislation.
  I think most people thought we were going to do something to get 
control of immigration and reduce illegality and reevaluate the numbers 
who come. Certainly, they don't think we are doubling legal 
immigration. We also know there are high costs involved. According to 
the Congressional Budget Office, our study we got back a couple weeks 
ago, in 10 years this legislation will cost the taxpayers of America in 
welfare and social benefits $30 billion--this is their number; I didn't 
make this up--$30 billion. They have been saying this is going to bring 
in more tax revenue, we are going to legalize people, and they are 
going to pay taxes. Wrong. It is not going to happen. It is not so. I 
wish it were so. I wish I could tell my colleagues that the numbers 
show when this amnesty occurs, everybody is going to pay a lot of taxes 
and it will help balance our budget. Wrong. It is not going to happen 
that way. It will cost $30 billion in the first 10 years, and our own 
Congressional Budget Office says it will be dramatically greater in the 
next 10 years and increase as the years go by.
  It is going to increase the cost to the Treasury and, in fact, let me 
share with you what the highly regarded Heritage Foundation study 
found. Robert Rector, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, the 
architect of welfare reform for our country, has been alarmed at the 
cost of this bill. I am not talking about the cost of Border Patrol 
agents and barriers and those kinds of items. I am talking about the 
cost of providing all the social benefits we give to American citizens, 
to people who came into our country illegally, what it will cost in 
terms of tax credits, Medicaid, welfare, food stamps and the like. If 
they are all made legal permanent residents, Z card holders, even the 
temporary visas, they will be entitled to virtually all of these 
programs.
  According to Mr. Rector, over the lifetime retirement years of the 12 
million who would be given amnesty under this provision, it will cost 
the taxpayers of America--hold your hat--$2.6 trillion; over $2 
trillion. It is a stunning figure. It is a figure so large that we 
almost can't comprehend it or think about it. But anybody who tells you 
that somehow legalizing the people who are here illegally and providing 
them with every benefit we provide to American citizens is somehow 
going to add revenue to our Treasury cannot be correct. CBO says no. 
They say it will be even worse in the outyears. And the Heritage 
Foundation has calculated the outyears to be over $2 trillion. This is 
a stunning figure.
  I submit that by passing this law, we will provide a path to 
citizenship for people, for even those people who broke into our 
country last December 31, running past the National Guard the President 
called out. If you could get past the National Guard last December, you 
will be given amnesty under this bill and be placed on a full path to 
all these benefits and citizenship.
  They have been saying we have to help people who have been here for 
years and have children and deep roots. I am willing to discuss that 
situation. I don't believe we can ask everybody to leave this country 
who came here years ago, who have children and roots and are dug in. I 
am not prepared to ask them to leave--I really am not--and I have said 
that publicly for some time. But Senator Webb just had an amendment 
that said if you came here in the last 4 years after we had been 
talking about this issue, after we have called out the National Guard 
and made clear we want to do something about it, you don't get on this 
path, you haven't been here long enough to entitle you to be given 
amnesty. It was voted down by a substantial vote a few moments ago. His 
amendment was tabled. It is no longer on the agenda. It will not become 
law. The current law, what is in the bill, provides amnesty to people 
who came in last December.
  I have talked about, and we have had hearings that I think 
demonstrate with absolute clarity, this incredibly large flow of 
immigration into America today is, in fact, depressing wages of 
American workers. Oh, yesterday, we had this great union debate that we 
are going to eliminate the secret ballot so people will be forced into 
unions. My Democratic colleagues had charts showing wages haven't gone 
up in the last few years. And I am inclined to agree because that is 
what the experts told us on the immigration question. They told us that 
wages have not gone up--not because of some oppressive businessperson 
but because we have allowed millions of people to come into our country 
to take jobs at lower wages that Americans ought to be paid to do. 
Those are just the facts.
  Professor Borjas of Harvard, himself a Cuban immigrant, at the 
Kennedy School--and I suggested Senator Kennedy perhaps should walk 
over there to Harvard from his Boston home and talk to Professor 
Borjas. Professor Borjas concludes that for people in this country 
without certain education levels, their wages from 1980 to 2000 have 
been depressed 8.2 percent.
  Anecdotally, I would just note that when I left the Chamber here last 
Friday, there was a gentleman out here on the street--had gray hair and 
a gray beard, with a little sign about jobs--and I talked to him. He 
said he was a master carpenter in Florida and he used to make as much 
as $75,000 a year--which is not too much money for a master carpenter, 
in my opinion--but he can hardly make a living today because of an 
incredible influx of cheap labor that has pulled down the value of his 
labor.
  When I raised this with Senator Kennedy last year in our debate, he 
said: Well, we are going to raise the minimum wage. Well, how much are 
we going to raise it? We are going to raise it to $7 an hour. That is 
not good enough. We want people to make $15 an hour, $20 an hour.
  If you want to know why wages haven't gone up for working Americans, 
ask Professor Borjas at Harvard; Professor Chiswick at the University 
of Chicago; Alan Tonelson, an expert; and one of the other professors 
we had actually--I think he was with the Chamber of Commerce group, and 
he admitted it. The Secretary of Treasury just recently admitted he was 
concerned about the fact that wage earners were not keeping up with the 
growth in the economy. That is my opinion. If somebody wants to dispute 
it, so be it.
  I don't think this legislation in any way provides for assimilation 
to the degree we would like to see it in accordance with our great 
American heritage of assimilation.
  So I think the fundamental issue in this entire debate, the issue 
that goes to the heart of the question, is whether this Congress and 
this President really intend to keep the promises they are making. 
Isn't that the real question? Because in 1986, they spun a beautiful 
song: one-time amnesty, and we will have law enforcement next.
  I ask: Does this bill do what the supporters claim it will? 
Fundamentally, will it work? Will it secure the border? Senator Reid, 
just a few moments ago, said what the American people want--they want 
our borders secure. Well, will it do that? Will it enable us to enforce 
the law in an effective, diligent, and consistent way that breeds 
respect for law? Will it clearly reward right behavior and firmly 
penalize bad behavior? Will it encourage immigration by lawful means, a 
means that serves our national interest and not special interests, or 
will it continue to encourage illegal immigration? Are we just drifting 
through, once again, a charade, a predictable cycle where every few 
decades amnesty is rewarded to lawbreakers and enforcement never 
follows? Would that not be a tragedy?
  This Senator has no intention and will not vote for and will oppose 
in every way he can--and others share this view--a bill that is going 
to be like

[[Page 17617]]

1986, that will fail again. When this cycle occurs again, as I predict 
it will if this legislation passes, those who ignore our laws will be 
rewarded; those who dutifully comply will consider themselves to be 
chumps for going through that process.
  In recent days, I have had three people who have entered our country 
legally, done it correctly, come to me and tell me: Senator, stand in 
there; we support you. We did it the right way. We don't appreciate 
these people doing it differently.
  There was a good article in the Montgomery Advertiser about a lady 
named Singh--I assume she is of Indian ancestry--who spent several 
years, hired a good lawyer, spent $4,250, and eventually got her 
citizenship, for which she was most proud. She was absolutely crystal 
clear that she did not appreciate it that other people came into our 
country illegally and would get the same privileges she got that she 
had to work hard for doing it the correct way. I think there is a moral 
order here that we need to respect. Repeated amnesties erode a moral 
approach to the law of this country.
  In the past 2 months, we have heard other Senators and the President 
make promises that this is going to work. The political elite have all 
said to our top magazines and newspapers that they promise real 
enforcement will begin following the passage of this bill. They promise 
this bill will decrease illegal immigration, it will secure the border, 
and reform our legal immigration system to better serve the national 
interests. That is a great promise. If that is what this bill did, I 
would be for it. In fact, I was quoted in the paper several times this 
spring when I heard the masters of the universe, our friends who tried 
to write this bill, promise those very principles. I said that those 
are principles that are getting close to something I can support. I am 
really interested in it. But as I read it and studied it, I became more 
and more discouraged, and as independent critics and other experts 
examined it, they indicated the same.
  So will the promises be fulfilled? That is a question I would like to 
discuss today. Remember this: Even in 1986, President Reagan was the 
President, and he was a law-and-order man, and when the bill passed in 
1986, what did he emphasize? Did he emphasize the amnesty they granted? 
No, because people were dubious about that. He emphasized the future 
law enforcement--and this is so familiar today--and he said:

       It is high time we regained control of our borders, and 
     Senator Alan Simpson's bill will do this.

  Well, President Reagan was wrong. We had 3 million people here 
illegally then. Now we are talking about providing amnesty to 12 
million, maybe 20 million. It didn't work. Nobody had the Congressional 
Budget Office score at that time, our own Congressional Budget Office 
which tells us this bill won't work and we are going to have another 
8.7 million people enter our country in the next 20 years.
  At least we have been warned this time. Why shouldn't that cause us 
to pause? Why shouldn't that cause us to give a decent respect to the 
opinions of our own constituents who strongly oppose the bill and have 
great doubts about it? Why don't we pull back, rethink it, and begin to 
do what one of the pollsters suggested the American people are saying, 
which is take some smaller steps incrementally, emphasizing 
enforcement? That is what I would suggest we should do.
  I would like to make this point. Even if President Bush--who has done 
some things in recent years that are better than we have had done in a 
number of years but still isn't using all the powers of his office--
even if he kept the promises he is making, he is not going to be in the 
White House after another 18 months. Somebody else is going to be 
there. There will be a new Congress here. So the test is really going 
to be when these trigger events are met, and that will be in 2009 when 
we will have a new President in office.
  Now, let's think about this: Some of the Democratic candidates 
already oppose the core components of the bill, such as the merit-based 
system, like Canada's. Governor Richardson and Senator Obama--if they 
win the Presidency, are we going to assume they will fulfill the 
promises made by this administration? It won't be their priority.
  Let us talk in a little more detail about this No. 1 issue which is 
so critical: Will we secure the border, and is this legislation going 
to help?
  The bill proponents all make the same claims--that without this bill, 
the border cannot be secured. But if we pass the bill, they say, we 
will secure the border. Essentially, they are claiming that enforcement 
can't be done unless we get amnesty and enforcement. They also claim to 
be adding 18,000 Border Patrol officers, increasing the detention 
bedspace, and expanding fencing. Now, you have heard that said. Of 
course, I want to remind everyone we passed a law which already 
requires that last year. In my view, that is not contingent on this 
bill being passed. And I will go into that in some detail.
  In its first articulated principle about the immigration legislation, 
the White House PowerPoint that was shown to Senators this spring--and 
that was intriguing to those of us who have been concerned about 
creating a lawful system of immigration--the PowerPoint promised ``to 
secure U.S. borders'' and ``not to repeat the 1986 failure.''
  Senator Kennedy, at the famous press conference just about a month 
ago, said this:

       The agreement we have reached is the best possible chance 
     we will have in years to secure our borders.

  Best chance in years.

       In this legislation, we are doubling the border patrol, we 
     are increasing detention space.

  Senator McCain said this:

       This legislation will finally accomplish the extraordinary 
     goal of security at our borders.

  Another Senator:

       I am delighted we are going to secure the border.

  Another one:

       It will make sure our borders become secure. We have had 
     broken borders in this country for 20 years. It is time to 
     get them fixed. This bill will do that.

  Another:

       What happens if we fail? Our borders continue to be broken 
     at a time when we need to secure our country.

  That is what they all said. Oh, gosh. Well, let's talk about it. They 
said: Well, we started out in this legislation with 18,000 additional 
Border Patrol officers; we will increase detention capacity to 27,500 
beds; and another one--this is former Governor Jed Bush and Ken 
Melman--``It doubles the border patrol and expands the border fence.'' 
That is what they said in their May 31 Wall Street Journal Open Borders 
editorial. It doubles the Border Patrol and expands the border fence.
  Maybe these people think this. All right. Let's see if we can get 
this straight. Before we address whether this bill actually will secure 
the border, it is important to clarify for the record that the bill 
does not require a doubling of the Border Patrol, it does not require 
more bed space than required by current law, and it does not require 
more fence than current law requires. If anybody doesn't agree with 
that, come on down and show me that I am wrong. This is a promotion.
  What about agents? The bill does not add 18,000 Border Patrol agents, 
Senators. When these statements were made, the trigger only required 
that a total of 18,000 Border Patrol agents be hired.
  Since then, Senator Judd Gregg got the number up to 20,000. I think 
we have that. So we are close to that number now. We are close to 
18,000 now and are already on track to have that number hired by the 
end of 2008, so no more Border Patrol agents are required to be hired 
under this bill's enforcement trigger than current law requires. Those 
of you who want to see enforcement are not being given anything on 
Border Patrol officers.
  What the bill does do for agents outside the trigger is add 6,000 to 
the total authorized level by requiring 2,400 agents to be hired in 
2011, and again in 2012, and increasing the numbers that are supposed 
to be hired in 2008, 2009, 2010, from 2,000 to 2,400 per year. In other 
words, we are already projected

[[Page 17618]]

to hire 2,000; they say we will add 2,400 a year.
  Current law authorization only went through 2010 at 2,000 a year, so 
this bill does increase the authorization by about 30 percent. But it 
certainly does not require an actual doubling of the Border Patrol, and 
a 30-percent increase is not in the trigger. The reason that is 
important is, if it is not required as part of the trigger that kicks 
off the amnesty and the permanent residence, then appropriators in the 
future are not likely to do it. I can give you a string of examples of 
us authorizing Border Patrol, authorizing fencing, and never coming up 
with the money to fund it.
  What about bedspace? What is inside the trigger? The claim the bill 
increases the detention bedspace is factually false. The bill does 
nothing more than current law. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism 
Act of 2004 requires that 43,000 beds be in place by the end of this 
year. In 2004 we require 43,000 bedspaces by the end of 2007. The 
enforcement trigger contained in this bill, though it improved a bit 
after the Gregg amendment, still only requires 31,500 beds. It really 
weakens the number.
  What about bedspace outside the trigger? Even with the bill's latest 
section on bedspace found outside the trigger, which requires the 
eventual addition of 20,000 beds, the bill still only gets to 38,000 
beds, still below current law. So that is a problem.
  Let me mention the fencing. We hear so much about that. The claim 
that the bill expands the border fence is also not true. The trigger 
requires only the building of 370 miles of fencing. Listen to me now. 
The trigger--the thing that was set up to make sure it happened, 
knowing how in the outyears things never get funded and seldom get 
funded and are unlikely to get funded, we were trying to mandate that 
with the trigger--it only requires 370 miles of fencing. Current law 
since last year's enactment of the Secure Fence Act of 2006 requires 
the construction of 700 miles of fencing along the southern border.
  In a recent column published in the National Review, Deroy Murdock 
asked:

       Americans who want secure borders wonder why the 700-mile 
     southern frontier fence Congress authorized last year, of 
     which only 12 miles have been built to date, stretches only 
     370 miles.

  All I am saying to my colleagues is, we in the Senate have been 
around here a long time. We have heard how these things go, and we know 
a song and dance when we see one. But if you read the bill carefully 
you will conclude that the promises, though promises that sound so 
good, are not reality. They were absolutely headed to a failure, just 
like the Congressional Budget Office said, of almost as much illegality 
in immigration in the next 20 years as we had in the last 20 years--
only a 13-percent reduction. It is just not sufficient.
  I see my colleague from Texas, Senator John Cornyn, one of our most 
able Members, who is exceedingly knowledgeable about this issue. He is 
a member of the Judiciary Committee. Of course, he was a former 
attorney general in Texas and a member of the Texas Supreme Court. I 
value his judgment. Out of the time left to me, I will yield--how much 
time would the Senator request? First, let me ask how much time is 
left?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. There remains 40 minutes.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I yield 20 minutes to the Senator from Texas.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Texas is 
recognized for 20 minutes.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I almost hesitate to talk after those kind 
comments from my colleague from Alabama. I am afraid anything I might 
say would be a disappointment. But let me try.
  This immigration bill is leaving all of us with a sense of deja vu. 
That is the sense that we have been here before. Strangely, not much 
has changed. Once again we see that this process ignores the request, 
the stated desire of many of us, to have an open and transparent 
debate, an opportunity to offer amendments and to have votes on those 
amendments. As a matter of fact, I understand the condition upon which 
some of us are even being allowed to speak now is that we just debate, 
and we not even be so presumptuous as to seek to offer a unanimous 
consent request for amendments. This is a bizarre process.
  As we have seen so far, we started off rather inauspiciously, where 
because of constraints being placed on Senators, denying them the 
rights they have--Senators, I thought, had--and the responsibility that 
each of us has on behalf of our constituents to try to improve this 
legislation, to debate it--because we have been denied those basic 
rights of a United States Senator, we find ourselves in a strange 
position now. We have motions to table being offered. I don't know 
whether all 26 or so of the amendments contained in this so-called clay 
pigeon device, this arcane procedural device used to usurp the 
authority and the rights of Senators in order to railroad this bill 
through the floor--whether we are going to see all of these amendments 
tabled; in other words, without debate, without an up-or-down vote on 
the amendments and with the American people scratching their heads and 
wondering what in the world is going on.
  How much more out of touch can people inside the Capitol be than they 
are now? We continue to see a bizarre process going forward. Last night 
we received a 373-page, so-called clay pigeon amendment. This is the 
bundle of the 26 amendments that had been preapproved, screened, 
cherry-picked by the select few behind closed doors. You know what. We 
got that, the Members of the United States Senate and our staffs, after 
a special interest group had already posted it on their Web site. That 
is right. U.S. Senators and their staffs got a copy of this 373-page 
monstrosity, which nobody had a chance to read--we got it after a 
special interest group that had been participating in these closed-door 
negotiations got it and put it on their Web site.
  Today, we are told: No, that is a work in progress. We are not yet 
through. Today we get a new 400-page version of the same package of 
amendments. I understand it is at the desk, but so far as I know, we 
have not yet received a copy of it. We have not had time, obviously, to 
review it and know what is in it. But that does not deter those 
proponents of this legislation on the floor who are going to keep 
charging ahead, regardless of our request to actually read the 
legislation, to understand what is in it, to offer amendments to 
improve it and to debate its contents. That is what I thought I was 
elected to do on behalf of my constituents when I came to the Senate.
  I have to tell you, I think this all bodes very poorly for the 
likelihood that we are going to successfully accomplish true 
immigration reform and border security as a result of this legislation. 
I think we are heading toward a cloture vote tomorrow where it is 
looking increasingly like we are not going to be able to get the job 
done. I think it is a product, in large part, of secret negotiations.
  I have to correct my comments. I just got the 400-page monstrosity 
known as the revised clay pigeon amendment. I look forward to reading 
it, hopefully, before the next vote is scheduled on the contents of 
this monstrosity.
  As I was saying, by secretly negotiating this legislation, skipping 
the committee process, and then pushing it through the Senate without 
people having an adequate time to read it, we risk passing legislation 
which clearly is not thought out and which Members have not had 
sufficient time to review or to study in any detail, particularly 
because the language keeps changing, it seems, almost daily. This may, 
in the end--and this is the most important part--it may, in the end, do 
more harm than good.
  For example, written into this legislation are provisions that will 
directly result in an increased likelihood that dangerous persons will 
get at least a probationary legal status that confers upon them a 
variety of rights and privileges that I do not think, on further 
reflection, we would want these

[[Page 17619]]

people to have. These problems could be fixed if we had a rational 
process of debate and offering amendments and an opportunity to vote on 
those amendments but, without committee review, without ample time to 
have that kind of debate and vote on amendments, there is really no 
hope to correct these flawed provisions.
  I have spoken before about the type of amendments which I personally 
believe would improve this legislation. I want to talk about them. I 
understand I am constrained by an agreement that I not bring up these 
amendments, so I am not going to do that now. I may do it later and see 
if attitudes have changed, but I do want to talk about six of the most 
important amendments which I believe could and should be added. These 
are only six of the amendments that I personally think would make this 
bill better. I know my colleagues have other good ideas on how to 
improve this legislation.
  We are going to be living with this legislation for many years to 
come--decades. We find ourselves now, 20 years later, living with the 
consequences of unenforceable legislation that was passed in 1986. So I 
think greater care needs to be taken.
  One amendment I would offer would prevent criminal aliens from 
getting an enforcement holiday by authorizing them to delay, and even 
possibly avoid, deportation by filing frivolous applications for legal 
status as well as appeals from the denial. That is right. It would 
prevent them from getting virtual impunity, even though they filed a 
frivolous application for legalization, as well as multiple appeals.
  Another amendment I would offer would prohibit criminal aliens, 
including gang members and absconders, people who have defied lawful 
court orders and either have gone underground or have been deported and 
entered the country illegally--technically felons under the Immigration 
and Naturalization Act--my amendment would prohibit them from tying up 
the process, gumming up the courts by appealing the denying of a 
request for a waiver of grounds for removal.
  The court clogging that would ensue without these two provisions is 
almost sure to cause extensive delay that will almost certainly 
increase the costs associated with this bill and frustrate the intent 
of Congress trying to pass a truly workable system. This is not a 
hypothetical concern. As we debate this bill there is a lawsuit pending 
by people who have been deported from this country and therefore were 
not eligible to receive the 1986 amnesty, but they have been litigating 
their request that the INS, and now the Department of Homeland 
Security, grant them a waiver from that part of the 1986 law that said 
they were ineligible.
  This litigation is still going on, 21 years after the 1986 amnesty 
was passed. Don't you think we would like to learn from our mistakes? 
Don't you think we would like to try to fix those problems? Under this 
process, we are not given an opportunity to do that. My amendments 
would prevent decades-long litigation and frivolous lawsuits from 
occurring with respect to the provisions of this bill.
  Another amendment I would offer if given an opportunity would require 
judges to consider national security implications before issuing 
nationwide injunctions against immigration enforcement. That is an 
essential provision to protecting our Nation, something that this bill 
claims to do but which it omits.
  I would note that that provision passed in last year's immigration 
bill but yet was consciously omitted from this one. There is no good 
reason to weaken last year's bill in this regard.
  Another amendment I would offer would limit the timeframe of any 
appeal from a denial of Z status to 2 years, so that any error is 
promptly corrected and so that court proceedings would not tend to drag 
on endlessly, wasting tax dollars and logjamming our courts and 
allowing a person who has been determined not to be eligible for legal 
status to stay in the country indefinitely, under the guise of 
appealing their denial.
  Another amendment I have would prevent those who have committed 
terrorists acts or provided material support to terrorism from 
qualifying for legalization under the ``good moral character standard'' 
under this bill, something that seems to be inherently obvious to me. 
It ought to be included. I am shocked it is not included.
  I will give you one example. Last year, Mohammed El Shorbagi pled 
guilty to providing material support to the terrorist organization 
Hamas. Hamas, by the way, is identified by our own State Department as 
a terrorist organization, as well as by the European Union. This 
individual's conviction did not specifically bar him from becoming a 
U.S. citizen because, under the law in effect, aiding an organization 
that routinely fires rockets on innocent civilians, families, and 
neighborhoods; people who abduct innocent individuals; and those who 
have most recently staged a violent coup in Gaza, does not in any way 
affect their good, moral character.
  Don't you think the Senate, the world's greatest deliberative body, 
representative of the 300 million people of the United States of 
America, would want to fix this glaring omission in the underlying 
bill? Well, I have been told that, no, we are not interested in that 
amendment. We have our cherry-picked set of preselected, prescreened, 
preordained, and no one else is going to be able to offer one. In fact, 
you cannot even debate them, much less offer them and have a vote on 
them.
  I appreciate that some have finally recognized the significant flaws 
and security risks that are inherent in the bill as it is currently 
written. I would note, though, that it was not until late yesterday 
afternoon that some agreed that such a change was needed to improve 
enforcement and protect U.S. national security and included a version 
in the divided amendment.
  Now, as I mentioned a moment ago, because the so-called clay pigeon 
that includes 26 amendments is not yet--well, it was only a moment ago 
handed to me, hot off the press, I have not yet had time to study that 
version, I don't know whether the modified version that was sent to the 
desk today changes it. But at least there appears to be some movement 
toward closing that loophole.
  But what other enforcement loopholes and flaws remain in the bill? I 
fear that under this expedited process, the train has left the station, 
and it is going to blow right through the middle of the Senate until we 
pass something without proper consideration, and we are going to make 
mistakes. I think that is a bad idea.
  During the previous debate, I introduced an amendment that would bar 
criminals, felons, from ever being able to obtain Z status. While it 
did not pass during the previous debate, I am still clueless as to why 
that happened. I think now that people have had time to study it and to 
think about it, hear from their constituents about it, more members 
would be supportive of closing that loophole for felons. I have refiled 
this. This is another amendment I have that I hope we will be able to 
vote on eventually. I hope the Senate does not consciously allow felons 
the benefit of a pathway to legalization and American citizenship. I 
cannot imagine why in the world we would.
  As I said, those are only six of the amendments that I think need to 
be offered and added to this bill. Let me mention one other thing. I 
see the Senator from Kentucky, who perhaps would like to add his 
comments. Let me mention one other glaring loophole that I talked about 
a little yesterday. This was a provision that requires a 24-hour 
background check for someone who applies for legal status. But failing 
that, the default position is they get a probationary Z visa. In other 
words, we put a provision in here that says: If the background check 
can't be completed in 24 hours--and it can't, I promise you--that the 
applicant will be automatically granted legal status on a probationary 
basis.
  I am concerned particularly because what that does is not only gives 
them an ability to obtain a probationary Z visa or legal status, the 
White House has said: Oh, don't worry about it. If we cannot get the 
background check done in 24 hours, and we find out they are 
disqualified because they do not pass a

[[Page 17620]]

background check, we will send someone out to pick them up. Do you know 
how many absconders there are in the United States who are under lawful 
orders of deportation and have simply gone underground and the 
Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement 
has failed to pick them up and to execute the lawful orders of our 
courts? There are 623,000 absconders who meet that definition. Are we 
supposed to believe that people who fail the background check for this 
probationary Z visa are now going to be picked up, when 623,000 people 
who have defied lawful court orders, who are on the lam, who have gone 
underground and whom the Department of Homeland Security has failed to 
pick up and deport, according to the lawful orders of a court, that now 
all of a sudden the policy has changed?
  Trust us. Trust us. Well, I tell you what, the American people do not 
trust the Federal Government, particularly in this area. I hesitate to 
say it, but it is with good cause, based on hard experience, based on 
overpromising and underdelivering when it comes to our immigration 
program.
  I support increasing legal immigration, looking at how to recruit the 
best and the brightest and allowing them to come here, particularly if 
they come to our universities and study at our world-class universities 
and stay, so we do not have to send them home and so they end up 
competing with us and taking jobs overseas.
  I support comprehensive immigration reform. But I do not support 
promising the American people that, oh, yeah, trust us this time, we 
are serious, when there are such obvious flaws in the underlying 
legislation, that we are being prohibited by this railroad of a process 
from being able to offer amendments, to get votes on those amendments, 
to be able to fix the underlying bill.
  I can see why the American people would be skeptical, because I am 
skeptical. I am increasingly skeptical as a result of the way this 
process and this legislation has been handled.
  My hope is that should this cloture vote fail tomorrow, which I 
think, under the circumstances, looks increasingly likely, we will come 
back and reassess what we have done, or, moreover, what we have failed 
to do and try to be more serious, more deliberate, more conscious of 
trying to actually deliver on our promises rather than continuing to 
overpromise and underdeliver on this great issue of national concern.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Senator Bunning from Kentucky is here and desires to 
speak on this legislation. I thank him for his comments previously and 
for his clarity of thought on the issue.
  How long does the Senator desire to speak?
  Mr. BUNNING. About 5 minutes.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I yield 6 minutes to the Senator from Kentucky.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Kentucky is 
recognized.
  Mr. BUNNING. Mr. President, I said this before, but here we go again. 
Three weeks ago, a significant majority of the Senate rejected this 
flawed immigration bill and the flawed process that led to it. But now 
it is back.
  One of the key reasons the bill failed the first time around was the 
flawed process or the lack of process that led to the bill. In the 
Senate, an idea normally takes months, if not years, to become a bill 
and pass. But instead of letting the bill develop through the 
deliberative process, a few Senators and a few people from the 
administration wrote the bill in secret.
  They held no committee meetings, there were no hearings, there was no 
committee report. In fact, Senators did not even see the whole bill 
until several days into the debate. When those of us who were not part 
of the secret negotiations finally saw the bill, we found all kinds of 
problems. But we were told the bill had to be finished by a certain 
date. We were not even allowed an open debate on the floor.
  So with a few days looming before the Fourth of July recess, a few 
negotiators got back together and blessed another list of amendments to 
get votes. Apparently, they believe that 20 or more votes equals a full 
debate. What a joke.
  As if that were not bad enough, the majority leader is taking an 
unprecedented step to shut off the right of Senators to debate and 
amend the bill. That is not the Senate. The process is not the only 
thing that is flawed around here; the bill itself is flawed.
  In 1986--thank God I was not in Congress--Congress passed an amnesty 
bill that was promised to be the last of the amnesty bills. Here we are 
20 years later, and the problem is much worse, much, much worse. The 
bill is no better. Instead of punishing illegal immigrants and 
employers who ignore the law, this bill is a get-out-of-jail-free pass. 
It gives those who broke the law their own VIP line to a green card and 
citizenship.
  For this bill to work as promised, the Government would have to 
process at least 12 million illegal immigrants in a matter of months. 
In short, the timeframe the Government would have to conduct these 
background checks, issue identification cards, and to build a system to 
check every employee in America to make sure they are legal, that is 
the timeframe.
  The Government would also have to implement new guest worker 
programs, eliminate the green card backlog, overhaul the green card 
system, and start issuing new visitor visas. But I do not believe it 
will work, and the American people certainly do not believe it will 
work. I am not talking about the far left or the far right; I am 
talking about middle America--middle America.
  I am talking about the people who are stuck in the lines in passport 
offices, waiting on the Government, waiting for them so they can go on 
a summer vacation. We are supposed to believe that the same Government 
that cannot even get passports into the hands of their people is going 
to complete background checks on from 12 to 20 million illegal 
immigrants, give them a secure ID card, check every employee in the 
United States to verify their work status, and secure the borders.
  I don't think so. Unfortunately, this bill does not even secure the 
borders. The $4.4 billion included in the bill does not add any new 
border security. It only funds the trigger requirements of the bill 
which do not even require implementation of existing laws such as 
building the 700 miles of border fence and the 43,000 detention spaces.
  There are other problems, too. The bill does not require background 
checks to be completed of illegal immigrants getting amnesty before 
they get their visas. The bill gives Social Security credits to illegal 
aliens for work they did illegally. Illegal aliens with terrorist 
connections can get amnesty, and they do not have to pay all their back 
taxes or learn any English at least for 10 years. What a deal. The 
bottom line is the bill will not work.
  It is much worse than the status quo. Any chance of fixing it is 
being erased by the handful of negotiators and the majority leader. 
Instead of trying to fix the bill, the majority leader is using 
unprecedented tactics to ensure only a few blessed amendments are 
considered. We all have amendments, such as the Senator from Texas. 
None of them are going to be considered.
  I will not support amnesty. I will not repeat the mistakes we made 20 
years ago. I will not be responsible for tens of millions more illegal 
immigrants coming into this country waiting for the next amnesty. I 
will not support this process or this bill.
  I thank the Senator from Alabama for yielding me the time.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Kentucky. On 
this question, this fundamental promise by our friends, whom I refer to 
affectionately as the masters of the universe, that we would secure the 
border--what does our expert congressional arm say about it? What does 
the Congressional Budget Office say about it? They say, no, it will 
not. Senator Cornyn and Senator Bunning have pointed out a number of 
things that are weaknesses with the bill. Will this

[[Page 17621]]

weakness and other items they talked about in the bill actually secure 
the border? According to CBO, the new Senate bill will only reduce the 
annual illegal immigration by 13 percent. Illegal inflow at the border 
will be reduced by approximately 25 percent, but that will be 
substantially offset by increased additional visa overstays, almost 
over a half million in the next 10 years. According to CBO, the net 
result will be only a 1.3 million reduction in new illegal immigrants 
over the next 20 years. Because we expect under current law 10 million 
to come over that period illegally--that is a lot--enactment would 
reduce that expectation to 8.7 million new additional illegal 
immigrants by 2027. Out of 10 million, we have 8.7 million. I ask my 
colleagues, is that securing the border? Is that effecting a legal and 
lawful and effective immigration system? I suggest it is not. There is 
no way you can say it otherwise.
  One of the key things of an effective immigration system is the US-
VISIT exit system. That is not affected in this. I have talked about 
that some, but I won't go back into that.
  I see my colleague from Louisiana here, Senator Vitter. He is an 
outstanding lawyer who has spent a great deal of his time and energy 
studying these 700 pages and trying to get the amendment of 370 or so 
pages so he can study it and help decide what it will do. I see Senator 
Vitter is here. I am pleased to yield to him 5 minutes.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Louisiana is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from 
Alabama.
  I want to briefly take the floor to lay out how enormously unfair 
this process is. I am new to the Senate. Coming here, I had always 
heard, particularly coming from the House, about the fundamental aspect 
of the Senate being unlimited debate. I walked through the wrong door, 
because that is not the case, certainly not the case for me in terms of 
this bill. It has been exactly the opposite from start to finish.
  Why do I say that?
  First, we are handed an 800-page bill, given very little time to 
digest it. Then a few days later, in terms of this latest revisiting of 
immigration reform, we are handed a 373-page mega-amendment and given 
no time to digest it. Then some of us demanded the time to digest it by 
not agreeing to waive the reading of that 373-page amendment. Only 
because we did that, we were finally given the right to look at the 
amendment overnight last night. Great. So we come back at 10 a.m. this 
morning, after working with our staffs to wade through 373 pages of the 
amendment, only to find out that mega-amendment is out the window. We 
have a new modified version of the mega-amendment, which we have never 
seen before, which we were only given a copy of in the last hour. Now 
we are trying to digest a new mega-amendment. Meanwhile, the procedure 
is rolling along.
  Of course, the majority leader, through this unprecedented use of the 
so-called clay pigeon, has hand chosen the only amendments that 
apparently will come up during this debate on the Senate floor. It is 
not an accident that there are no Vitter amendments. I had plenty 
filed. None of them are on the list. The majority leader could have 
chosen any list of amendments. He could have tried to make an effort to 
have a balanced list to include some amendments of folks such as me who 
have fundamental reservations with the bill. He did not. There are no 
Vitter amendments. It is not a coincidence there are no Sessions 
amendments. There are no DeMint amendments. There are no Cornyn 
amendments, the person who began this process working with the working 
group, developing the bill. It is not a coincidence there are no 
Elizabeth Dole amendments. All of us have been completely shut out in 
terms of the handpicked list of amendments.
  Then we try to participate in the process again on the Senate floor. 
I try to be recognized several times to exercise my rights as a 
Senator. I am shut down again because the majority leader will only 
recognize me for purposes that he decides, not me, for purposes that he 
approved of, not me. Basically, I am allowed to debate and nothing 
more. I am not allowed to offer a motion. I am not allowed to do any of 
that. It is coming to the point where I am wondering, even if he allows 
me to say anything, is he going to hand me a script and I will have to 
read from that?
  This is not an open, fair process. This is not the Senate I heard 
about, with unlimited debate and amendment. Yes, there are unlimited 
amendments as long as they are approved, apparently, by the majority 
leader. None of them are my amendments. Yes, there is unlimited debate 
as long as you agree not to exercise any of your rights as a Senator. 
You can talk only. You can't make a motion. You can't try to bring up 
your amendments. You can't do any of that.
  That process is fundamentally unfair. I hope many Senators who are 
still considering how they will vote on cloture will focus on this 
process. The American people have said loudly and clearly this is an 
important issue to them. They have also said loudly and clearly, by any 
poll out there, that they absolutely disapprove of this bill by 
enormous numbers. For us to move ahead anyway is one thing. For us to 
move ahead using this process, railroading me, railroading any strong 
opponent of the bill, is something else. It is patently disgraceful.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments of the Senator 
from Louisiana.
  Let me say what I believe is not in dispute. The procedure Majority 
Leader Reid has chosen to utilize is a procedure never before utilized 
in the Senate. They say: You are just saying it is unfair. Everybody 
says things are unfair.
  The reason this is more than a question of fairness is because it is 
a transfer, an arrogation of power to the leadership by which, for the 
first time in the history of the Senate, the majority leader will be 
able to approve or disapprove whether a Senator gets a vote on an 
amendment. If one wanted to do that up until this time, since the 
founding of our Republic, they stayed down here and didn't agree to 
unanimous consent requests. They stood their guns. It might not be 
easy, but one could get a vote. They could talk about what they wanted 
to talk about. But this process by which the leadership will select a 
limited number of amendments, place them in this clay-pigeon maneuver 
and only those amendments get voted on and every other amendment is 
rejected, is unprecedented in the Senate.
  I had a senior Member of the Senate come up to me with some alarm not 
long ago this morning and say: You need to be able to get amendments.
  I don't think we have thought this through. It is dawning on me how 
significant this is. I said earlier: What would Paul Wellstone say? 
What would Jesse Helms say? What would other Senators say, individual 
Senators who are proud of the ability--seldom used, perhaps--they could 
utilize to raise a point that they believe in, even if everybody else 
disagrees. That is part of our heritage. It will be eroded if we go 
through this process.
  I know my time is up. I appreciate the personal courtesies of the 
majority leader. He has always been courteous to me. In this instance, 
a bad decision has been made. Hopefully it will be rectified in some 
fashion one way or the other by denying cloture on the legislation.

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