[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 17848-17852]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              IMMIGRATION

  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, from my State of New Jersey and that 
part of the State in which I live, we can almost touch Lady Liberty. 
She is that close to us from a State park called Liberty State Park, an 
area I had the unique privilege of representing in the House of 
Representatives for 13 years and an area I still represent as the 
junior Senator from New Jersey, an area I have fond memories of because 
of the power of what it means. From that same park we can cross a 
bridge and go to Ellis Island, a place to which millions came to 
America to start a journey, a journey that contributed enormously to 
its great promise, enormously to the great country that it is today.
  I rise to discuss the recent cloture vote on immigration with that 
context in mind. The Senate had a historic opportunity to move forward 
today with comprehensive immigration reform that truly secured our 
borders, that realized the economic realities of our time and allowed 
people the opportunity to come out of the shadows into the light to 
earn their legalization.
  Unfortunately, the Senate decided to maintain the status quo, a 
status quo of broken borders, that does not meet our economic 
challenges, and that permits human exploitation and trafficking to take 
place.
  As someone who was part of the early negotiations back in March of 
this year on the question of immigration reform, I maintained then that 
the administration had leaped away from the largely bipartisan bill of 
last year that received 23 Republican votes and 39 Democratic votes to 
a much more conservative, much more impractical, and a much more 
partisan proposal this year. I was unable to join several of my 
colleagues in what has become known as the grand bargain. I acknowledge 
and appreciate several of those who advocated, because we were only on 
the floor on immigration reform, truly a critical issue for this 
country, as a result of their leadership, colleagues such as Senators 
Kennedy and Salazar and Graham, to name a few, who truly believed in 
that opportunity; at the same time, because of the leadership of the 
majority leader, who was willing to take on one of the most contentious 
issues, an issue that has been contentious throughout our country's 
history. I have often remarked on the floor how on the question of 
immigration, it is

[[Page 17849]]

interesting to have heard the language of those debates at different 
times in our history.
  Ben Franklin referred to no longer being able to accept those who 
were coming to our shores in negative terms. He was talking then about 
the Germans. The former Governor of Massachusetts, in the early 1900s, 
said that, in fact, they are sending the most illiterate of their 
people to our shores. He was talking then about the Irish. In 1925, in 
an official report of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, they said: 
We need the Mexicans because of their bending and crouching habits 
which the whites cannot attain themselves to in order to pick our 
produce. We had the Chinese exclusionary provisions.
  So while this has always been a welcoming country, the debate has not 
been as welcoming. On that day when the ``Grand Bargain'' was 
announced, I came to this Chamber to express my opposition to the deal 
that was announced because I believed it was deficient in some regard 
and to say that I would work to improve it. Looking back at what I said 
then, in light of today's vote, it was strikingly clairvoyant to me, to 
say the least.
  I said on that day we must come together not as Democrats and 
Republicans or liberals and conservatives but as statesmen and, in 
doing so, honor the traditions of the Senate as a body that values 
reasoning, honest debate, and compromise over sound bites and talking 
points but especially over the politics of fear.
  Unfortunately, today, the voices that appealed to that fear and the 
lowest common denominator won out. Only 12 of our Republican colleagues 
were willing to stand up and vote to invoke cloture, almost half of 
those who voted for last year's bipartisan immigration bill.
  Only 12 Republican colleagues were willing to move forward, at least 
for the final essence of debates and amendments, and to a final vote, 
which is about half of those who voted last year for immigration 
reform.
  Now, personally, I still had serious concerns about the direction of 
the bill, but I voted to keep it alive because I wanted to work to make 
it better and because I believe in comprehensive immigration reform as 
something that is in the national interest and national security of the 
United States and because America's promise and its security should not 
have been snuffed out by one single vote.
  I said back on that day in May that I could not sign on to the 
agreement because it tore families apart, and it says to many they are 
only good enough to work here and give their human capital and slave 
but never good enough to stay here. But instead of responding to those 
erstwhile concerns from those of us willing to be supportive of 
comprehensive immigration reform, the appeal was constantly made to the 
right of the spectrum, to those who actually achieved some of the 
things they wanted in the bill but, obviously, never even intended to 
vote for comprehensive immigration reform--not even to vote to allow it 
to move forward. As it moved to the right, it got less and less support 
from the right.
  Unfortunately, instead of working with those of us who were willing 
to not only work to improve this bill but also put our votes where our 
mouths were, they kept giving in to demand after demand from 
conservative Republicans, and in turn this bill moved further and 
further to the right.
  In fact, at least two Members who were at the press conference on May 
17 and got things included in the bill voted against keeping this 
process moving forward by voting against cloture today.
  Ultimately, in my mind, this came down to a President and a party who 
was, once again, there for the photo ops and the press conferences but 
was not willing to roll up their sleeves and do the hard work to 
improve this bill and help it move forward for our Nation: a Republican 
Party that was not about progress but about partisanship; a Republican 
Party that was not about solving our Nation's problems but seeking 
political gain by stopping progress of any sort in this Senate; the 
same President who used large amounts of political capital misleading 
our country into a disastrous war in Iraq, with little political 
capital on truly improving our Nation's security through tough yet 
practical and comprehensive immigration reform; a President who used 
political capital on tax cuts for the wealthiest in our country but not 
on truly meeting our Nation's economic needs through fair and 
comprehensive immigration reform; and it is either a President who has 
no political capital or one who was not willing to use it.
  Finally, throughout my life, and most recently on the Senate floor, I 
have heard the phrase ``those people''--``those people.'' Those who use 
that phrase are the voices of division and discrimination. They are the 
xenophobes who exist today and have existed at different times in our 
Nation's history but whose voices have ultimately been overcome to give 
way to the greatest successful experiment in the history of mankind--
the United States of America that we know today.
  But the last phrase of Emma Lazarus's poem emblazed on the inner wall 
of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty says:

       I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

  Maybe today that lamp is somewhat dimmer, but it will shine again. 
The course of history is unalterable, the human spirit cannot be 
shackled forever, the drumbeat for security, economic vitality and, 
most importantly, justice will only grow stronger.
  Finally, to those who have often referred to ``those people'' in this 
debate, let me say on behalf of ``those people,'' we have seen the 
light, and we simply will not be thrust back into the darkness.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss my vote against 
cloture on S. 1639, the border security and immigration reform bill 
debated by the Senate this week.
  I support some of the proposals behind S. 1639 because we must 
address our border and immigration crisis. However, I was forced to 
vote no on the motion to invoke cloture on S. 1639 for several reasons.
  The bill before us is neither workable nor realistic. Additionally, 
many Senators do not even know what is in the latest version of the 
bill.
  It is also pretty clear to this Senator that anything similar to S. 
1639 is dead on arrival in the House of Representatives. I question the 
rationale of passing a bill that has so many flaws when several Members 
of the House have said this bill will not even be considered by the 
House. Would it not be better for all of us to have a more open and 
fair debate on border security and immigration that is not subjected to 
unnecessary deadlines and closed-door decisionmaking?
  In addition, as a border State Senator, I know first-hand the need to 
secure our borders because every day my constituents tell me about the 
problems they face because of illegal entries into our country. We have 
a crisis on our borders that must be resolved.
  However, instead of pursuing immediate emergency funding to help 
secure our border, S. 1639 cobbles border security improvements and 
funding with some concerning immigration reforms. While the bill also 
provided $4.4 billion to fund these border security initiatives, that 
money was contingent upon final passage of the bill by Congress, 
something that appears to be less than a sure thing.
  What is clear to me is that the American people want the measures in 
the bill--like providing 20,000 Border Patrol agents, constructing 370 
miles of border fencing and 300 miles of border vehicle barriers, 
putting 105 radar and camera towers on the border, and using four 
unmanned aerial vehicles for border security--in place before we 
address the millions of unauthorized aliens living and working in the 
United States. Therefore, I believe it would be more appropriate to 
provide $4.4 billion in border security funding in a separate emergency 
spending bill to fund these border security initiatives.
  Additionally, I remain concerned about the amendment process 
associated with this bill. More than 300 amendments were filed to this 
bill's predecessor, S. 1348, and almost 150 amendments have been filed 
to S. 1639. However, we were only allowed to consider 26 amendments to 
S. 1639. Border

[[Page 17850]]

security and immigration reform are the most important domestic issues 
facing the United States today. Clearly the Senate, the most 
deliberative body in the world, should be allowed to consider 
additional amendments that could improve upon this bill. While one of 
my amendments is part of the package of amendments that was allowed to 
be considered to this bill, I had other good ideas to make this bill 
better for New Mexico, the southwest border, and the United States. 
Many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle did too, and we 
deserve an opportunity to consider those amendments.
  Also, some of the provisions that I initially supported in this bill 
have been amended to the point that the bill no longer has its initial 
purposes. For example, the temporary worker program that is critical to 
so many industries in my State does not meet those industries' needs.
  Further, I am concerned by statements by members of the bipartisan 
border and immigration working group that some issues of concern in S. 
1639 will be resolved in conference. The Senate should debate the 
issues of concern in this bill; we should not rely on a small group of 
our colleagues to resolve those issues in an unamendable conference 
report.
  Lastly, I have been told that this bill would have an interesting and 
unintended effect in my home State of New Mexico. As I understand it, 
New Mexico State law would allow all Z visa holders under this bill to 
qualify for Medicaid. That matter needs to be reviewed and its impacts 
fully considered so that the Congress can avoid unintended effects of 
this bill.
  For all of these reasons, I decided to vote no on the motion to 
invoke cloture on S. 1639. We need improved border security and 
immigration reform.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, last night there was a vote on a critical 
amendment to the immigration bill, Senator Baucus' proposal to strip 
any reference to REAL ID in the underlying bill. This, truly, is a case 
of addition by subtraction.
  REAL ID--astronomically expensive, personally intrusive, 
controversial, and unrealistic, passed by the last Congress without 
real scrutiny--is precisely the kind of impractical trigger that could 
derail comprehensive immigration reform.
  Unless we amend this bill, real reform will have to wait for REAL ID. 
Consider the groups lined up against it: not just the ACLU, but also 
the National Conference of State Legislatures, and the National 
Governors Association. Since REAL ID passed in the last Congress, 16 
States have enacted anti-Real ID bills or resolutions. Another 22 
States, including my own, have anti-Real ID bills and resolutions 
pending in their State legislatures.
  Why are they so opposed to REAL ID? They are opposed because it sets 
an unreachable standard and offers States almost no financial help in 
meeting it. Conservative estimates State that it would cost $23 billion 
to fully implement REAL ID. This legislation only authorizes $1.5 
billion for States and the President didn't ask for a single dollar for 
REAL ID in his budget request. That means that States would have to 
shoulder a $21 billion burden. That is an enormous unfunded mandate.
  This crushing financial burden on States is bad enough--but REAL ID 
poses a security risk as well. Its requirements expose people's 
personal data to theft by creating a massive pool of highly sensitive 
personal information such as Social Security numbers, birth 
certificates and driving information.
  Even if States could pay for this new program it would require a 
tremendous amount of personnel and work to get this done. The 
Massachusetts DMV has estimated it would take 10 years to reenroll 
current citizens with licenses alone, which would place them beyond the 
2013 deadline in the bill.
  REAL ID is profoundly flawed--That is why six States have passed laws 
that prohibit it from being implemented at all. These States will never 
be REAL ID compliant and that is why its inclusion in the immigration 
bill is so dangerous.
  Immigration reform is difficult enough without conditioning it on an 
unfeasible, unfunded mandate that States are not only unwilling but in 
some cases legally bound not to meet. Squaring that circle should not 
be a precondition for a much larger need: providing real immigration 
reform for the American people.
  I am proud to have supported the Baucus-Tester amendment to remove 
this dangerous and nonsensical provision from the underlying bill. I 
hope that we will be able to move forward and create a fair, reasonable 
and comprehensive immigration bill that this country so desperately 
needs.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, our immigration system is broken and needs 
reform. Undocumented immigrants flow through our porous borders. 
Employers hire them with near impunity. Our Government lacks the 
ability to adequately detect unauthorized employment, while employers 
in sectors such as agriculture, Michigan's second largest industry, 
fear that their crops will go unpicked for lack of legal, authorized 
workers. The bipartisan compromise bill before the Senate was an 
opportunity to make progress on a very difficult problem.
  The first step in immigration reform must be stronger border 
security. Although there were some provisions in the bill before the 
Senate that I did not support, this legislation had strong border 
security measures, even stronger than the ones we debated a few weeks 
ago. In fact, it contained the funding for the enhanced border 
security.
  We need a more secure, more sensible, and fairer system of 
immigration. Because of filibusters in the Senate we have been unable 
to fully consider and amend the bill. We do not know what the final 
language might have been, and we were unable to vote on amendments 
which we favored. We should have finished the consideration of those 
amendments to determine whether or not the final product was an 
improvement on the status quo. To do that, cloture was required to end 
the filibuster. I am disappointed that the Senate was thwarted in that 
endeavor.
  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I opposed S. 1639, the immigration reform 
bill, and the motion to invoke cloture on this flawed piece of 
legislation.
  Our immigration system is complicated. Our borders remain open. We 
cannot have immigration reform without strengthening the security of 
our borders. This unsound bill circumvented our Senate process and 
attempted to buy off support by throwing in carrots for Senators in 
exchange for their support.
  The American people understand what is going on here in the Senate 
debate and they understand what cloture means. They are flooding our 
offices in Washington, DC, and our offices in our home States with 
calls and e-mails so much so that our phone system cannot keep up. The 
people of Wyoming have made it clear to me that they do not support 
this legislation. They want something to be done to address our 
borders, but do not support the blanket amnesty of this bill.
  The current situation of an open border and an overly complex hiring 
process encourages illegal immigration and the hiring of illegal 
workers. Once we improve these situations, we can determine what steps 
may be necessary for addressing the illegal immigrant population.
  We should not, however, even be considering amnesty. Amnesty 
encourages illegal immigration. In 1986, 7 million immigrants were 
granted amnesty. Today we are facing an illegal population of over 12 
million. The 1986 amnesty did not stop illegal immigration. We should 
not repeat this policy without ensuring that we are not making the same 
mistake.
  This is a complicated issue that will directly impact businesses 
across the United States. Improvements are needed in employer 
verification processes, but those improvements cannot be made in 
legislation forced through the Senate by vote trading. People who break 
laws should be held accountable for their actions. This means better 
enforcement of our current laws, both on the border and by employers. 
Employers must be given the tools to verify legal workers and be held 
accountable

[[Page 17851]]

when they knowingly hire illegal immigrants.
  We in the U.S. Senate still have the opportunity to do some good. We 
can go back to our committee process and draft legislation that could 
help our Border Patrol do their jobs. We can put together an employee 
verification system that actually works and does not run small 
businesses out of business through fines. There could be a lot of 
solutions for securing our border and making sure that people who are 
hired are legal immigrants. We can improve the way that temporary 
seasonal worker visas and agricultural worker visas are processed.
  Rewarding bad behavior only encourages more bad behavior. We will not 
encourage more bad legislative behavior by going forward with this 
legislation.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I rise today to speak of my vote against 
cloture on the motion to proceed to S. 1639, the comprehensive 
immigration reform bill. This issue continues to be a divisive one, 
both in the halls of Congress and throughout our Nation. Indeed, many 
people throughout the country have strongly held views when it comes to 
our Nation's immigration policy. In fact, over the past month, I have 
heard from countless Utahns who have contacted me with their views on 
immigration reform. I expect that every Senator's office has been 
overwhelmed with calls, emails, and faxes from constituents expressing 
their concerns with various provisions of the bill.
  While I commend the bipartisan panel of Senators that has worked 
tirelessly to negotiate this legislation, I must express my 
disappointment in the manner in which the bill's proponents have sought 
to move this bill through the Senate.
  I, for one, am supportive of comprehensive immigration reform and for 
many of the approaches outlined in this bill. We simply cannot be asked 
to live with the status quo. However, once again, there are several 
huge problems with this bill, and I believe that a more thorough 
vetting of this legislation through debate and amendment could have 
fixed those problems and ensured that it contained policy changes the 
American people would support.
  As many have observed throughout this debate, there are currently 
millions of illegal immigrants residing within our Nation's borders. No 
one knows exactly how many, only that they are here, they are working, 
and, in large part, they contribute to our economy.
  We also have many businesses and industries that must have access to 
foreign labor, especially during this time when, while are seeing 
record lows in unemployment, we still have a shortage of workers.
  Under the status quo, employers are too often forced to make a 
decision between hiring illegal workers and wondering whether our 
inefficient and often arbitrary enforcement efforts will catch up with 
them or abiding by the law and closing the doors of their businesses.
  We need to find a fair, compassionate and lawful way to deal with the 
illegal immigrants already this country. We need to create a guest 
worker program for those businesses in need of foreign workers. And, we 
need to improve the system by which we legally distribute visas and 
green cards to make it more fair and efficient.
  The authors of this legislation have tried to address these issues in 
the current bill, and I applaud them for their efforts. However, they 
addressed them in various ways that, in the minds of many, make this 
bill completely unworkable and ineffective. The policies proposed by 
legislation are almost impossible to implement and even if they could 
be implemented, there are so many loopholes and exclusions that almost 
every solution in the bill can and will be bypassed by those who want 
to continue to exploit the system. I am convinced that many of my 
colleagues understand these concerns and even agree with my assessment, 
but they are so anxious to end this debate and reach a successful 
conclusion they compromised several core values that Americans hold 
dear and made damaging concessions.
  The provisions of this bill were negotiated and vetted in secret. It 
was then brought to the floor where the apparently shaky coalition that 
drafted the legislation have, throughout this process, voted as a block 
to prevent the passage of any so-called ``deal-breaking'' amendments. 
At several points during the debate, members of this coalition have 
admitted that the amendments in question would, in their opinion, 
improve the overall bill. Yet, in an effort to preserve the coalition, 
they have worked together to prevent the passage of even some of the 
most reasonable, commonsense amendments.
  Then, after an initial attempt to end the debate failed, the majority 
leader agreed to let the debate go forward and to have votes on a 
number of amendments. Initially, this sounded good. However, it soon 
became clear that, in another effort preserve this shaky, flawed 
compromise, the only amendments that would be voted on were those of 
the majority leader's own choosing.
  I don't believe that anyone should be criticized for their 
willingness to compromise. Clearly, compromise is a vital part of what 
we do in the Senate. However, we simply cannot value compromise for 
compromise's own sake. Indeed, we should not push through such fatally 
flawed legislation simply because it is the product of compromise. 
Compromise--the means by which the Senate passes legislation that will 
benefit our Nation--is not an end unto itself.
  Yet, too many of my colleagues seem all too willing to simply push 
this legislation through simply to preserve this great compromise. In 
fact, it almost appears as if some would consider our efforts 
successful if we were simply able to bring this bill to passage, 
regardless of what the bill looked like and regardless of what its 
effect would be on our immigration system. However, I believe that if 
we were to follow this course, we would be wasting an opportunity to 
provide real reforms to our Nation's immigration policy and to provide 
real solutions for our Nation's many immigration problems.
  It is not a novel idea to suggest that there was a better way to 
approach this problem. That way, Mr. President, was the process by 
which we approach all issues of this magnitude. This bill was brought 
to the floor without having gone through the committee process. This is 
never a good sign for any piece of legislation. Whenever you bypass the 
regular order of the Senate, there will undoubtedly be a significant 
portion of our constituents who feel as if their views don't count. The 
Senate has used and maintained the committee structure for over 200 
years, and it has served the American people well. In this case, 
refusing to use the time-tested committee structure has been a recipe 
for disaster.
  The decision to bring this bill directly the floor robbed many 
Senators of an opportunity to examine the bill thoroughly and publicly 
express their concerns. In addition, it made certain that the bill 
would come before the entire Senate without the benefit of Committee 
hearings, expert testimony, and a public markup.
  Strangely enough, this is the precise criticism meted out by the 
Democrats when they were in the minority last Congress. Now that 
control of the Senate has changed hands, it seems the Democrat 
requirement for regular order is not necessary anymore.
  Mr. President, we have been told that this is our last chance to pass 
immigration reform for several years. I disagree. Once again, there 
were other approaches that could have been taken to pass this 
legislation, and these options remain available. In addition, there are 
many areas of agreement when it comes to immigration. Therefore, I 
believe that we can find a way to address our immigration problems that 
will satisfy the American people.
  But, to do that, we need a process that is fair and open. The process 
we have followed in this case has been too limiting and, as a result, 
we have a bill that the vast majority of Americans will not support. 
That being the case, I oppose this effort to end debate and to push 
this bill through.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

[[Page 17852]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Salazar). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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