[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 6]
[Senate]
[Pages 8225-8243]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 BORDER SECURITY, ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY, AND IMMIGRATION MODERNIZATION 
                         ACT--MOTION TO PROCEED

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
proceed to S. 744.
  The clerk will report the motion.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 80, S. 744, a bill to 
     provide for comprehensive immigration reform, and for other 
     purposes.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the time until 2 
p.m. will be equally divided, with the Senator from Alabama Mr. 
Sessions or his designee controlling 3 hours 15 minutes, and the 
majority or his designee controlling the remaining time.
  The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I thank the majority leader for his kind 
comments. I also note that throughout the markup and debate on the 
immigration bill, his advice and his counsel was always there. We 
discussed it many times, and I appreciate the fact he made it very 
clear the bill would come up at the time he said. We would not have it 
here without his strong support, so I appreciate Senator Reid's very 
nice comments this morning.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, this is important legislation, the 
immigration bill. I was able to have a discussion with Senator Reid 
yesterday. He was moving forward on the motion to proceed to the bill 
which requires considerable debate. I asked for and insisted on the 
opportunity to have some time today to talk about it, and he agreed to 
that. I think that was a good step, and I thank him for that agreement.
  We have a lot to talk about. The matters are complex and important, 
and I urge my colleagues to pay real attention to the legislation. This 
is the bill, as printed, front and back of each page. It was reportedly 
going to be 1,000 pages, and our colleagues were proud to say it was 
800 pages. Since then, more has been added to it, and now it is over 
1,000 pages again.
  It is very complex and there are certain key points with multiple 
references to other code sections that are in existing law; therefore, 
it is very difficult to read.
  It takes a considerable amount of time, and I don't even suspect the 
Gang

[[Page 8226]]

of 8 has had the time to read, digest, and understand fully what is in 
the legislation.
  We are a nation of immigrants. The people whom I know who are 
concerned about this legislation in Congress are not against 
immigration. I certainly am not. We admit about 1 million people a year 
legally into our country, and that is a substantial number by any 
standard. Indeed, it is the highest of any country in the world. It is 
important we execute that policy in an effective way as it impacts our 
whole Nation.
  Immigration has enriched our culture. It has boosted our economy, and 
we have had tremendously wonderful people who have come here--people 
who have contributed to our arts, our business and economy, science and 
sports. We have had a good run with immigration in a lot of ways, but 
we need to ask ourselves at this point in time: Is it working within 
limits? Are the American people happy with what we are doing? Are we 
moving in the right direction?
  We know our generous policies have resulted in a substantial flow of 
people into the country, and our challenge today is to create a lawful 
system of immigration that serves the national interests and admits 
those people into our country who are most likely to be successful, to 
prosper, and to flourish, therefore, most likely to be beneficial to 
America. Surely we can agree that is a good policy, and it has not been 
our policy prior to this.
  We have both the enormous illegal flow of people into the country as 
well as a legal flow that is not evaluated in a way that other advanced 
nations do when they execute their policies of immigration, for 
example, Canada. We should establish smart rules for admittance, rules 
that benefit America, rules that must be enforced, and must be lawful. 
We cannot reject a dutiful, good person to America and then turn around 
and allow someone else who came in illegally to benefit from breaking 
our laws to the disadvantage of the good person who, when told no, had 
to accept that answer. It is just the way we are.
  So we must establish smart rules for admittance, rules that benefit 
America, and these rules have to be enforced--and that is not happening 
today.
  The current policies we have are not serving our country well; 
therefore, a reformed immigration system should spend some time in 
depth in public analysis of how and what we should consider as we 
decide who should be admitted, because we cannot admit everybody. When 
that is done, we need to create a system we can expect to actually work 
to enforce the standards we have. I believe we can make tremendous 
progress, and we can fix this system. It needs to be fixed.
  The legislation that has been offered by the Gang of 8 says they 
fixed it. Don't worry; we have taken care of all that is needed; we 
have a plan that will be compassionate to people who have been here and 
we have a plan which will work in the future and end illegality. Well, 
it won't do that, and that is the problem.
  It will definitely give amnesty today. It will definitely give 
immediate legal status to some 11 million people today, but the 
promises of enforcement in the future, the promises that the 
legislation will focus on a way that enhances the success rate of 
people who come to America is not fulfilled in the legislation.
  Read the bill and see what is in it. I wish it were different. We 
will talk about in the days and weeks to come what is in the bill and 
why it fails. I can share with everyone how it is we came to have such 
a flawed bill before us. We need to understand that as we go forward.
  I am amazed the Gang of 8 has sent such legislation forward, and how 
aggressively they defended it in the Judiciary Committee. We did have a 
markup in the Judiciary Committee. We were allowed to offer amendments 
and had some debate there, but it was an odd thing. Repeatedly members 
who were not even in the Gang of 8 said: I like this amendment, but I 
cannot vote for it because I understand it upsets the deal. We need to 
ask ourselves: Who made the deal? Whose deal is this? How is it that 
the deal is such that Members of the Senate who agreed to an amendment 
say they must vote against the amendment because it upsets some deal? 
Who was in this room? Who was in the deal-making process? So I think 
that was a revealing time in the committee. They had agreed and stated 
openly there would be no substantial changes in the agreements the Gang 
of 8 made, and they would stick together and vote against any changes 
except for minor changes. There were a number of amendments accepted, a 
number of Republican amendments accepted. Many of those were second 
degree or altered by the majority in the committee, but none of those 
fundamentally altered the framework and the substance of this 
legislation. I don't think that is disputable, and we will talk about 
that. So this is the problem we are working with.
  So how did the legislation become as ineffective as it is? I 
contend--I think it is quite plain--it is because it was not written by 
independent Members of the Senate in a more open process but was 
written by special interests. I wish to share some thoughts on that 
subject right now because I think it goes to the heart of the 
difficulties we have.
  There were continual meetings over a period of quite a number of 
months that got this bill off on the wrong track in the beginning. 
Powerful groups met, excluding the interests of the American people, 
excluding the law enforcement community. Throughout the bill we can see 
the influence these groups had on the drafting of it. Some of the 
groups actually did the drafting. A lot of the language clearly came 
from the special interest groups engaged in these secret negotiations.
  What is a special interest group? A special interest group is a group 
of people who have a commitment, an interest they want to advance, but 
they don't pretend to share the national interest. So maybe it is a 
legitimate special interest, maybe it is not a legitimate special 
interest, but they have a special interest, a particular interest they 
want to advance.
  So this is what happened: Big labor and big business were active in 
drafting this legislation, with the entire deal obviously hanging on, 
it was reported, their negotiations. For example, the Wall Street 
Journal, March 10:

       Competing interests abound. The Chamber of Commerce and 
     businesses it represents are locked into negotiations with 
     the AFL-CIO about workers in industries like hospitality and 
     landscaping. Meanwhile, farm-worker unions have been quietly 
     negotiating with growers associations about how to revamp 
     short-term visas for agricultural workers. And senators on 
     both sides of the aisle are weighing in to ensure their state 
     industries are protected.

  The Washington Post, March 10: ``Hush-hush Meetings for Gang of 8 
senators as they work on sweeping immigration bill.'' The article 
reads:

       They are struggling on the question of legal immigration 
     and future workers, and are trading proposals with leaders of 
     the AFL-CIO and the Chamber of Commerce to try to get a deal.

  ``Try to get a deal,'' they are working on a deal.
  How about this: Roll Call, March 21:

       Talks led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and AFL-CIO over 
     a new guest-worker program for lower-skilled immigrants are 
     stalled, prompting members of the bipartisan group of eight 
     senators to get personally involved to try to nudge the 
     negotiations on to resolution.

  So the Senators were not in those discussions. The Senators, when it 
got to be tough and things weren't moving along, they came in to try to 
egg it on, to get the agreement. Who is the agreement between? It is 
between the unions and big business, which are representing the 
American worker, effectively.
  New York Times, March 30:

       The nation's top businesses and labor groups have reached 
     an agreement on a guest worker program for low-skilled 
     immigrants, a person with knowledge of the negotiations said 
     . . . Senator Schumer convened a conference call on Friday 
     night with Thomas J. Donohue, the president of the U.S. 
     Chamber of Commerce, and Richard L. Trumka, the president of 
     the AFL-CIO, the nation's main federation of labor unions, in 
     which they agreed in principle on a guest worker program for 
     low-skilled, year-round, temporary workers.


[[Page 8227]]


  We know there is one group not included in these talks, and that is 
the group given the duty to enforce the immigration laws. The national 
ICE union, the customs and enforcement organization, pleaded with the 
Gang of 8 to consult them. They urged the Gang of 8, they wrote letters 
to the Gang of 8, and I sent information to the Gang of 8 asking them 
to consult with the officers who have the duty to enforce this law, but 
to no avail. They were shut out of every meeting and never have been 
consulted.
  It is interesting to note, however, that others weren't shut out of 
the meeting. They weren't left out of the room.
  The Washington Post, April 13:

       While Obama has allowed Senate negotiators to work on a 
     compromise that can win approval, a White House staff member 
     attends each staff-level meeting to monitor progress and 
     assist with the technical aspects of writing the bill.

  So there has been an attempt to suggest that this is truly a 
congressional action, that the White House is just sort of hands off. 
But we know the White House is deeply involved in this and approving 
every aspect or disapproving aspects they don't like. The question is, 
Who is influencing this? Who is influencing the White House, President 
Obama?
  The Daily Caller, on February 6, notes this:

       On February 5th, Obama held a White House meeting with a 
     series of industry leaders, progressive advocates and ethnic 
     lobbies, including La Raza, to boost support for his plan 
     that would provide a conditional amnesty to 11 million 
     illegal aliens, allow new immigrants to get residency for 
     their relatives and elderly parents, and also establish rules 
     for a ``Future Flow'' of skilled and unskilled workers. The 
     invitees included the CEO of Goldman-Sachs, Motorola, 
     Marriott, and DeLoitte.

  So they are in the meeting, apparently.
  Also, we know participating in a lot of these discussions was the 
American Immigration Lawyers Association. This group obviously was 
involved in writing the bill, and I have to tell my colleagues that 
they will be the biggest winners of this legislation.
  Time and again, rules that were fairly clear--and probably should 
have been made clearer--are muddled, provisions were placed in that 
will create litigation and encourage lawsuits, delays, and will 
increase costs. For example, ``hardship'' is the new standard for many 
waivers and exemptions in this bill, in many cases the exemptions are 
for family problems and other things of that nature. Well, when ICE 
says a person should be deported, then the deportee has the ability to 
say: Well, I have a hardship. My mother is here, I have a brother who 
is sick, or I need this or that.
  What does ``hardship'' mean? It means a trial. That is what it means. 
So the Immigration Lawyers Association was substantially involved in 
the meetings.
  Politico, on March 9, said:

       In a bid to capitalize on the shared interest in 
     immigration reform, a budget deal and new trade pacts, the 
     White House has launched a charm offensive toward corporate 
     America since the November election, hosting more than a 
     dozen conference calls with top industry officials--which 
     have not previously been disclosed--along with a flurry of 
     meetings at the White House.

  Continuing the quote:

       Participants on the recent calls include the heads of 
     Goldman Sachs, the Business Roundtable, Evercore, Silver 
     Lake, Centerbridge Partners, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as 
     well as the heads of Washington trade groups representing the 
     banking industry, such as the Financial Services Roundtable.

  So they have been involved in these discussions. Even foreign 
countries have had a say in drafting our law.
  The Hill, on February 7, reported:

       Mexico's new Ambassador to the U.S., Eduardo Medina-Mora, 
     has had a ``number of meetings with the administration'' 
     where the issue of immigration has come up since he took 
     office last month, said a Mexican official familiar with the 
     process. He is expected to meet with lawmakers shortly as 
     legislation begins to take form. ``Probably like no other 
     country, we are a player in this particular issue,'' the 
     source said.

  Well, the law officers weren't in the room, we know that. People who 
question economically the size and scope and nature of our immigration 
system weren't in the room.
  So in case anyone doubts the role of special interests in drafting 
the legislation, pay attention to this quote by Frank Sharry, executive 
director of the liberal pro-amnesty group, America's Voice, in the Wall 
Street Journal, April 17:

       The triggers are based on developing plans and spending 
     money, not on reaching that effectiveness, which is really 
     quite clever.

  In other words, the sponsors of the bill were telling everyone they 
had triggers in the bill that would guarantee enforcement of laws in 
the future about immigration flow into America, and that if enforcement 
didn't occur, the triggers would stop people from being legalized and 
end the process. That is not so. We have studied the language and we 
know the triggers are ineffectual and are not significant and won't 
work. That will be explained in the days to come.
  Mr. Sharry acknowledges it. He said it was clever to have these faux 
triggers--these triggers that will not work--because we can tell 
everybody: Don't worry, the legality will not occur if the enforcement 
doesn't occur. But in clever ways they drafted a bill that will not 
work. They will say it works, but it will not work.
  Again, with all of the slush funds in this bill, there are a number 
of them that go to private activist groups, community action groups. It 
is easy to see that special interests had a seat at the negotiation 
table.
  The National Review, on May 29, reported:

       A number of immigration-activist groups, such as the 
     National Council of La Raza, would be eligible to receive 
     millions in taxpayer funding to ``advise'' illegal immigrants 
     applying for legal status under the bill.

  So money will go to these activist groups, such as La Raza. La Raza 
is responsible for advocating, not enforcing, our laws. So La Raza is 
in the meetings. La Raza is an open advocate for not enforcing laws 
involving illegal immigration. They are active participants in 
advocating for amnesty. They are going to get money out of the deal 
with some of the grant programs, while the law officers who have the 
ability to tell the committee, the Gang of 8, how to make the system 
work are shut out of the process.
  Were prosecutors involved in the process? No, they have not been.
  The National Immigration Forum, a pro-immigrant group, has been 
involved in some of these discussions.
  So some people have said the bill had to be drafted in secret, but 
that the markup process in the Judiciary Committee would be open and 
transparent. But that is only partially so. We did have a markup. We 
were allowed, those who had objections to the bill, to offer 
amendments, as did those who support the bill. We had the opportunity 
to talk and offer amendments. But at every turn in the committee the 
members of the Gang of 8 expressed support on occasions for certain 
amendments, only to vote against the amendment. Due, they said, to the 
agreement, they had to vote together and against significant 
amendments, regardless of their personal feelings.
  The gang influenced other members on the committee to do the same. 
The Huffington Post, April 16, headline: ``Senate Immigration Group 
Turns to Keeping Fragile Agreement Intact.''
  It goes on to quote Senator McCain as saying:

       We will pledge to oppose, all eight of us, provisions that 
     would destroy the fragile agreement we have.

  So they have an agreement. They have an agreement with the unions and 
big business and the agribusinesses and the food processors and La Raza 
and the immigration lawyers. They have an agreement with them, and they 
are going to defend it, even though they acknowledge amendments that 
were offered would improve the bill. This is no way to serve the 
national interest, in my view.
  In discussing an amendment that would require workers to make a good-
faith effort to hire American workers first, Senator Whitehouse said 
this--this is what happened in the committee--

       I'm in a position which I'm being informed that this would 
     be a deal breaker to the deal.

[[Page 8228]]

     I, frankly, don't see how that could be the case, but I'm not 
     privy to that understanding, and so I'm going to vote in 
     support of the agreement that has been reached.

  In other words, Senator Whitehouse says: Well, I do not understand 
this. I would like to vote the other way, but I am told you have a deal 
and this would damage the deal and so I cannot vote for it. He was not 
even in the Gang of 8 but went along with that.
  Related to that same amendment, Senator Franken echoed the remarks, 
saying:

       I really just want to associate myself with Senator 
     Whitehouse's remarks.

  He goes on to say:

       I don't want to be a deal breaker.

  In discussing an amendment that would increase family-based 
immigration, Senator Feinstein noted:

       I think it's been a unique process because those people who 
     are members of a group that put this together have stood 
     together and have voted against amendments that they felt 
     would be a violation of the bipartisan agreement that brought 
     both sides together.

  I am not sure that is always good. I am not sure that is the right 
thing to do to set public policy in America: to have some secret 
agreement, reached with a group of people we hardly know who they are, 
trump the ability to do the right thing for the American people.
  I want to say that is what has happened here. And the point to make 
is, and what I think our colleagues need to understand and the American 
people need to understand: In reality, the special interests--La Raza, 
the unions, the corporate world, the big agriculture businesses, the 
food processors--they are the ones that made the agreement in this 
process, and the Senators merely ratified it, and they cannot agree to 
a change because they promised these special interest groups things. So 
if La Raza would accept point A that somebody wanted accepted, and the 
unions would accept point B, then they would both agree: I will do A if 
you will do B.
  Then the bill gets to the floor and somebody says: A is wrong and we 
should not put that in the bill. Let's change that. Oh, no, we cannot 
change that. We have an agreement. The agreement with who? La Raza, the 
agribusinesses, the Chamber of Commerce, Microsoft, Zuckerberg. That is 
what happened here. I am just telling you. And the people who drafted 
this bill, the people who have advocated these special interests--we 
should not be surprised at their influence. Businesses, groups, 
organizations have special interests. There is nothing inherently wrong 
with that. What is wrong is that Members of Congress--Members of the 
Senate--need to be representing the national interests, the people's 
interests, the workers' interests in America. That is what we need to 
be doing--not representing the special interests.
  I have to tell you, the openness of this is sort of breathtaking to 
me. Who is protecting the national interests? Did they have any of the 
top-ranked economists in this country being asked what would be the 
right number of low-skilled workers to bring into America? Did they 
have any of the top experts say how many advanced science degrees can 
we have? How many of our college graduates are unemployed? What is the 
right number? None of this was apparently discussed by our colleagues 
who allowed this process to go forward.
  I would say, finally, with regard to the special interests, they have 
no interest--virtually none of them that were involved in this 
process--of guaranteeing in the future that we do not have more 
illegally immigration. That is the failure here. They do not have any 
interest in that and, therefore, there was no intensity of interest in 
that aspect of the legislation.
  Oh, there was a lot of interest in how many computer programmers 
could be admitted or how many agriculture workers or how many low-
skilled factory workers or construction workers or other workers. They 
all worried about that. They fought over that. That is what these 
negotiations were about. There were internal discussions and 
disagreements.
  But nobody was investing any time or interest in the second phase of 
this. If you have an amnesty, if you have a legality of millions of 
people who came here illegally, what are we going to do to ensure it 
does not happen in the future?
  I was a Federal prosecutor. I personally tried an immigration case 
myself. I bet nobody else here can say that. So I am aware you have to 
have certain legal processes and certain investments in investigative 
and enforcement mechanisms to make the system work in the future.
  As we go forward with this debate, we are going to show--and it is 
going to be clear--that this has not been fixed and, in fact, the 
standards of current law with regard to what ought to be done--
requirements in current Federal law--are being weakened, some of them 
eviscerated by this bill.
  This bill is far weaker than the 2007 legislation. I do not think 
there is any doubt about that. It will be clear when we get through it. 
It was rejected by the American people--the 2007 agreement--and it 
actually weakens current law in quite a number of significant areas--
weakens current law--while we are being told: Do not worry, this is the 
toughest bill ever.
  If I am mistaken, I am sure we will hear about that as we discuss it. 
This is a great democracy we are part of and I am expressing my view. 
But I have spent some time on these issues. I was involved with it in 
2006 and 2007. I was a Federal prosecutor. I have done this over the 
years. I know how our ICE agents work, our Border Patrol agents work, 
our customs and immigration service people work. I have worked with 
them. I have tried cases for them. I know them personally. They have 
been left out of this process.
  The ICE union has voted no confidence in John Morton, their 
supervisor. What a dramatic event. I am not aware of that ever 
happening in my 14 years-plus as a Federal prosecutor--the actual 
employment union declaring that they have no confidence in their 
supervisor. And what did they say? They said he spends all his time 
advocating for amnesty and not enforcing the laws. He is directing us 
to not follow legal requirements we took an oath to follow.
  And get this: The ICE officers have filed a lawsuit in Federal court 
attacking Secretary Napolitano, or at least the conduct of her office. 
They have asserted she is not above the law, she is not authorized to 
direct them not to follow plain requirements of Federal law. The 
Federal judge initially seemed to accept the validity of the lawsuit.
  I have never heard of that before. This is an incredible event. 
Nobody is even talking about it. It has been the position of this 
administration, everybody has to know, to see that the law is not being 
effectively enforced, particularly in the interior of America.
  That has basically been--some even acknowledge--a de facto amnesty 
because you are directing your law officers not to do their duty. You 
basically eliminated the law. The administration should not be doing 
that. Congress has refused to change these laws time and again. If 
anything, they have sometimes increased them, strengthened them. And 
now we have our agents blocked from enforcing them.
  The U.S. customs and immigration service that deals with the visas, 
deals with the applications for citizenship--CIS, the Citizenship and 
Immigration Service, they deal with the citizenship processes and the 
paperwork and all of that. They have written in opposition to this 
legislation.
  So first, the ICE officers--Chris Crane, the head of that group, has 
written a powerful letter in detail condemning this legislation, saying 
it will not work, it will make matters worse, and it will endanger 
national security.
  The Citizenship and Immigration Service group that deals with the 
paperwork and the citizenship processing and the visa work--and a lot 
of that--has likewise written saying this bill will not work and they 
oppose it.
  Well, I have to say, somebody needs to be thinking about what is 
going on here. Right. Amnesty--done. The promise of enforcement, the 
toughest bill ever in the future--no, sir, not there, not close. That 
is why we have a problem. I cannot understand why people would not want 
the legal system to be

[[Page 8229]]

complete, to be effective, and would be followed so we as Americans 
could be proud of it.
  There is a lot of power behind this legislation. I can feel it. When 
I raise questions, push-back comes. You are not politically correct; 
you are unkind; you do not like immigrants. That is offensive to me. I 
believe in immigration. We have a million people who come in here every 
year legally. I do not oppose that. I do not oppose doing something 
responsible and compassionate for the people who have been here a long 
time illegally. But we have to be careful about it.
  But the American people are so right on their basic instinct about 
this matter. I have to say how I believe the American people's hearts 
and souls are good about immigration. A lot of people think: Well, we 
have to meet in secret and we have to run this bill through as fast as 
possible because we do not want the American people to find out about 
it because they do not like immigrants. Not so. A recent poll revealed 
something very important, and our Members of this body and the House 
need to know it. It said: If you are angry about the way things are 
going with regard to immigration, are you angry at the people who came 
into the country illegally or are you angry at the government officials 
for allowing it to happen? Mr. President, 12 percent said they were 
angry at the people who entered illegally. Mr. President, 88 percent 
said they were angry at public officials for not creating a legal 
system that will work.
  Doesn't that speak well of the American people? You could be angry 
about somebody who came into our country in violation of the law. But I 
think the American people understand that people want to come here, and 
it is our duty to stop it. They have been pleading with Congress for 
over 30 years to do something about it, to create a lawful system, to 
end the lawlessness, to do the right thing, to create immigration 
processes that we can be proud of, such as Canada has and other 
countries around the world have.
  We believe in immigration. We want to do the right thing, but it 
needs to be lawful. We have more applicants for admission into America 
than we can possibly accept. I was in, I believe, Peru with Senator 
Specter a number of years ago, and a poll was called to our attention 
from Nicaragua that said 60 percent of the people in Nicaragua said 
they would come to America if they could--60 percent. Then the 
Ambassador in Peru told us they had a poll around there that said 70 
percent.
  Well, everybody cannot come to America.
  We are not able to assimilate or absorb that. We all know that. We 
all agree with that. So therefore you set rules and processes that we 
can be proud of, that are fair and objective, and that people who want 
to come meet those standards and they wait their turn and they come 
lawfully.
  We have had from this administration and prior administrations--
President Bush also--too little interest in seeing that the law is 
enforced. We have loopholes in our laws and processes that need to be 
fixed. We can do that with a good immigration bill, but this one does 
not get it done.
  I noticed that my friend did an op-ed yesterday--Karl Rove, who was 
President Bush's political adviser, a man of great talent back in the 
day that we were in college together. He quotes a lot of polls that say 
the American people are willing to accept legal processes and status 
for people in this country. I acknowledge that. They are. But he does 
not quote the polls that say overwhelmingly that they want the 
illegality ended. They want border security first because they are 
smart enough to know that if we do not get border security now, we may 
never get it. In fact, they want to get it. History tells us so.
  He did not quote a recent Rasmussen poll. This is what was in the 
Rasmussen polling report. The so-called Gang of 8 proposal in the 
Senate legalizes the status of immigrants first and promises to secure 
the border later. By a 4-to-1 margin, people want that process 
reversed. My good friend Karl Rove did not quote that.
  Additionally, while voters think highly of immigrants, which speaks 
well of us as American people, they do not trust the government. That 
skepticism is growing. In January 45 percent thought it was at least 
somewhat likely that the Federal Government would work to secure the 
border and prevent future illegal immigration. Today only 30 percent 
has that confidence. Why? Because they are beginning to learn that this 
bill does not do what they were told it was going to do.
  The growing awareness of the border control issue has led to other 
shifts in public opinion as well. Early in the year Democrats were 
trusted more than Republicans on the issue of immigration. Now that has 
switched. Well, we are not interested in politics, we are interested in 
doing the right thing. When we do the right thing, the people will 
affirm it.
  So Mr. Rove goes on to say: Now, do not say amnesty.
  My friend Karl: Do not say amnesty. That is a bad thing for you to 
say.
  Well, let me just say that under the legislation that is before us 
now, we would have a circumstance immediately where people will be 
given legal status. They will be able to get any job and they are here 
safe and sound. Unless they get arrested for a felony or something very 
serious like that, they are put on a path that guarantees them the 
ability to go all the way to citizenship.
  Mr. Rove says they have to pay a $1,000 fine over 6 years. What is 
that--$170 dollars a year, $15, $12 a month? So this is the punishment? 
You pay $12 a month worth of fines, which allows you not to have to go 
home even though you entered the country illegally, did not wait your 
turn, and you are guaranteed a path to citizenship. Then at the end you 
have to pay another $1,000 some 10, 13 years later. So this is the 
punishment in the legislation. But the people who came illegally get 
exactly what they wanted immediately, which is to stay here, have the 
ability to work here. They will get a Social Security card. They will 
get the ability to go to any job in the country. They will have an ID 
that would allow them to do that. So they will be able to compete for 
any job in America. They will be able to compete for jobs that our 
husbands and sons and daughters and grandchildren might be competing 
for out there. There will be 11 million in that position.
  So I do not think my friend Karl is making a very strong point there 
that this is some sort of punishment. He says: They must pay taxes. 
Well, hallelujah. Should you not pay taxes? They are ``barred from 
receiving any Federal benefits, including welfare and ObamaCare.'' That 
is a flat statement, and it is flat wrong. The first group, the DREAM 
Act group, which will be some 2, 2\1/2\ million, maybe 3 million, they 
will be citizens in 5 years and will be able to get any of the Federal 
welfare programs in 5 years. Many of the ag workers will be in that 
position in 10 years. Any workers who qualify for the earned-income tax 
credit can get that immediately--now.
  Other provisions are put off for 10, 13 years, and that makes the 
cost score look better. But over the long term, once the group is given 
legal status and citizenship, they will then qualify for every program. 
Since overwhelmingly the number of the workers here today are lower 
skilled who are illegal--they are lower skilled, and you can expect 
their incomes to be low--they will qualify for the earned-income tax 
credit, for Medicaid and program after program, food stamps and others.
  The score goes up tremendously in the outyears. The Heritage 
Foundation is the only group who has done an in-depth analysis. They 
say that over the lifetime of the program, the people who are here 
illegally--if they are legalized under this bill, it would add $6.3 
trillion to the debt and deficit of the United States. That is a lot of 
money. That is almost as much as the unfunded liability of Social 
Security, which is about $7 trillion. So this will be $6 trillion. Some 
say that number is too high, but I have not seen anybody say that 
number is not in the ball park. Nobody else has done a study to refute 
it. It is going to be trillions of dollars in the outyears.

[[Page 8230]]

  It is not true that there will be no government benefits going to 
people who are in the country who get legalized under this. It is just 
not so. Well, this is another point. To me, this is sort of a 
fundamental point. It sounds so good when you have a political guru 
like my friend Karl. He says: To renew their temporary status after 6 
years, those waiting to become citizens must prove they have been 
steadily employed, paid all taxes, and are not on welfare.
  So let's take what has happened. So we have an individual who has 
been in the country 3 years. They get the provisional legal status 
immediately when the bill passes. In 6 years they have to, we are told, 
show they are steadily employed, paying taxes, and are not on welfare. 
Well, who is going to investigate that, first? No one.
  So they have already been here 3 years. As long as they came before 
December 31, 2011, they are given legal status. Whether they have a job 
or not, they are given this legal status. Without a family, without 
roots in America other than having been here, they claim, before 
December 31, 2011. But we are not willing to deport them. So now 6 
years later, they work intermittently, they are unemployed, and we have 
a recession, and we do not have enough jobs for people, and we are 
going to send out the feds and uproot them--their children are now in 
junior high and high school--and send them back home? Give me a break. 
That is one of the most bogus claims ever. That will not be enforced. 
There are waiver authorities in the bill, so waivers will be issued. 
Nobody is going out to enforce this. I am just tired of them saying 
this. They should not even say it to try to get the American people to 
believe that we are going to actually go out and deport what could be 
millions of people who are out of work in the 5- or 6-year period when 
they have to reestablish themselves. That just bothers me.
  These individuals, Karl Rove said, ``must stand at the back of the 
line behind everyone who is waiting patiently and legally to immigrate 
here.'' That is not so. Give me a break. Those people are here 
illegally now. They do not want to be deported, which is 
understandable. They are going to be given permanent status, a Social 
Security number, and a right to work anywhere in America. They are not 
ahead of somebody from Honduras waiting in line to come here, or not 
ahead of somebody in China or Italy or Spain? Of course they are ahead 
of them. They are not waiting. I am without words to express my concern 
about that. We need to be accurate about what the legislation says.
  What about this amnesty? Well, people say: You should not call it 
amnesty.
  Well, I think that is a legitimate word. The legislation before us 
would immediately give legal status, allow people to move to legal 
permanent residency and citizenship later. You have to pay a few 
thousand dollars in fines. Well, I think that is amnesty.
  Someone said: Well, they pay a $1,000 fine. They paid a penalty; 
therefore, you can't call it amnesty.
  No, I do not agree. This legislation basically says that everybody 
here is given legal status and put on a guaranteed path to citizenship; 
just do not get convicted of a felony. So I really do not think that is 
a good argument. So that will continue for a bit. But I think the 
sponsors kind of gave up objecting back in 2007 when the legislation 
was before us at that time. But I would note that in 2007 the initial 
fine that people paid had to be paid up front--$3,000. Under this bill 
you pay a $1,000 fine over 6 years. Then to get a green card, the legal 
permanent residency, you had to pay an additional $4,000, and an 
interim review period called for a fine or payment of $1,500. In total, 
$8,500. So in 2007 the payment required for somebody to move forward to 
citizenship was up to $8,500. This bill is $2,000--really $1,000 to be 
able to stay here and work here, and that is a payment which is 
stretched out over time. The bill allows the fine to be paid in 
installments. So I would have to say it is difficult for me to accept 
that these people are earning their citizenship and that they are 
paying a price for it.
  Then Mr. Rove mentions they have to pay their taxes. But one of our 
watchful publications, Politico, did an article about that on June 3. 
They said with regard to tax payments:

       After all, it was one of the Gang of Eight's main talking 
     points when it unveiled the immigration blueprint in January. 
     Sponsors vowed that their proposal would include a back tax 
     requirement to ward off critics' claims that their bill would 
     be amnesty. Citizenship would come at a price, they said.
       But the gang has all but dropped that talking point. The 
     immigration legislation currently moving through the Senate 
     includes a scaled-back provision that relies almost entirely 
     on immigrants coming forward to the Internal Revenue Service 
     voluntarily. Critics call it ``toothless.''

  It is toothless. There is no back tax. My friend, Karl Rove, is still 
out here spinning, claiming you have some great advantage. We are going 
to collect all these back taxes.
  Nobody is going to investigate these cases, even if the law is clear. 
We don't have the money and the ability to do so, and it is not going 
to happen. That is just a fact.
  Let's talk about in general some of the other issues that will come 
before us. I know my colleague, Senator Lee, will be joining us on the 
floor in a little bit, and I will yield to him if and when he comes, 
but I wanted to talk about these promises we were given by the people 
who wrote the bill, a promise that the path to citizenship would be 
``contingent upon securing our border and tracking whether legal 
immigrants have left the country when required.''
  Now, that is fundamentally correct. That was the promise. That is one 
of the Gang of 8 principles they published. Our bill, they say, does 
that. I wish that were so. A path to citizenship would be ``contingent 
upon securing our borders and tracking whether legal immigrants have 
left the country when required.'' But in truth, the bill is amnesty 
first and a promise of enforcement later.
  With regard to tracking immigrants who leave the country when they 
are required to, it devastates and weakens current law, so that can 
never happen, effectively. It is unbelievable to me they would directly 
pass a bill that directly contradicts current law.
  On ``Meet the Press'' not too long ago, Senator Schumer--and one of 
the Gang of 8--said it flatout. He acknowledged that promise of 
enforcement first is not going to happen. He said, ``First, people will 
be legalized. . . . Then we will make sure the border is secure.''
  Instead of enforcement first, it is legalization first. That is as 
plain as day. It is not even disputed in any law. The illegal 
immigrants would be legalized immediately, and not a single border or 
interior enforcement measure has to be in place then or ever.
  All Secretary Napolitano needs to do is submit two reports to 
Congress. Illegal immigrants will then begin receiving legal status, 
work permits, Social Security accounts, driver's licenses, travel 
documents, and other State benefits, financial benefits, that come from 
the States. Nothing requires that any border security be in place, any 
fence be built, before this amnesty is ever accomplished.
  We were told we were going to have a trigger. Until the fences were 
built, until other enforcement mechanisms were undertaken, until that 
happened, you weren't going to have amnesty. But it is not so. All the 
Secretary needs to do is submit a report. She has already said we have 
better enforcement than ever before in history and indicated she does 
not believe we need more fencing. The contention from the Gang of 8 
that we are going to have major fencing at the border has not been 
proven.
  The Secretary of Homeland Security is merely supposed to develop a 
plan. Frank Sharry, the head of the pro-amnesty group, as I noted, said 
the following:

       The triggers are based on developing plans and spending 
     money, not on reaching that effectiveness, which is really 
     quite clever.

  Mr. Sharry let the cat out of the bag. He said it is a faux trigger, 
an apparent trigger that is not real. He said it was ``quite clever''--
and indeed it is--but it is now becoming clear that what has been 
promised is not happening. You

[[Page 8231]]

could say to the American people: Don't be taken in on this. We can see 
it now, make your voices heard, follow this debate. If the promises for 
this bill are not followed, then let your voice be heard in Congress. 
Tell your Congressmen you are not happy. Tell your Senator you have to 
do better.
  The whole crux of it is that if we have an amnesty, if we have a very 
generous, compassionate treatment of people who violated our laws and 
come here, shouldn't we have a policy that ends the illegality in the 
future?
  That is what the American people have demanded for 30 years. They are 
good and decent people. That is an absolutely proper thing for them to 
demand of Congress, and we are not doing it. It is heartbreaking to me 
that we are here going through this process with a bill as flawed as 
this one. As times goes by we will talk more about it.
  I see my friend, the Senator from Utah, Mr. Lee, who is a fabulous 
new addition to the Senate Judiciary Committee, where this legislation 
moved. He contributed in many able ways to the discussion, offering 
excellent amendments. He is a skilled lawyer and a man who is deeply 
committed to the principles of law that made our country great.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. LEE. Mr. President, today I rise in favor of immigration reform. 
The current immigration system is a travesty. It is inefficient, it is 
uncompassionate, and it is dangerous. It doesn't serve America's 
economic or social interests, and it undermines respect for the rule of 
law while simultaneously undermining respect for our democratic 
institutions. Comprehensive reform is both badly needed and long 
overdue.
  The comprehensive immigration reform I envision includes real border 
security, visa modernization, employment verification, robust programs 
for both high- and low-skilled workers, and a compassionate approach to 
addressing the needs of those currently in the country illegally. But I 
believe each of these vital components must be addressed incrementally 
and sequentially in order to ensure meaningful results. I understand 
our reluctance to admit it, but Congress is simply very bad at 
overhauling and creating massive bureaucratic systems all at once.
  Every new law, no matter how big, carries with it some unintended 
consequences. The bigger the law, the more accidental problems we tend 
to create. History teaches us that trying to fix lots of problems all 
at once is the surest way to avoid fixing any of them very well. 
ObamaCare is and will continue to make our health care system worse, 
not better. It promised to lower health insurance premiums. Yet they 
are exploding all across the country. The Dodd-Frank financial reform 
measure was supposed to end too-big-to-fail and prevent another 
financial meltdown. Yet Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are still on the 
taxpayers' books, and today the very biggest banks on Wall Street are 
bigger than ever.
  Do the American people have any idea that the PATRIOT Act would 
empower the National Security Agency to spy on all Americans through 
their cell phones and their computers? What makes any of us, least of 
all any conservative, believe this immigration bill is going to work 
out any better?
  The lesson we should be taking from our recent mistakes is not that 
we need to pass better, huge, sweeping new laws, but that we should, 
instead, undertake major necessary reforms incrementally, one step at a 
time, and in the proper sequence. We need to face the fact that 1,000-
page bureaucratic overhauls simply do not achieve their desired goals, 
and they create far more problems than they tend to solve. We can 
achieve comprehensive immigration reform without having to pass another 
1,000-page bill full of loopholes, carveouts, and unintended 
consequences.
  Therefore, from my perspective there is no one amendment that can fix 
this bill. Indeed, there is no series of tinkering changes that will 
turn this mess of a bill into the reform the country needs and that 
Americans deserve.
  The only way to guarantee successful reform of the entire system is 
through a series of incremental reforms that ensure the foundational 
pieces, like the border security pieces and an effective entry and exit 
system, are done first and done directly. Such a commonsense process 
will allow Congress--and, more importantly, will allow the American 
people--to monitor policy changes as they are implemented with each 
step. That way we can isolate and fix unintended consequences before 
they grow out of control and before we move on to the next phase.
  A step-by-step approach would also allow Congress to move quickly on 
those measures on which Republicans and Democrats both tend to agree. 
We ought not hold commonsense and essential measures hostage to 
unavoidably contentious ones, and that is what this bill does. Both 
sides largely agree on many essential elements. These measures are 
relatively uncontroversial and could pass incrementally with broad 
bipartisan support in Congress.
  Indeed, the only reason immigration reform is controversial is that 
Congress refuses to adopt the incremental approach. That is why true 
immigration reform must be pursued step by step, with individual reform 
measures implemented and verified in the proper sequence.
  Happily for immigration reformers like me, this appears to be the 
approach being pursued by the House of Representatives. It is the only 
one that makes sense.
  First of all, let's secure the border. Let's set up a workable entry-
exit system and create a reliable employment verification system that 
protects immigrants, protects citizens, and protects businesses from 
bureaucratic mistakes. Then let's fix our legal immigration system to 
make sure we are letting in the immigrants our economy needs in numbers 
that make sense for our country. There is no good reason why we must, 
or even why we should, try to do it all at once, all in one bill, all 
in the same legislative package.
  Once these and other tasks, which are plenty big in and of 
themselves, are completed to the American people's satisfaction, then 
we can address the needs of current undocumented workers with justice, 
compassion, and sensitivity. Since the beginning of this year, more 
than 40 immigration-related bills have been introduced in the House and 
the Senate. By a rough count, I could support more than half of them. 
Eight of them have Republican and Democratic cosponsors.
  We should not risk progress on these and other bipartisan reforms 
simply because we are unable to iron out each and every one of the more 
contentious issues. This is not the bill to fix our immigration system.
  I want to pass immigration reform. I want to debate immigration 
reform. That is exactly why we should not proceed to the Gang of 8 
bill. We are being presented with a choice between the Gang of 8 bill 
or nothing. Common sense, recent history, and the ongoing legislative 
process of the House of Representatives confirmed that is a false 
choice. There is another way. It is a more sensible and a more 
successful way.
  We can do better than another 1,000-page mistake. Haven't we learned 
our lesson in this regard? Isn't it time that we try?
  Rather than fix our current immigration problems, the Gang of 8 bill 
will make many of them worse. It is not immigration reform, it is big 
government dysfunction. All advocates of true immigration reform on the 
left and on the right should oppose it.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be 
allowed to engage in a colloquy with Senator Lee.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

[[Page 8232]]


  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for his comments and 
insight and contribution to the debate, as well as his clear mind and 
thinking that causes us to analyze how to handle things.
  The problem we have today, at the most fundamental level, is that in 
1987, as Senator Grassley has been so passionate and so clear about, we 
voted for the 1987 amnesty, and amnesty occurred immediately with the 
promise of enforcement in the future. So in the view of Senator 
Grassley, and the view of the American people by a 4-to-1 margin in a 
recent poll, we should have the enforcement first and then we will talk 
about amnesty. All right?
  Senator Lee offered an amendment that dealt with this process. Under 
the legislation we have here, the question of enforcement is almost 
entirely given to the Secretary of Homeland Security, who has basically 
said enforcement is good now and we don't need any more enforcement and 
that she would basically certify or establish whether we have an 
effective border and enforcement system, and if not she would issue a 
report and would turn it over to a commission that had no power and 
they could review it. But that absolves Congress of their 
responsibility.
  With that as background, the Senator offered a very interesting 
amendment that I think places the responsibility for enforcement where 
it should be. Would the Senator explain his thinking on that?
  Mr. LEE. I certainly would. I would be happy to.
  In the Judiciary Committee, on which the Senator from Alabama and I 
both sit, during the markup session on this bill we were able to 
propose a number of amendments. One of the amendments I proposed--Lee 
amendment No. 4--addressed this very problem, the problem inherent in 
the fact that much of what this bill accomplishes is to outsource and 
delegate many of the delicate tasks. Many of the delicate decisions 
that have to be made along the way in the implementation of this bill 
are outsourced to the Secretary of Homeland Security--the task of 
coming up with a border security plan and a border fencing plan. Once 
those plans are in place, and once the Secretary makes the necessary 
findings under the bill, which she has basically complete discretion to 
do, then the RPI status begins--the pathway to citizenship commences. 
And citizenship from that moment forward, for those who meet the basic 
eligibility standards, becomes more or less a virtual certainty or 
becomes, at the very least, very likely.
  So my concern was Congress would have no subsequent input in this 
decision. Each of us has been elected to this body, and each of our 
colleagues in the House of Representatives has been elected to that 
body, to make decisions, to make law, and not simply to make outside 
lawmakers who will make incremental pieces of law on the outside. Each 
of us will stand accountable at regular 6-year intervals in this body 
and 2-year incremental periods in the other body to the voters who 
placed us here. Each of us should have the opportunity to decide 
whether and to what extent the border has adequately been secured and 
whether and to what extent we have enough fencing along the border in 
order for us to begin this legalization process and the pathway to 
citizenship.
  So Lee amendment No. 4 to this bill would have said simply the RPI 
status, this pathway, would not have commenced until such time as 
Congress had the chance to vote on whether we had made sufficient 
progress toward securing the border and fencing the border before the 
period of legalization started.
  It is a very simple question, and it is the question that lies at the 
heart of the concerns surrounding this very bill. It is the question 
that lies at the heart of the lingering concerns regarding what we did 
back in 1986. I was only 14 years old at the time that debate 
commenced, so it was not at the forefront of my mind, although perhaps 
it should have been. But the lingering concerns surrounding what 
happened in 1986 relate to the fact that Congress said, in effect, we 
are going to go ahead and legalize the several million people who are 
here illegally right now, and then, once and for all, we are going to 
secure the border. We are going to stop the flow of illegal immigration 
once and for all. Well, that didn't happen because they sort of put it 
off and said at some unknown point in the future the border will in 
fact be secured. That would have solved that problem. At the very least 
it would have kept Members of Congress on the hook for finding the 
border was adequately secured by a subsequent vote before a pathway to 
legalization commenced.
  To my surprise, to my dismay, and to my frustration my amendment was 
rejected, and it was rejected along the lines of a particularly odd 
argument. The argument went something like this, from those who 
professed their undying loyalty to the Gang of 8 bill as it was 
originally drafted. The argument said, in essence: We cannot adopt Lee 
amendment No. 4 because we can't trust Congress to do the right thing. 
We can't trust Congress to do what we want Congress to do. In 
particular, the argument was made that we can't be certain the House of 
Representatives, currently under the control of the Republican Party, 
will in fact vote to commence the legalization process.
  Well, if that is the case, aren't we saying we can't trust the 
democratic process? If that is the case, aren't we saying the American 
people aren't yet comfortable with that?
  So I would ask my colleague from Alabama, why should we not trust the 
elected representatives of the American people to make critical 
decisions such as these? And why should we, instead, outsource them to 
someone having been appointed by the President and confirmed by the 
President, who doesn't respond, at least not directly, to the people at 
regular intervals in elections?
  Mr. SESSIONS. I would say this is a very important amendment and I 
think it reveals a lot, as the Senator indicated. When we vote on an 
amnesty bill, and if that were to pass, the Senators voting for it are 
basically promising the American people, giving assurances to the 
American people they will end the illegality in the future. Because as 
I noted, the polls are 4 to 1 that we should have the enforcement 
before we give amnesty. And the reason is due to a lack of confidence.
  So I think if the Senator's amendment had been passed, it would have 
placed some burden on us, a moral obligation to stand before the world 
at a point in time in the future and declare whether we have 
accomplished what we promised the American people we would do. Is that 
part of the Senator's thinking?
  Mr. LEE. Yes, that is exactly why I introduced Lee amendment No. 4 in 
the committee and why I think it should have been passed. Because the 
whole reason we entrust the legislative power only to people who are 
elected at regular intervals and stand accountable to their electors at 
regular intervals is because of the fact it is perhaps the most 
dangerous power of government. We can do a lot of damage when we make 
law. And as a result of that potential for damage, that potential for 
harm we can inflict on the people, we have to stand accountable in 
incremental time periods of either 6 or 2 years to make sure we don't 
abuse that power. That is why it is so harmful when we take that very 
dangerous, potentially destructive power and we outsource it.
  To some extent, in different ways, this has been going on for many 
decades. It started more or less during the New Deal era, when Congress 
discovered as the Federal Government was dramatically expanding 
Congress physically couldn't come up with the immense and steadily 
building task of legislating--of doing all the lawmaking and all the 
rulemaking it needed to do. So it started passing broader pieces of 
legislation, setting out very broad objectives, and then outsourcing to 
some outside body--sometimes a Cabinet-level official, other times a 
so-called independent commission to do the real lawmaking.
  During this time period, Congress discovered an interesting and 
important tool. During this time period it discovered sometimes we, as 
Members of Congress, are not going to like the

[[Page 8233]]

way the outside body or the outside official within the executive 
branch might exercise this delegated lawmaking authority. So they 
reserved to themselves, they reserved for Congress an out--a 
legislative veto, as it became known. In some instances, this 
legislative veto allowed Congress, either the House or the Senate, to 
undo a rulemaking or an important decision made by an executive branch 
official or entity. In other cases it required both Houses to act in 
unison. But these legislative veto provisions did not require 
subsequent presentment to the President who could then sign or veto 
that legislative veto.
  This went on for several decades. It went on until the mid-1980s when 
the Supreme Court intervened in a case called INS v. Chada, occurring, 
interestingly enough, in the immigration context; occurring, 
interestingly enough, in the specific context of a decision by the 
Attorney General to exercise delegated authority from Congress to issue 
a discretionary waiver of deportability to an otherwise removable 
alien.
  The Supreme Court said this legislative veto was itself 
unconstitutional because it amounted, in essence, to a subsequent 
enactment by Congress that was not subject to the presentment 
requirement of article I, section 7 of the Constitution. Thus, the 
Supreme Court concluded in INS v. Chada the legislative veto provision, 
as it had been used for many decades, was itself unconstitutional, it 
was invalid, and was stricken.
  Some might have predicted that, as of the moment of the issuance of 
this decision in INS v. Chada, Congress would say: That is it, we are 
not going to delegate this much authority anymore because we can't 
trust these outside officials, these outside entities within the 
executive branch of government to do the lawmaking. That is our job.
  But that is not what happened. Shockingly, in the eyes of some, 
Congress continued to delegate its lawmaking authority left and right. 
If anything, it has accelerated its delegation of lawmaking authority. 
In part because Members of Congress, first and foremost, like to wash 
their hands of things, in the grand tradition of Pontius Pilate we are 
sometimes inclined to wash our hands of things and push important 
decisions off to someone else to make them, someone else who can take 
accountability for those decisions. It makes it easier for us. And in 
some ways that is what is happening here. In some ways that is what we 
are doing here by pushing off to the Secretary of Homeland Security the 
decision to make a decision we ourselves ought to be making. That 
decision ought to rest here so we ourselves can be held accountable. We 
are not sovereigns unto ourselves. We certainly ought not be making 
sovereigns out of others who do not stand accountable to the people.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Senator. I think that is very wise insight.
  On the question of immigration, Congress has been irresponsible. The 
American people have pleaded with us to end the illegality and create a 
lawful system that serves the national interest--a system we can be 
proud of. And for 30 years Congress has failed.
  The Senator's amendment requiring that vote by Congress to assure we 
do what we have promised to do reminds me of what happened in 2007--
another bill that was a comprehensive immigration bill on the floor. I 
opposed that bill. It was stronger than this bill, considerably, in a 
lot of different ways, but it failed because we didn't have confidence 
about the future.
  In the course of that debate, I think maybe shortly after the bill 
failed, we had an amendment to build a certain amount of fencing on the 
border. I offered that amendment, and it passed overwhelmingly.
  Republicans and Democrats, virtually everybody, voted to build more 
fencing at the border--700 miles out of about a 1,700-mile border. 
Everybody was for that. But that was just the first vote, as our 
colleagues know. The second vote was whether anybody would appropriate 
any money to build the fence. So not long afterwards up comes an 
appropriations bill for homeland security and it had no money for the 
fence in it. Our colleagues, going back home: I voted to build a fence. 
But here we have a bill on the floor that doesn't have any money to 
build a fence. The fence wasn't going to get built.
  I raised Cain about it and fussed and fussed and sort of mocked the 
Congress for one moment, saying: You are going to do something and not 
step up to the plate a little later. And they put money in for the 
fence. But you know what happened. Of the double-layered fencing that 
was required, 700 miles of it, only 36 were built. They came up with 
this idea of a virtual fence--airplanes and computers and radar, I 
guess. It was a total failure. We spent $1 billion. It was abandoned. 
There are only 36 miles of double-fencing and 100 or so miles of 
automobile barriers. It was never built.
  If we had to vote again to affirm what we did in the year, I think 
that would make it more likely--from my experience here about how this 
body works--that what we promised would get done. Does the Senator 
agree?
  Mr. LEE. I certainly do. I think that would make a big difference. If 
we had to vote on it, it would have a couple of effects. First of all, 
the fact that we would have to vote on it would have an impact on the 
executive branch of government whose job it is to implement laws that 
we pass. The executive branch of government would normally have a 
duty--a duty that we would be following up on not just in some 
amorphous oversight committee hearing context, but we would be 
exercising oversight in a very real way in the sense that we would have 
to vote on whether they had done something adequately within a 
specified period of time. There would be consequences, real 
consequences, if we were to refuse to exercise that vote.
  This vote would go through the normal process. It would be debated, 
discussed, and acted upon in both Houses of Congress and then submitted 
to the President for signature or veto and would therefore be wholly 
consistent with the presentment clause of the Constitution.
  Some have suggested this might be a bad idea because it would perhaps 
get held up through some procedural mechanism or another, but the way 
the amendment was written, that would not, in fact, be the effect. This 
would be a privileged motion through which it could come on the floor. 
It would go through the Senate on a 51-vote threshold and would 
therefore be able to move through quite quickly. That is why it is 
important for this kind of mechanism to be in a bill such as this.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I thank my colleague because the dangerous problem is 
so very real. As Senator Grassley has so eloquently discussed, it is 
one thing to grant amnesty today, it is another to see in the future 
that we follow through on a system that will end illegality in America.
  Senator Lee, you are a good lawyer. You have been involved in a 
number of these issues. It is very clear that the American Immigration 
Lawyers Association was involved in the drafting of this legislation. I 
do not say it was all done just for their personal gain, but did the 
Senator notice quite a number of alterations in current law that gave 
more flexibility, and resulted in more uncertainty; where the law says 
thus and so, but it can be waived for hardship or family problems or 
other matters?
  As a lawyer, consider what at first glance would be an open-and-shut 
case where your client is in the country illegally and due to be 
deported, but now under the bill, the client can demand a trial and 
perhaps overload the system. Everybody claims hardship; everybody 
claims some other exception to the rule. Is there a danger that our 
whole enforcement system would be bogged down in litigation we never 
had before?
  Mr. LEE. Yes, it certainly could be and it certainly would be if at 
the end of the day you have literally hundreds of instances of 
Secretarial discretion built into the bill. If every one of these 
important decisions that have to be made along the way, or through the 
process, on legal immigration--if any of the critical decisions that 
have to be made along the way are subject to certain rules but those 
rules can be

[[Page 8234]]

waived by the Secretary at the Secretary's unfettered discretion, it is 
not much of a law. It becomes something else. It becomes a set of 
guidelines with ultimate discretionary decisionmaking vested in the 
Secretary. That is something very different than a law.
  I do not doubt that there were lots of people who had input on this 
bill, nor do I necessarily blame any one group for being involved. They 
have every right to give their input into a law. But at the end of the 
day we have to ask the question: Whose job is it to legislate? It is 
not their decision to legislate. The accountability to legislate or the 
accountability for flaws in this bill therefore must not rest with any 
outside group, any group of lawyers or activists of any stripe or at 
either end of the political spectrum. The accountability for the 
legislation that moves through this body must rest ultimately with us, 
and that includes legislation that gives someone else the effective 
power to legislate, as this one does, in literally hundreds of 
instances.
  If at the end of the day this bill--assuming it is passed out of this 
body and passed by the House of Representatives and signed into law by 
the President--if this bill at the end of the day says, for instance, 
that the Secretary may at her discretion waive certain exclusions, 
waive exclusions that would otherwise prevent somebody from entering 
onto the pathway to citizenship on grounds that they had reentered the 
country after previously being deported, that is a pretty big issue. At 
that moment somebody who has reentered the country after previously 
being deported has committed a felony.
  The point has been made many times that it is not necessarily a crime 
to enter this country illegally. It is considered by most to be a civil 
violation. But that changes when you have been previously deported. A 
previously deported illegal alien who reenters following deportation 
has committed a felony offense. So if the legislation we are 
considering now becomes law and if at the end of the day it is enacted, 
it allows for those people to enter onto a pathway to citizenship, and 
I think that is cause for concern. It is one of many areas in which we 
need to be very cautious in granting this much discretion to the 
Secretary of Homeland Security.
  I got a letter from a woman in my home State of Utah, a woman who is 
a schoolteacher in American Fork, UT. She is an immigrant to this 
country. She is here on a nonimmigrant visa. She sent me a letter 
saying: I spent years of my life and thousands of dollars immigrating 
to this country legally, the right way. I have a job. It is a good job, 
a job that I love, a job teaching school. But I am here on a visa, and 
that visa expires in a few years. I know when that visa expires unless 
somehow I am able to get that visa extended or able to get another 
visa, I will be sent home. I will have to leave this country. And it 
breaks my heart, she wrote, that at the same time that I am going to 
have to leave this country, there will be lots of people--in fact, 11 
million or more--who are currently here illegally, who have broken the 
law coming here, many of whom have been working here illegally, who 
will not only be allowed to stay, not only allowed to stay in their 
current job, but put on a pathway to citizenship.
  She said: This seems like a profound unfairness, that we are 
rewarding those who have broken the law while we are punishing people 
who, like me, a schoolteacher, came here on a nonimmigrant visa and 
have spent years of their lives and thousands of dollars trying to do 
it the right way.
  Does the Senator think that is cause for concern that relates to this 
excessive granting of discretion?
  Mr. SESSIONS. I couldn't agree more. When you, as I had the honor to 
do, prosecute violations of Federal law for over 14 years, you feel a 
deep, abiding sense that fairness has to occur. You are putting 
somebody in jail for a period of time. You are saying ``you don't get 
this money'' if they submit a claim you cannot give them, even though 
they might benefit but they do not qualify. When you do these things 
day after day, you have to believe that the system works.
  With regard to immigration, it is so deeply important that people who 
wait in line and who do things the right way, believe others are not 
getting away with it and are not beating the system. Otherwise, they 
feel like chumps. They feel as though they have been had by the system.
  It is such a deep moral responsibility, not just for the Federal 
prosecutors. The ones I know feel deeply about this. They really feel 
that sense because you cannot do your job every day and go to bed and 
sleep if you do not believe that everybody is equal and the system 
works.
  You do a tough job one day: You don't qualify for disability; you 
don't qualify for money; you have to go to jail. The guidelines say you 
go. And then the next guy comes along and the guidelines don't apply to 
him. The next guy files a claim and he gets some money and you didn't. 
It is so critical for the magnificent legal heritage of our country 
that the law be followed equally. Anybody who suggests that this 
amnesty that will occur has no moral consequences does not understand 
the depth of the question involved.
  If we do it and if we do something very compassionate for people who 
are here illegally, the American people are correct to say: Do not let 
it happen again. Do not let this happen again. The way the law should 
work in America: You come legally--OK. You don't come legally, you get 
deported. That is what the law is. That is what it should be. Anything 
less than that cannot be defended morally. It cannot be defended 
constitutionally. It cannot be defended legally. It cannot be defended 
as a matter of policy.
  People blithely suggest we can just reward an American who came into 
this country illegally, 18 months ago, and never had a job, but because 
they were not caught and deported in the interim, they get to stay here 
legally forever and be on a guaranteed path to citizenship. Whereas 
your friend who came here legally and followed the rules, the lady who 
wrote you, has to go back home? We cannot treat this lightly.
  If we do this--and I am prepared to work on it and try to do it in a 
good way--we absolutely have to do it in a way that does not damage, 
too much, the rule of law. It will damage the rule of law because it is 
a violation of the rule of law to reward somebody who came illegally by 
giving them the benefit of their act. If people rob a bank and you 
catch them, they have to give the money back. They don't get to keep 
the money. They don't get to keep the benefits of their activity, 
normally.
  We are willing to reconsider that. We are willing, as a nation, to 
compassionately reconsider that. I think the American people are 
willing to do this. But I ask my colleague Senator Lee whether he 
believes people feel uneasy about this. They don't like it that this is 
a thing they believe they must do, but they know it is not a good thing 
and should be avoided in the future?
  Mr. LEE. The American people are a compassionate people. They are a 
people who welcome immigrants because we are a nation of immigrants and 
we always have been. I think most of us hope we always will be. We want 
people to continue to come to this country. It is this sense of 
compassion that causes many of us to have some sense of concern about 
this particular legislation. This legislation goes far beyond simply 
showing compassion. This legislation in some ways is the opposite of 
compassion when you consider it from the perspective of those who, like 
this woman who wrote this letter to me, have come here legally. And 
those who, unlike her, have waited--in some cases for years outside the 
United States. There are many people who have spent a lot of money and 
time hoping and praying that one day they too will get to immigrate to 
this country legally. We do them a great disservice when we say the 
effort, time, blood, sweat, and tears they devoted to this process is 
all for naught, because all they had to do was come here illegally, and 
not only were they put on a pathway to legalization but on a pathway to 
citizenship.

[[Page 8235]]

  One of the more enlightening moments in the Senate Judiciary 
Committee during the markup of this bill was when our friend and 
colleague, the junior Senator from Texas, introduced an amendment which 
would have done one simple thing to adjust that process. All hell broke 
loose.
  Senator Cruz introduced an amendment which would have left everything 
else about the bill intact and kept everything else in the bill 
identical to what it says now with only one change. It would have said 
those people who entered into RPI status--entered into the pathway of 
legalization--would not ultimately become citizens. They could 
ultimately become lawful, permanent residents or the functional 
equivalent thereof, but they would not become citizens under the bill. 
Everything else would be left intact. They still would be allowed to 
come out of the shadows, stay here, work here, and we could have a 
separate debate and discussion over whether that would be the right 
approach in and of itself.
  This particular amendment focused simply on the citizenship aspect of 
it, and yet one would have thought by the reaction that it was offering 
up something horrible and Draconian. The proponents of this bill could 
not even handle the change that would have said: Let's have there be 
some consequence, at least, for the fact that this group of people 
entered here illegally. At least at this point let's not put them on a 
pathway to citizenship so they can vote and all the other rights which 
accompany citizenship to this great country.
  Yes, I do think this is strange. I do think the American people--not 
in spite of the fact they are compassionate, but because of the fact 
they are compassionate--deserve more than to have the rule of law 
turned on its head and deserve more than to have those who have taken 
the time and expended the energy and financial resources to immigrate 
here legally, to have their sacrifice denigrated to the point that it 
means nothing or less than nothing.
  Mr. SESSIONS. That is a very interesting insight the Senator made. I 
believe Senator Schumer was particularly hostile to that amendment and 
said: Without citizenship, there is no reform. In other words, we will 
not agree to anything; that is absolutely nonnegotiable.
  I thought about that bill a lot since 2007 and have been thinking 
about it ever since. I believe after 1986 we gave amnesty and 
citizenship with the promise of enforcement, and that didn't happen. We 
promised it wouldn't happen again and that we wouldn't do another 
amnesty.
  This was supposed to be a one-time amnesty which wouldn't happen 
again. It was supposed to be the clear policy of the United States that 
if someone entered the country illegally, that person would not get 
every single thing America could provide, and we would not provide such 
benefits as would be provided to people who entered lawfully. I don't 
believe we should--and certainly are not required--to provide 
citizenship to somebody who entered the country unlawfully. It is just 
not required.
  I thought attacking Senator Cruz's amendment was odd and revealing as 
the junior Senator from Utah did. It was a surprise to me as far as the 
intensity of their pushback on that. I don't believe it should happen. 
I don't think it is the right thing.
  So the person would be able to get permanent, legal, resident status; 
participate in America; and, of course, their children would be 
citizens; but they can't get everything if they come illegally.
  I read a brilliant piece recently by a Yale graduate lawyer, a 
marine, and he talked about the military. We act as though, if somebody 
comes into this country illegally, it would be unthinkable that they 
would be required to move themselves back to where they came from. We 
tell our military guys all the time to move their families. They get 
orders to go to west Texas, Alabama, Germany, Japan, and Korea. They 
spend 18 months in Iraq with their lives on the line. They have to 
leave their families, and they do it all the time.
  So they come to this country under the lawful condition that they can 
come for so many months--and they volunteer, they sign up. I come in, I 
get to stay so many years, and I am supposed to go home.
  Is this somehow unkind? Is it immoral to expect those people--when 
their time is up--to go home?
  Some of the thinking, which came up in the committee, seemed to be 
totally oblivious to this fundamental concept. There are certain 
requirements. They are not allowed to pay a guide to come across the 
border illegally and 18 months later demand a pathway to citizenship in 
the United States. It is just not law. I don't know what that is, but 
it is not law. It is not the way principled policies should be 
executed.
  We are willing to consider and work through a process. For some time 
I have said we want to be compassionate to those people who have been 
here a long time and have done well. We can work through it. But when 
they come through this system, they need to have no doubt that in the 
future, if they overstay their visa or come into the country illegally, 
and they are apprehended, they will be deported. If we don't make that 
commitment intellectually, morally, and legally, then we have 
guaranteed we will have another amnesty, or fight, and the integrity of 
our immigration law will be further degraded.
  Mr. LEE. As surely as past is prologue, this will happen again if we 
do it in the wrong sequence. Sequencing matters.
  When I was 6 or 7 years old, my mother pointed out to me that you 
don't try to butter the toast before you toast it. You toast it first 
and then put the butter on top.
  There are all kinds of examples where we need to follow the right 
sequence. If they don't follow the right sequence, they don't get the 
results they want. This is another area where sequence matters.
  I am convinced we can treat those 11 million people who are currently 
here illegally with the dignity, respect, and compassion we want to 
treat them with as Americans. I am convinced we can find a way to do 
that. I am convinced we can find a broad-based bipartisan solution to 
do that. I am less convinced that it makes any sense to do that now 
before we fix the underlying problem.
  Again, it is a matter of simple sequencing. We have to first stop the 
flow of illegal immigration. After that, we will be in a better 
position to ascertain the needs of those who are currently here 
illegally. It is only in that circumstance that we will know best how 
to address that.
  Along those lines, I would like to address an issue which sometimes 
comes up. Sometimes arguments are made by the proponents of this bill 
that if we don't support this bill--not just if we don't support 
immigration reform generally, but if we don't support this particular 
bill--we are somehow anti-immigrant or uncategorically uncompassionate 
people. If we don't support the bill, our hearts are made of stone, our 
ribs are made of concrete, and we have no heart. I think that is a 
reckless argument and an argument beneath the dignity of this august 
body.
  During the markup, one of my colleagues--I think the junior Senator 
from Texas--introduced another amendment. It was an amendment which 
would have in some way limited the ability of those currently illegally 
in the country to participate in certain entitlement benefits, certain 
antipoverty benefits that would otherwise be available to them. Perhaps 
it was the earned-income tax credit. I don't remember the exact 
information, but it would have had some broad application to make sure 
that those who are currently here illegally would not--during this RPI 
period--be able to benefit from federally funded entitlements.
  To my great dismay, one of our colleagues on that committee--who was 
a devout supporter of this bill--personally attacked the junior Senator 
from Texas simply for having introduced that amendment. It wasn't 
enough for him to say: I disagree with this amendment or that this 
amendment is bad policy. He attacked with something

[[Page 8236]]

like this: You don't care about these people. You don't care about 
their children. You are willing to let their children remain hungry and 
uneducated. You don't care about them. You are not compassionate.
  With respect, I think that kind of comment has no place here. It is 
not helpful. It is not productive, and it is something that completely 
clouds the issue. It is because we are compassionate that we do need to 
ask these questions.
  Look, we are in a difficult spot as a country. We are trying to do 
everything we can to make those programs solvent which are designed 
specifically to alleviate some of the needs of the most vulnerable in 
our society. Unless we make sure we are in a position economically to 
be able to sustain those programs, we are going to run out of money. 
And when we run out of money, it will be the poor and the vulnerable 
who suffer most as a result of our inability to pay for those programs.
  So with respect, I advise all of my colleagues--particularly those 
who have made comments like that one--to resist the temptation that 
some of them have succumbed to in recent weeks to say that anyone who 
opposes this bill is somehow uncompassionate. It is because we are 
compassionate that we have to ask these difficult questions. It is 
because we are compassionate that we have to propose amendments we 
think are necessary in order to make the programs upon which our 
society's most vulnerable have come to depend on more sustainable.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I am glad Senator Lee mentioned that because we have to 
have an honest debate. We have to have an honest discussion about what 
is in the national interest of the United States and how immigration 
fits into that. First and foremost, do we want to have a lawful system 
or not? Do we want to allow lawlessness to continue in the future? It 
is not unkind to talk about that.
  Prime Minister Cameron, of the UK in London, recently made this 
remark--they are wrestling with immigration and how to do it the right 
way in the United Kingdom. He says:

       There are those who say you can't have a sensible debate 
     because it is somehow wrong to express concerns about 
     immigration. Now I think that is nonsense.

  I think we can have a sensible discussion about it when we ask about 
how many people will come, what skills they should possess, and what 
America would benefit from most with the immigrants we have coming to 
our country; what immigrants would be most likely to be successful, 
flourish, and do well.
  We have had statistics established that people who come with about 2 
years of college and speak English almost always do very well, but 
people who come without high school diplomas don't do as well. If we 
cannot accept everybody, we ought to think about and try to develop a 
system which allows people who can be the most successful to take 
advantage of America. That would be helpful.
  Prime Minister Cameron goes on to say:

       While I've always believed in the benefits of migration and 
     immigration, I've also always believed that immigration has 
     to be properly controlled. Without proper controls, community 
     confidence is sapped, resources are stretched and the 
     benefits that immigration can bring are lost or forgotten.

  I think that is somewhat in line with the points the Senator from 
Utah was making.
  I see the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Leahy, who has 
wrestled with these issues longer than I have. He conducted a markup 
which allowed a large number of amendments. Unfortunately, some of the 
members, even though they liked their amendments, wouldn't agree to 
vote for them. We have a process that allowed some airing of the 
details of the bill, and a lot of amendments were offered.
  I thank Senator Lee for participating in this discussion and coming 
to the Senate with fresh ideas, enthusiasm, and passion for America, 
the rule of law, the proper functioning of our branches of government, 
and the classical constitutional heritage of this Nation. I am honored 
to serve with my distinguished colleague.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Hirono). The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, it is good to see the Presiding Officer 
here as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
  As the Presiding Officer knows, the Senate Judiciary Committee held 
lengthy and extensive public markup sessions on the Border Security, 
Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act, S. 744. We 
worked late into the evenings--we also started pretty early in the 
morning--debating the bill. We considered hundreds of amendments.
  The public saw our consideration firsthand. We streamed everything we 
did on the Internet and it was broadcast on television. We took all the 
proposed amendments, Republican and Democratic alike, and put them on 
our Web site. We updated the Committee's Web site to include adopted 
amendments in real time. I heard from people all over the country that 
they felt they actually had involvement in what we were doing, which is 
what I want.
  I appreciate the fact that members from both sides of the aisle, 
Republicans and Democrats, praised the transparent process and also 
praised the significant improvements to the bill made by the Judiciary 
Committee. In fact, the markup process followed three additional 
hearings on the bill--on top of all the others we had--with 26 
witnesses, and the bill, as amended, was supported by a bipartisan two-
thirds majority of the committee.
  I have sent that bill, S. 744, to the Senate on behalf of the 
Judiciary Committee and am filing an extensive committee report as 
well. I hope the report is going to be a valuable resource for 
Senators. It explains not only the underlying provisions in the 
legislation and its history, but it also summarizes all the amendments 
that were adopted and also those that were rejected.
  In order for all Senators to be able to file amendments and work on 
this bill, of course the Senate first needs to proceed to the bill. I 
had hoped that what has become all too typical obstruction would not 
infect the proceedings. Senators from both sides of the aisle worked 
together to develop this legislation. Senators from both sides of the 
aisle had amendments adopted by the Judiciary Committee. Almost none of 
the more than 135 amendments adopted by the Judiciary Committee were 
adopted along party-line votes, unlike this week's vote in the House in 
which nearly every member of the Republican conference stood together 
to prevent DREAMers from being able to stay in our country. The one 
thing that ought to unite all of us is the DREAM Act.
  These young people are here through no fault of their own. They have 
enriched our Nation. They have enriched this debate. I am proud that we 
in the Senate are considering inclusive legislation that supports them, 
and I hope a fair process in the Senate finally prompts action in the 
other Chamber.
  I don't know how anybody who professes to care about family values, 
who professes to care about other people, can sit down with these young 
people--the DREAMers--and not be moved and not want them to have the 
same advantages our children and our grandchildren have.
  The dysfunction in our current immigration system affects all of us. 
It is long past time for reform. As members of the Senate Judiciary 
Committee from both parties said at the conclusion of our proceedings, 
this is a matter of great significance to the American people, and the 
Senate should debate it. But the Senate is being delayed from doing so 
by a small minority of opponents. This is not the time to have a tiny 
handful stop a debate.
  There are only 99 Senators now, with the loss of our dear friend 
Frank Lautenberg. But take a Senate of 100 people, we represent over 
300 million Americans, and they are counting on us not to use stalling 
tactics, but to stand--vote for or vote against, but stand up and vote.
  When one stalls and refuses to let votes come in, it is an easy way 
to say: I am voting maybe. Then you can go back home and you can be on

[[Page 8237]]

everybody's side, for the people for it or people against it. ``I am on 
your side,'' because nobody can point that you voted one way or the 
other. That is not what we were elected for. We were elected to stand 
and take a position, yes or no, not maybe.
  The legislation we seek to bring before the Senate was the result of 
Senators from both sides of the aisle who came together and made an 
agreement. What was initially a proposal from the so-called Gang of 8 
became, through the committee process, the product of a group of 18. 
Now let's have a product of a group of 100 representing all States in 
this country.
  Amendments offered by 17 of those 18 members were adopted into the 
bill. Seventeen of the eighteen members of the Senate Judiciary 
Committee had amendments adopted into the bill. A bipartisan majority 
of more than two-thirds of the Senate Judiciary Committee voted for the 
bill the Senate is being called upon to consider.
  I am honored to serve as both the chairman of the Senate Judiciary 
Committee and the President pro tempore of the Senate, an office 
established in article 1, section 3 of the Constitution of the United 
States. I have been privileged to serve the people of Vermont for more 
than 45 years, the last 38 as their Senator. But one thing I learned 
many years ago, taught to me by the distinguished majority leader at 
that time when I came to the Senate, Senator Mike Mansfield, is how 
important it is for Senators to keep their commitments, keep their 
word, to stay true to their agreements. If Senators who have come 
together to help develop this bill do those things, I have no doubt we 
will be able to end this filibuster, stop voting maybe, and actually 
vote up or down and pass this fair but tough legislation on 
comprehensive immigration reform.
  Our history, our values, and our decency can inspire us finally to 
take action without the prolonged partisanship that often paralyzes 
this Chamber. We need an immigration system that lives up to American 
values. This is a time when we are called upon to come together. Few 
topics are more fundamental to who we are as a nation than immigration.
  The Statue of Liberty has long proclaimed America's welcome:

       Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning 
     to breathe free. . . . Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost 
     to me.

  That is what America stood for. That is what we should continue to 
represent. That is the America that attracted my maternal grandparents 
from Italy to Vermont and my paternal great-grandparents from Ireland 
to Vermont. Immigration through our history has been an ongoing source 
of renewal of our spirit, our creativity, and our economic strength.
  Our bipartisan legislation establishes a path to earned citizenship 
for the 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country. It 
addresses the lengthy backlogs in our current immigration system--
backlogs that have kept families apart sometimes for decades. It grants 
a faster track to the DREAMers brought to this country as children 
through no fault of their own, and to agricultural workers who provide 
our Nation's critical food supply. It makes important changes to the 
visas used by dairy farmers and the tourists and by immigrant investors 
who are creating jobs in our communities.
  It addresses the needs of law enforcement, which requires the help of 
immigrants who witness crime or are victims of domestic violence and 
human trafficking. It improves the treatment of refugees and asylum 
seekers so the United States will remain the beacon of hope in the 
world. This is going to make us all safer.
  This is a measure the Senate should come together, consider, and 
pass. We should do what is right, what is fair, and what is just. 
Immigration reform is an important economic issue, a civil rights 
issue, and a fairness issue. If a majority of us stand together and we 
stay true to our values and our agreements, I believe we can pass 
legislation to write the next great chapter in the American history of 
immigration.
  Those of us serving in the Senate who are immigrants understand that. 
Those of us who are children or grandchildren of immigrants understand 
that. Just as my wife's family came to this country and created a 
better State of Vermont, they understood it, similar to so many who 
come.
  The distinguished Presiding Officer knows better than anybody in here 
what it is to come and become part of this great country. One can come 
as an immigrant and then become a Senator of the United States. As 
President pro tempore, I am delighted to see the Presiding Officer in 
the chair.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum, and I ask unanimous consent that 
the time be divided equally.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. NELSON. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. NELSON. Madam President, I wish to address the issue being 
debated in front of the Senate. I thank the chairman of the Judiciary 
Committee for the leadership he has offered. The chairman has a strong 
and firm but fair hand. He has allowed the bill to be here and has been 
assisted by very able lieutenants on the Judiciary Committee, not the 
least of whom is Senator Schumer of New York who, as the subcommittee 
chairman, has been absolutely key.
  I also wish to compliment our colleague from Florida Senator Rubio. 
People in this highly charged partisan atmosphere say, How can a 
Democrat or a Republican, or vice versa, say good things about each 
other; and, of course, I am not only willing to do so but do so at the 
drop of a hat, to give credit where credit is due. It is too bad so 
much of the discussion is based on ideological philosophies and is so 
partisan-charged and tinged. We seem to be looking for that slight 
little advantage in the next election so that we get to the point where 
we can't come together.
  I think what we are going to see on display in the Senate over the 
course of the next several weeks is that the Senate can function and it 
can function in a bipartisan way. I give no small amount of credit to 
the bipartisan group in the Gang of 8. They have arrived on the scene 
at the right place at the right time.
  A number of us have been trying in this Chamber, and previously when 
I was a Member of the House of Representatives, going back to when I 
was a young Congressman, to get comprehensive immigration reform. I 
voted on it in the 1980s. We actually passed a bill. It is instructive 
to know at that time, in the 1980s, there were less than 3 million 
illegal aliens or undocumented individuals, however we wish to refer to 
them, in the country. That attempt at immigration reform failed because 
there were no safeguards to make sure the law was followed--especially 
among employers--to make sure the people they were hiring were legal. 
As a result, over the ensuing decades, the law wasn't followed. So what 
happened? The amount of undocumented individuals in the country rose 
from less than 3 million in the 1980s all the way to where it is now, 
which is about 11.5 million.
  So the time and the place has arisen to do something about it. It is 
too bad it hasn't been done, but what is done is done. Now we have a 
chance to change that.
  If one happens to come from a State such as my beloved State of 
Florida that has such a rich mixture in the fabric of our society of so 
many different peoples from so many different parts of the world, then, 
of course, a person ought to be a little more sensitive to the broken 
system we have. Thus, it was not unusual that when it came time that 
suddenly a case exploded in the newspapers of a child, a DREAMer who 
had come here as a child with parents who were undocumented, the child 
never even knew he or she was not American and it gets down to the end 
of their graduation in high school and

[[Page 8238]]

they want to go off to college or they want to go into the military 
and, lo and behold, they are now under the order of deportation.
  Of course, this Senator, similar to many other Senators, has had to 
try to intervene in these very egregious cases. I wish to mention one, 
and it illustrates the ridiculousness of the present system that is so 
broken.
  A child brought at age 6 months from the Bahamas now grows up in 
America thinking he is American. He is a Floridian. He goes into the 
Army. How he missed the checks there that he was undocumented I do not 
know. But he goes into the Army. He serves two tours in Iraq. He has a 
top secret rating.
  When he comes back, after the two tours, going into the private 
sector, he enlists in the Naval Reserves, and because of his top secret 
clearance, this particular now Navy reservist on Active Duty is sent to 
the very sensitive position--because of his top secret clearance--of 
being a photographer at the Guantanamo detention facility for the 
detainees, and he serves in that position admirably.
  Somehow in the process after this, back in civilian life, this 
particular former Army, now Navy, reservist, in applying for an 
application for a passport, answers something incorrectly on the 
passport application--because he does not know he is not an American--
and he gets arrested and he is thrown in jail and is in jail for 3 
going on 4 months, until this Senator finds out about this case--
because I am reading it in the newspaper--and, of course, once we blew 
this up to the attention of the public at large, even the Federal judge 
asked the prosecutor: Why in the world are you prosecuting this case? 
That shows the ridiculousness of existing law because it is so broken.
  That, of course, had a good outcome. It did not have a good outcome 
while somebody who had a top secret clearance is sitting in jail for 
over 3 months, but it is illustrative, again, that we have to do 
something about the existing system.
  Thus, we have in front of us a compromise. Remember, the art of 
legislating is respecting the other fellow's point of view, reaching 
out, trying to bridge the differences, with the goal that we want to 
achieve a result.
  There are some here who do not want to achieve that result, and they 
are going to try to torpedo it. They are going to try to put poison 
pills that are so seductive as amendments that will kill the bill. They 
are going to make a lot of the Senators on both sides of the aisle take 
tough votes on things they would ordinarily support, but they are going 
to have to reject them to keep the integrity of the compromise in 
order, at the end of the day, to pass an immigration reform bill and 
then hope we get a big enough vote so that there is such a momentum--
and with all the different advocacy groups, including businesses, 
farmers, the immigration community, pro-immigration reform community, 
all of them--to start to lean heavily on the House of Representatives, 
and maybe at that point we can get the bill passed.
  As we consider this bill to fix this broken immigration system, many 
of us are going to disagree about details, but we have to remember what 
is the goal at the end of the day. This bill includes important things 
to secure the borders. You think the borders are secure now? By the 
way, they are a lot more secure now than they were just a few years 
ago. They are catching some 60 percent of all the people who are coming 
across the border now, but that is not good enough. Forty percent is 
still coming across. This bill is going to try to take it up to 90 
percent.
  They are going to reform the visa program. They are going to make it 
easier, at the end of the day, because of the technology we have, where 
you can swipe the passport. Some countries desperately have wanted to 
get into a visa waiver instead of having families come hundreds of 
miles to the consulate. Because of the information that is going to be 
contained on that passport--biometric information--we are going to be 
able to streamline that process.
  Certainly, at the end of the day, we are going to be able to supply 
the workforce needs of the country if the employers will follow the 
law. So now this reform bill is going to make it mandatory upon those 
employers to follow the law so they can have a legal workforce instead 
of what is the case now: Do not look. I have to have them for my 
business or my farm, my agriculture--whatever the business is, I have 
to have them--but do not look because I know they are illegal. That is 
going to be changed.
  Then there is another component. What about those people who came 
here on a legal visa, but now they have overstayed the visa. We are 
going to be able to check because now, with that biometric information, 
they are going to swipe as they leave the country that information so 
it matches with the information we got when they came into the country 
on a legal visa. Now we are going to know who is staying behind.
  By the way, those countries that want to be in the visa waiver 
program, such as Chile or Brazil, they have to keep those defaults 
under 3 percent of the total visas. Lo and behold, now those countries 
that want to keep the visa waiver to make it easier on their citizens 
to travel to the United States--how about all those Brazilians who want 
to come to Disney World--now they have an incentive to help their own 
people by keeping those defaults under 3 percent of the total visas for 
that country. This reform of the visa program is very important.
  What about the people who are here? Does anybody think the solution 
to the problem is to deport 11 million people? We cannot do that. But 
if we could, what would happen to this national economy? It would 
collapse. So we are going to make a very lengthy path to getting a 
green card, of which they are going to have to pay fines, they are 
going to have to pay the taxes, they are going to have to learn 
English, and they are going to have to go to the end of the line, but 
they are going to be here legally so they can be employed, and they 
have to stay employed. If they do not stay employed, they are out.
  Anybody who does not abide by all of that presently--we do not have a 
requirement that they have to learn English. Now they are going to have 
to learn English. So anybody who does not make all of those 
requirements is going to have to leave.
  I have just scratched the surface of the bill. But I think we can see 
it is a good-faith attempt to bring together all of the interests, 
using a little common sense to try to reform what is a broken system. I 
hope we will get a huge vote out of the Senate. I hope this vote 
exceeds three-quarters of the Senate. That will send a real message to 
the House.
  I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Madam 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. Madam President, as we begin to discuss this 
legislation, the immigration bill that is before us, a lot of people 
have not realized it is coming up. A lot of people do not realize the 
breadth of it and a lot of people are concerned about it. We have 
gotten a lot of phone calls in my office. People are wondering who is 
speaking up about the bill and they want to know what is in the bill. 
So I think that is a big part of what we should be doing in the days to 
come--going over the bill in a careful way concerning any progress the 
bill makes and any deficiencies the legislation has.
  As I noted previously, the fundamental challenge we must recognize--
based on the way Congress works and the difficulty it has had with 
these issues over the last number of years--is that we have to be sure 
that once the amnesty is granted that there is enforcement in the 
future.
  In 1986, that bill, as Senator Grassley has so passionately 
delineated--he voted for it. Amnesty was given to 3 million people, but 
the enforcement never occurred, and now we have 11 million people here 
illegally. This cannot happen again. If we allow this to

[[Page 8239]]

happen again, we will have eviscerated any ability we have to ask 
people to comply with the law because people who do not comply with the 
law are not held to account.
  There is nothing wrong with saying a person can come to America under 
certain conditions for certain periods of time and then they must 
leave. If they do not leave, and they are apprehended, they should be 
deported. We are in a condition today where nobody is being deported.
  Ask your law officers in whatever city and county you are in--and 
this has been going on since before President Obama took office--if 
they catch somebody who was speeding in their town in Alabama or 
Indiana or Colorado and they discover they are here illegally what 
happens. Isn't this a fundamental question?
  What happens is they turn them loose--you ask them, your law 
officers--because nobody will come and get them. The Federal Government 
has reached a point now where virtually no one is being deported except 
those convicted of serious crimes.
  It has led to the ICE union--the Immigration and Customs Enforcement 
officers who deal with deportations and arrests--these officers voting 
no confidence in the head of the ICE Department, John Morton--the head 
man, John Morton, no confidence.
  I never heard of it. Then, in addition, they have opposed the bill. 
They said it makes things worse. It will diminish America's national 
security. And it will not make the law better. So we have the 
association, the union for customs--Citizenship and Immigration 
Services, which deals with the citizenship processing--they have 
opposed the bill. They say it will make the situation worse than 
present law, which is not being enforced today.
  That is what we are wrestling with here overall. I know the American 
people need to get alerted to this.
  We have been told by the supporters of the legislation: Do not 
worry--we are going to have the toughest enforcement legislation in 
history. Senator Schumer said: ``Tough as nails.'' ``The toughest 
ever.'' Well, this is not in the bill.
  So what happened in 1987 was that once the amnesty was given, 
everybody forgot in the future to worry about enforcement. Enforcement 
just did not happen. It is going to happen again. That is exactly what 
is going to happen again.
  The people who are concerned about the legislation and are objecting 
to this legislation are not against immigration. We allow 1 million 
people to come into the country legally every year--more than any other 
country in the world. We are not trying to stop that. What we are 
trying to say is that you need a good future now for immigration, and 
you need to be sure it is enforceable.
  More people want to come to this great land than can come here. I do 
not blame them for wanting to come here. If somebody convinces them 
that the American people or the American Government does not care if 
they come illegally and stay here and eventually they will be given 
citizenship, why should they not come illegally?
  So we have to have a national consensus that as we treat 
compassionately people who have been here a long time and have been 
good people and we try be generous there, that we do not create a 
further flow of illegal immigration. We have been warned of what will 
happen by governmental experts. We have to have a national consensus 
that we tighten up the enforcement mechanisms that are so clearly 
broken today. So that is the fundamental principle of what we are 
about. I am going to mention some of that now. We will talk about more 
of those problems in the future.
  The whole fundamental principle is that we need to create a lawful 
system of immigration that works in the future as well as today. Our 
sponsors, the Gang of 8, have said that is what they have. They have 
told us their bill does that. They say: Our bill will end the 
illegality at the border. They say they are going to have strong 
enforcement on visa violations, which is really not true. They say they 
have guaranteed enforcement at the workplace. That one has some 
benefits, but the way they have done it, it delays it longer than it 
should be. It creates some changes there. But good workforce 
enforcement would be a step forward. Then they claim they have 
mechanisms that lead to removal of dangerous people from the country--
all of which I have to say is fundamentally not accurate. So they 
acknowledge what needs to be done.
  So the Members of the Senate and the Members of Congress and the 
American people need to be asking: Does this bill do what has been 
promised? If it does, we may be on the track to doing something good. 
But if it does not, it needs to be rejected.
  We cannot go down the path of amnesty now and another massive 
illegality in the future. We cannot do that. We have to do the right 
thing. Isn't that the right thing? Our sponsors of the bill say it. 
They promised this is going to be ``as tough as nails,'' ``the toughest 
bill ever.''
  Well, I can tell you with absolute confidence that it is not as 
strong as the bill in 2007 that was voted down and rejected. It is 
weaker than that was. It is weaker than current law in so many 
important areas.
  You say: Well, you can say that, Jeff. It is not true.
  It is true. Fundamentally, we will show that the legislation is not 
where it needs to be. Even Senator Rubio is saying he will not vote for 
the bill itself. He is one of the Gang of 8 who wrote it, but he says 
there are enough loopholes that he would not vote for it now. It has to 
be reformed. It absolutely has to be reformed, there is no doubt about 
that. But the problem is, except for Senator Rubio, I guess the Gang of 
8 agreed to stick together and had no real amendments passed. They did 
that in the committee. We had a committee process. We had a lot of 
amendments offered. They stuck together and voted down all of the 
amendments that were significant. A lot of smaller amendments were 
passed. But, you know, Senator Schumer apparently said: Well, the 
Republicans have a pass on this vote. That means, did the Republicans 
on the Gang of 8, those Members--were they allowed to vote their 
conscience or were they still expected to be voting like the Gang of 8, 
who signed in blood to vote? They gave them a pass on a few votes. So 
this is not a way to do the public's business. It is just not.
  One thing I think I do believe is important for us to understand--and 
I have been wrestling with this for a long time. I have been a Federal 
prosecutor. I will tell you that we can make the system work. A lot of 
people think it is just hopeless, that we cannot make the system work. 
Not so. We have made some progress at the border. If we had really 
strong leadership, were really effective in identifying where the gaps 
are, in moving resources and stepping up our fencing and our equipment, 
we could see real progress at the border--real progress.
  A lot of it is math, I would say from my law enforcement experience. 
If you add more police officers and crime rates are going down, then 
you have more police officers per criminal, per crime. You have more 
ability to drive down crime in a virtual cycle. So we added, after 
2007, a number of Border Patrol officers. President Obama claims credit 
for it, but he did not have credit. It happened before he took office. 
They were hiring into his term, I am sure, but it was passed before he 
took office. So we have more people there. We have fewer illegal 
immigrants for a whole lot of reasons. And then if you have more 
officers per illegal immigrant, you can do better at the border.
  Secondly, biometrics. Entry-exit visas have been required by six 
different pieces of congressional legislation. It was recommended by 
the 9/11 Commission.
  When people come into the country, they have a fingerprint taken and 
they are admitted into the country. What we are not doing is verifying 
that they ever leave the country. We know that most of the 9/11 
attackers came on a visa. People do not know if they are legal or 
overstaying or have ever left.
  It is easy. They said it is going to cost billions of dollars--$25 
billion to

[[Page 8240]]

do this. One of our Gang of 8 said that in the committee. It is not 
going to cost $25 billion. We discovered, I believe, a 2009 report 
issued by the Department of Homeland Security. That report discovered 
that you could easily identify people when they depart the country. One 
of the complaints is that we have to build all of these new buildings 
and structures and so forth. But when you leave, all you have to do is 
put your finger on a fingerprint-recording machine and it leaves your 
fingerprint. It identifies you. What they found was that in Atlanta 
when they were doing this, like 20,000 or 25,000, I believe, were 
exiting, and over 100 were hits from the watch list. Some of them had 
felony warrants out. Some of them were on the terrorist list. That is a 
large number. It did not cost much money and was not hard to do. So 
that could be done.
  We can absolutely make the workplace secure by using an E-Verify 
system at all employment places. That is the key.
  So there are things we do. Fundamentally, we can make the system 
work. Unfortunately, the promises made in this legislation do not do 
it. What would happen under this bill is that Secretary Napolitano, 
after the enforcement officially stopped, must give two reports to 
Congress within 6 months--two reports. Not do anything--two reports. 
Then all the people here illegally will be given provisional status, be 
legal, get a Social Security card, and have the ability to work. So 
there are no real actions that have to occur at the border or anyplace 
else. That is the fundamental flaw we have to deal with. But the 
American people are saying it: First deal with the illegality and then 
let's talk about how to be compassionate for people who have been here 
for a long time. But the more troubling issue that has not been fully 
discussed, the other half of the immigration equation, is interior 
enforcement. The bill further weakens an already decimated interior 
enforcement system.
  Immigration reform will never work. This bill will never work unless 
the U.S. immigration and customs officers are given the resources and 
the authority they need to do their job. It will not work. Their morale 
has plummeted because their leadership has blocked them from enforcing 
plain law. They have virtually the lowest morale rating of any agency 
in government. Over a year ago, I asked Secretary Napolitano was she 
not concerned about it and would she meet with the ICE agents and 
determine what the problem was? So she came back. I asked her had she 
met with them. No. They voted no confidence in their supervisor, John 
Morton. They have written us a long letter detailing the failures in 
this bill, saying it will make it worse than current law and will leave 
this country more insecure than we are.
  It is really remarkable. But they have to be allowed to be a part of 
the game. It cannot be the policy of the United States of America that 
if someone gets into the country illegally, they are home free; if they 
get past the Border Patrol at the border, nobody will ever deport them. 
That is what we are doing now unless they are convicted of a serious 
felony. Nobody is being deported.
  So you say: Well, people have been here a long time. We do not want 
to start deporting people. We are about to give them amnesty. But the 
bill, if passed, assumes everybody has been given amnesty. The bill 
assumes that everybody has been given permanent legal status or legal 
status, which is basically a guaranteed permanent status in the 
country. They will be given a Social Security card, identification, and 
the right to work anywhere.
  So what about people who come illegally after that? Are we never 
going to enforce the law again if other people come illegally, overstay 
visas, come through the border, stow away on ships? We have to know 
that it is going to be fixed.
  It cannot be that if somebody gets past the border, nobody will ever 
apprehend them and make them be deported because they shouldn't be 
here. You are not entitled to come to America illegally and then 
protest when you are apprehended: Oh, no, I have a right to be here. I 
have been here for 18 months. You cannot deport me.
  Once this amnesty occurs, we have to know that we have the mechanism 
in place to do the job that immigration enforcement at a minimum 
requires. I think that is so important.
  Chris Crane, the president of the ICE officers union, an ICE officer 
himself, and a former marine, explained the situation in his testimony 
before the House of Representatives recently.

       Agents report that if they encounter suspected illegal 
     aliens in public--

  I am talking about Federal agents, ICE agents, immigration agents--

     they cannot arrest them.

  They cannot arrest them.

       The day-to-day duties of ICE agents and officers often seem 
     in conflict with the law as ICE officers are prohibited from 
     enforcing many laws enacted by Congress; laws they took an 
     oath to enforce. . . . ICE is now guided in large part by 
     influences of powerful special interest groups that advocate 
     on behalf of illegal aliens.

  Does that not cause any concern? We have to deal with this. We have 
to get our ICE people off the mat and into the game.
  He also testified:

       Morale is at an all-time low as criminal aliens are 
     released to the streets.

  Criminal aliens. He is not talking about people who violate the 
immigration law; he is talking about aliens who committed crimes such 
as drug offenses and assault.
  Continuing:

       Criminal aliens are released to the streets and ICE instead 
     takes disciplinary--

  He is talking about his supervisors--

     actions against its own officers for making lawful arrests. . 
     . . It appears clear that Federal law enforcement officers 
     are the enemy and not those who break our Nation's laws.

  He is saying that the supervisors are punishing the ICE officers who 
actually go out and arrest people because they have set a policy not to 
enforce the law of the United States. People may not think that is 
true, but it is absolutely a fact that we have basically made it 
impossible to enforce the law, and that has come from Secretary 
Napolitano right on down. That is why she doesn't want to meet with 
them--because she doesn't have an answer. She is telling them and her 
deputy is telling them not to enforce the law.
  Mr. Crane further testified:

       If an alien is arrested by local police and placed in jail, 
     again, ICE agents may not arrest them for illegal entry or 
     VISA overstay . . . New policies require that illegal aliens 
     have a felony arrest or conviction or be convicted of three 
     or more misdemeanors . . . So, many illegal aliens with 
     criminal convictions are also now untouchable.

  That is the reality of law enforcement in this country. It is very, 
very serious. This is a sad state of affairs, no doubt about it.
  Were these officers consulted when the Gang of 8 wrote the bill? They 
tell us they have a bill that is going to work to end the lawlessness 
in America in the future, but did they ever consult with the people who 
are out there trying to enforce the law now to get their ideas about 
how to make the system work better in the future? Do they have new 
provisions in the bill that give our ICE agents, Border Patrol agents, 
and citizen immigration officers more authority to do their job? No.
  The bill actually gives more discretion to the Secretary to 
eviscerate enforcement by not having to enforce plain law. There are a 
number of provisions in the Code that say that if somebody is arrested 
and they are due to be deported, they shall be deported. That is the 
law. Well, they are not doing that.
  I don't think this is, frankly, just loophole or failure of 
attention. I don't think the Gang of 8 was really on top of all of the 
details of the legislation. I think they spent most of their time 
consulting with Mr. Trumka at the AFL-CIO, Mr. Donohue at the chamber 
of commerce, La Raza, the immigration lawyers association, the meat 
packers, and the grocery folks or the big agribusinesses. That is whom 
they have been talking with, the computer gurus demanding more and 
more. They didn't focus on this.
  The people who are actually in there writing it--the immigration 
lawyers, the chamber of commerce, the union

[[Page 8241]]

lawyers, and all who have been working on this bill--they knew what 
they were doing. These scribes, these drafters of the legislation I 
believe fully understood what it meant. Under this bill, amnesty will 
occur at once, just as it did in 1987, and like then, we get a mere 
promise of enforcement in the future--a mere promise. Far from making 
our laws tougher, as the Gang of 8 has promised and as we need to do, 
the enforcement of laws is greatly weakened in a whole number of 
significant areas.
  Ladies and gentlemen, the drafters of the bill will have received 
what they want. They will have received amnesty for the 11 million. 
They will get a dramatic increase in the flow of workers and low-
skilled workers into America. That is what they want. They are not 
interested in future enforcement. In fact, many of them felt as though 
the big increases in immigration in the future aren't enough, so they 
have no objection to illegal immigration, it seems, or they would have 
put a lot more intention in drafting a legislation that would have 
improved the illegal system.
  This bill fails. We will go into more detail about it as time goes 
by. This bill still fails as a matter of law enforcement. That is going 
to be clear.
  I am looking at a new piece of legislation introduced by Trey Gowdy, 
who is the chairman of the House subcommittee. He is a former 
prosecutor, a Federal prosecutor, 6 years as assistant U.S. attorney. 
He is a real prosecutor who understands how the system works. Mr. Gowdy 
has put together a good bill. He says this: ``robust internal 
immigration enforcement.'' That is what the ICE agents do in Denver, in 
Memphis, and in Indianapolis.

       Robust internal immigration enforcement, paired with border 
     security, is our safeguard against repeating the mistakes of 
     1986. The SAFE Act is a critical step in our efforts to fix 
     our broken immigration system and ensures we will not be 
     having this conversation again in 10, 20, or 30 years.

  It ensures we won't be back here with another amnesty demand because 
we have enforced the law.
  He has put together some good principles that are not in this bill. 
First, it grants states and localities the authority to enforce 
immigration laws. The Supreme Court says: You can't do that, it is 
unconstitutional. Not so. The Supreme Court says the U.S. Congress, by 
the way it passed this legislation, preempted local enforcement in a 
lot of areas. They couldn't participate because when Attorney General 
Holder tells the Federal agents not to enforce the laws, State people 
can't enforce them either, basically. Attorney General Holder says we 
are not enforcing these laws. Secretary Napolitano: We are not 
enforcing these laws. Then the State can't do it because it is totally 
preempted, essentially, by the Federal Government, except for 
peripheral areas, like a business can't get a business license if it 
knowingly hires illegal workers. That is probably a State issue.
  Well, it is just a matter of Congress's actions. Mr. Gowdy would 
explicitly allow help from State and local officers.
  Now, let's get this straight. If a police officer in Alabama arrests 
somebody who is in the country illegally, they cannot prosecute them. 
They can only hold them for a short period of time. All they can do is 
turn them over to Federal officials. That is clear. Mr. Gowdy doesn't 
change that, really. The fundamental thing is that they could do that. 
That is the way the system works.
  What we need to be thinking about is, don't we have to have local law 
enforcement to be participants in any system that guarantees legality? 
There are 600,000 State and local law enforcement officers. There are 
5,000 interior Federal immigration officers, 5,000 ICE officers, and 
many of them have other duties. It is our local police and sheriffs who 
are out on the highways and State troopers who are out there every day 
coming in touch with thousands of people, and they are the ones who 
identify people here illegally.
  When the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security 
rejected agreements for State and Federal officers to have their 
assistance in identifying people here, they knew what they were doing. 
They were effectively eliminating the identification of many of the 
people here illegally. That was a deliberate, calculated act. People 
need to know it, and it was wrong.
  For a good system of immigration for America in the future--remember 
now, we are talking about after people have been given the amnesty 
under the bill--the bill should welcome the assistance of State and 
Federal officers and make up policies that will help with that.
  The Gowdy bill would protect American communities from dangerous 
criminals by facilitating and expediting the removal of criminal 
aliens. This has been delayed. It is not working effectively. It is 
costing us a lot of money. If someone is here illegally and has been 
convicted a felony, they ought to be removed and there ought not to be 
a big deal about it. How much trouble is that? His bill would speed 
that up and make the system work better.
  It improves visa security.
  It helps the ICE agents do a better job. It assists the ICE officers 
in carrying out their jobs by enforcing Federal immigration laws, by 
allowing them to make arrests. They basically are being prohibited from 
making arrests today--can you believe it--for Federal felonies, for 
Federal criminal offenses, for bringing in and harboring unlawful 
aliens. The officers need to be able to enforce those laws.
  It strengthens border security in a number of ways.
  It reviews the prosecutorial authority that basically is a directive 
not to follow the law, not to enforce the law that is out there.
  It strengthens national security in quite a number of ways.
  This is a good piece of legislation. He knew what he was doing. He 
drafted something that will make a difference. It will make the law 
stronger. I would ask my colleagues, why wouldn't you put something 
like that in the legislation? You say want to have a tough bill. You 
say your bill is tough.
  This will be called to the attention of the bill's sponsors. We will 
ask for legislation like this to be passed as an amendment to the bill, 
and we will see if it passes. If it doesn't pass, then we can draw a 
conclusion that the sponsors of the bill and the people who are 
promoting the bill don't really want to see the law enforced better in 
the future than it is today. That would be a sad admission, it seems to 
me.
  To wrap up, this is a great institution, the Senate. I am glad 
Senator Reid acquiesced to my insistence to at least have the 
opportunity to begin our discussion today. It is just the beginning. We 
will begin to talk about the legislation, talk about how to make our 
system work better, talk about the American people's desire--good and 
decent people that they are--to be compassionate to the people who have 
been here for a long time but their insistence that in the process we 
create a system of lawful immigration in the future so we are not back 
here.
  Again, as I indicated earlier, a poll shows 88 percent of the people 
said they are angry with their elected officials about failure to 
enforce the law, whereas only 12 percent said they were angry at people 
who entered the country illegally. The American people are willing to 
create a legal status for people who come here illegally. But we need 
to do it in a way that works. They are demanding we create a system of 
lawfulness that will work, and we can do it. It is absolutely possible, 
and that will be demonstrated as we go forward.
  We are going to have to change this bill, however, and put some teeth 
in it and give some real power to our dedicated law officers whose 
lives are at risk every day out there on the streets. We must give them 
the backing and the mechanisms in law that allow them to be effective. 
If we do it right, the whole world will say: Uh-oh, the United States 
has gotten their act together. The United States is serious about their 
immigration system being lawful. If you try to enter, they are liable 
to catch you. If you try to enter, you won't be able to get a job 
legally. And if you enter and get past the border and hide out in 
Minneapolis and you

[[Page 8242]]

get caught, you are going to be deported. So don't try to go there 
illegally. Apply to go there legally.
  We could see a rather dramatic drop in the attempts to enter 
illegally if we do that. That is what a system of integrity requires. 
First, people need to know they shouldn't do it, that the United States 
will enforce this law. They need to know if they come into the country 
illegally, they will be deported.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I take the floor today in strong support 
of comprehensive immigration reform. The action that was taken 
yesterday by the House of Representatives underscores how critical the 
work we will do in the next few weeks is to the future of our Nation.
  What did the House Republicans do yesterday? They voted to deport 
hundreds of thousands of young people whom we refer to as DREAMers. 
These young people were brought to this country through no fault of 
their own, and they are contributing greatly to our society and our 
economy. Some of these young people were brought here at 2 years old, 4 
years old. They had no idea they were doing anything wrong.
  Senator Durbin has been working for years to pass the DREAM Act. 
President Obama implemented the DREAM Act to put a stop to deporting 
these people if they met certain requirements, and those requirements 
are pretty clear. They have to be truly good people, they have to be 
people who are getting their education, serving in the military, and 
being responsible. But yesterday, the House Republicans said: No. They 
said: Deport these DREAMers.
  That is not what the American people want. In poll after poll the 
American people say: If someone is brought here through no fault of 
their own at a young age, this is their country. Yet the House 
Republicans would say we should deport them.
  Now, I never say I speak for the American people. I am just talking 
about polls. And the polls I have seen--and, Madam President, the polls 
you have seen--show the people know we need immigration reform, 
comprehensive reform, that will take people out of the shadows, that 
will make sure they are not afraid to be part of society. If we do 
that, they will buy homes and start businesses. They will create jobs, 
they will lift our economy, they will lift their families out of 
poverty, and they will strengthen our country. The American people get 
this.
  Like so many Americans, I am proud of my immigrant roots. My mother 
came here from Austria as an infant. She never finished high school 
because she had to work to support her family. My dad was from an 
immigrant family too, the only one of nine children to be born in 
America and the only one to graduate from college. Then, when I was a 
little girl, he graduated from law school.
  When my mother passed away, I remember going through her memorabilia 
and I discovered a certificate that was wrapped in plastic. She stored 
it with other valuables in her jewelry box. It was the only document 
she protected in that fashion because it meant so much to my mother. It 
was her certificate of citizenship. That is what the dream of 
citizenship means to the millions of Californians and to the millions 
of Americans who are now forced to live in the shadows.
  For immigration reform to be truly comprehensive it must include a 
path to citizenship for all 11 million undocumented immigrants in our 
country today, and it must include the DREAM Act. We can't have two 
classes of citizens in America: one with full citizenship and one with 
half citizenship. That is not the promise of our Nation. The bill we 
will debate next week addresses this problem, and it provides a tough 
but fair path to citizenship.
  It is also crucial we pass reforms that protect workers and their 
families from exploitation and abuse. Too many immigrants, especially 
women, face sexual harassment in the workplace, violence and 
discrimination. The Judiciary Committee bill includes critical 
protections for women, including U visas, to keep women safe from 
domestic violence.
  A strong reform bill must also include a fair and effective guest 
worker program which provides workers with livable wages and strong 
labor protections, and this bill meets many of these tests. Would I 
have made it even stronger? Yes. Would my friend in the Chair have made 
it even stronger in many ways? Absolutely. But the bill is a real step 
forward.
  When we pass comprehensive immigration reform, we don't just help 
immigrant families, we help all Americans. I would like to see family 
reunification be made stronger in this bill.
  I commend those who worked on this bill. I know they had to hammer 
out these compromises. Having brought a successful highway bill to 
passage, a successful WRDA bill to passage on the Senate floor, I know 
I didn't get everything I wanted, so I am sympathetic to the fact this 
is not a perfect bill. But I know the Presiding Officer and I will 
support making this bill better, making this bill stronger, and maybe 
we will persuade colleagues to go along with us. We have to remember 
this bill isn't the be-all and end-all. We can make it stronger over 
the coming months and years.
  According to a 2010 USC study--University of Southern California--
when we create a path to citizenship, it will result in 25,000 new jobs 
and $3 billion in direct and indirect spending in California alone 
every single year. Nationwide, our immigration bill will increase our 
GDP, our gross domestic product, by $1.5 trillion over 10 years. It 
will increase wages for workers.
  That is what happens when workers come out of the shadows. It will 
lead to between 750,000 and 900,000 new jobs, according to the Center 
for American Progress. When workers come out of the shadows their wages 
rise, they open bank accounts, they buy homes, they spend money in 
their communities, and they are known to find new businesses.
  Businesses will benefit by having access to talented workers in 
fields ranging from manufacturing to health care to agriculture to high 
tech. And taxpayers are going to benefit. We will hear horror stories 
about how expensive this is, but the fact is studies show--that is, 
studies that don't have a bias--that taxpayers will benefit from an 
estimated $5 billion in new revenues in the first 3 years alone, 
including $310 million a year in State income taxes, which will help 
support education and other important services just in my home State of 
California.
  So will we see workers benefiting? Yes, from higher wages, but also 
better working conditions. And they will get respect and they will get 
dignity. What that means is they will be proud members of our 
communities. Families and children will benefit when we lift the fear 
of being deported and separated from their loved ones. I know the DREAM 
Act that Senator Durbin has worked on for so many years does impact the 
families of the DREAMers, and it will help them, because we don't want 
to separate families.
  I am going to be working on many amendments and offering some to 
improve this bill--amendments to provide a fair and reasonable path to 
citizenship, amendments to ensure we treat immigrants with dignity and 
respect, amendments that are friendly to family reunification, 
amendments that are friendly to workers. Workers are the backbone of 
this country.
  I want to close with a quote from President John F. Kennedy. Back in 
1958, he wrote a book entitled, ``A Nation of Immigrants.'' In that 
book he eloquently described how immigrants have strengthened our 
Nation. I already talked about my own immigrant roots. This is what 
John Kennedy wrote:

       This was the secret of America: a Nation of people with the 
     fresh memory of old traditions who dared to explore new 
     frontiers, people eager to build lives for themselves in

[[Page 8243]]

     a spacious society that did not restrict their freedom of 
     choice and their action.

  He added:

       Every ethnic minority, in seeking its own freedom, helped 
     to strengthen the fabric of liberty in American life.

  Those words were true back in 1958 and they are just as true today. 
Americans are ready and they are waiting for comprehensive immigration 
reform.
  I thank our colleagues who worked so hard on this bill, including my 
own colleague, Senator Feinstein, who worked so hard on the ag jobs 
title. We have to protect that title. There are those who would weaken 
it, and we can't weaken it. It is put together in such a way that we 
have the growers and workers supporting it. That is pretty good when we 
can get those two sides together.
  The President has said the time is now. I agree. The time is past 
now. We need to get this done. I think Senator Leahy has handled this 
bill beautifully. I believe 150 amendments were adopted in the 
committee, and also many others were offered. The system has been fair. 
Senator Reid has given us plenty of time to offer amendments, to debate 
these issues.
  I am excited about it. My State is waiting with bated breath for 
this. It is so overdue. Let's get to work. Let's make comprehensive 
immigration reform a reality. I am pleased to say to the President, I 
leave this floor with great hopes that we can get it done.
  Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________