To reduce the number of H-2C nonimmigrants to 200,000 during any fiscal year.

COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM ACT OF 2006--Continued

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, it is 2:15. We are reconvening. We are
about ready to proceed with the bill. We have quite a number of
Senators who have stated an interest in filing amendments. We urge them
to come to the floor so we can get a queue and proceed to consider the
amendments and dispose of the bill.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, is the Senator asking an inquiry at this
point? I did not hear the inquiry.
Mr. SPECTER. We are ready for your amendment, Senator Dorgan, if you
are prepared to offer it.
Mr. DORGAN. I will be laying the amendment down in just about a
minute. I am reviewing one piece of it. I will be laying the amendment
down in about a minute.
Mr. SPECTER. While you are undertaking those last-minute
preparations, would you give some consideration to a time agreement, an
hour equally divided?
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I will do that, but I will not do it at
the moment. I want to perfect the amendment and begin discussions, see
how many on my side and perhaps your side wish to speak on it before we
would make an agreement with respect to the time.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from
North Dakota.

Amendment No. 4017

Mr. DORGAN. I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate
consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The bill clerk read as follows:

The Senator from North Dakota [Mr. Dorgan] proposes
amendment numbered 4017.

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

(Purpose: To prohibit aliens who are currently outside the United
States from participating in the H-2C guestworker visa program)

On page 250, between lines 13 and 14, insert the
following:
``(1) Eligibility for deferred mandatory departure
status.--The alien shall establish that the alien is eligible
for Deferred Mandatory Departure status under section 245C.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I have offered an amendment. I will
describe very briefly what it does. It essentially strikes the guest
worker provision, as it is now known. Guest worker is described in
other ways--future flow, guest worker. It strikes that provision, but
it does it in a way that would not interrupt the underlying bill's
decision to have those who are here for 2 to 5 years to step outside
this country and step back in. It would not affect those folks, but it
would prevent the guest worker provision from being operative in a way
that would allow those who are now living outside of our country, who
are not in this country, living outside of the country, to come in in
future years under this guest worker provision.
The guest worker, future flow--all these titles that are used by the
President and by people in the Senate, it is kind of like Mr. Roger's
Neighborhood. These are wonderful-sounding terms--future flow. I didn't
know what that was until I learned or heard some of the descriptions of
future flow. What that means is we are going to provide a circumstance
where we try to get control of immigration but at the same time allow
others who are now outside of our country to come into our country
under a guest worker provision.
Let me describe the circumstances, especially on the southern border,
for the moment. Last year, we believe there were 1.1 to 1.2 million
people who tried to come into this country but were apprehended and
stopped and prevented from coming in illegally. We also believe that in
addition to the 1.1 million or so who were stopped and not allowed to
come into this country illegally, there were another probably three-
quarters of a million people who came illegally across the southern
border.
In addition to that, about 175,000 people came in legally across the
southern border--those who had children here under the quotas or other
circumstances and came into our country legally. So 1.1 million were
apprehended and stopped, about three-quarters of a million came
illegally, and about another 175,000 came legally into this country.
We are at a time where, if you read the paper every single day, what
you see is the new corporate economic strategy. In fact, Tom Friedman
wrote a book, ``The World Is Flat.'' Of course, the world isn't flat.
That sells a lot of books, but the world isn't flat. The proposition of
``The World Is Flat'' is that there are now 1 billion to 1.5 billion
people around the rest of the world

[[Page S4586]]

willing to work for a very small amount of money, so those who want to
produce products can move those jobs now to China, India, Bangladesh,
Sri Lanka, and produce for a very small amount of income. So they pay
pennies: 20 cents an hour, 30 cents an hour, 40 cents an hour to
produce the product. They ship the product into the United States to
sell. Then they run the income through the Cayman Islands so they don't
have to pay taxes.
Even while this strategy of shipping good American jobs overseas is
underway by some of the largest corporate interests, those interests
also want not only to ship those jobs overseas, they want to import
cheap labor at home. That is the strategy: export good American jobs
and import cheap labor. That is probably a good strategy for profits, I
am guessing, but it is an awful strategy for this country. That is not
the way we built this country. The broad middle class that burgeoned in
this country in the last century happened because of the good jobs that
paid good wages and had health care benefits and retirement and so on.
That is what helped create a middle class in this country. And the
presence of that middle class in this country, the middle-income
workers in this country, has made this country something very unusual
on the face of the Earth.
Now we see a new strategy. The world is flat, we are told. That flat
world means you can get rid of American jobs, move them to China. I
have told the stories forever, so I will not again, but Fruit of the
Loom underwear, you know, the underwear with the dancing grapes telling
us how wonderful Fruit of the Loom is, they are gone; Levis, they are
gone; Huffy bicycles, gone; the Little Red Wagon is gone; Fig Newton
cookies is now Mexican. I could tell stories forever about exporting
American jobs, but the corollary to that is that is not enough.
Exporting good American jobs is not enough. Now it is importing cheap
labor.
Alan Blinder--no radical economist, former Vice Chairman of the
Federal Reserve Board--Alan Blinder just wrote a piece. He said there
are somewhere between 42 million and 54 million American jobs that have
the potential to be outsourced. He said not all of them will be moved
abroad in search of cheap wages. But, he said, even those that stay
here are going to have to compete with cheaper wages, with lower wages
abroad. So that is the future. That is the strategy. That is the new
corporate approach--aided and abetted, I might say, by the Congress
with these trade deals.
In addition to that which is threatening American workers, we have
the back side coming in: illegal workers. Yes, they are illegal. When
they come into this country, they are illegal if they don't come
through a legal process. They come in and compete with subpar wages
with American workers.
Let me just ask the question for a moment: What would happen in this
country if tomorrow we had no immigration laws at all? If we said:
Look, we are the United States of America. We are a great country. We
say to the rest of the world: Welcome. Come here, stay here, live here,
work here. Just come on, come to America. You are welcome. There are no
longer any immigration laws at all.
What would be the result of that in a world in which one-half of the
population lives on less than $2 a day, in a world in which one-half of
the population hasn't even made a telephone call? What would be the
result of our saying we no longer have any immigration laws; we invite
the rest of the world to come to this country?
It is interesting. There have been polls done in other countries: How
many of you would like to immigrate to the United States? It is massive
numbers of people. We would be awash in people. So it is not selfish
for our country to be somewhat protective of our standard of living,
somewhat protective of our jobs and our interest in retaining a middle
class that lives well, that has a job in order to work at a decent
wage, has health care, has retirement. It is not selfish for us to do
that.
There are many voices speaking for immigrants. I don't want in any
way to diminish the dignity or the worth of immigrants. I come from
immigrants. I assume most of the people serving in this Chamber come
from immigrant parents, grandparents or great-grandparents.
I don't want in any way for this debate to inflame or in any way
diminish the worth or dignity of immigrants. I don't want us to inflame
passions against those who have tried to escape poverty in their own
countries to come to the United States to escape misery and poverty.
But we in America have a responsibility as well to our citizens, and
there is precious little talk about them in this Chamber these days. We
have built the strongest economy in the world. Now we talk about
immigration. I don't think that we can talk about immigration without
talking about American jobs, about salaries, workers' benefits, and
opportunities for those who are here legally. Yes, I am talking about
all the American workers. That includes Hispanic workers, African-
American, Asian, Caucasian, all American workers.
I will show some charts in a few moments to discuss what is happening
to them.
We have gotten a lot of people speaking up for those who are
immigrants, many who have come here illegally.
Let me speak for a moment on behalf of American workers, and let me
talk for a little bit about what has happened to the American workers.
We are told by the President and by others, including debate in this
Chamber, that Americans don't want these jobs, so we need the illegal
immigration to occur. And now we would make it legal, and now we would
have additional guest workers to occur because Americans will not take
these jobs.
Seven percent of the transportation workers are illegal, but 93
percent are legal.
Americans will not take those jobs?
Ninety-one percent of the jobs in manufacturing are U.S. citizens,
legal workers, and 9 percent are illegal workers.
Construction: 86 percent of the people who work construction in this
country are American workers, legal workers, American citizens here
legally. And we are told that Americans will not take these
construction jobs? I don't think so. Of course, they will.
The evidence is pretty substantial. The question is: What has been
the impact on American workers of illegal immigration?
We talk about this, as I said, as if it is kind of ``Mister Rogers'
Neighborhood''--it is all feel-good, easy sound bites, soft words,
future flow, guest workers.
Let me talk about a study by Professor Borjas of the John F. Kennedy
School of Government at Harvard University in 2004. He said the impact
of immigration from 1980 to 2000--and principally we are talking about
legal immigration, the impact by ethnicity of U.S. workers--has cost
the average American worker $1,700 in lost wages per year.
Whom does it hurt the most? It hurts the Hispanic workers in this
country, those who are here legally. It hurts the African-American
workers. It hurts Asian workers. It hurts all American workers.
This is not a painless or pain-free exercise to have millions and
millions of people come through the back door into this country
illegally to assume jobs. It is not painless. The American people are
paying the cost of that. The American workers are experiencing the
problems as a result of it. The problems are lower wages.
Let me describe what has happened to income in this country. As we
can see the changes in after-tax earnings by income bracket, the top 1
percent are doing well. It is the case of the top fifth. The people at
bottom are hurting, with very little income increase at all.
What is happening is we have now the development of the ``haves'' and
the ``have nots.'' At least a portion of that, in my judgment, a
significant portion of that imbalance comes as a result of public
policy in this Chamber from people who believe that as the economy
works when we put something in at the top--and it is called classic
trickle-down economics--put something in at the top, it filters down,
trickles down, and pretty soon everybody gets a little damp. It is not
true. It doesn't work.
I would like to show some additional charts about what we are dealing
with.
When we talk about guest workers and future flows, let me describe it
specifically with respect to the bill that is

[[Page S4587]]

on the floor. The bill on the floor says we have 11 million to 12
million people who have come here illegally. We are not sure how many,
we need to find a status for them. And it develops three different
categories for them. But it also says, in addition to all of that,
there are other people living outside of our country whom we want to
invite in, in the future, 325,000 a year, and over 6 years with a 20-
percent escalator each year that is in this bill you are talking about
the potential of 3.8 million additional people.
This piece of legislation says: By the way, let us invite another 10
million people here in 10 years.
That is the way it grows, with 325,000 and the 20-percent escalator.
Is that what we should be doing in our country? Is that the strategy
that makes sense?
This country is unusual on this planet. We live here with about 6.3
billion neighbors. We circle the Sun, and in this spot on the globe
there is illumination of having developed something extraordinary in
the world. I have described the time when I was on a helicopter that
ran out of fuel in the mountains and jungle area between Honduras and
Nicaragua. We landed under power, but the red lights were on and the
bells were ringing and we were not going to fly anymore. We were stuck
there for some many hours until we were found. The campesinos from the
mountains came to see who had landed. We had an interpreter with us. I
was asking them, through this interpreter, a little bit about their
lives, what they would aspire for their lives. A young woman was there
with three or four children. I said: What is it you aspire for your
life?
I want to come to America. I want to move to the United States.
I asked: Why?
Because that is the area of opportunity. The United States is an area
of opportunity. It is jobs. It is for me and my children to have jobs
in the future.
We find that virtually in every part of the world. So as a result of
that, we have had to have immigration laws. Twenty years ago, we had
this same problem; that is, illegal immigration overrunning this
country.
It has a direct impact, as I have shown, on American workers,
something not much discussed in this Chamber today. But it has a direct
and a detrimental impact on American workers. That includes Hispanic
workers who are here legally and have been here a long time. It
diminishes their wages. But 20 years ago we had this debate.

The debate when I was serving in the House at the time was: How do
you deal with immigration? The answer was simple. Senator Simpson was
on the floor of the Senate, Congressman Mazzoli was in the House, and a
piece of legislation passed and was signed into law called the Simpson-
Mazzoli bill. There was great celebration because this was going to
solve the immigration problem.
How would it solve the immigration problem and employer sanctions?
The proposition was that the lure for people to come to this country is
to find a job. If you shut off the jobs and you say to the employers:
Don't you dare hire illegal workers, don't you dare bring people
through the back door and pay them subpar wages because they are
illegal. If you do that, you are going to be hit with sanctions. This
Government is going to penalize you.
Guess what. Last year, I am told there was one enforcement action in
all of the United States against a company that was hiring illegal
workers. The year before, there were three actions in all of the United
States against employers who hired illegal workers.
This Government did nothing to deal with it, nothing.
The other day in North Dakota--they are building an energy plant--I
believe it was the highway patrol who picked up seven people, illegal
workers. I think six were from Guatemala and one from Mexico. They
drove them about an hour north to Minot, ND, to the immigration office.
They processed them through the immigration office. They then drove
them back to the motel near, I believe, Washburn, ND, dropped them off
and said: You are now required to come to Minneapolis within the next
month--they gave them a specific date--to a hearing on your case. Of
course, they will never be in Minneapolis. We will never see them
again. They will never show up again.
It is the process. As some call it, catch and release. You catch
them, you let them go, and say: Show up later. Oh, by the way, next
time they show up, they will probably be on another job site because
this Government does nothing to enforce the law. Now we are told this
is a three-legged stool, as if this is a furniture store. All morning I
hear three-legged stool. I do not know where the stool came from. I
don't know about the three legs. All I know is that you must, it seems
to me--if you are going to be dealing with immigration issues--find a
way to effectively reduce illegal immigration. You have to do that. You
don't do that by turning a blind eye to the issue of employer
sanctions.
Say you are an employer and want to bring in a string of illegal
agricultural workers and pay them subpar wages, you are going to get in
trouble. If you do that, you are not going to solve this problem.
In the President's address last night to the country, I didn't hear a
word about that. He is going to deploy the National Guard, an
overstretched National Guard. They have been on multiple deployments,
in some cases, to Iraq, but no discussion about shutting off the jobs
that represent the lure for illegal workers to come into this country--
not a word.
It is true that the first step to deal with the immigration issue is
to enforce the prohibition on hiring illegal workers.
This issue we are discussing is a big, broad issue. It has legal
immigrants coming in who are not citizens but entitled to work under
the H-2A program and the H-2B program. We have workers who come in on a
temporary basis dealing in agriculture. We already have processes by
which people come into this country legally to work. What is being
discussed is on top of all of that.
You have a bill that comes to the floor of the Senate that says: All
right. Let us take the 11 million or 12 million--whatever it is--who
are here illegally and separate them into three groups. One is the
group that has been here less than 2 years. They have to go back. The
second is the group that has been here 2 to 5 years. They have to go
back, and then they can come right back in.
Third is the group that has been here longer than 5 years, and they
have the capability of earned citizenship, as will the 2 to 5 million
people under certain circumstances.
So that is what is in front of us.
On top of that, as if they put a big old discolored patch on an inner
tube, this legislation--and by the way, in addition to dealing with
that and trying to get tough on employer sanctions, something I have
heard before as all of my colleagues have as well, and responding to
those needs--in addition to all of that, we have decided there are not
enough people coming into our country, so we want to allow more, up to
3.8 million more in the coming 6 years. These are people who do not now
live here whom we want to come in to take American jobs. We are told
the reason for that is there will be people attempting to get across
the border anyway.
Let us at least recognize they are going to be what are called future
flows.
That seems to be giving up on the issue of whether you have good
border enforcement. You either have decent enforcement on the border or
you don't. If you have good enforcement, why on Earth would you decide
that in addition to allowing 11 million or 12 million people who are
here illegally to deal with their status internally in this country and
decide in addition to that we have decided that, yes, we have quotas
for our country. We have immigration opportunities in H-2A and H-2B and
many other areas. But on top of that, we have decided we want up to 3.8
million more to come through our doors. Why is that provision in this
bill?
I am told it is in this bill because that is the price the Chamber of
Commerce extracted for supporting this bill. No one has disabused my
plea of that. I am told that is the basis on which the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce would support this piece of legislation. Why would they want
up to another 3.8 million in 6 years, or far more in 10 years? Why
would they want additional guest workers or future flows to come in
legally on top of what is already allowed in this legislation? The
answer is

[[Page S4588]]

simple. It goes back to the first chart I showed. It is the economic
strategy and the new national world, exporting good jobs and importing
cheap labor. The guest worker provisions and the future flow provisions
are about importing cheap labor.
Yesterday I mentioned a man named Jim Fyler. Jim Fyler died because
he was shot 54 times. He was shot 54 times because Jim Fyler believed
strongly that people should have the right to collectively bargain and
to organize. Jim Fyler cared deeply about coal miners and the
conditions under which coal miners were working: underground, long
hours, child labor, bad wages, no benefits. Jim Fyler was one of those
folks who, on behalf of collective bargaining, on behalf of forming a
union of coal miners, was shot 54 times.
We have gone through all of that in a century--people losing their
lives fighting, battling for the right to organize, people battling for
the right to work in a safe workplace. We have had the political fights
for minimum wages, the fight to prevent polluting the air and water by
companies producing products and dumping their chemicals into the water
and the air. We have been through all of these fights.
Now the American worker is told: By the way, those fights are over.
In fact, you won them for a while, but now you have lost because anyone
who wants to produce can pole-vault over that and move their production
to China and hire someone for 33 cents an hour, work them 7 days a
week, 12 to 14 hours a day, and if American workers do not like it,
tough luck: The reason we did it is because you cannot compete.
By the way, for those who still have your jobs and they are not
outsourced, look behind you. In the back door, we are bringing in low
wage workers. Those low wage workers will work for substantially less
money than you are willing to work.
This is about low wage replacement workers, as I call them. It is not
guest workers. It is not future flow. It is low wage replacement
workers, 3.8 million in the coming 6 years in this bill.
My amendment does two things. One, it gets rid of this future flow
guest worker. That does not mean we won't have immigration. We will. We
have many other provisions in the law allowing for legal immigration,
temporary workers, agricultural workers. That already exists. I
eliminate the provision that is above that.
My amendment also accommodates the underlying bill, if, in fact, it
passes, and will not interrupt that with respect to the 2- to 5-year
people who must step out of the country before they come back into the
country and then seek legal status. I have written this amendment so I
don't interrupt that, either. Someone mentioned earlier that they
thought this would affect that. It does not. This simply affects the
piece of legislation that will allow those who never lived in this
country, who now live outside of our country, and who, in this piece of
legislation, will be told, in addition to all the legal ways you can
come to this country, we are going to have a future flow, a guest
worker provision that allows you to take American jobs. Why? Because I
guess American workers are not available for those jobs or maybe it is
because this same body has not increased the minimum wage for nearly 9
years. For 9 years, this body has not seen fit to increase the minimum
wage. Maybe there are jobs they have trouble getting the American
workers to take. Maybe it is because they have not increased the
minimum wage at the bottom of the economic ladder, the bottom rung. The
solution to that? Well, we will not increase wages for American
workers. Let's not shore up benefits for American workers. Let's
instead decide we will bring in additional guest workers from outside
of our country.
I will show a chart that describes what these folks are earning. In
Russia, it is 51 cents an hour in wages; 37 cents an hour in Nicaragua;
33 cents an hour in China; 33 cents an hour in Bangladesh; 30 cents an
hour in Haiti; and 11 cents an hour in India. This is what we want
American workers to compete with?
It is one thing to see American jobs moved to those overseas wages. I
have spoken at great length and I have almost resisted the attempt to
speak at greater length about these companies which have decided to
avail themselves of 20-cents-an-hour labor so they can ship their
product to the store shelves in Pittsburgh, Fargo, Los Angeles, and
Chicago. I have almost resisted that, but I am thinking maybe I
shouldn't. Maybe I should discuss at some length the circumstances of
moving those jobs overseas. Then, by the way, for those whose jobs have
not moved, we have a surprise for you in the back end.
We now have, additionally, guest workers coming in who will work at
the bottom of the economic ladder and, as the professor from Harvard
has said, put downward pressure on wages in this country.
All I am asking the Senate is this: Maybe we could have some
discussion, even as we talk about immigration, about the impact and the
effect of this subject on American workers, on workers who are here
legally. Yes, those are Hispanics, African Americans, Asians,
Caucasians, everyone. Many are struggling. They lose their job and get
another job at lower pay. The burgeoning middle class is slimming down
because the world is flat. We are, too.
That is total rubbish, of course. The so-called flat world is a rose-
colored evaluation of how corporations can simply make more money by
having American jobs leave our shores and then sell their products back
into our country. I am saying that in the long term, I don't think that
works. I don't think that supports or creates the foundation for the
sustaining of a strong, robust economy in this country that grows for
everyone.
We have dangerous inequalities in this country of ours with respect
to income. I have shown a couple of charts about that. We need to have
some discussion about the impact on American workers with respect to
these policies. That is why I have offered this amendment.
I believe the Senator from Pennsylvania wishes to speak.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Chafee). The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I inquire of the Senator from North
Dakota whether he is prepared now to enter into a time agreement. There
have been no Senators on this side of the aisle who have expressed an
interest in debating the issue. My reply will be relatively brief. My
suggestion would be that we ought to seek to close off debate--it is
now 8 minutes to 3 o'clock--close off debate by 3:15 and move on to
another amendment.
I alert colleagues on this side: we are in a position to move forward
with the Kyl-Cornyn amendment, which is next on the list. I do not know
what amendments will be offered by the Democrats, but I have made an
inquiry, and they are making an effort to identify the Senators who
will offer amendments and bring them to the Senate. If the Kyl-Cornyn
amendment can be worked out, which is a distinct prospect, we would
then move to the Sessions amendment. I have alerted Senator Sessions.
If he can come to the Senate in the next few minutes, that will be
helpful. Then we have Senator Vitter's two amendments. Senator Vitter
talked to me shortly before noontime. If he can come to the Senate and
be available, we are in a position to move ahead.
I inquire of the Senator from North Dakota whether he is in a
position to agree to conclude debate, say, in 20 more minutes, equally
divided.
Mr. DORGAN. I am not in a position to do that. Forty minutes a side
is satisfactory. I have a number of Members who have asked for time to
speak on amendments. We are trying to reach them.
I understand the Senator from Pennsylvania has an interest in
efficiency and moving forward, but there are a good many jobs that
depend on getting these things right. This is an important amendment. I
am happy to agree to 40 minutes a side.
Mr. SPECTER. I understand the position of the Senator from North
Dakota.
I ask unanimous consent that 80 minutes be divided equally between
the Senator from North Dakota and myself as manager of the bill and
that the debate be concluded in 80 minutes, unless time is yielded
back.
I now have the handiwork of the expert staff. In their form, I ask
unanimous consent that there be 80 minutes for debate in relation to
the Dorgan

[[Page S4589]]

amendment, provided that no second degrees be in order prior to the
vote, and after the use or yielding back of time, the Senate proceed to
a vote in relation to the Dorgan amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SPECTER. I thank the Chair.
By way of reply, I can understand the concerns of the Senator from
North Dakota about the loss of American jobs. I compliment him for
speaking about this subject with some frequency with some effect in the
Senate.
I agree totally with the Senator from North Dakota that we ought not
to export American jobs. I also agree with the Senator from North
Dakota that we ought to retain American jobs in America to the maximum
extent that we are able to do so.
The Judiciary Committee had a hearing and had four witnesses testify.
Without going into their testimony in great detail--it is all a matter
of record--the net conclusions were that there would not be a
significant impact in the loss of American jobs.
It is frequently said that the immigrants handle jobs that Americans
do not want. As a generalization, that is true, but not universally
true.
We have had considerable suggestions and contentions by Senators from
agricultural States about the indispensable nature of immigrant
workers. Anecdotally, I have many from my home State come to me and
tell me about the need for agricultural workers.
Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. SPECTER. I would on his time.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me say quickly, and I appreciate the
Senator's courtesy for yielding, my amendment does nothing with respect
to agricultural workers. We still have the provisions in underlying law
allowing for temporary workers to come in and support the agricultural
needs of this country.
Mr. SPECTER. I am not unaware of that, but it goes to the overall
point of the experts who testify as to whether we would be taking away
jobs American workers would want. The experts further testify that
although there was some impact on the wages, there would not be a
significant loss in wages.
When the Senator from North Dakota talks about the costs of bringing
in 10 million people, that simply is not what title IV does. The title
he wishes to eliminate as to any immigrants coming into the country in
the future is only open to those now in the country. Title IV provides
that there be an annual cap of 325,000, with each guest worker employed
for up to 3 years, renewable for an additional 3 years. Then the
approach is that those individuals will return to their home country
unless they can otherwise qualify to stay here.
The guest workers will enjoy travel privileges in and out of the
United States and portability between jobs. We allow workers to obtain
green cards by self-petitioning, if they qualify, and allow students
with advanced degrees in science and math to stay in the United States.
Title IV exempts workers with advanced degrees in science and math from
green card caps, and it increases the annual allotment of H-1B
professional worker visas from 65,000 to 115,000, with a fluctuating
cap.
Title IV is important as part of a balanced program. If we do not
provide for guest workers who can fill the needs of the American
economy, then we are going to create a vacuum and a situation where
illegal immigrants will come in to fill those needs. But if we
calibrate the number of guest workers which can be accommodated by our
economy, which are needed by our economy, then we will discourage
illegal immigrants from coming in and taking jobs, finding jobs, which
would otherwise be filled by the guest workers who come to this country
legally.
This title has been crafted very carefully by the Judiciary
Committee. There is substantial support for it, as I understand it, on
the other side of the aisle, even as there is some opposition on this
side of the aisle. But if there are other Senators who wish to come and
debate on this side of the aisle, I invite colleagues to debate and
move ahead, and perhaps yield back time if that time is not to be used.
I yield the floor.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I yield up to 15 minutes to the Senator
from California, Mrs. Boxer.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, thank you very much. I thank my colleague,
Senator Dorgan, for being such a leader on this particular part of the
bill which I have found extremely troubling from day one.
I note that the chairman of the Judiciary Committee said we better
not take the guest worker program out because, oh, my goodness, if we
do take it out, there will be more illegal immigration. Well, maybe I
am wrong on this--I do not think I am--but isn't a basic part of this
bill to strengthen the border, the protections at the border? And isn't
that part of what we are trying to do so we can stop the flow of
illegal immigration--and having done that, allow the 11 to 12 million
who are already here, who have clean records, who are willing to step
forward, who are willing pay a fine, the chance at earned legalization?
And then there is another piece that deals with specific sectors of
our economy, such as agriculture, where we know there are problems with
the workforce. With respect to the agriculture industry, we set up a
program called AgJOBS, which I credit Senator Feinstein for putting it
in the bill. Senators Craig and Kennedy, in a bipartisan effort, have
supported this for many years, along with myself and others.
So we had, I thought, a very well balanced bill until we added a
guest worker program. In other words, the bill strengthened the border
in one section, created a pathway for the undocumented immigrants
currently in the country, and then--addressed one area, agriculture,
where we know we need these workers and set up a very carefully
tailored program. The bill also made adjustments for highly skilled
workers such as engineers, and fixed some of the visa programs.
So I thought that was a fairly balanced bill. Then what happened is,
another piece was added, which is this really open-ended guest worker
program which, in my opinion, will result in a permanent underclass of
workers coming into our country.
What disturbs me is what the provision does to the American
workforce. You hear: Oh, these are people who will do work that
Americans won't do. Now, I would say that is a good argument when it
comes to agriculture. But we have taken care of agriculture in the
bill. We have the AgJOBS provision. And we have taken care of the 11 to
12 million undocumented workers currently in the U.S. and given them a
path for continued employment.
So now, on top of it, we are looking at a program for 325,000 guest
workers, each and every year, with an escalator of up to 20 percent
added on to that. And what do you create now? A huge underclass of
workers who will take jobs away from Americans.
Now, the American people are compassionate. They are understanding. I
think most of them want us to do a comprehensive bill. Most of them do
not like what is in the House bill, where if you lean over to help
someone who may be having a heart attack on the ground in front of you
and that person is undocumented, according to the House, you could go
to jail. The American people do not like that.
But the American people also know we have not raised the minimum wage
in almost 10 long years--which, by the way, I think we ought to darn
well do on this bill--and that if you create another, virtually open-
ended guest worker program, you are going to hurt the American people
at the end of the day.
So you hear the colleagues on the other side saying: Oh, No. 1, if
you don't have this additional guest worker program, then people will
sneak across the border. No. We are strengthening the border. That is
one of the underlying principles of the bill. So that is not accurate.
Now they say: Oh, if you don't do this, we will have jobs that are
not filled. Now, what kind of jobs would guest workers do? Remember, we
have already taken care of agriculture, so these guest workers are not
for agricultural jobs. There are also separate provisions for the most
highly educated immigrants, the various visa programs. So what would
the guest workers do?
Here are some examples: construction, food preparation,
manufacturing, and transportation jobs. Now, these are

[[Page S4590]]

fields where the vast majority of jobs are held by U.S. citizens and by
legal workers. So it is incorrect to claim that the guest worker
program, which has been kind of added on to what I think is a good
bill, is targeted at jobs Americans will not do. These jobs are good
jobs in good industries.
Now, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2004, there were
6.3 million workers employed in the U.S. construction sector, at an
average wage of $18.21 an hour or $37,890 a year. Now, when I meet with
my working people in California, they are fighting hard for these jobs.
They want more of these jobs, not fewer of these jobs. The last thing
they want is a guest worker program that is going to provide a big pool
of workers who may make far less than this amount and take jobs away
from my people.
I support the underlying bill except for this provision. I think this
guest worker provision throws the whole thing out of whack.
For the bottom quarter of Americans, who are making an average wage
of about $7 an hour, construction work is a dream job. They pray for
those jobs. They stand in line hours for those jobs. But what are we
doing if the Dorgan amendment does not succeed? We are going to take
those jobs away because an employer is going to say: Gee, should I hire
an $18-an-hour American worker or, let's see, a foreign worker in a
guest worker program who I could pay less? You know what is going to
happen.
Now, I think the real reason for a guest worker program is not what
we hear about, oh, well, otherwise there will be more people sneaking
across the border, or we are short all these workers and we don't have
workers for construction jobs, transportation jobs, food preparation
jobs, manufacturing jobs, and the like; but it is really to set up, in
my view, a permanent number of workers who are prepared to work at very
cheap wages. That would be bad for the American workforce.

If we take this guest worker program out of this bill, we will have,
my colleagues, a far better bill, a bill that we can all feel good
about, a bill that does, in fact, reach out and say to undocumented
workers who have worked here 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, 3 years--and
they have clean records and they have paid their taxes and they are
willing to come forward and pay their fines, and the rest--we will have
a good bill for them, we will have a good bill that strengthens the
border, which I strongly support and have supported for years, we will
have a balanced bill, that includes the AgJOBS piece. But if we do not
take this out, we have a bill that I believe is going to hurt many
American workers.
So I think the real reason this was put in was to have cheap labor, a
cheap labor workforce.
Now, the median wage in Mexico is $1.83 an hour. The typical hourly
wage in China is 33 cents. So I ask my colleagues, what does a minimum
wage--even if it is not raised, and shame on us that it has not been
raised in 9 long years, going on 10 years--what does a $5-an-hour wage
look like? Heaven to those people. And we are going to sanction this
fairly open-ended program that escalates up to 20 percent a year for
what reason other than to provide a permanent cheap labor force? It is
very worrisome to me.
There are some businesses that are wonderful, exemplary. There are
others that would rather not look at their business as a family but
just want to get the cheapest labor they can possibly get. So I cannot
support the undermining of U.S. working conditions, and I cannot
support a guest worker program that will decrease wages for low-income
Americans.
For goodness' sake, I have stood on this floor 1 year--2, 3, 4, 5, 6,
7, 8, 9--going on 10 years, fighting to increase the minimum wage. How
could I possibly vote to keep in this bill a guest worker program when
we have such an opportunity to strengthen this bill by stripping this
out. It would leave us with a bill with tighter enforcement at the
border, a humane, legal path for people who are living in the shadows--
it will make us safer to get them out of the shadows, that is for
sure--an AgJOBS program that is tailored to agriculture in a way that
makes sense, and all those visa programs that address high skilled
jobs? All that makes sense.
I commend the committee for giving us a chance craft such a bill. I
would be proud to have as my legacy such a bill. But if we can remove
this, what I call this guest worker add-on, if we can remove this, I
think we will have a far stronger bill.
I commend my friend, Senator Dorgan. He is--I wanted to say he is
dogged, and he is. He is dogged on behalf of working people. And I
think he got this just right. I am very glad he has offered us this
chance to improve this bill by pulling out the guest worker program.
With that, Mr. President, I yield back the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I would like a brief few minutes.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, how much time is remaining on both sides?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania has 35 minutes.
The Senator from North Dakota has 27\1/2\ minutes.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I would just ask for 5 minutes in
support of Senator Dorgan's amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SPECTER. I ask the Senator, are you for or against the amendment?
Mr. SESSIONS. I am for it. I know Senator Dorgan's time is limited. I
would ask for maybe 3 minutes.
Mr. DORGAN. I will yield the Senator 5 minutes.
Mr. SESSIONS. I will try to wrap up briefly.
Mr. President, I believe this section of the bill as drafted is
flawed. It goes further than the drafters and the American people or
the President would want it to go. I am not sure how we can fix it at
this point. I think the way to concentrate everybody's mind and get it
fixed would be for the Dorgan amendment to pass.
Let's start over and talk about how we are going to handle this. My
staff has looked at these numbers and tried to be as objective as they
possibly can to see just what this would allow to occur in America if
it were to pass, and I am confident that it includes more than people
would think.
First of all, it is absolutely not true that this is a temporary
worker program. It is called guest worker, which sounds like
``temporary worker,'' but it is not. A person will come into our
country under this program--325,000 the first year. Their employer can
apply, the day they get here, the first year, for a green card. A green
card gives them permanent residence in the United States, unless they
get convicted of a felony or something. They get permanent residence.
Within 5 years, they can apply for citizenship. So there is nothing
temporary about this so-called guest worker program.
The President mentioned this morning a couple times, I understand--I
heard it a bit, one clip on TV--that he favored a temporary worker
program. This is not a temporary worker program.

Second, the numbers are extraordinary. Some of you who have been
listening to me today are pretty good mathematicians. It is 325,000 the
first year. But if that number is reached, automatically it kicks up 20
percent. The next year, if that number is reached, it is 20 percent;
the next year, 20 percent; the next year, 20 percent. Those are pretty
big numbers. In fact, if it were to stay at that 60 percent level, the
numbers would be extraordinary. If you took the congressional resource
number, that when a person comes in under this provision as a guest
worker and they get a green card and are able to bring in their family,
they have calculated 1.2 family members they would bring in for each
guest worker. And if you add up those numbers of what we can reasonably
expect over a 20-year period, it would be 133 million people. I don't
think we will be at 20 percent every year. There are some factors that
would show that is not the case. But that is what the bill authorizes,
20 percent automatically, if the caps are reached each year. If it went
up at about 10 percent a year, you would still have a very significant
increase in just this one program.
When you talk about 100 million people, you are talking about one-
third of the current population of the United States being admitted
under a low-skill worker program, called a guest worker program, that
does not require high-skill abilities.

[[Page S4591]]

We need to completely redo it. I believe that; I really do. I urge my
colleagues to think seriously about this, what we are voting for. I
know the motive and I know the desire to do the right thing. We are a
nation of immigrants. We are going to allow immigration in the future
to continue. When we do, we will increase legal immigration into this
country, and I will support that. But the rate of increase provided for
in this provision is unjustifiable and, therefore, I support the Dorgan
amendment.
I yield back the remainder of my time to the Senator from North
Dakota.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the distinguished
Senator from Arizona.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I begin by thanking the Senator from
Pennsylvania for his continued leadership and incredible effort on this
issue. He has invested thousands of hours, and I continue to appreciate
the great job he is doing.
I also congratulate the President of the United States for his
remarks last night. It is pretty obvious that his remarks were well
received. He gave an outstanding depiction not only of the situation in
the United States but the need for us to act. As he said near the end
of his remarks:

Tonight I want to speak directly to Members of the House
and Senate. An immigration reform bill needs to be
comprehensive because all elements of this problem must be
addressed together or none of them will be solved at all.

The President's comments are exactly right:

All elements of this problem must be addressed together or
none of them will be solved at all.

He went on to say:

The House has passed an immigration bill. The Senate should
act by the end of the month so we can work out the
differences. . . .

The Senator from North Dakota, my friend, keeps talking about how the
1986 amnesty didn't work. It obviously didn't work. The reason it
didn't work is because there wasn't a guest worker program, which is
exactly what the Senator from North Dakota is trying to remove from the
bill which then would give us 1986 all over again. More importantly,
there are certain realities in America today that we are trying to
address. Among them, that the American population is growing older. The
baby boomers are retiring and leaving in their wake a number of jobs
that need to be filled. Restaurants are locking their doors because
there is no one to serve the food or clear dishes. Today, fruit is
rotting on the vine and lettuce is dying in the fields because farmers
can't find workers to harvest the crops.
Why do we need a viable guest worker program? So that we can stop the
flood of illegals from coming across our borders, so we can make the
present incentive that brings people to cross our borders illegally
come to a halt. How do we do that? Our proposal says if an employer
advertises a job for 60 days over the Internet, in a broad variety of
ways, and no American comes forward to take that job, then a willing
worker and a willing employer can join together in a contract that that
person can come and work and fill that job that it has already been
proven an American won't take. If that person continues to work in the
United States, he is allowed to remain in the United States under our
proposal.
An equally important aspect is that those who are now south of our
border or anywhere else in the world will recognize that even if they
cross our border illegally and are able to do so, there will be no job
for them because the person who has entered into that contract has a
tamper-proof biometric visa, and that is the only document that will be
recognized as a valid document in order for someone to obtain
employment.
So if someone does cross our border illegally, gets a job--one, he
shouldn't get it because he doesn't have that contract but, two, if an
employer hires that individual, then, of course, that employer should
be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
It is not an exact parallel, but let me remind colleagues, about 15
years ago we declared a war on drugs. All of us, we were going to stop
the flow of drugs from coming across our border and destroying America.
Any objective observer will tell you that our progress has been
limited, if at all successful. Why? Because there is still a demand for
drugs, and they are coming across our borders. People are using them,
and there is still a demand.

There is a demand for workers in this country. And these people are
coming across our borders, both northern and southern--we seem to
concentrate so much of our attention on the southern border, but they
are coming across both borders--to feed themselves and their families
which they can't do where they are. I would be glad to discuss the
failure of the Mexican Government to enforce their border, including
their southern border, the need for us to work more cooperatively, the
corruption problems, all of the issues that are associated with the
issue of people coming across our border. But I predict, even if we had
the best cooperation from the Mexican Government, people who can't feed
themselves and their families where they are would still try to come to
this country to get jobs. And if you can prove that there are jobs that
no American will take, why not have a process, a system where someone
can come and take it and work?
There are very few of my colleagues who would deny that the
overwhelming majority of people who come to this country are honest,
God-fearing, hard-working people, some of whom, by the way, have died
in the desert in an effort to come, a larger number every year in the
Arizona desert. Their only desire is to better themselves and provide
better lives for themselves and their families. There are all kinds of
other benefits associated with this, as well. One of the reasons why
workers come to this country today and stay is because it is so
difficult to move back and forth to the families and the homes they
came from. If they have a tamper-proof visa, then, of course, on their
vacations or even at the completion of their work, they would feel
comfortable in returning to the place where they came from. But now,
with the difficulty of crossing back and forth over the border, more
and more of them remain here, and sometimes there is a criminal
element.
Let me make another point. With illegal immigration, with
transportation of people across the border who are coming across
illegally, terrible things are happening. We have the coyotes who
mistreat them, the coyotes who sometimes hold them captive and demand
more and more money. There are shootouts on our freeways in Arizona. No
State in America understands how terrible this issue is more than the
citizens of my State because over half of the people crossing the
border illegally are coming across the Arizona Sonora Desert. It is
terrible what is going on. The exploitation and the mistreatment of
these people who are honest, who are God's children, is terrible. If we
could have a viable guest worker program, one that we could enforce,
then you would lose this incredible attraction that draws people
illegally into our country and, of course, all of the associated bad
aspects of it that the citizens of my State of Arizona are so
intimately familiar with.
Of course, it frustrates citizens. Of course, it frustrates the
citizens of my State to have so many hundreds of millions of dollars in
uncompensated health care costs, to have law enforcement requirements
and expenses go up, to have all of the problems associated with illegal
immigration. But to say somehow that we are not going to satisfy what
is clearly, primarily economic immigration--by the way, the Border
Patrol statistics say 99 percent of those attempting to cross our
Nation's border illegally are ``economic immigrants''--then we are
going to be faced with a problem. No wall, no barrier, no sensor, no
barbed wire will ever stop people from trying to do what is a basic
yearning of human beings all over the world, and that is to have better
lives for themselves and their families.
I hope and believe we will reject the Dorgan amendment. As the
Senator from Alabama said, he wants to go back and start over. There
are a number of us who have invested years in this issue.
I thank my colleague from Massachusetts for his continued leadership.

[[Page S4592]]

By the way, all of us are very grateful that he survived a very
serious aircraft emergency recently. We are glad that he is well and
with us.
I hope we will reject the amendment. I hope we will then move on to
other amendments and within a relatively short period of time resolve
most of the controversial aspects of this legislation.
Finally, I thank the President of the United States for what was
greeted, as we know from the overnight polls, very favorably by the
American people, his support of a comprehensive resolution of this
terrible issue that afflicts our Nation, that of illegal immigration.
I yield the floor.
Mr. KENNEDY. Would the Senator be willing to yield 10 minutes?
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I am delighted to yield 10 minutes to the
Senator from Massachusetts. But before doing so, I urge other Senators
to come to the floor to offer amendments. It is thought that if we
focus on the guest worker provisions, we can finish them up this
afternoon. Senator Kyl and Senator Cornyn actually have precedence, but
if they would be willing to yield to the other Senators on guest
worker, I think we would finish this entire category. And perhaps we
can find a way to work out Kyl-Cornyn in the interim. We will be
looking for an amendment from Senator Bingaman who wants to reduce the
number of guest workers. We have an amendment by Senator Obama which is
on a related issue, I am told, on labor protections. And we have an
amendment by Senator Feinstein on having some sunset provisions. Then
it is hoped we can get agreement on Senator Kerry's amendment and be
able to accept that. If we could finish this grouping, we would be well
on our way.
So if those Senators can come to the floor, we can work out time
agreements and proceed in an expeditious manner. Meanwhile, Senator
Kennedy has requested 10 minutes.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Pennsylvania. I
want to thank my friend and colleague and the principal sponsor of the
major comprehensive legislation.
In addition, I ask the Senator from Arizona, is it not true that you
have the advertising for a worker in the United States where there is
not an American worker and a willing worker who comes from outside of
the country, that they have some important labor protections--
protections with regard to the minimum wage, with regard to Davis-
Bacon, with regard to service contracts, protections against
exploitation of contractors, which were the source of great abuses at
the time we had the Bracero issue and question. Is it not true that we
have some protections for those individuals and, therefore, the idea
that there is going to be a continuation of the exploitation of these
workers working in a substandard way is fundamentally addressed? And is
it also not true we have some 2,000 inspectors that are included in the
underlying legislation that are going to be charged with the
enforcement of this provision, which we have never had?
I listened to so many people talk about 1986 and the amnesty. Part of
that provision was to have employer enforcement, and it didn't take
place--not under Republicans or Democrats. But we have addressed that
issue in the McCain-Kennedy proposal. We have 2,000 individuals whose
sole responsibility is going to be in terms of the adequate enforcement
of the labor protections. Is it also not true--it is true--that we have
had important economists who have been before our Judiciary Committee
who say that this will have an important, positive impact in terms of
wages, working conditions, and treatment of American workers?
I know there are several items that are included in this question,
but I want to make sure that we include and add on to what was the
excellent presentation of the Senator from Arizona. We have talked
about having a comprehensive approach. We hoped to have a comprehensive
approach earlier this morning, and we have a comprehensive approach by
recognizing what the Senator from Arizona has said and is so obvious--
that is, if you are going to have the demand in this country and
desperate people in the others, it makes a good deal more sense to try
to develop a legal process by which that can be controlled, rather than
think that we are going to be able to build fences high enough, long
enough, along the 1,800-mile border and prohibit tunnels deep enough to
keep people out.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, in response to my friend from
Massachusetts, the Kennedy-McCain bill was a subject of long
negotiations. And for more than a year, many of these issues were
discussed with us and others. We felt that one of the most important
aspects of this legislation was the protection of workers. One of the
reasons why illegal immigration is so evil--one aspect you don't hear
so much about is the terrible treatment and exploitation by cruel
people of innocent people. A year ago last August, I believe, a
policeman in Phoenix opened the door of a horse trailer and 73 people
were packed inside, and one was a 4-month-old child.
Often, the Senator from Massachusetts and I have discussed what it is
like to die in the desert. Every year, every summer more people die.
They are not coming--99 percent of them, according to the Border
Patrol--to do evil things but to work. Why are there jobs? Because
there are jobs that Americans will not fill.
My response to the Senator from Massachusetts is that no one should
be under the misunderstanding that this is another Bracero Program. The
Bracero Program died because of the abuses associated with it. This
gives them a status not of citizenship but of equal protection under
the law. Any human being who resides in the United States should not be
subject to exploitation and cruelty. That is the nature of America. We
don't say in America that only citizens have the protections of our
laws. We say anyone who comes to our country does, too.
So, finally, I want to say to my friend from Massachusetts that this
is a fundamental part of this legislation, as he knows. If you take
this out, you will then be face with the exact same economic pressures
that we have been experiencing in the past. And as much as I believe in
technology and as much as I think walls are important and UAVs and all
that, there has never been a case in history where you have been able
to stop people from doing something that has to do with their very
existence. That is the way many people feel who come here.
Mr. KENNEDY. One final question. The Senator is addressing the issue
of real security, national security. But we are committed to trying to
have a secure border. We have gone through the measures which we have
included in our legislation, many of which were enhanced during the
course of the markup and have been expanded in the supplemental. But a
key aspect of that security and in controlling the border is to stop
the flow of people climbing fences, going into tunnels, and
circumventing the border. A key aspect of this is to develop an orderly
process by which people in the limited numbers that we have outlined in
the bill would be able to come.

Would the Senator not agree that this is a security issue, border
security issue, as well as a worker issue?
Mr. McCAIN. I agree with the Senator. Interestingly enough, if I can
mention again, the President of the United States, having served as
Governor of the State of Texas, understands this issue very well. He
made a very important point last night because all elements of this
problem must be addressed together or none of them will be solved at
all. The President is exactly right. None of these problems can be
solved unless we have a comprehensive approach to this legislation.
Again, Mr. President, I say to my friend from Massachusetts, briefly,
that we still have a terrible problem of drugs flowing across our
border. If we had the guest worker program that we have talked about in
this legislation, then there would be people who are coming for jobs,
and we could focus our effort and attention on the drug dealers who are
now corrupting America's youth. I thank the Senator and, again, I hope
my colleagues realize the implication of this vote because if we did
take it out, then obviously--at least in the view of most experts that
I know--the rest of the reforms would not be either applicable or
enforceable.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania is recognized.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I am going to make a few comments briefly

[[Page S4593]]

in rebuttal. Then I understand Senator Dorgan is prepared to yield back
time and so will I. The other Senators whom we had talked about, when
they come to the floor, will be ready for their amendments
momentarily--Senators Bingaman, Obama, and Feinstein. If they are not
here, Senator Vitter can be recognized or Senator Kyl and Senator
Cornyn.
Mr. DORGAN. If the Senator will yield, I intend to use my remaining
time at the conclusion of the comments of the Senator from
Pennsylvania.
Mr. SPECTER. Fair enough. My information was incorrect then. By way
of brief rebuttal on the question of impact of guest workers on the
American workers, I ask unanimous consent that the testimony of Dan
Siciliano, from the Stanford Law School, be printed in the Record at
the conclusion of my comments.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See Exhibit 1.)
Mr. SPECTER. The key statement of Mr. Siciliano is:

Some claim that immigration reduces employment levels and
wages among native-born workers. This is generally not true.

The text of his statement amplifies on that. I ask unanimous consent
that the statement of Professor Harry Holzer from Georgetown University
be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my comments.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See Exhibit 2.)
Mr. SPECTER. The essence is a statement that:

There seems little doubt, then, that any negative effects
of immigration on earnings are modest in magnitude and mostly
short-term in nature.

I ask unanimous consent that the statement of Professor Richard
Freeman, Harvard University, be printed in the Record at the conclusion
of my statement.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See Exhibit 3.)
Mr. SPECTER. His conclusion was:

The gains to native complements exceed the losses to native
substitutes, so that immigration--like trade and capital
flows--are a net boon for the economy.

The Senator from California had made the argument that American
employees are disadvantaged by cheaper costs from immigrant employees,
and that is not so under the express terms of the statute.
The bill, S. 2611, does protect U.S. workers and eliminates
incentives for employers to hire foreign workers, unless no U.S. worker
is available. The bill provides that employers must at least pay the
higher of the actual wage paid to other employees with the same skill
so that immigrant workers are paid the same or, the prevailing wage for
that job. Employers must provide the same working conditions and
benefits that are normal to similar jobs, and employers must provide
insurance if State workers' compensation doesn't cover all the workers.
So that under the pending legislation, an employer has the same cost to
hire a foreign worker as a U.S. worker.
How much time remains on my side?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Eleven minutes.
Mr. SPECTER. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Exhibit 1

Senator Kennedy. Let me get to this point that the Chairman
has made, Dan, with your analysis. You gave us some
projections. You talked about the limitations in terms of
productivity, the numbers in the labor force, retirement
issues, and then the job growth. And you talked about GDP, 14
percent and 11 percent. You talked about legal and the
illegal. Maybe you could just flesh those figures out a
little bit. What you appear to be saying is that if you
consider the numbers of both legal and illegal, you get a
certain rate of growth, and without them you get another
different rate of growth. And that is what I would be
interested in.
Maybe we cannot parse between the legal numbers the
Chairman talked about, whether that is 500,000 or we are
looking at just the general range of numbers now. Could you
expand on that?
Mr. Siciliano. Sure. Thank you, Senator Kennedy. I think
this also answers Chairman Specter's question in part, which
is: What is the true net economic contribution and where does
it come from and why? And so from my viewpoint, and in light
of the demographic numbers, it appears that our economy is on
the trend growth rate, we hope, at 3 percent or better. Now,
that growth rate of GDP is reliant on many factors. One of
the key factors is available workers to fill the jobs that
are created. So even while at the high-skill level you have
Nobel Prize winners and other people inventing companies,
somebody needs to build the buildings, clean the buildings,
you know, service the lavatories in which these people are
operating. And this is a part of the capacity for GDP to
grow.
So to put a finer point on it, if you look at the fiscal
economic impact, which is the Government coffers impact, it
might be true that lower-skilled workers, just like all of us
on average, actually, at the moment because of deficit
spending, have a negative impact on the fiscal bottom line.
But that should not be confused--and this would be a mistake
to confuse this. That should not be confused with the
economic impact. It is a little like my younger sister who
recently said, ``I am earning more, but look at all the taxes
I am paying. I am paying more taxes.'' I said, ``Yes, but you
are earning more.''
And so we may have a modest net negative fiscal impact for
all low-wage workers in the United States, not just
immigrants. That is not unique to immigrants, documented or
undocumented, but what we do know is it helps us achieve a
higher rate of growth and national income goes up, which
benefits everybody. It becomes your challenge, I think to
talk about how to, you know, work that out at who shares and
how at the pie level. But it is clear that this divide
between available workers and the demand for workers will
slow down economic growth if we do not manage it
appropriately.
Senator KENNEDY. Let me just get to the high skilled/low-
skilled. I think most of us would like to believe that we are
going to train our own people to be able to take these high-
skilled jobs. And we have under our current programs training
resources that are paid into the fund to try to continue to
upgrade skills for Americans. But we are not able to get
quite there at the present time.
Other countries, industrial countries, have required
training programs. They pay--what is it?--in European
countries a percent and a half, other countries, so that they
have required training programs, which we do not have,
continuing training programs which we do not have.
So how are we going to adjust? What is your sense about how
we are going to--we have seen a significant--actually, we are
getting the skills, but where people that are going to into
these high-skilled programs, but how are we going to get
Americans up to speed so that those Nobel laureates are going
to be the sons of native workers rather than foreign workers?
What can you comment on that?
Mr. Siciliano. I think there are two issues. One, you know,
the expanded H-1B program with the continued diversion of
monies into special training programs is a good start, so we
need the talent in the first place. We need that high-skilled
talent to maintain our competitive edge, which gives us some
runway into which to develop and train native talent. It
cannot happen overnight. So the first question is: What do we
do to make sure over the next 20 years we still get the
world's absolute bet and brightest, lure them to our best
universities, have them pay for that education, make them
enamored of the United States, and then they stay here and
then have children.
Now, you divert that money and you direct it into targeted
training, and that is a bigger issue, I think, to entice
U.S.-born workers into the difficult and long-term training
that will prepare them for a modern, very knowledge-based
economy. But the start is to make sure we keep the industries
here because we lure the right talent here, and then we do
something over the next 20 years so that the 5-year-olds
right now do end up getting the double Ph.D., electrical
engineering and applied physics, and go on to win the Nobel
Prize. But you are talking about the 5-years-olds, not the
25-year-olds. We need the 25-year-old to get an H-1B, have
their own Government pay to go to Stanford University, get
that Ph.D. there, and then work at Google, stay here. Good
deal for us.
Senator Feinstein. Let me mention another point. I happen
to believe that the weakest part of the bills that I have
supported is the guest worker program. From a California
perspective, it is impossible to say to somebody you can come
here for at least six years by renewing your guest worker
permit, but at the end of six years you have to go home. The
experience we have had is quite simply people do not go home.
Therefore, it seems to me that the H-2A program, where you
bring someone for a limited period of time, has a much better
opportunity to work because then they do go back and forth
across the border
What do you believe is the optimum amount of time that an
individual will come as a guest worker and then actually
go home at the end of that period of time?
Mr. Siciliano. Senator Feinstein, I think one thing to
consider is that by limiting the amount of time that an
employer may utilize a guest worker, it alters their behavior
in terms of their incentives to invest even in a low-skilled
guest worker. So even a low-skilled worker will require a
certain amount of training and investment, and the shorter
the duration of that opportunity for employment, the less
investment there is, which is bad for everyone.
I think one of the possible alternative views here is to
recognize some of the limitations that occur if you create a
temporary guest worker program and then instead try to
identify those lesser-skilled individuals who, in the long
run--if you created boundaries of wage and hour rules,
allowable behavior on the part of businesses, and then

[[Page S4594]]

screened up front for who you would allow to enter on that
basis and create some path, assuming continuing employment,
and a very high bar for behavior and civic behavior, then
perhaps you can solve both problems, because I believe the
evidence demonstrates and I think a lot of the arguments
assume that the economy will work it out. If there are no
opportunities, people will go back.
Senator Feinstein. But that is difficult to do. Therefore,
if you take the 10 to 12 million people that are here already
that work in agriculture, construction, landscaping,
housekeeping, et cetera, and provide a steady stream of
employment and enable them to have a pathway to legalization,
are you not really doing the best thing possible economically
to see that there is economic upward mobility?
Mr. Siciliano. I see. With that subset, yes, I would argue
that that is the right path, and then on the other question I
would defer. I am sorry that I don't have a solution. . . .
Chairman Specter. Thank you, Senator Feinstein.
Senator Kyl.
Senator Kyl. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, panel. One
of the arguments for not being as tough in enforcing the law
especially at the border is that in the years past there was
a lot of circular migration especially from Mexico and
Central America, people who came here, worked for a while and
then went back home. It wasn't hard for them to continue that
process, but once we began strong border enforcement, then
they were stuck and stayed.
I don't know that there is any evidence to support that or
refute it, but it has been the basis for a lot of people
talking about this concept of circularity, and I want to get
back to that concept and also ask you this question in view
of the fact that at least a couple of you are very skeptical
that a temporary worker program really ends up being
temporary because people don't want to go home. I mean, what
I just said may to some extent refute that, but clearly there
are people that probably fall into both categories.
What we haven't talked about here is the differentiation
between a time like today when we are at very high employment
and a time when in the future we will have a recession and we
will have high unemployment. And let me stipulate for a
moment, even though there is a little bit of argument about
mechanization, and so on, that in the lettuce fields of Yuma
County, it has always been hard to get Americans to do that
work. It has been traditionally work done, by the way, by
people who live in Mexico and come across everyday and go
back home by and large, although there are some that stay
longer.
In Arizona, we can't find enough people to build houses
today. Under the bill that Senator Cornyn and I have, we
would be issuing lots of temporary visas right now. But we
have also seen many economic downturns when you can't get a
job in construction, no matter how skilled an American
citizen you are. In that case, under our bill we wouldn't be
issuing temporary visas. We would let the ones that are here
expire; we wouldn't issue any more.
I am troubled by the fact that all of you seem to be so
skeptical that people would return. One concept was that,
well, when there is not work, they will return. But isn't it
just as likely that what they will do is under-bid Americans
for those same jobs?
I have gone through enough political times when we were in
that high employment situation where Americans were looking
for work. It is not a pleasant thing. So I am concerned about
a program that lets people come in under today's
circumstances, but who may not have a job, or at least
there won't be enough jobs for everybody in tomorrow's
circumstances.
Given that fact, doesn't it make sense to consider the
economic realities in how many permits you issue, and
especially if you are saying folks won't go home, to be very
careful about the number of visas that you issue for these
low-skilled workers because you have to consider tomorrow's
lack of employment opportunity as well as today's full
employment opportunity?
I have sort of posited several different thoughts and
questions inferred there. If you could just each give me your
general take on what I have said.
Mr. Siciliano. let me throw in one item, as well, to
clarify. For all we know about business cycles, we still
don't know a lot. One of the things, I think, to observe is
that as we go into a down business cycle, we make macro
adjustments to the cost of capital as a way of spurring the
economy potentially and creating jobs and creating businesses
through capital formation.
It is worth thinking about--and I don't think it is a
conclusive answer for you, but it is worth thinking about the
fact that available labor supplies during a downturn is its
own form of self-corrective mechanism. And I would fear
second-guessing at a micro level the small and medium-size
businesses who might be reformulating strategies to alter
their response to global competition and need the liquidity
that is provided by available workforce. And we do suffer
through a terrible time which is short and hence has changed,
but it might be akin to cost of capital.
Labor is one of the critical inputs to all of economic
development and we tinker with it at a micro level, we might
inadvertently prevent ourselves from emerging as quickly as
we might otherwise have from a recession.
Senator Kyl. I appreciate that. In view of the fact that
there is only one more to question, might I just offer a
comment? All of that there is fine in economic theory. As I
said, I have had to stand in town hall meetings with 3 or 400
Americans that don't have jobs.
Senator Sessions. I am not sure wno to ask this question
to, but if anybody would speak up and give me a thought on
it, I would appreciate it. Is there a difference economically
in the effect of a temporary or a permanent worker? Does
anybody have any thought about that?
Mr. Siciliano. Senator Sessions, I will address one small
part so that others can comment, and that is I think we know
intuitively that renters and owners treat their properties
differently. Renting to own may be a compromise, but I would
say that we have recent evidence citing Giovanni Peri's paper
out of UC-Davis in November that we know that the
entrepreneurial behavior of those immigrants who feel that
they have some possibility of being here in the long term is
increased because they are more likely to invest their
capital here in the United States to engage in skill-building
that resonates better in the United States and they get
better returns on.
So my one comment would be we know we sometimes get very
efficient and good behaviors for our national interest from
immigrants of all skill levels if the think they may have a
long-term role to play here both about themselves and their
children.
Senator Sessions. Would it be in our interest, therefore,
to attempt to identify the people that bring the most skill
sets and the most ability to the country when we allow
whatever limited number we have to come here legally?
Mr. Siciliano. Mr. Chairman, I am familiar with the the
[Center for Immigration] study. I can answer the specific
question, if I may.
Chairman Specter. Go ahead, Professor Siciliano.
Mr. Siciliano. Thank you. That particular study has two
types of expenditures--direct payments to immigrants and
immigrant households, so it includes sometimes U.S. citizen
children, and indirect attributive costs which are the
general expenses by the government divided by the number of
households in the United States.
The study is actually dominated by the general government
expenditures component of those costs. So, in other words,
you take the government expenditures, you divide it by the
number of households, and then you take that number. And that
number is a large number right now because we have high
levels of expenditures relative to tax collections.
That is why it is driven by our fiscal state as a Federal
Government, as opposed to simply the behavior of the
immigrants. The direct payments are an important component,
but they are actually dominated by and outweighed by the
general expenditures share, which is interesting, but I think
it overstates the interest of that particular number that you
have cited. It is not irrelevant.
Chairman Specter. The President of the Dominican Republic
was very interested in the money coming back to the Dominican
Republic. The estimates are the immigrants in the United
States send home about $39 billion a year in remittances. So
on one hand, there is a concern about what that does to our
economy. That purchasing power is not being used in the
United States.
The other aspect is that our foreign relations are very
complicated. We heard a great deal about the difficulties
with Venezuela and President Chavez. A vote of the Andean
countries on protecting property rights was three-to-two,
with the United States winning. We have trade there to try to
strengthen our foreign relations. We heard a lot of talk
about their recognizing the leaders of the foreign
governments, recognizing our rights to control our borders,
but also looking for a humanitarian approach that we have.
How big an impact is it, Professor Siciliano, if $39
billion is remitted from the United States to the home
countries?
Mr. Siciliano. Well, as a component of the overall economy,
I actually think it is a fairly small number, but it
obviously has tremendous impact for the countries who receive
the remittances.
Two points. One, the transmission of that money actually
generates substantial revenue and profits for U.S.-based
business, primarily financial institutions who serve as the
intermediaries to make that happen. I don't think we want to
forget that.
The second issue is that the money lands in the hands of
individuals who are nationals of obviously that country and
some of it recycles as demand for our goods and services,
hence jump-starting, we hope, the ongoing trade relations
which may mitigate some of the foreign national risks you
have identified. So I think it is a small piece in a big
global economy and one that shouldn't dominate the thinking
about how we decide
to move forward on the immigration de-
bate . . .
Chairman Specter. Professor Siciliano, do you have a brief
comment?
Mr. Siciliano. Yes, two key points. I think anecdote in the
hands of the economist is a dangerous weapon, so let me just
give two kinds of actual points of data. First, in the 1960s
we know that roughly half of the U.S. workforce lacked a high
school diploma, and now about 12 percent of the native-born
workforce lacks a high school diploma.
This skill set difference is driving the comment that I
think is true, which is it is not

[[Page S4595]]

the case that immigrant labor is displacing by and large U.S.
labor or depressing wages, and there are two key points to
highlight that. Nevada and Kentucky, arguably similar in cost
of living in many ways--7.5 percent of the population of
Nevada right now is estimated to be undocumented. The average
high school drop-out wage is $10 per hour. In Kentucky, less
than 1 percent of the population is estimated to be
undocumented, and yet the high school drop-out wage is $8.73
per hour.
It can't be simplified into simply saying immigrant labor
shows up and it hurts U.S.-born labor. It is much more
complex than that. I think, net, it clearly benefits U.S.
labor . . .
____

Exhibit 2

Does Immigration Help or Hurt Less-Educated Americans?

Testimony of Harry J. Holzer, Judiciary Committee, U.S. Senate, April
25, 2006

The vast majority of economists in the U.S. believe that,
on average, immigration is good for the U.S. economy. By
helping reduce the costs of producing certain goods and
services, it adds to our national output, and makes consumers
better off. Business owners also profit very clearly from
immigration.
At the same time, it is possible that some native-born
Americans--especially the less-educated Americans who might
have to compete with immigrants for jobs--might be made worse
off. Certain costs--especially for public education and
services to the poor--might rise. And there are various
noneconomic considerations, both positive and negative.
On these various issues, what does the evidence show? And
what does the evidence imply for immigration policy?

Effects on Earnings of Native-Born Americans

For many years, most studies of the U.S. labor market have
shown little or no negative effects of immigration on the
wages or employment of native-born workers--including
minorities and those with little education. More recently,
another few studies that use different statistical methods
from the earlier ones find somewhat stronger negative
effects. According to these more recent studies, immigration
during the period 1980-2000 might have reduced the earnings
of native-born high school dropouts by as much as 8 percent,
and those of other workers by 2-4 percent.
However, some strong statistical assumptions are required
to achieve these results. And, even in these latter studies,
the long run negative effects of immigration (i.e., after
capital flows have adjusted across sectors to the presence of
immigrants) are reduced to only 4-5% for dropouts and
virtually disappear for labor overall.
There seems little doubt, then, that any negative effects
of immigration on earnings are modest in magnitude and mostly
short-term in nature. To the extent that high school
graduates as well as dropouts in the U.S. have fared poorly
in the labor market in recent years--especially among men--
other factors are much more likely responsible (such as new
technologies in the workplace, international trade, and
disappearing unionization).
Native-born minority and especially African-American men
face many labor market problems besides immigration--such as
poor education, discrimination, and the disappearance of jobs
from central-cities. In recent years, their high rates of
crime and incarceration, as well as child support obligations
for non-custodial fathers, have worsened their situation.
Does immigration also worsen their plight? There are
certain sectors--like construction, for example--where direct
competition from immigrants might reduce employment
opportunities for black men.\2\ But in many other
occupational categories (e.g., agriculture, gardening,
janitorial work) such competition is more limited or
nonexistent, as the native-born men show little interest in
such employment at current wage levels. In the absence of
immigration, it is possible that wages would rise and maybe
entice some native-born men to seek these jobs that they
consider dirty and menial; but the wage increases needed
would likely never materialize in many cases, as employers
would either replace these jobs with capital equipment or
enter other kinds of business as wages rose.
Two additional points are important here. First, the
potential competition to less-educated American workers from
immigrants depends in part on the overall health of the
economy. Immigration rates have been fairly constant to the
U.S. over the past few decades. In the very strong labor
markets of the late 1990's, these rates of immigration did
not prevent us from achieving extremely low unemployment
rates and real earnings growth, even among the least-educated
Americans. In the more sluggish labor markets since 2001, the
same rate of immigration generates more concern about job
competition. But, even in this latter period, the very weak
earnings growth of most American workers cannot possibly be
attributed to the arrival of a million or so new immigrants
annually.
Second, the illegal status of perhaps one-third of
immigrants might well magnify any competitive pressures they
generate for less-educated native-born workers. The reduced
wages and benefits associated with their illegal status offer
employers one more incentive for hiring them instead of
native-born workers, who might be interested in some of these
jobs and might be more appealing to employers at equal wages.

Other Economic Effects

There is virtually no doubt that immigration reduces the
prices paid by consumers on many goods and services. There
remains much uncertainty about the magnitudes of these
effects, and on exactly who benefits the most. For instance,
higher-income Americans might benefit the most from child
care and other private household services, gardening, and
food preparation services in restaurants. But lower-income
Americans likely * * * disproportionately from lower
prices on food, housing and even some medical services
that are associated with immigrant labor in agriculture,
construction and health support occupations respectively.
Over the next few decades the contributions of immigrant
labor to certain key sectors will likely grow more important.
For example, the scientists and engineers needed to keep our
nation competitive in scientific innovation and new product
development will depend to a growing extent on foreign
graduate students who choose to remain here after finishing
their schooling, even though their presence might reduce the
incentives of some native-born students from entering these
fields. In other sectors, the retirements of ``Baby Boomers''
may also generate stronger labor demand. A variety of labor
market adjustments (such as delayed retirements, new
technologies, greater foreign ``offshoring'' of work, etc.)
will likely mitigate the impacts of these retirements in the
aggregate. But in certain key sectors--especially health care
and elder care--these adjustments are less likely to meet the
necessary demand, and the need for immigrant (and other)
labor may remain quite strong.
Perhaps the most serious economic costs imposed by
immigrants on native-born Americans--at least in those few
states that serve as the primary ``ports of entry'' to
immigrants--are those associated with public education,
health care and other income transfers to the poor. While
these costs are no doubt significant in those states, they
have been reduced by legal changes in the welfare system that
reduced immigrant eligibility for such transfers. Over time,
immigration might modestly improve the fiscal status of
Social Security and Medicare, as it helps replenish the
falling ratios of workers to retirees.
By far the greatest benefits of immigration to the U.S.
accrue to the immigrants themselves, whose earnings here are
often vastly higher than they would be in their home
countries. Both foreign policy and humanitarian
considerations might lead us to approve of this, even though
the direct economic benefits to native-born Americans are
more limited.

policy implications

If immigration is largely good for the overall U.S.
economy, should we simply ``open the floodgates'' and remove
all legal restrictions on it? Most Americans would be
reluctant to do so, especially since there are some
significant costs to immigration, and at least some workers
who are made worse off. The noneconomic implications of such
a move (e.g., for the national character and makeup of our
communities) might also be troubling to many people.
But, if our ability to restrict immigration legally is
imperfect, what shall we do? Efforts to improve the
enforcement of existing laws in humane ways (e.g., without
creating felonies for illegal immigrants and those who hire
or assist them, or building costly fences along the Mexican
border) may be worth trying, though their effectiveness may
be limited. On the other hand, generating pathways by which
illegal immigrants in the U.S. can achieve full citizenship
(by paying fines, back taxes etc.) makes a lot of sense,
given that their illegal status imposes hardships on them and
their children while likely exacerbating the competition they
pose to native-born Americans. It seems unlikely that any
such move would dramatically raise the incentives that
illegal immigrants currently have to enter the country given
the gains in their standards of living that occur even when
they enter illegally.
Guest worker programs have some major limitations,
particularly in terms of enforcing legal rights for these
workers and ensuring that they maintain some bargaining power
relative to their employers. Since most guest workers stay
permanently, the benefits of such an approach seem dubious.
But some legal changes that encourage greater immigration of
highly educated workers over time would likely generate
greater benefits to the U.S. economy.
Finally, if we really want to improve opportunities for
less-educated Americans in the labor market, there are a
variety of approaches (such as improvements in education and
training, expansion of public supports like health insurance
and child care, and supporting protective institutions such
as minimum wage laws and unions) that would likely be more
effective than restricting immigration.
____

Exhibit 3

The New Immigration and the New U.S. Economy

(Richard B. Freeman, Harvard University and NBER, April 25, 2006)

Statement before the Senate Judiciary Committee

I have organized my comments around eight points.

[[Page S4596]]

(1) Immigration is part of globalization. It is intimately
connected to increased trade, free mobility of capital, and
transmission of knowledge across national lines. Ideally,
immigration and these other flows allow the U.S. and the
world to make better use of available resources and to raise
national and world output. A worker who comes to the U.S.
increases the American labor supply, which means the country
can produce more. If that worker does not immigrate, he or
she may make the same or similar good in their native country
and export that good to the U.S. Or a U.S. or other
multinational may invest in that worker's country to produce
the good. In other situations, the immigrant may bring
capital, particularly human capital, with them, so that both
capital and labor move together. The message for thinking
about immigration in the global economy is: view immigration
as related to trade and capital flows; policies that affect
trade and capital will alter immigration and conversely.
(2) Immigration is the least developed part of
globalization. Immigrants make up about 3 percent of the
global workforce; whereas international trade's share of
world output is around 13 percent; and foreign equities in
investors' equity portfolio are on the order of 15 percent,
as of the early 2000s. Consistent with this, the range of pay
for workers with nominally similar skills is far greater than
the range of prices for goods around the world or the returns
to capital: The ratios of wages in the same occupation in
high paying countries relative to low paying countries are on
the order of ten to one measured in exchange rates and are on
the order of four to five to one measured in purchasing power
parity prices. The comparable ratio for prices of Big Macs is
less than 2 to 1 and the comparable ratio for the cost of
capital is 1.4 to 1. Thus, there is a huge incentive for
workers to immigrate from developing countries to developing
countries. Given this gap in incomes, the incentive to
immigrate will remain huge for the next 40-50 years at least.
(3) In the simplest economic model of globalization, the
flow of people, goods, and capital are substitute ways to
raise production and economic well-being. During the NAFT A
debate, the Clinton Administration argued that the treaty
would reduce illegal Mexican immigration to the U.S. on the
notion that increased trade with Mexico would create more
jobs there and lower the incentive to migrate to the U.S.
This turned out to be incorrect. The U.S. attracts capital
flows and unskilled immigrants and skilled immigrants while
running a huge trade deficit. One reason is that the U.S. has
a technological edge and a business climate edge over most
other countries, particularly poor countries.
( 4) Economic analysis predicts that immigrants reduce
earnings of substitute factors and raise the earnings of
complementary factors, where complements include capital and
other types of native-born labor. The gains to native
complements exceed the losses to native substitutes, so that
immigration--like trade and capital flows--are a net boon for
the economy. Most immigration studies estimate the adverse
effect of immigrants on native earnings or employment, but
the logic of the analysis establishes a direct link between
the losses to native substitutes and the larger gains to
native complements. Studies that compare wages/employment in
cities with lots of immigrants with wages/employment in
cities with few immigrants find little adverse effect of
immigration on native workers. But this also means that there
is little native gain from immigration (save when immigrants
do things that no native can or will do at any reasonable
wage). Studies that compare wages/employment among groups
over time find that immigrants depress the wages/
employment of natives, with a larger impact among more
highly educated workers. Even so, the gains and losses to
natives from immigration are dwarfed by the gains that
immigrants themselves make. An unskilled Mexican can earn
6 to 8 times as much in the U.S. as in rural Mexico. The
main beneficiaries from immigration to the U.S. are
immigrants; this is why so many are willing to enter
illegally when they can--from Mexico or Central America or
the Caribbean.
(5) The huge difference in the earnings of low skilled
immigrants, in particular, in their native land and in the
U.S. creates a powerful economic force for continued
immigrant flows and makes it very difficult to control the
U.S. borders. At the same time, however, it suggests that
many current illegal immigrants or potential immigrants would
be willing to pay for legal status in the country. To change
immigration flows from illegal to legal and to control the
flows requires redistributing some of the huge gains to
immigrants to natives.
(6) At the other end of the skill distribution, the U.S.
relies extensively on highly skilled immigrants to maintain
our comparative advantage in science and technology. The
United States imports science and engineering specialists,
who help the country maintain its position at the
technological frontier. During the 1990s boom, the United
States greatly increased the proportion of foreign-born
workers among scientists and engineers. In 2000 over half of
the country's Ph.D. scientists and engineers were born
overseas! Sixty percent of the growth of S&E workers over
this decade came from the foreign born. Without this flow of
immigrants, U.S. labs, including government labs such as
those of NIH, would have to cut their workload in half.
Highly skilled immigrants add to the ability of our economy
to maintain predominance in high-tech industries with good
jobs and growth potential. The desire of highly educated
immigrants to come to the U.S. is a major competitive
advantage to the U.S.
(7) But having a huge flow of highly skilled immigrants
invariably reduces the incentives for American students to go
on in science and engineering. The 1990s increase in science
and engineering employment occurred without great increases
in pay for these workers, in part because of the large supply
of foreign born specialists desirous of coming to the U.S.
Without gains in earnings and quality of work life, many
outstanding American students, particularly men, shunned
science and engineering in favor of business, law, and other
disciplines. This does not however mean that the U.S. must
limit foreign flows to attract more Americans into these
fields. It can attract more Americans with more and increased
graduate fellowships and undergraduate scholarships. To
maintain the U.S. as the lead scientific and technological
country, the U.S. should develop policies to attract more
able students from our native born population without seeking
to reduce immigrant flows.
(8) Multinational firms today source highly skilled labor
globally. They seek the best workers they can get regardless
of country of origin. As the number of university graduates
is increasing throughout the world, the competition facing
educated American workers has risen. Is it better for native
born and resident Americans to compete with educated
foreigners from developing countries who come as immigrants
in the U.S., where wages and working conditions are
reasonably high, or to compete with them when they are
working overseas, where wages and working conditions are
generally lower? Is it better to have U.S. firms offshore
jobs or bring in more immigrants? While there is no
definitive analysis of these questions, my guess is that it
is better to have the top foreign talent in the U.S.; and to
do what we can to get them to become citizens and remain here
than to have them compete with U.S. workers from lower wage
settings overseas. Because trade and capital and immigration
flows are intimately connected, however, there are some
economic factors operating in the other direction.
In sum, we should think about the economics of immigration
in two parts. Taking unskilled and often illegal immigration
first, the main beneficiaries of low skill immigration are
the immigrants, who have a huge economic incentive to come to
the U.S. when they can. The vast improvement they can make in
their lives and the lives of their children by coming to our
country speaks well for our society, even if few of those
benefits accrue to current citizens and residents. With
respect to the highly educated immigrants, they add to the
country's strength in the sectors that we need to prosper in
the global economy. We should compete actively in the global
market for the top students and workers in science and
engineering and other technical fields, but also provide
incentives for more Americans to enter these fields.

Mr. GREGG. Will the Senator yield me 3 minutes?
Mr. SPECTER. Yes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire is recognized
for 3 minutes.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to this amendment and
support Senator Specter and Senator Kennedy's and Senator McCain's
position. I think, relative to the effort in this Congress and in the
Senate, nobody has put more time into the issue of how we secure our
borders relative to the actual physical activity on our borders than I
have because I find myself in the jurisdiction of the Appropriations
Committee that covers the border security issues.
I have come to this conclusion: We can secure our borders. But you
cannot do it with just people and money on the border. There has to be
a policy in place that creates an atmosphere that lessens the pressure
for people to come across the border illegally. The essence of doing
that is this guest worker concept. Yes, you have to do everything we
can to tighten up the borders in the area of boots on the ground,
technology being used, and making sure we have a strong Coast Guard, a
strong immigration force, and strong border security force. That type
of commitment has been a primary effort of the Senate and myself. We
put $1.9 billion into the supplemental that went through here to try to
upgrade the capital for the aircraft and cars and unmanned vehicles and
the necessary facilities for the Coast Guard, recognizing that border
security has to be significantly beefed up.
The President made this point last night very well. But that cannot
stop the issue--that doesn't resolve the issue of how you secure the
border because as long as you have human nature guiding people's
actions, and as long as you have the role of supply and demand in play,
you are going to have

[[Page S4597]]

people who are willing to take the risks to come across the border
illegally, no matter how many people you have there. If you are paying
$5 a day in Mexico and $50 a day in the United States for a job, and
you have a family and you are trying to better yourself, you are going
to want to seek that job in America.
The question is, Isn't there a way to set this process up so that a
job seeker can come here, do the job, which the employer also needs
them to do because they can't otherwise fill that position--and this
bill protects to make sure that is the case, that it is not taking jobs
from Americans--isn't there some way to set this up so that a person
can come into this country, work a reasonable amount of time, and then
return to their country, or be here as a guest worker in a guest worker
status?
That is what this bill attempts to address. It is one of the three
elements of the formula for getting control over our borders. The first
element is, of course, strong physical capability on the borders to
control the borders.
The second element is to make sure we have in place a program where
when people come into this country to work, they can come in legally.
The third element, of course, is enforcement at the workplace to make
sure people who are working have that legal status of a guest worker.
That is the essence of this bill, in part, along with the border
security elements. I strongly support it and hope we will reject the
amendment as proposed.
I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of the time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the Senator from Pennsylvania is not on
the floor of the Senate. My understanding was when his side was
finished, he was going to yield back his time. I will proceed on the
assumption that his time is done, and I have the right to close. How
much time remains?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 23 minutes.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, this is an interesting discussion and
interesting debate. A couple of points have come to mind.
I have heard now three or four people come to the floor of the Senate
and say: We have worked a long time and we put together a comprehensive
proposal--in fact, they credited the President for saying the proposal
needs to be comprehensive--and you can't take any part of this and
change it. It is like pulling a loose string on a cheap suit: pull the
string, the arm falls off. You destroy the bill if you do anything that
alters it.
Then they come to the floor and say this is a three-legged stool, and
if you cut off one of the legs, the stool falls over. Maybe they ought
to bring a four-legged stool to the floor of the Senate. If you have a
bad leg, you better have another leg to balance on.
The fact is, this is not a three-legged stool or a cheap suit. It is
bad policy, just bad policy.
I want to answer some of the offers made by the other side. First,
this issue of guests, temporary workers. We have a guest bedroom in our
home. We call it the guest bedroom because it is not used much. But
when someone uses the guest bedroom, you expect they are going to be
there for a short period and leave. They are friends who come and stay.
If somebody were to come and stay forever in that room, I guess I
wouldn't call them a guest. Yet this so-called guest provision they
have stuck in this bill by saying we are going to declare illegal
immigration legal for up to 3.8 million people in the next 6 years--
that is the way we will deal with illegal immigration. We will just
call it legal. The so-called guest provision is people who come here,
then apply for a green card, and then stay. There is nothing temporary
about that. Don't call them guests. Guests, future flow--what soft-
sounding words. Maybe tourists, guest tourists, future flow. But we
know why they are coming. My colleagues described why they are coming.
They want to work in this country.
The problem is, in all this discussion, I don't hear anybody talking
about the American worker. What is the impact on the American worker?
I didn't know all of the economists just cited by my friend from
Pennsylvania. They are probably very distinguished economists, probably
extraordinarily well-educated economists, probably economists whose
names I should know and, if so, I apologize.
Let me read this name, Paul Samuelson. I studied his textbook on
economics. I actually taught his textbook in college. Professor Paul
Samuelson. If you didn't learn this in Economics 101, then you should
have failed. He says:

Let us underline this basic principle: An increase in the
labor supply will, other things being equal, tend to depress
wage rates.

That is exactly what has happened in this country. Now we say there
are 11 to 12 million people who have come to this country illegally. I
said earlier that I don't want to diminish the worth or dignity of
anyone who is in this country legally or illegally. I am not interested
in trying to diminish their worth or dignity. Somebody has been here 25
years, didn't come legally 25 years ago, has a child here, or two,
perhaps a grandchild, they worked here, paid taxes here, I am not
interested in rounding them up and moving them out of this country.
I understand some of the urges of people who have written some of
this legislation. What I don't understand is this: There is no
discussion about its impact on the American worker when they say: Oh,
by the way, let's solve all these issues and let's, on top of all of
this, add one more big arm that sticks out, and that is the so-called
guest workers where we allow 3.8 million people in the next 6 years who
are not here now, not working in America now, living outside of our
country now, to come in and take American jobs.
What on Earth are we thinking? Can't there be some modicum of
discussion about the effect on American workers?
I put this chart up earlier, and I will put it up again because this
discussion relates exactly to a string of failures. I am told we are
all complimenting the President for his speech last night. I don't
compliment the President for his trade strategy. We have the highest
trade deficit in the history of this country: every single day, 7 days
a week, $2 billion in trade deficit--every single day. That means
Americans jobs are going overseas. We are choking on debt.

What is the status of this trade? It is a green light for big
companies to export jobs, and they are going wholesale, 3 to 4 million
jobs just in the last few years. They are leaving.
By the way, Alan Blinder, a mainstream economist, former Vice
Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, said in his recent piece: I
believe in ``Foreign Affairs,'' that there are now 42 to 54 million
American jobs that are potentially subject to being exported to other
parts of the world because now we have 1 billion to 1.5 billion people
in the rest of the world willing to work for pennies. So 42 to 54
million American jobs are subject to that kind of influence.
He says they won't all be exported, but even those who remain here
will see lower wages and downward pressure on wages and benefits,
health care, and retirement. That is the future on that side. Exporting
good jobs.
The world is flat, we are told. The book shines from the bookstores,
``The World is Flat.'' We look with rose-colored glasses at all the
American jobs now in Bangalore, now in Xinsheng, China. We say: Isn't
that something?
I will tell you what is something. Those jobs used to be here
supporting families. There is no social program this Senate works on
that is more important than a good job that pays benefits and allows
people to take care of their family. There is no social program as good
as that.
We are talking about exporting good jobs, and exactly the same
influence that resulted in this provision being put in this bill wants
there to be imported cheap labor through the back door. That is what
this guest worker provision is all about: importing cheap labor.
We are told the reason the 1986 law that was trumpeted 20 years ago,
immigration reform, sanctions against employers who hire illegal
immigrants didn't work is because there was no guest worker program.
That is unbelievable to me. That is not the case at all.
This proposition is to say: You know how we will stop illegal
immigration? We will just define them all as legal.

[[Page S4598]]

At least 325,000 plus 20 percent, that is 3.8 million in 6 years. We
will define them as legal. We won't have a problem, we will just change
the definition.
Let me show a couple of charts. These are people living in
extraordinarily primitive conditions. They are undocumented workers. We
can see where they are bunking. They were brought in, by the way, by a
company to help repair in the aftermath of Katrina, a Government
contract, mind you, with undocumented workers.
Let me tell you whose jobs they took. That contractor hired these
folks, and all the electricians, including one Sam Smith whose house
was completely destroyed in the Ninth Ward after Katrina slammed into
that coast. He returned to the city because of the promise of $22-an-
hour wages for qualified, experienced, long-term electricians. He and
75 people were guaranteed work for a year at that naval institution.
He was quickly disappointed. He lost his job within 3 weeks because
the other contracting company brought in undocumented workers who were
unqualified and were willing to work for pennies.
I am the one who exposed this situation, and not long after I exposed
it, there were inspectors who went on that base. I don't know the
result of it all. All I am telling you is this is going on all across
this country. This is a guy who lost his home and had a job and was
displaced by someone coming through the back door willing to work for
pennies. It wasn't just that person, it was the employer who decided
they wanted to fatten their profits by hiring, in this case, illegals.
The way to solve that is not to say: Let's make them legal. The way
to solve that is to say that job ought to go to Sam who lost his home,
who is a qualified electrician. He is the person who needed that job.
Yet contractors bring in these undocumented workers or, in this case,
they perhaps bring in workers under the so-called guest worker
provisions. Actually, they are not really guest workers, they are low-
wage replacement workers. We should call them what they are.
We were told in the discussion earlier that we should accept this
because we can't stop it. It is going to happen whether we like it or
not, so let's just declare them legal. I don't understand that at all.
I mentioned earlier that this planet we live on, to the extent we
know it, is the only place in the universe where we know life exists
and we move around the Sun. On this planet of ours, we were blessed to
be born in this country, live in this country, or come to this country
and be a part of this great place called the United States. We built a
standard of living unparalleled in the world. We did that through great
sacrifice and through great debates. Now we are told none of that
matters very much because it is a flat world, it is a global economy;
by the way, we can move jobs overseas, and we can bring cheap labor
through the back door.
Just once--and I guess it won't happen this afternoon--just once I
would like to hear a real debate about jobs in this country, about
American workers and, yes, that includes Hispanic, African-American,
Asian-American workers--our entire workforce. Just once I want to hear
a discussion about what this means to American workers. Yet almost none
of that has been heard on the floor of the Senate any time during this
discussion.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. DORGAN. I will be happy to yield.
Mr. SESSIONS. I have the opportunity to serve on the Senate Judiciary
Committee. We had one hearing that dealt with these issues and dealt
with some of the issues the Senator has been talking about
specifically. Professor Richard Freeman--and these were pretty pro-
immigration panels, but I think they all agree with Senator Dorgan--
Richard Freeman holds the Herbert Asherman Chair, professor of
economics at Harvard University. This was his quote just a few weeks
ago at a hearing:

One of the concerns when immigrants come in that way, they
may take some jobs from some Americans and drive down the
wages of some Americans and, obviously, if there is a large
number of immigrants coming in and if they are coming in at a
bad economic time, that's likely to happen.

Is that consistent with the Senator's views and that of Professor
Samuelson?
Mr. DORGAN. That is exactly the case, although this is Professor
Freeman. I have never known an economist to lose his or her job to a
bad trade agreement. They sit around thumbing their suspenders. They
occasionally smoke a pipe, wear their little corduroy coat with their
leather arm pads. They pontificate about these issues. The fact is,
half of them can't remember their telephone numbers, and they are
telling us what is going to happen 5 years in the future.
I understand, and I think most people understand, what is happening
in this country today. What is happening today is the export of good
jobs and the import of cheap labor and depressing the conditions of
employment in America. That is what is happening, and nobody seems to
care very much.
The inequality grows. The wealthy get wealthier, the people at the
bottom are stuck--they haven't had an increase in the minimum wage in 9
years, mind you, so they are stuck and they are losing ground.
The question is, Who is going to stand for them and speak for them?
Mr. President, how much time remains?
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Martinez). The Senator has 10 minutes 15
seconds remaining.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I mentioned earlier--and I think it fits
exactly with the debate--the export of jobs and import of cheap labor.
I mentioned about the dancing grapes. All of us have seen when Fruit of
the Loom advertises their underwear, they do it with people called
dancing grapes. Somebody is dressed in red grapes and somebody else is
dressed in green grapes. We have all seen them. What kind of adult
would wear a grape suit and sing? Nonetheless, we are all entertained
by dancing grapes.
The dancing grapes represent Fruit of the Loom underwear, T-shirts,
shorts, so on. They were made in this country, just as Levis and other
products were made in this country. The dancing grapes danced right out
of our country. All those jobs to make those underwear, gone. This
country doesn't make one pair of Levis anymore. Not one pair of Levis
is made in the United States.
Anyway, the dancing grapes leave our country, and those jobs are
elsewhere. Why are they gone from this country? Because they went in
search of cheap labor.
So to the extent that companies can move these jobs out of this
country to find cheap labor, they will. They still want to sell back
into this country. They still need the American consumer, the American
consumer who has just lost his or her job. One question is, then, where
is the income going to come from?
In any event, even as they move these jobs out of this country, there
are some that will remain in this country. In this new global economy,
there are some jobs you can't move. And some of the same economic
interests that want to move the jobs they can want to displace the jobs
they can't with cheap labor.
How do they do that with cheap labor? What they do is they attract
people to come into this country from areas around the world--and one-
half of the people in this world live on less than $2 a day--they
attract people to come in the back door. At the moment, it is illegal,
so we gather on the floor of the Senate to talk about illegal
immigration. What is one of the approaches to solve this? Let's just
get a stamp and stamp it legal. That way we can say we don't have
illegal immigration. So it appears to me what we are going to have is
up to 3.8 million people in the next 6 years, who will come into this
country and take American jobs, who otherwise would be declared
illegal. By the way, that is on top of the 11 million or 12 million
people the underlying bill will describe as legal. They say we are
going to allow them to come in, take American jobs, but they will not
be illegal because we have decided in the Senate we are going to put a
different stamp there. It is going to be fine.
So nobody on the Senate floor is standing up and saying: What about
the tradeoff here of an American family? We hear a lot about other
families. One of my colleagues just described

[[Page S4599]]

economic immigrants. Man, the world is full of them. If the world has
one-half of its population making less than $2 a day, are there
economic immigrants willing to come from many corners of this globe to
this country? The answer is, of course. But we have immigration laws
and quotas because if we were flooded with tens and tens of millions of
people searching for opportunities in our country, we would diminish
opportunities for Americans who live here and work here and built this
country. So that is why we have immigration quotas.
One final point, if I might, on this issue of employer sanctions.
That is a matter of will. You know there are no employer sanctions. The
law says there are employer sanctions. Last year, I am told--I need to
check this for sure, but I am told that there was one enforcement
effort against one employer that hired illegal immigrants. The year
before, there were three in the entire United States--three. That is a
matter of lack of will. That is a matter of looking the other way when
businesses want to hire cheap labor through the back door. Only when
they are pressed will authorities finally go down and take a look at
the folks living in these conditions who have taken jobs of people who
lost their homes in Hurricane Katrina. Only when they are forced will
someone show up, knock on the door, and say: You know something, this
isn't legal.
This is a very important debate. In some ways, I regret that we have
as short a time as we do. I probably should not have agreed to a time
agreement, there is so much to say about it. Yet we will have a vote
this afternoon.
My colleagues have spoken here with great authority. We all come here
and wear white shirts and dark suits and all sound authoritative. Some
are right, and some are wrong. It is hard to tell the difference. So we
will have a vote on this. At the end of this vote, I suppose this will
move right ahead because we are told, if this vote prevails, if my
amendment prevails, as I said earlier, it is like pulling a loose
thread on a cheap suit--the whole arm falls off and the whole suit is
worthless. I don't understand why they construct legislation that way,
but every time somebody brings a proposal to the floor of the Senate
which is the result of negotiations, they say you can't interrupt
anything because, after all, when we shut the door and negotiated this,
we all did that in good faith, so don't be messing with our product. If
you pull one piece of it out, you ruin what we have done. I have heard
that a million times on the floor of the Senate.
I think the Senate ought to just mess with this piece and say to
those folks who constructed it, with respect: You are wrong about this.
This piece is the price for the Chamber of Commerce to support this
legislation. This piece is the price for the Chamber of Commerce to
say: Allow us to bring 3.8 million people through the back door, cheap
labor, and we will support the legislation, the substantial immigration
reform.
I just happen to disagree with that. I happen to stand here in
support of and concerned about--immigrant families, yes, but in support
especially of American workers, in support of workers who do not seem
to have much of a voice on the floor of this Senate.

The next trade bill that comes up, once again we will see their jobs
further traded overseas. It is bizarre. There is no minimum wage
increase for 9 years. Every trade agreement that comes along is pulling
the rug out from under American workers, God bless them. See you, so
long.
That is the way it goes around here. Maybe we ought to call this what
it is. Maybe we ought to stop at this. Maybe the stop sign on behalf of
American workers ought to be to say it is time for this Senate to stand
up for American jobs. After all, this country's middle class, which we
built over the last couple of centuries, especially the last century,
that middle class is what supported the highest standard of living in
the world. But that standard of living will not long exist if we export
good jobs to low wage countries and then import cheap labor to perform
those subpar-wage duties here in this country. That is not, in my
judgment, what works for our country's best economic future.
Mr. President, how much time remains?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 3 minutes 25 seconds.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the Senator, I believe, wanted to ask if I
would yield for a question. I am happy to do that.
Mr. SESSIONS. I would, briefly. I think it sort of confirms what you
are saying. We had a subcommittee hearing on this, and the second
professor, Dr. Barry Chiswick, the head and research professor at the
Department of Economics at the University of Illinois in Chicago, said:

[T]here is a competition in the labor market. And the large
increase in low-skilled immigration that we've seen over the
last 20 years has had a substantial negative effect on the
employment and earning opportunities of low-skilled
Americans. . . . [The] large increase in low-skilled
immigration has had the effect of decreasing the wages and
employment opportunities of low-skilled workers who are
currently resident in the United States.

Does that comport with the theme of the remarks of the Senator?
Mr. DORGAN. The Senator is absolutely correct. It seems to me this is
not at issue, the question of what this means to American workers. It
just is not.
Mr. SESSIONS. Here is Professor Harry Holzer at the same committee
hearing, three out of five witnesses, most of them pro-immigration
witnesses. He is an associate dean and professor of public policy at
Georgetown. He says:

Now, absent the immigrants, employers might need to raise
those wages and improve those conditions of work to entice
native born workers into those [construction, agriculture,
janitorial, food preparation . . . ] jobs.
I believe when immigrants are illegal they do more to
undercut the level of wages of native born workers.

So I think he also would agree with the Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me say that this economic strategy
isn't working. This doesn't work. Fig Newton cookies moved to Mexico,
and the Chinese just bought WHAM-O, Hula Hoop, Slip `N Slide, and
Frisbee. To the extent this bill will make illegal workers come in
stamped as legal, we know they are not going to make Fig Newtons and
Frisbees because those jobs are gone, but we know there is a reason for
a guest worker provision, and the reason is there are interests that
support this bill only on the condition that they continue to allow low
wage workers to come in the back door even as major American
corporations are exporting good American jobs out the front door. I
think that is a construct that 5, 10, and 20 years from now is
dangerous to this country and restricts opportunity rather than expands
it for the American people.
I do not support this provision. I hope my colleagues will support my
amendment and strike this guest worker, future flow, or low wage
replacement worker provision, as I call it, in the underlying piece of
legislation.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I will yield back. Is all time consumed
by Senator Dorgan?
Mr. DORGAN. I yield back my time.
Mr. SPECTER. I yield my time. I move to table the Dorgan amendment
and ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There is a sufficient second.
The question is on Agreeing to the motion. The clerk will call the
roll.
The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
McCONNELL. The following Senators were necessarily absent: the
Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Cochran) and the Senator from Mississippi
(Mr. Lott).
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from West Virginia (Mr.
Rockefeller) is necessarily absent.
The result was announced--yeas 69, nays 28, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 123 Leg.]

YEAS--69

Akaka
Alexander
Allard
Allen
Bennett
Biden
Bingaman
Bond
Brownback
Bunning
Burns
Burr
Cantwell
Carper
Chafee
Chambliss
Coleman
Collins
Cornyn
Craig
Crapo
DeMint
DeWine
Domenici
Ensign
Enzi
Feingold
Frist
Graham
Grassley
Gregg
Hagel
Hatch
Hutchison
Isakson
Jeffords
Johnson
Kennedy
Kerry

[[Page S4600]]

Kohl
Kyl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Lieberman
Lincoln
Lugar
Martinez
McCain
McConnell
Menendez
Mikulski
Murkowski
Murray
Nelson (FL)
Pryor
Reid
Salazar
Santorum
Shelby
Smith
Snowe
Specter
Stevens
Sununu
Thomas
Thune
Voinovich
Warner

NAYS--28

Baucus
Bayh
Boxer
Byrd
Clinton
Coburn
Conrad
Dayton
Dodd
Dole
Dorgan
Durbin
Feinstein
Harkin
Inhofe
Inouye
Levin
Nelson (NE)
Obama
Reed
Roberts
Sarbanes
Schumer
Sessions
Stabenow
Talent
Vitter
Wyden

NOT VOTING--3

Cochran
Lott
Rockefeller
The motion was agreed to.
Mr. REID. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, we have the amendment from Senator Kyl
and Senator Cornyn next in sequence. They have a right to go next. If
they are willing to wait until the morning, we will proceed with
another amendment.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, Chairman Specter, it is my understanding that
if I defer to the Senator from New Mexico, we can actually get an
amendment of the Senator from New Mexico voted on and perhaps another
amendment considered by Senator Kerry, so they would be disposed of,
whereas it may take a bit longer if our amendment is put down.
Mr. SPECTER. The Senator from Arizona is correct.
Mr. KYL. If we start tomorrow morning with our amendment, the Kyl-
Cornyn et al. amendment, perhaps we could conclude more business if we
follow in that process.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I appreciate the gracious comment by
Senator Kyl. We will proceed with Kyl-Cornyn first thing tomorrow
morning.
Now we will proceed with the Bingaman amendment under a unanimous
consent agreement of 1 hour equally divided, with no second-degree
amendments in order, with the time evenly divided.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SPECTER. I yield to the Senator from New Mexico.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.

Amendment No. 3981

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Pennsylvania,
the chairman, for yielding to me.
I ask consent to bring up Senate amendment 3981.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from New Mexico [Mr. Bingaman], for himself and
Mrs. Feinstein, proposes an amendment numbered 3981.

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

(Purpose: To reduce the number of H-2C nonimmigrants to 200,000 during
any fiscal year)

Beginning on page 292, strike line 18 and all that follows
through page 295, line 4, and insert the following:
(g) Numerical Limitations.--Section 214(g)(1) (8 U.S.C.
1184(g)(1)) is amended--
(1) in subparagraph (B), by striking the period at the end
and inserting ``; and''; and
(2) by adding at the end the following:
``(C) under section 101(a)(15)(H)(ii)(c) may not exceed
200,000.''.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, as we all know, the immigration bill
creates a new temporary guest worker program aimed at providing an
equal and orderly process for individuals to come to this country and
to work in sectors of our economy where there is a shortage of
available workers.
We had good debate in connection with the Dorgan amendment with
regard to that guest worker program. Everyone who listened to that
debate understands this is a new program which is being added to our
immigration laws, one which is not available today for anyone to use.
Specifically, the bill pending before the Senate allocates 325,000
temporary visas for the first fiscal year, and in each subsequent year
the numerical limit is flexible.
If the cap is reached--that is, the full 325,000--the number of
available visas would increase. It could increase by 10 percent, it
could increase by 15 percent, it could increase by 20 percent in the
next fiscal year, depending upon how quickly those visas were used or
taken.
In essence, what the bill provides--the bill pending before us--is
for an open-ended automatic-increase mechanism that has the potential
to significantly increase the number of visas we are making available.
When I say an automatic-increase mechanism, we have all heard about
compound interest. Everyone who has a checking account knows the power
of compounding interest. What we have here is not compounding interest,
it is compounding immigration, because the 20-percent increase over the
previous year's level continues indefinitely into the future. You start
with 325,000, plus 20 percent; then you take the new figure, plus 20
percent; then you take the new figure, plus 20 percent; and it goes on
and on.
My amendment, which Senator Feinstein is cosponsoring, would simply
put in place, instead of that, a hard cap of 200,000 on the number of
visas available each year under this program. Of course, in addition to
this program, we all understand there are many other programs that
people can use to gain legal access into our country.
Let me show a chart. This chart: guest worker visas issued under S.
2611. Now, the olive-colored wedge down at the bottom represents the
number of visas that would be issued over the next 6 years under my
amendment. That is 200,000 per year, each year, for 6 years, or a total
of 1.2 million visas under the guest worker program.
If the Senate were to defeat the amendment I am offering and just go
with the bill as it currently pends before the Senate, then it could
take any of a number of courses. If there is a 10-percent increase,
because of the speed with which people apply for these visas, it would
go up to 2.725 million visas by the end of 6 years. If it is a 15-
percent increase, it gets you to 3.222 million visas by the end of 6
years. And if, in fact, there are enough applicants for these visas to
get you a full 20-percent increase, then you get to 3.8 million
immigrant visas issued over this 6 years.
Now, why did I stop this chart at 6 years? The truth is, this
legislation has no sunset. This legislation continues indefinitely
until Congress changes the law again. So this chart could just as
easily have been for 10 years or 15 years or 20 years. And if you
really want to see the power of compound immigration, just like the
power of compound interest, we should have developed a chart that takes
us out 10 or 15 or 20 years. So the chart exemplifies how the number of
guest workers may increase over this 6-year period under these
different scenarios. The chart could have been made for a longer
period.
If the 325,000-person cap is reached within the first 3 months of the
fiscal year, we will have added almost 4 million guest workers over
this 6-year period. If the cap is reached in the second quarter of the
fiscal year, we will have added just over 3 million. And if the cap is
hit in the third quarter of the year, we will have added a little under
3 million workers under this particular program.
In addition, it is important to note that although these visas are
issued only for up to 6 years, these workers have the right to petition
to become legal permanent residents within 1 year if the employer files
for them or within 4 years if they self-petition.
Frankly, I believe we need to be a little more judicious with respect
to the number of visas we are allocating under this program. This is a
brandnew program. Under my amendment, which sets the numerical limit
for such visas at 200,000, there would be no more than 1.2 million
guest workers admitted over these first 6 years.
We need to recognize that guest worker programs, if they are not
properly implemented, can impact on American workers. Senator Dorgan
made the case, I believe very eloquently, that many economists have

[[Page S4601]]

spoken about the downward pressure on wages that results when you
increase the labor supply. We need to recognize that our success with
regard to the temporary worker program we have now, such as with regard
to agricultural workers, has been mixed. We should not make a mistake
here by erring on the side of extravagance in allocating these visas or
authorizing the issuance of these visas until we know how this program
is going to impact American workers.
I did not vote for Senator Dorgan's amendment to eliminate the guest
worker program, but I do believe we need to be judicious about the
extent of the guest worker program that we authorize. We definitely
should not be signing on to some kind of automatic compounding of the
number of workers eligible for legal entry into this country under that
program. There are a variety of jobs that may be filled by these guest
workers--from construction jobs to hotel service jobs--but we should
not be placing American workers in these sectors of our economy in the
position of competing with virtually an unlimited number of guest
workers, which is what I fear we are putting in the law if we leave the
law the way it now pends in this pending legislation.

The underlying bill does create a temporary guest worker task force.
This task force is charged with assessing the impact of the guest
worker program on wages and on labor conditions and the employment of
American workers and with then making recommendations about whether the
numerical cap should be lowered or raised. But then you go on with the
legislation, and the increase mechanism is not in any way tied to the
recommendations of the task force. The overall number of visas could
significantly increase automatically, regardless of whether the program
is determined, by this temporary guest worker task force, to be hurting
American workers.
So if Congress wants to raise the caps, we have the authority to do
that every year. We meet here every year. We can raise the cap. But we
should not provide for an automatic increase in the number of temporary
visas irrespective of how that increase is affecting American workers.
Just to be clear, reducing the number of guest worker visas to
200,000 a year is not a drastic measure that undercuts the bill's goal
of providing a more realistic framework for immigrants to legally come
into this country. According to the Congressional Research Service,
under this overall bill, we will at least be doubling--here is a chart
that shows what is going to happen to the projections for employment-
based legal permanent residents coming into this country under this
legislation. We will at least be doubling the flow of legal permanent
immigration under the bill in the first year. We increase family- and
employment-based numerical limits, and we exempt categories of
individuals from these caps.
Overall, the bill does provide for many legal avenues for individuals
to legally come into the United States and to work. For example, as
this chart shows--this is a chart based on the Congressional Research
Service report--we are significantly increasing the number of
employment-based legal permanent residents under the bill.
I strongly believe the amendment I am offering with Senator Feinstein
is a reasonable approach. It ensures that an unlimited number of guest
workers are not admitted under this program. I hope my colleagues will
agree with me that this is a good change. This amendment would improve
the legislation, would allow us to maintain a guest worker program,
which the President has strongly endorsed maintaining, but would
improve the program by limiting it to a level we can understand and
manage in these first few years.
Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I reserve the remainder of my
time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum and
ask unanimous consent that it be equally divided between the two sides.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The clerk
will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BINGAMAN. 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. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, how much time remains on my side?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 17\1/2\ minutes.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Seventeen and a half?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Yes.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I yield 12 minutes to the Senator from
California.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. President, I would like to speak as a member of the Judiciary
Committee. I think one of the things we really need to understand about
this bill is that it is a very large bill. It is 640 pages long. It
contains a multitude of programs. And it--through the visa programs,
the nonimmigrant visas--brings in large numbers of people.
I think when we were in Judiciary we did not realize the extent to
which large numbers of people are brought in on some of these visas. We
were working to a march. We had to get the bill done. And it is my
understanding that studies of the bill now on the floor have shown that
this bill could allow up to 193 million new legal immigrants. That is a
number greater than 60 percent of the current U.S. population in the
next 20 years. Now, that is a way-out figure--20 years--but I think we
have to begin to look at each of the visa increases over at least the
next 10-year period to determine how many people would come in,
particularly the guest worker program.
I am happy to cosponsor this amendment with Senator Bingaman. The
amendment does two things: it lowers the annual numerical cap from
325,000 of H-2C guest worker visas--and there are a myriad of guest
worker visas, but this one is H-2C--to 200,000, and it eliminates the
annual escalator.
In my view, all annual escalators in this bill should be eliminated
because they bring in too many people over a relatively short period of
time. This bill has the potential, as I said, to bring in millions of
guest workers over the years. This means that over 6 years--the length
of an alien's stay in the United States in this one temporary visa
category--there could be 1.2 million workers in the United States.
Under the current proposal, let's say you start at 325,000 guest
workers in the first year, and you add the 10-percent escalator. The
10-percent escalator would yield, over 6 years, 2.7 million people. The
15-percent escalator would take it to, over 6 years, 3.2 million
people. And if you had the 20-percent escalator, it would take it up
to, over 6 years, 3,807,000 people. It is simply too many. So the
current bill doubles and even triples the number of foreign guest
workers who could enter the United States over the 6 years of our
amendment.
I hope this amendment will pass. I would hope that we could eliminate
the escalators in these visa programs. The H-1B visa escalator would
have a total of 3.67 million people over the next 10 years coming in
under an H-1B visa. We increase the H-1B from 56,000 to 115,000, and
then we put in a 20-percent escalator each year. If the number of visas
reached the 115,000--and it will--therefore, the next year you add 20
percent. Then if that is reached, you add another 20 percent. And it
compounds in this manner to the tune of a total of 3.6 million.
I am very concerned about this. I hope the Bingaman amendment will be
successful. Again, it does two things. It reduces the base amount from
325,000 to 200,000, and it eliminates the escalator. Two hundred
thousand guest workers a year are ample because this is just one part
of the bill. There are other visa programs. There is AgJOBS. There is
earned adjustment. It all adds up to millions and millions of people.
I strongly support the Bingaman amendment. I urge my colleagues to
vote yes.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Alexander). The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. BINGAMAN. First, I thank the Senator from California for her
strong support for my amendment. Particularly because of her role in
the development of the legislation in the Judiciary

[[Page S4602]]

Committee, she pointed out very well the reasons this amendment is
meritorious. I hope people, even some Members on the Judiciary
Committee with Senator Feinstein, will look at this favorably and
consider it an improvement to the bill.
I ask unanimous consent that Senator Alexander from Tennessee be
added as a cosponsor of the amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BINGAMAN. I know we have one other Senator who has indicated a
desire to speak in favor of the amendment. Let me point out to my
colleagues that both myself and Senator Alexander are Members who voted
against the Dorgan amendment that was just tabled. I cannot speak for
Senator Alexander, but from my perspective, I am persuaded that there
is value in having a viable guest worker program. I support that part
of the legislation. My concern is with the magnitude of it,
particularly since it is a new program.
For us to start it at 325,000 per year and then have an automatic
escalator in the law and have no sunset on it at all, so that we all
understand that this is permanent law, unless Congress comes back and
changes the law 10 years from now, we will still be taking the previous
year's total and be able to increase it by 20 percent. That gets to a
point where American workers are going to have a very legitimate
complaint. I favor allowing an opportunity for people to come here and
take jobs that Americans don't want. But I do not favor allowing people
to come here to bid down the price of labor to such a point that
Americans are unwilling to take jobs for the very meager salaries that
employers are able to pay.
It is a straightforward amendment. I hope my colleagues will support
it. I know we do have one more speaker. I believe the Senator from
California would like 2 minutes. I yield 2 minutes to the Senator from
California.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California is recognized.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from New Mexico. As
anyone watching the debate saw, I was in support of what Senator Dorgan
was trying to do which was to strip the guest worker program from this
bill, a bill that has a lot of good to it. I do support strengthening
the border, and I do support giving 11 or 12 million hard-working
people who have paid their dues, who will come forward and learn
English and who will pay the fines, who have a clean record, a path to
legality. I strongly support that, and I strongly support the AgJOBS
provision of this bill. But I predict that this guest worker program,
which the Senate has now ratified, is going to come back to haunt
people because, as Senator Bingaman has shown us, the way this bill is
structured, the workers will grow exponentially in this guest worker
program to the point where, according to some estimates, we are talking
about tens of millions of guest workers over the next 20 years.
What Senator Bingaman is trying to do is to put a cap on this, a real
cap, not the phony cap that is in the bill that says it will escalate
up to 20 percent every year. You figure out the math. It is kind of
amazing.
What Senator Bingaman is doing is making this a better bill. I
strongly support the cap he is proposing. I thank him for the
opportunity to speak on behalf of his amendment. As usual, he has
brought commonsense to the Senate. I hope the Senate will strongly
support the Bingaman amendment.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, it is always difficult to make a
determination as to what is the right figure. The committee came to the
figure of 325,000, after a great deal of analysis and thought. It is
the result of a compromise that was worked out, with some figures being
substantially higher than that, some lower. But that is the figure the
committee came to. The amendment offered by Senator Bingaman and
Senator Feinstein would also eliminate the fluctuation which is to
allow for a 20-percent increase if we hit the top. What we are trying
to do in this legislation is to accommodate the market, if there is
demand for these guest workers. So the fluctuating cap is perhaps even
more important than the difference between 325,000 and 200,000.
When we considered the Dorgan amendment, we were debating the issue
as to the way the guest worker program fits into overall comprehensive
reform so that if we were able to accommodate the needs of the American
economy with these guest workers, then we fill the jobs. They are not
open. We do not create a vacuum on jobs so that immigrants who are in
this country illegally would be available to take the jobs. This is a
regulatory approach which accommodates for the needs of the economy and
is the figure that we best calculate to accommodate them. I think if we
had come in at 200,000, we would be looking at an amendment for 125,000
or at some other figure. There is an obvious give and take as to
whatever figure we have. Somebody has a different figure to make it
lower.
I have great respect for those who say we ought to protect American
jobs and that we ought not to have guest workers who are going to take
those jobs or lower the compensation for the people who hold American
jobs. We put into the Record on the Dorgan amendment testimony from
three expert witnesses. I will not repeat it and put it into the Record
again. But the essential conclusion was that there would be minimal
impact on taking American jobs and minimal impact on compensation.

The statute is carefully constructed to protect American workers,
taking away any incentives for employers to hire foreign workers. For
example, the employees must be paid the higher of what is the actual
wage paid to other employees with the same skill or the prevailing wage
rate for that job. So the law requires the employer to pay the
immigrants the same as they would pay somebody else. And the employers
must provide the same working conditions and benefits that are
available for similar jobs. You don't have a class of immigrant workers
who are being taken advantage of. The employers must provide insurance
if the State workers compensation doesn't cover all of these workers.
So you have a situation where there are no incentives to lose American
jobs. We think this figure is a fair figure and a realistic figure
arrived at by the committee after very long deliberation and after a
compromise. We think this figure should stay.
In the absence of any other Senator seeking recognition, I would
inquire how much time I have remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 24 minutes remaining, and the
Senator from New Mexico has 7 minutes. Mr. SPECTER. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. BINGAMAN. May I ask my colleague, is it his intent that I should
close my argument now and then we would have a vote?
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, yes.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague for that concise
answer.
Let me say that I have great respect for the chairman and his efforts
to put together a bill that he believes makes sense. As he says, it
accommodates the market. That is an interesting concept, accommodating
the market. The amendment I am offering, along with Senator Feinstein
and Senator Alexander, is an amendment that would say that we need to
go at this in a prudent fashion and limit the number of people who are
going to be able to come into the country and apply through this new
program that we are defining for the first time in law as part of this
bill.
Some of the arguments I have heard in favor of the guest worker
program relate to the workers themselves, the workers who are trying to
get into this country to make a better life for themselves. I have
empathy for those workers as well. But, quite frankly, there is a
virtually unlimited supply of people who would like to come here and
work and improve their life by doing so. We need to make judgments
about how large a group we are going to allow in each year. That is why
I am proposing the amendment.
As far as employers are concerned, there are a lot of employers who,
given the option of signing a contract to bring in workers from another
country who they know will be in many respects less likely to complain
about working conditions, less likely to raise

[[Page S4603]]

any concerns about their employment situation, would find that
attractive. And accordingly, you could see a great demand by some
employers to go ahead and meet their employment needs through this
device.
As I said before, I favor a guest worker program. It makes sense to
have a guest worker program.
But I think it also makes sense for us to do it in a more reasonable
way than the bill currently calls for and not to build in some kind of
automatic escalator that will occur regardless of what we determine the
impact is going to be on American workers. I think we can come back and
raise the cap again if we decide in 2 years or 5 years, or whatever,
that we want to do that. But we should not build into this legislation
an automatic escalator that will make it extremely likely that the
number of workers will substantially increase in coming years by virtue
of this legal provision that we put in the law.
Mr. President, I urge the support of my amendment, and I hope my
colleagues will see this as a way to improve the legislation rather
than an undermining provision of the legislation.
I yield the floor.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I move to table the amendment and ask for
the yeas and nays. I put my colleagues on notice that this is going to
be a strict 20-minute vote because we have Members who have planes to
catch.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is all time yielded back? All time is yield
back. Is there a sufficient second? There is a sufficient second.
The question is on agreeing to the motion to table.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. McCONNELL. The following Senators were necessarily absent: the
Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Cochran) and the Senator from Mississippi
(Mr. Lott).
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from West Virginia (Mr.
Rockefeller) is necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 18, nays 79, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 124 Leg.]

YEAS--18

Bond
Brownback
Chafee
DeWine
Graham
Gregg
Hagel
Kennedy
Lieberman
Lugar
Martinez
McCain
Murkowski
Salazar
Shelby
Smith
Specter
Stevens

NAYS--79

Akaka
Alexander
Allard
Allen
Baucus
Bayh
Bennett
Biden
Bingaman
Boxer
Bunning
Burns
Burr
Byrd
Cantwell
Carper
Chambliss
Clinton
Coburn
Coleman
Collins
Conrad
Cornyn
Craig
Crapo
Dayton
DeMint
Dodd
Dole
Domenici
Dorgan
Durbin
Ensign
Enzi
Feingold
Feinstein
Frist
Grassley
Harkin
Hatch
Hutchison
Inhofe
Inouye
Isakson
Jeffords
Johnson
Kerry
Kohl
Kyl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lincoln
McConnell
Menendez
Mikulski
Murray
Nelson (FL)
Nelson (NE)
Obama
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Roberts
Santorum
Sarbanes
Schumer
Sessions
Snowe
Stabenow
Sununu
Talent
Thomas
Thune
Vitter
Voinovich
Warner
Wyden

NOT VOTING--3

Cochran
Lott
Rockefeller
The motion was rejected.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote and I move to
lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment.
The amendment (No. 3981) was agreed to.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
Mr. KERRY. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, we have been engaged in extensive
discussions to try to move the schedule along. What we plan to do is to
take Senator Kerry's amendment and accept it, with 15 minutes to
Senator Kerry. He says he will try not to use all of it.
Tomorrow morning we will go to Kyl-Cornyn, and since people are still
looking at it, we do not have a time agreement. Senator Kennedy says he
will make a good-faith effort to limit debate to 30 minutes tomorrow.
Then we will go to the amendment of Senator Obama, and once we have
had a chance to analyze it, we will see if we can accept it. Then we
will go to Senator Sessions. The majority leader has authorized me to
say that there will be no further votes tonight.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, might I ask the chairman to yield?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. KYL. It is my understanding that following Senator Kerry this
evening we will lay down the Kyl-Cornyn-Graham-Allen-McCain-Frist-
Brownback-Martinez amendment so all can see what it is and we can start
some debate this evening and then finish the debate tomorrow. Is that
correct?
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, the Senator from Arizona is correct.
I now yield to the Senator from Massachusetts, Mr. Kerry.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts is recognized.

Amendment No. 3999

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 3999.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Kerry] proposes an
amendment numbered 3999.

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

(Purpose: To improve the capacity of the United States Border Patrol to
rapidly respond to threats to border security)

On page 63, between lines 9 and 10, insert the following:
Subtitle F--Rapid Response Measures

SEC. 161. DEPLOYMENT OF BORDER PATROL AGENTS.

(a) Emergency Deployment of Border Patrol Agents.--
(1) In general.--If the Governor of a State on an
international border of the United States declares an
international border security emergency and requests
additional United States Border Patrol agents (referred to in
this subtitle as ``agents'') from the Secretary, the
Secretary, subject to paragraphs (1) and (2), may provide the
State with not more than 1,000 additional agents for the
purpose of patrolling and defending the international border,
in order to prevent individuals from crossing the
international border into the United States at any location
other than an authorized port of entry.
(2) Consultation.--Upon receiving a request for agents
under paragraph (1), the Secretary, after consultation with
the President, shall grant such request to the extent that
providing such agents will not significantly impair the
Department's ability to provide border security for any other
State.
(3) Collective bargaining.--Emergency deployments under
this subsection shall be made in accordance with all
applicable collective bargaining agreements and obligations.
(b) Elimination of Fixed Deployment of Border Patrol
Agents.--The Secretary shall ensure that agents are not
precluded from performing patrol duties and apprehending
violators of law, except in unusual circumstances if the
temporary use of fixed deployment positions is necessary.
(c) Increase in Full-Time Border Patrol Agents.--Section
5202(a)(1) of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism
Prevention Act of 2004 (118 Stat. 3734), I as amended by
section 101(b)(2), is further amended by striking ``2,000''
and inserting ``3,000''.

SEC. 162. BORDER PATROL MAJOR ASSETS.

(a) Control of Border Patrol Assets.--The United States
Border Patrol shall have complete and exclusive
administrative and operational control over all the assets
utilized in carrying out its mission, including, air, craft,
watercraft, vehicles, detention space, transportation, and
all of the personnel associated with such assets.
(b) Helicopters and Power Boats.--
(1) Helicopters.--The Secretary shall increase, by not less
than 100, the number of helicopters under the control of the
United States Border Patrol. The Secretary shall ensure that
appropriate types of helicopters are procured for the various
missions being performed.
(2) Power boats.--The Secretary shall increase, by not less
than 250, the number of power boats under the control of the
United States Border Patrol. The Secretary shall ensure that
the types of power boats that are procured are appropriate
for both the waterways in which they are used and the
mission requirements.
(3) Use and training.--The Secretary shall--

[[Page S4604]]

(A) establish an overall policy on how the helicopters and
power boats procured under this subsection will be used; and
(B) implement training programs for the agents who use such
assets, including safe operating procedures and rescue
operations.
(c) Motor Vehicles.--
(1) Quantity.--The Secretary shall establish a fleet of
motor vehicles appropriate for use by the United States
Border Patrol that will permit a ratio of not less than 1
police-type vehicle for every 3 agents. These police-type
vehicles shall be replaced not less than every 3 years. The
Secretary shall ensure that there are sufficient numbers and
types of other motor vehicles to support the mission of the
United States Border Patrol.
(2) Features.--All motor vehicles purchased for the United
States Border Patrol shall--
(A) be appropriate for the mission of the United States
Border Patrol; and
(B) have a panic button and a global positioning system
device that is activated solely in emergency situations to
track the location of agents in distress.

SEC. 163. ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT.

(a) Portable Computers.--The Secretary shall ensure that
each police-type motor vehicle in the fleet of the United
States Border Patrol is equipped with a portable computer
with access to all necessary law enforcement databases and
otherwise suited to the unique operational requirements of
the United States Border Patrol.
(b) Radio Communications.--The Secretary shall augment the
existing radio communications system so that all law
enforcement personnel working in each area where United
States Border Patrol operations are conducted have clear and
encrypted 2-way radio communication capabilities at all
times. Each portable communications device shall be equipped
with a panic button and a global positioning system device
that is activated solely in emergency situations to track the
location of agents in distress.
(c) Hand-Held Global Positioning System Devices.--The
Secretary shall ensure that each United States Border Patrol
agent is issued a state-of-the-art hand-held global
positioning system device for navigational purposes.
(d) Night Vision Equipment.--The Secretary shall ensure
that sufficient quantities of state-of-the-art night vision
equipment are procured and maintained to enable each United
States Border Patrol agent working during the hours of
darkness to be equipped with a portable night vision device.

SEC. 164. PERSONAL EQUIPMENT.

(a) Border Armor.--The Secretary shall ensure that every
agent is issued high-quality body armor that is appropriate
for the climate and risks faced by the agent. Each agent
shall be permitted to select from among a variety of approved
brands and styles. Agents shall be strongly encouraged, but
not required, to wear such body armor whenever practicable.
All body armor shall be replaced not less than every 5 years.
(b) Weapons.--The Secretary shall ensure that agents are
equipped with weapons that are reliable and effective to
protect themselves, their fellow agents, and innocent third
parties from the threats posed by armed criminals. The
Secretary shall ensure that the policies of the Department
authorize all agents to carry weapons that are suited to the
potential threats that they face.
(c) Uniforms.--The Secretary shall ensure that all agents
are provided with all necessary uniform items, including
outerwear suited to the climate, footwear, belts, holsters,
and personal protective equipment, at no cost to such agents.
Such items shall be replaced at no cost to such agents as
they become worn, unserviceable, or no longer fit properly.

SEC. 165. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.

There are authorized to be appropriated to the Secretary
such sums as may be necessary for each of the fiscal years
2007 through 2011 to carry out this subtitle.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I also ask unanimous consent that Senator
Bingaman be added as a cosponsor of this amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Massachusetts is recognized.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, obviously this is an issue that has touched
a lot of nerves all across the country. We all understand the
volatility and the tension within in it. We have an enormous task to
try to find a fair, orderly, humane, and secure process for protecting
our border. That is what we are trying to do.
Last night, President Bush spoke to the Nation about the challenge we
face. I have strong reservations about some of the President's
immigration proposals. But I believe on balance the President gave a
thoughtful and compelling address that laid out why we have to act
urgently. I think he particularly talked about the importance of acting
comprehensively in solving the immigration puzzle.
I say to my colleagues, I think most of us have found as we have been
wrestling with this issue, it is like a balloon. If you push in one
place, it expands in another place, so you have to come at it in a
comprehensive way. Each component of this reform is dependent on the
other component in order to make the overall reform successful. We are
not going to be successful if we don't create an effective employer
verification system because workers will find a way to keep coming if
we don't. By the same token, securing the border doesn't address the 11
million undocumented workers currently in the country.
We need the President's leadership so that this bill or this approach
does not turn into one of those unfunded mandates or neglected
opportunities like No Child Left Behind or even the Medicare
prescription drug law.
Last night, the President announced his intention to dispatch 6,000
National Guard troops to the southern border. All of us agree we need
to strengthen the southern border. But I disagree with President Bush
about how we ought to get there and how fast we can get there. Yes, we
need more strength and more personnel at the border. We need better
enforcement of our immigration laws. But, particularly in a post-9/11
world, when you look at the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, we
need to do a better job of preventing the flood of immigrants who are
crossing the borders every day.
But the bottom line is, what you need to do that job is not a
makeshift force of already overextended National Guardsmen to
militarize the border but rather specialized agents who are trained to
do the police work, to track down individuals who make an illegal
crossing, and to ensure that the borders are not easy avenues for those
crossings.
I remind my colleagues that in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when
our cities and our communities were facing a crime epidemic, we didn't
send the National Guard in to do the job. We hired more police officers
and invested in community policing. The COPS Program put 100,000
skilled and trained law enforcement officers on the streets of the
communities of our country and crime dropped.
After 9/11, the mission of the Border Patrol changed. No longer are
they charged with simply securing the border. They are now patrolling
one of the greatest vulnerabilities in the war on terror. As their
mission changed, their numbers increased, but they have never increased
enough to do the job.
Each year for the past 10 years between 700,000 and 800,000 illegal
immigrants arrived in this country. Despite more than doubling the
number of Border Patrol agents between 1995 and 2005, Federal
enforcement of our immigration laws has decreased significantly. The
number of border apprehensions has declined by 31 percent, from an
average of 1.5 million apprehensions a year between 1996 and 2000, to
an average of 1.05 million between 2001 and 2004.
At the same time, the number of illegal immigrants apprehended within
the interior of the country has plummeted by 36 percent, from an
average of 40,193 between 1996 and 2000, to an average of 25,901
between 2001 and 2004.
As much as the strength of the Border Patrol has grown in the last
years, actual performance demonstrates that we have to close a gap by
almost twice or three times as much. The current Border Patrol agents
protect more than 8,000 miles of international border and they detect
and prevent smuggling, unlawful entry, undocumented immigrants, they
apprehend persons violating the immigration laws, and they interdict
contraband such as narcotics. They work under difficult circumstances
for long periods and in all kinds of weather.
Currently, we have fewer than 12,000 Border Patrol agents. Those
agents are responsible for patrolling 8,000 miles of land and seacoast,
and because of the need to provide continuous coverage, no more than 25
percent of those agents are securing our borders at any given moment.
That means there are only 4,000 agents patrolling 8,000 miles of land
and our borders. So, if instead of spreading them out as we do today
you put them all along the border, with just Texas alone, you would
then have roughly two Border Patrol agents per mile. It is physically
impossible to protect the borders of the United States under those
circumstances.
There are additional numbers put into this legislation, but I have
heard

[[Page S4605]]

that, in fact, by joining the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center
together with the National Training Center in Artesia, NM, which has
recently increased its training capacity, we could do more. It is not
rocket science, it is about capacity. If you don't have the capacity,
then you build the capacity to meet the demand.
If we have the will to make this happen, we can make it happen.
So we already know this is a stopgap measure with the military to
cover up what is already a failed immigration policy and a failed
border policy. The
9/11 Commission warned us, several years ago now, that we needed to
have additional personnel. Those calls have never been heeded. We need
to heed them now. My amendment will increase the number by an
additional 1,000 this year and that will be above the increase of 2,000
agents contained in the underlying bill.
Frankly, I think we ought to be trying to do more than that, but that
is the reasonable level that we seem to be able to accept and also
train at the same time under the current circumstances.
In addition, my amendment would give border State Governors the
ability to request up to 1,000 more Border Patrol agents in the
Department of Homeland Security in times of international border
emergencies. In deciding whether to grant the Governor's request, the
Secretary would have to consider the effect any shuffling of Border
Patrol agents would have on overall border security.
Last year, a survey by Peter D. Hart found that just 34 percent of
the front-line Border Patrol agents said they were satisfied with the
``tools, training, and support'' they received to protect our borders.
That should be 100 percent. What we need to do is guarantee that we
take the steps in order to make it so.
In addition, my amendment increases the number of helicopters and
power boats available for Border Patrol, and it provides Border Patrol
agents with the training they need to use those tools. We guarantee a
ratio of one patrol vehicle for every three agents and ensure that each
of those vehicles is equipped with a portable computer. That also
provides every agent with clear and encrypted two-way radios, night
vision equipment, GPS devices, high-quality body armor, and reliable
and effective weapons. It makes each and every agent certain that they
have the necessary equipment and uniforms for the kind of climate in
which they are working.
I am glad that the Senator from Pennsylvania is prepared to accept
this amendment. I thank my colleagues for their support of it.
As I said, if we don't have a sufficient training capacity, it is
clear that the expertise needed is real. I heard of Border Patrol
agents who have had to go through survival training and different kinds
of training that is highly specialized. These individuals are engaged
in law enforcement and police work. I think everybody in this country
would like to see our National Guard, which is already stretched thin,
minimally involved to the degree possible. The best way to do that is
to get more Border Patrol agents trained faster.
I thank the Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I think it is a good amendment to
increase the number of Border Patrol agents. We accept the amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Chambliss). The question is on agreeing to
the amendment.
The amendment (No. 3999) was agreed to.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
Mr. SPECTER. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I now yield to Senator Kyl for the Kyl-
Cornyn amendment. I ask unanimous consent that it be the first
amendment pending tomorrow morning.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Arizona is recognized.

Amendment No. 4027

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, there is an amendment at the desk which I
would like to have considered at this time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from Arizona [Mr. Kyl] for himself and Mr.
Cornyn, Mr. Graham, Mr. Allen, Mr. McCain, Mr. Frist, Mr.
Brownback, and Mr. Martinez, proposes an amendment numbered
4027.

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

On page 358, line 3, insert ``(other than subparagraph
(C)(i)(II)'' after ``(9)''.
On page 359, after line 12, insert the following:
``(6) Ineligibility.--
``(A) In general.--An alien is ineligible for adjustment to
lawful permanent resident status under this section if--
``(i) the alien has been ordered removed from the United
States--
``(I) for overstaying the period of authorized admission
under section 217;
``(II) under section 235 or 238; or
``(III) pursuant to a final order of removal under section
240;
``(ii) the alien failed to depart the United States during
the period of a voluntary departure order issued under
section 240B;
``(iii) the alien is subject to section 241(a)(5);
``(iv) the Secretary of Homeland Security determines
that--
``(I) the alien, having been convicted by a final judgment
of a serious crime, constitutes a danger to the community of
the United States;
``(II) there are reasonable grounds for believing that the
alien has committed a serious crime outside the United States
prior to the arrival of the alien in the United States; or
``(III) there are reasonable grounds for regarding the
alien as a danger to the security of the United States; or
``(v) the alien has been convicted of a felony or 3 or more
misdemeanors.
``(B) Exception.--Notwithstanding subparagraph (A), an
alien who has not been ordered removed from the United States
shall remain eligible for adjustment to lawful permanent
resident status under this section if the alien's
ineligibility under subparagraph (A) is solely related to the
alien's--
``(i) entry into the United States without inspection;
``(ii) remaining in the United States beyond the period of
authorized admission; or
``(iii) failure to maintain legal status while in the
United States.
``(C) Waiver.--The Secretary may, in the Secretary's sole
and unreviewable discretion, waive the application of
subparagraph (A) if the alien was ordered removed on the
basis that the alien (i) entered without inspection, (ii)
failed to maintain status, or (iii) was ordered removed under
212(a)(6)(C)(i) prior to April 7, 2006, and--
``(i) demonstrates that the alien did not receive notice of
removal proceedings in accordance with paragraph (1) or (2)
of section 239(a); or
``(ii) establishes that the alien's failure to appear was
due to exceptional circumstances beyond the control of the
alien; or
``(iii) the alien's departure from the U.S. now would
result in extreme hardship to the alien's spouse, parent, or
child who is a citizen of the United States or an alien
lawfully admitted for permanent residence.
On page 376, strike lines 13 through 20 and insert the
following:
``(4) Ineligibility.--
``(A) In general.--The alien is ineligible for Deferred
Mandatory Departure status if the alien--
``(i) has been ordered removed from the United States--
``(I) for overstaying the period of authorized admission
under section 217;
``(II) under section 235 or 238; or
``(III) pursuant to a final order of removal under section
240;
``(iii) the alien is subject to section 241(a)(5);
``(ii) the alien failed to depart the United States during
the period of a voluntary departure order issued under
section 240B;
``(iv) the Secretary of Homeland Security determines that--
``(I) the alien, having been convicted by a final judgment
of a serious crime, constitutes a danger to the community of
the United States;
``(II) there are reasonable grounds for believing that the
alien has committed a serious crime outside the United States
prior to the arrival of the alien in the United States; or
``(III) there are reasonable grounds for regarding the
alien as a danger to the security of the United States; or
``(v) the alien has been convicted of a felony or 3 or more
misdemeanors.
``(B) Exception.--Notwithstanding subparagraph (A), an
alien who has not been ordered removed from the United States
shall remain eligible for adjustment to lawful permanent
resident status under this section if the alien's
ineligibility under subparagraph (A) is solely related to the
alien's--
``(i) entry into the United States without inspection;
``(ii) remaining in the United States beyond the period of
authorized admission; or
``(iii) failure to maintain legal status while in the
United States.
``(C) Waiver.--The Secretary may, in the Secretary's sole
and unreviewable discretion,

[[Page S4606]]

waive the application of subparagraph (A) if the alien was
ordered removed on the basis that the alien entered without
inspection, failed to maintain status, or (iii) was ordered
removed under 212(a)(6)(C)(1) prior to April 7, 2006, and--
``(i) demonstrates that the alien did not receive notice of
removal proceedings in accordance with paragraph (1) or (2)
of section 239(a); or
``(ii) establishes that the alien's failure to appear was
due to exceptional circumstances beyond the control of the
alien, or
``(iii) the alien's departure from the U.S. now would
result in extreme hardship to the alien's spouse, parent, or
child who is a citizen of the United States or an alien
lawfully admitted for permanent residence.''

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, let me briefly explain this amendment. It is
a somewhat different version from what was introduced a couple of weeks
ago and was pending at the time this legislation was laid aside for
other business.
This amendment has the primary purpose of ensuring that people who
have committed serious crimes or have absconded after on order for
their removal has been issued would not be entitled to the benefits of
the legislation.
Specifically, in the bill as written, there were certain crimes which
were included, and if you had committed one of those crimes, you
couldn't participate in the program--certain crimes of moral turpitude,
for example.
What we found was that list was not all-inclusive and there were
other serious crimes, including felonies, that were not included and
therefore we felt should be added so that nobody who had committed a
serious crime would be able to participate in the program.
Among the crimes that courts have said did not involve moral
turpitude and therefore needed to be included in this legislation are
the following: alien smuggling, conspiracy to commit offenses against
the United States, simple assault and battery, involuntary
manslaughter, simple kidnapping, weapons possession--for example, one
of the cases dealt with possession of a sawed-off shot gun--burglary,
money laundering, and there are others as well.
The point is, we want to be sure this legislation denies the benefits
of legal status, including potential citizenship, to anyone who has
committed a serious crime of this type. Therefore, the statute provides
that if you have been convicted of a felony or three misdemeanors or
have been convicted of a serious crime or there are reasonable grounds
to believe the alien has committed a serious crime outside of the
United States prior to arrival, and there are reasonable grounds for
regarding the alien as a danger to the security of the United States,
then in those events the individual would not be able to participate in
the benefits of the law.
In addition to that, there are several categories of individuals who
for various reasons have been ordered removed from the United States
and have adjudicated their case and a final order of removal has been
issued, either by an immigration judge or another judge or immigration
official. Here, too, given the fact that we want the benefits of this
legislation to apply to people who are willing to comply with the law,
even where there has been a court adjudication of this statute, if they
do not like the results and decide they are not going to leave even
though the judge ordered them to leave, then we should not allow the
benefits of this legislation to apply to them.
One of the things which is inherent in most of the bills--I think in
all of the bills, including the bill that is on the floor--is the
concept that you are not permitted to be in the United States unless
certain things happen. If you commit a crime, for example, then you
can't stay here. That relies to some extent on the individual complying
with the court order to leave.
This part of the amendment says that when you have been ordered to
leave by a judge, you have to do that. If you have demonstrated that
you are not willing to do that, then you shouldn't be able to
participate in the benefits of this law.
One of the things we have done--and as a result, there have been
several cosponsors added to the legislation--is provided some
opportunities to have this provision waived if people can make certain
arguments. For example, if an individual who has been ordered to be
removed can demonstrate they did not receive notice of removal
proceedings, under that condition, this provision could be waived.
In addition, the alien could argue that his failure to appear and be
removed was due to exceptional circumstances beyond the control of the
alien or that the alien's departure from the United States would result
in extreme hardship to the alien's spouse, parent, or child who is a
citizen of the United States or an alien lawfully admitted for
permanent residence.
There is one other factor that has been added relative to coming into
this country based upon fraudulent documents. In those situations, the
alien could argue that there was a reason this provision should be
waived and the alien should still be permitted to participate in the
benefits of the legislation.
We think we have drafted something that is fair, that ensures that
people who should not be citizens of the United States or granted other
legal status under the bill will not be granted the status, but that if
there is some reason they can argue that there should be an exception,
they will have every right to do so. In that sense, we think this is a
firm but fair provision.
I hope our colleagues on the other side of the aisle and colleagues
who support the underlying legislation would consider this not an
unfriendly amendment but an amendment that is truly designed to ensure
that a key principle is upheld. The principle is already built into the
underlying bill in one respect. The object of this amendment is to make
sure it is complete and covers all of the kinds of crimes one might
want to cover. As a result, we would hope this would receive an
overwhelming response and could be supported by a large number of our
colleagues, both on the Democratic and Republican side.
Let me conclude by saying that this vote will not occur until
tomorrow, but it is an important vote. I think it will demonstrate our
willingness to continue to move this legislation forward.
I appreciate the consideration of this amendment and ask my
colleagues to support it tomorrow.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I thank Senators Kyl and Cornyn for this
amendment. I thank them for the intense discussions and negotiations
for which we have been able to get widespread support for this
amendment; also, the Senator from Massachusetts, Senator Kennedy, on
the other side of the aisle.
Senator Cornyn and Senator Kyl have focused attention very
appropriately on one who is convicted of a crime, who would more
likely, obviously, commit another crime. That is not what this bill is
all about. I think these efforts bear fruit in this amendment, and they
seek to bar the potentially dangerous criminal alien from taking
advantage of this program.
The amendment specifically addresses individuals who have been
convicted of one felony or three misdemeanors. It also addresses those
who have just ignored our laws and thumbed their nose at our judicial
system. But thanks to these negotiations, we allow individuals who may
have been caught up in an unjust and unfair system to apply for a
waiver and possibly have their cases reconsidered.
I believe that ultimately this amendment makes the bill better and
our country safer.
I wish to again thank Senators Kyl and Cornyn for their willingness
to negotiate some questions that we had about a very small aspect of
this bill. I think it preserves the very important intent of the Kyl-
Cornyn amendment--that we will never allow people who have committed
felonies or crimes to be eligible for citizenship in this country. I
thank them for their efforts in this direction. I hope our friends on
the other side of the aisle will have a chance to examine this
amendment overnight, and perhaps we could dispense with it early in the
morning.
There are a number of amendments on our side. I am told there are a
number of amendments on the other side. I think we have made good
progress today in addressing some of the major issues, but obviously we
need to move forward. I hope my friends on the other side of the aisle
will see fit to have a vote as quickly as possible so we can move on to
other amendments.
I yield the floor.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments of my colleague and

[[Page S4607]]

thank him, Senator Graham, and Senator Kennedy for their work in
helping us to negotiate provisions of this amendment.
I join my colleague from Arizona in expressing the view that we
should not take very long tomorrow to conclude the debate, and I hope
we will receive substantial support for the amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, for the record, I would like to compliment
our staff because most of the hard work in this place goes on in some
back room with our staff people trying to work through the problems of
the bill. They have done a great job for Senators Kyl, Cornyn, and
McCain. I am proud of what my staff has done, and particularly Senator
Kennedy's staff. We have all gotten good staff support on this issue.
Very clearly, succinctly, to the point, if you are a criminal, if you
have committed a felony, if you have committed a crime or three
misdemeanors, you don't get a second shot. Off you go. That, to me, is
important.
Under the bill, we are trying to give people a pathway to citizenship
that would be earned and that would add value to our country. Senators
Kyl and Cornyn have made this a better bill because the one thing we
should all be able to agree on here is you are not adding value to the
country when you openly admit people who are criminals, who are mean
and hateful, and who keep breaking the law.
There is another group of people who are subject to deportation on
the civil side. I think it is very fair that in a limited class of
cases, we will allow people on the civil side subject to deportation a
chance to make their case anew in terms of being eligible for a future
guest worker program that may become our Nation's law based on the base
bill.
Who are these people? If you are in a civil deportation hearing and
you can demonstrate that you never received the order to leave, then we
are going to give you a second shot. It is hard to comply with
something you don't know about. That happens on occasion.
Second, we are going to allow you, on the civil side receiving a
deportation order, to make an argument about how it would affect your
family and take the human condition into consideration.
There is a unique group of people who come to this country--not by
illegally crossing the border and overstaying their visa--who are one
step ahead of a death squad in some foreign land. It could be Haiti or
other places, it could be Cuba, with an oppressive Communist regime,
and the only way they can get out of that country to come here is it
make up a story that would keep them from being killed. What we are
saying is, if you come into our country through an inspection system
and you have to save your family from an oppressive government or ahead
of a death squad, we will let you tell us about that. We will sit down
and figure out if it makes sense to make you part of this program.
There are not that many people, but we don't want to leave anybody
behind that has a meritorious case to be made on the civil side. If you
are a criminal, forget it. You have had your chance, and you have blown
it. This, to me, makes the bill better, whether it is the underlying
bill or not. This is a concept that is uniquely American.

If you believe in playing by the rules, as Americans do, and you hurt
people, you are not going to get a second shot at hurting people again
in our country. If you got caught up in a legal system that sometimes
is complicated and you have a meritorious argument to be made and you
have never hurt anyone, we are going to listen to what you have to say.
I am proud to be part of it. Senator Kennedy has been very helpful. I
hope we can get close to 100 votes. This is something that should bring
us together. Senators Kyl and Cornyn demonstrated the best of this
body, reaching out, even though Members may not agree with the base
bill, to try to find a way to make this part of the bill better.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, let me express my appreciation to the
Senator from Arizona, the senior Senator, the Senator from South
Carolina, for working with Senator Kyl and myself on this amendment.
This whole subject is complicated and has so many different moving
parts. What I mean by ``subject,'' I mean comprehensive immigration
reform. Sometimes I think people start with a deep skepticism about
what other Senators are actually trying to do.
I hope as this amendment is accepted when we vote tomorrow, showing
the alliance that has been created around this amendment, that our
colleagues understand, even though there may be some who disagree with
some aspects of the bill in the Senate, we are deeply committed to
comprehensive immigration reform. We understand it is important we have
border security, interior enforcement, worksite enforcement, a
temporary worker program, and that we deal in a humane and
compassionate fashion with the 12 million people who now live in our
country in violation of our immigration laws.
Certainly, there are improvements that can be made to this underlying
bill. This amendment is designed to do exactly that. It is ironic that
it was first introduced well over a month ago and then, unfortunately,
we were unsuccessful in getting a vote on the amendment. It now looks
as if, through hard work, discussion and cooperation, the intent behind
the amendment is better understood. It has already been eloquently
explained by Senators Kyl, Graham, and McCain.
Let me say the whole purpose of this amendment was to make sure that
those who have already had access to our criminal justice system and
our civil litigation system, and lost, cannot come back and get another
second bite at the apple. This amendment clarifies whether certain
convicted criminals are eligible for the benefits of the legalization
program contained in the underlying bill.
To be clear, the underlying bill, without this amendment, would allow
certain criminal aliens to get legal status. The underlying bill
disqualifies aliens who are ineligible to obtain a visa because of
certain criminal convictions. But this only means crimes that are
defined as crimes involving moral turpitude or drug-related crimes.
Under the current bill, without this amendment, not all crimes--
including some felonies--would bar an alien from obtaining legal
status. Let me share quickly a few examples of crimes that do not
automatically exclude an alien from getting a visa and therefore would
not render an alien ineligible for legalization absent this amendment.
For example, someone who has been convicted of the crime of
kidnapping; someone who has been convicted of the crime of weapons
possession; for example, possession of a sawed-off shotgun. Another
example would be alien smuggling. This amendment would make ineligible
any alien who has been convicted of a felony or three misdemeanors.
Ironically, this provision, once this amendment is accepted, will
bring this bill in the Senate up to par, basically, with the 1986 law
which recognized that problem and excluded any alien that had been
convicted of a felony or three misdemeanors. That is the basis upon
which this amendment is offered.
I might also add, of course, those who have had an opportunity to
have their cases adjudicated, to have their day in court, but simply
thumb their nose at the law and have gone underground, those
individuals who have already had a bite at the apple, have already had
their day in court and lost and simply gone underground and defied
their deportation order, they also would be excluded from the
legalization benefits contained in the bill, subject to some of the
exceptions and the extreme hardship provisions that Senator Graham and
others have discussed.
I very much appreciate my colleagues, including Senator Kennedy, the
manager of the bill on the minority side, indicating their positive
response to this amendment. While there is no formal agreement, it is
the sense that this amendment is likely to be accepted by overwhelming
numbers.
It just goes to show if we continue to work together, talk to each
other and try to work our way through our differences, we can make
progress on the bill and actually improve it over the bill as proposed.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.

[[Page S4608]]

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, in view of some things that were said a
couple weeks ago, let me close this out with a couple of brief
comments.
At the time that Senator Cornyn and I first introduced this
amendment, we speculated that it might ultimately result in 300,000,
400,000 500,000 people being denied the benefits of the legislation.
However, there were those on the other side who said this was a poison
pill, this was going to preclude everyone who came into the country
illegally or overstayed a visa from getting the benefits of the
legislation. We said: No, that is not true. It is cast narrowly by its
terms. It talks about convicted felons, three misdemeanors, and the
people who have avoided a court order or a judge's order that they
leave the country. That is it.
Some on the other side said: We look at the language, and we think
maybe this could apply to anyone who comes into the country illegally.
By laying it down, you have created a poison bill. As a result, they
would not permit a vote on the amendment. As a result, this legislation
came to the end of the period of time, the end of the week, and the
majority leader had to lay it aside so that the Senate could go on its
recess.
Senator Cornyn and I never had an intention to bring the bill to a
halt or to create some kind of a poison pill that would make it
impossible for anyone to support the legislation if the amendment were
agreed to. We simply were trying to point out that there was a
deficiency in the bill. Serious criminals could become citizens of the
United States. We felt that was wrong.
So we introduced the amendment and tried to explain at the time that
was our sole motivation. Frankly, we could have dispensed with this
amendment 3 weeks ago if our colleagues had simply gotten down to the
debate, carefully read it, talked it out with us, and gotten a vote.
Because of a question that our colleagues raised that we referred to
earlier this evening, we have made a couple of modifications to the
amendment, demonstrating that we are perfectly willing to negotiate a
provision if there is a sense that we should have done something a
little bit differently, which we did.
I hope as we proceed to introduce other amendments to this
legislation, that our colleagues on the other side will be willing to
have votes. We wanted to have a vote on this earlier today or tonight
or to lock in a time for a vote tomorrow. No, the other side said: No,
we are not ready yet.
If we continue at this pace, we are not going to finish the bill by
Memorial Day, as the majority leader has requested, as the President
has requested, and as we are committed to do.
Our colleagues are going to have to do two things with respect to the
rest of the debate on this bill: No. 1, to be willing to move with us
to a quick consideration of amendments, a reasonable time for debate,
then a vote, and then move on to the next amendment. No. 2, instead of
characterizing amendments in a way that is not correct and attributing
political motives to those who are simply trying to point out
deficiencies in the bill and correct them with these amendments, they
ought to simply be willing to come to the Senate, have the debate, and
then proceed to a vote on the amendment.
We are not in this to somehow try to stop the legislation as our
repeated efforts to get a vote and move on have demonstrated.
I join my colleague from Texas in saying I appreciate the fact that,
hopefully now, knock on wood, tomorrow morning, first thing, we will be
able to have a vote on this amendment and not only vote on it but
finally, having sat down and looked at it, our colleagues will say:
This is an amendment we can support. It makes sense to deny citizenship
to serious criminals.
If we can approach the other amendments in the same fashion we have
finally gotten to with this amendment, we can actually finish this
bill. I urge my colleagues to cooperate with us in that way.
Mr. CORNYN. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. KYL. I am happy to yield.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, through the Chair, I inquire, isn't it a
fact over the last few weeks on behalf of the Republican leadership,
the Senator has tried to collect all of the potential pool of
amendments and consolidate those amendments down into a reasonable
number in a good-faith effort to try to move this process forward? We
shared that list with our colleagues on the other side of the aisle.
Does the Senator believe that demonstrates the good faith we have tried
to demonstrate from the very start?
Mr. KYL. I thank the Senator from Texas.
Yes, we have tried to do that.
I see the distinguished minority leader is here, and I suggest the
best way to get this bill quickly considered and finished is to lay
down as many of the amendments as Members have ready and then have the
minority and majority side work together to figure out the proper order
of those amendments, to try to enter into time agreements. If we are
able to do that, I don't have any doubt that working in good faith we
can complete the work of this Senate before the Memorial Day recess on
this important piece of legislation.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
Mr. REID. The distinguished Senator from Oklahoma has asked that I
indicate that we have no objection to his being in the queue.
As has been announced by the distinguished manager of the bill, the
Senator from Pennsylvania, we are going to take up the Kyl amendment,
the Obama amendment, and then we are going to go to Sessions, then a
Democrat, and as far as we are concerned on our side, we have no
objection whatever to Senator Inhofe being the next Republican
amendment in order.
I have not checked with the majority leader, and if there is a
problem, I can change it, but I ask consent that be the case.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, first of all, I thank the minority leader
for that quick response to my request. I know we are all anxious to get
as many amendments up and taken care of as possible.
I know we cannot do this until probably tomorrow sometime, and it is
our understanding there is now a unanimous consent for Senators Kyl,
Obama, Sessions, a Democrat, and then me. With that, if no others want
to be heard on the amendments, I would like to visit about the
amendment we will take up tomorrow.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, in his speech, the President endorsed the
idea that people immigrating to this country should assimilate and
learn English.
I will quote from his speech:

. . . We must honor the great American tradition of the
melting pot, which has made us one nation out of many
peoples. The success of our country depends upon helping
newcomers assimilate into society, and embrace our common
identity as Americans. Americans are bound together by our
shared ideals, an appreciation for our history, respect for
the flag we fly, and an ability to speak and write the
English language. English is also the key to unlocking the
opportunity of America. English allows newcomers to go from
picking crops to opening a grocery . . . from cleaning
offices to running offices . . . from a life of low-paying
jobs to a diploma, a career, and a home of their own. When
immigrants assimilate and advance in our society, they
realize their dreams . . . they renew our spirit . . . and
they add to the unity of Americans.

Last November, speaking to an audience in Davis-Monthan Air Force
Base in Tucson, President Bush again stated his support for immigrants
to learn English. He said:

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

So this has been very specific. Ronald Reagan addressed it many
times, certainly, in the State of the Union Message. I recall being
here in 1999, when President Bill Clinton at that time said:

Our new immigrants . . . have a responsibility to enter the
mainstream of America. That means learning English.

It goes on and on and on. I think almost every Member has at one time
or another talked in the Senate about the reasons it is necessary for
the English language to be part of any kind of an immigration bill.
Today, once again, I am offering my English amendment, No. 3996,
along

[[Page S4609]]

with my colleagues, Senators Sessions, Coburn, Burns, Bunning, and
others. My amendment follows Congressman Peter King's bill, H.R. 4408,
as well as Senator Shelby's bill, S. 323, from the 105th Congress, by
making English the official language and requiring all official
business of the United States to be conducted in English.
It also allows exceptions. This is very important because arguments
have been made against it. But there are exceptions where our law
specifically says something should be done in another language, such
things as protecting someone's legal rights to make sure they
understand what their privileges are, what their responsibilities are
when they are served.
Also, recently, when we experienced Hurricane Katrina, where an
evacuation order was issued, that order could be delivered by the
Federal Government in necessary languages to get the message out.
So we have taken care of these problems.
I would suggest there are three main reasons to adopt this amendment.
One is for unity and assimilation. To begin with, as the President has
said numerous times, learning English is vital to achieving
assimilation, assimilating yourself into society. So many people are
looking at illegals who are coming over and getting jobs, but they do
not stop and think about the fact that in order to become a citizen,
you have to assimilate into society so you can enjoy the benefits. They
do not come naturally. You have to make it happen.
President Theodore Roosevelt echoed this point at a luncheon for the
National Americanization Committee on February 1, 1916. He said:

Let us say to the immigrant not that we hope he will learn
English, but that he has got to learn it. . . . He has got to
consider the interest of the United States or he should not
stay here.

It goes all the way back for many years. Our leaders have reiterated
this. Our country is made up of immigrants from all over the world,
immigrants who have joined together under common ideas, common beliefs,
and a common language to function as ``one nation under God.''
As we allow great numbers of immigrants, legal and illegal, into the
country, we are overwhelming the assimilation process and creating what
some have called ``linguistic ghettos,'' segregating these immigrants
into a massive underclass who are not able to obtain good-paying jobs
and climb out of poverty and Government dependency.
By not requiring immigrants to assimilate and learn English, we are
also undermining our unity and importing dangerous, deadly philosophies
that go against our American ideals.
September 11 is an example of this, as Muslim extremists executed
their jihadist philosophy against the United States and caused
thousands of Americans to lose their lives.
The second thing to be considered is the cost. The Office of
Management and Budget estimates that it costs taxpayers between $1
billion and $2 billion to provide language assistance under President
Clinton's Executive order that came out during his Presidency.
There are also enormous costs associated with the mandate that local
governments provide multilingual ballots. For example, Los Angeles
County taxpayers spent over $1.1 million in 1996 to provide
multilingual voting assistance in Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese,
Japanese, and Filipino, according to a GAO report.
In 2002, Los Angeles's multilingual election costs more than doubled
to $3.3 million, according to the Associated Press.
The third reason is, this is something the American people want. All
the American people want it. I have never seen anything polled more
consistently than this issue has been polled. Three national
associations are dedicated solely to this amendment: U.S. English,
English First, and Pro-English.
Senator Specter's Judiciary Committee invited this amendment in the
Legislative Directors' meeting in the Republican Policy Committee by
saying it ``welcomed amendments on English'' as a means to enhance
``assimilation'' of immigrants.
This issue has raised millions of dollars in direct mail over the
years. These donors must include populists, given the huge levels of
support. No other amendment has been more thoroughly vetted. This
concept has been around for decades, indeed, for centuries.
Historically, the legislation has been bipartisan.
In 1997, several of us joined Senator Shelby in his official English
bill. It was a bipartisan bill with 21 cosponsors, including Democrats
Hollings and Byrd and many others. And over 150 current Members of the
House of Representatives have cosponsored official English legislation.
Most of the States--27--have made English their official language.
This is kind of interesting. The vast majority of the States, on their
own, on a State basis, have made English the official language.
There are 51 nations around the world that have made English their
official language, but we have not. Now, can you explain to me why
Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Zambia, and
Zimbabwe have made English their official language, yet the United
States has not?
The pollsters, consistently over the last 20 years, have all shown
positive results at levels in the 80s, the 80-percentile range. In
1988, G. Lawrence Research showed 87 percent favored English as the
official language, with only 8 percent opposed and 5 percent not sure.
A 1996 national survey by Luntz Research asked: Do you think English
should be made the official language of the United States? Eighty-six
percent of Americans supported making English the official language.
Only 12 percent opposed it.
Eighty-one percent of first-generation immigrants, 83 percent of
second-generation immigrants, and 87 percent of third- and fourth-
generation immigrants supported making English the official language.
I think a lot of people have this misunderstanding that this is some
kind of a protectionist issue. Yet the vast majority of Latinos, the
vast majority of immigrants have supported this, also.
In 2000, Public Opinion Strategies showed 84 percent favored English
as the official language, with only 12 percent opposing.
Ninety-two percent of Republicans, 76 percent of Democrats, and 76
percent of Independents favor making English the official language.
That is according to a 2004 Zogby International poll.
Another Zogby International poll question on official English--this
poll is a month old, conducted between March 14 and 16 of 2006--said:
Five out of six likely voters support official English. When informed
the United States has no official language, five out of six likely
voters--84 percent--agree the country should make English the official
language. The majority of Hispanic voters support official English. An
overwhelming majority of likely Hispanic voters--71 percent--agree the
country should make English the official language.
A bipartisan majority support official English. Official English is
not an ``extreme'' position. Eighty-four percent of self-identified
``moderate'' voters support English as the official language.
Hispanics also agree learning English is important. So it is not just
that it is the right thing to do, it is what they can do for
themselves. The National Council of LaRaza, which opposes official
English, commissioned a 2004 Zogby poll showing that Latinos believe in
the importance of learning English. Over 97 percent strongly agreed
that ``the ability to speak English is important to succeed in this
country.''
In south Florida, Hispanics back English, according to a 2005
University of Miami School of Communications/Zogby International
survey. ``How important is it for Hispanics who immigrate to the United
States to adopt American culture?'' Seventy percent said it is very
important. These are Hispanics who are responding.
The December 2002 Pew Hispanic Center/Henry J. Kaiser Family
Foundation National Survey of Latinos asked:

Do you think adult Latino immigrants need to learn English
to succeed in the United States or can they succeed even if
they only speak Spanish?

About 9 in 10--89 percent--of Latinos indicate that they believe
immigrants need to learn to speak English to succeed in the United
States.
And this goes on and on and on. There should not be any question in
anyone's mind that one of the most

[[Page S4610]]

popular notions out there is for us to adopt English as the official
language.
Finally, according to ProEnglish, a group dedicated to making English
the official language, one out of every five Americans speaks a
language other than English at home.
Referring to immigrants speaking English in our country, Congressman
Steve King of Iowa said:

I don't think the immigrants are the problem; I think it is
the people at the border that are telling them that they
don't have to learn English, should not have to and keep them
in these cultural enclaves so that then allows them to
control the immigrants and gives them political power.

I believe we are doing a great disservice if we do not recognize this
as one of the true, great issues of our time. There is no more
appropriate time than during the consideration of this immigration bill
to bring this out and finally do something we have talked about doing
now for over 100 years and getting it done and getting it done on this
bill.
Mr. President, let me repeat how much I appreciate the minority
leader allowing me to get into the queue. We look forward to having
this debated and voted on tomorrow.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

____________________