National Language Act of 2005

Mr. President, is the Senator asking an inquiry at this point? I did not hear the inquiry.

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. 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.

I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Will the Senator yield?

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. President, I yield up to 15 minutes to the Senator from California, Mrs. Boxer.

I will yield the Senator 5 minutes.

If the Senator will yield, I intend to use my remaining time at the conclusion of the comments of the Senator from Pennsylvania.

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?

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.

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.

I will be happy to yield.

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?

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

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?

Mr. President, the Senator, I believe, wanted to ask if I would yield for a question. I am happy to do that.

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. 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.

I yield back my time.

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.

We are ready for your amendment, Senator Dorgan, if you are prepared to offer it.

While you are undertaking those last-minute preparations, would you give some consideration to a time agreement, an hour equally divided?

Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from North Dakota.

Amendment No. 4017

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.

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

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.

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.

I would on his time.

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.

I ask the Senator, are you for or against the amendment?

Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the distinguished Senator from Arizona.

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. President, I am going to make a few comments briefly

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.

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 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 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.

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?

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

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

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 . . .

Yes.

Mr. President, I will yield back. Is all time consumed by Senator Dorgan?

I yield my time. I move to table the Dorgan amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

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.

The Senator from Arizona is correct.

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.

I yield to the Senator from New Mexico.

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?

Mr. President, yes.

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.

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. President, the Senator from Arizona is correct.

I now yield to the Senator from Massachusetts, Mr. Kerry.

Mr. President, I think it is a good amendment to increase the number of Border Patrol agents. We accept the amendment.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

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.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Pennsylvania, the chairman, for yielding to me.

I ask consent to bring up Senate amendment 3981.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

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

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.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask unanimous consent that it be equally divided between the two sides.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, how much time remains on my side?

Seventeen and a half?

Mr. President, I yield 12 minutes to the Senator from California.

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

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.

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.

May I ask my colleague, is it his intent that I should close my argument now and then we would have a vote?

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

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. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, how much time is remaining on both sides?

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.

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. 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.

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.

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. 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.

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

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

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.